Our day was going fine. The girls' tutor came for time with Sophia, I took Bella on the bike to finish our Father's day stuff, and Tobin slept. We did some school stuff all together (Tobin still sleeping), and then I let the girls go with Ayi outside to play, while I packed a few boxes. We started lunch at about 11:45. We were eating fangbian mian, or 'convenient noodles,' Asia's version of Ramen noodles. They are pretty good and the kids love them. We eat them for lunch about 1x/week. I usually put this with a green smoothie, carrots and cucumbers, just like I did today. Our helper had had them for breakfast so I made her a grilled cheese (she says she is becoming American).
Then at noon, someone knocked on our door. I thought it was the washing machine guy (have I mentioned our washer has been in the shop for almost two weeks, starting in the middle of the throw up fest). It wasn't the washer guy, it was our friends from the village. No call, no warning. We welcomed them in and chatted a bit. I can understand some but can only really mumble through some responses. I wasn't sure what their plans were, and I knew I had to offer them lunch. They had just been in town a week ago and stopped by at 11:30 and did not eat with us. We had no rice cooking. She asked two times amazed that we had no rice cooking. So....I offered her convenient noodles. You only need to live in Asia about half a day to know this is really not appropriate. The son went back down stairs, and I cooked them both noodles, the mom ate them up, the son did not return.
I asked about her husband, I asked about her daughter, I asked if they were busy. I told her to eat slow. I asked if she liked it. These were my phrases. Our Ayi helped some in translation. But I was getting the gist. Ayi is so great because I can just look at her and she knows what I am thinking, like: 'what do we do???!!!' And she really helped smooth the whole thing over by saying we don't eat rice at lunch usually, etc. (this astounded our friend more. you only eat it 1x/week???? I told her it was usually about 2x/week just not today). Ayi also helped carry the conversation. I even offered the lady some green smoothie, why not? She didn't take it.
All in all it was a nice little visit (yeah right!), then their daughter came up to visit which actually was good (she used to be our helper a long time ago). They were going to help her buy a motorcycle. I kept saying "I am so embarrassed we only had convenient noodles" and she said it was no problem at all.
They left and I thanked Ayi profusely and we had a real good laugh about the whole thing. I know I probably should just keep rice cooking all the time like most Asians, but we usually do not have 'stop-by' visitors at lunch. Those noodles were actually very convenient indeed.
