Preparation

Unlike my two prior Tets in Ha Nam, this year we spent the holiday at the Nguyen's new house (where we had the wedding). Huyen's family doesn't live in this house so it required some preparation on our part. This involved a few things:
1. Getting drinkable water. Su and I went to a neighbor's house and got water from her well and placed it in this large clay pot:


(PICTURE: All of the water we cooked with during the week came from this pot.)

2. We had to clean the house. This involved sweeping, mopping, dusting...and eventually burning the trash and leaves in the front courtyard

(PICTURE: This is the garbage collector in the village.)

3. We had to bring the TV from the house they live in and set it up in this house. It's very important for Su and my father-in-law to watch TV during the New Year. Yup, sounds just like America.

(PICTURE: Su rigged the antenna to that bamboo pole on their roof.)

During the course of the week, we also had to transport the refrigerator from the old house to the new house. Then on the actual New Year, I had to clean everything again. I washed and scrubbed windows and also -- this was my least favorite job -- scrapped the sap off the front steps which had fallen off the sapodilla tree.