Almost midnight. Quiet evening. House is almost empty of furniture. Luggage are ready upstairs. In few hours we will leave from Ha Noi.
We have been living here for two years and three months. This afternoon I was sitting in the garden in front of our house at the Swedish Camp in Ha Noi. It just stopped to rain. Drops where falling from the leaves of the bushes. Gray clouds and a nice breeze. I sipped my tea and looked at the big tree which overshadows the playground for the kids. I remember that tree few weeks ago when the temperature was right, or maybe the humidity, starting to pop its seeds. Brown, round and flat seeds as big as a 50 cents Euro coin, falling from the tree after a little pop, pop, pop, pop, pop….pop. What a nice, trees at this time of the year, with so many new and bright green leaves.
What are the images of Ha Noi that I will bring with me? Two come to my mind in this moment. The streets of Ha Noi and its traffic. The number of cars and motorbikes that has certainly increase in the last two years putting more and more pressure on the streets of this town which cannot grow more as they constrained by the many lakes of the city. The traffic and the noise as a sign of development and progress, but also the polluted air and me not giving up on my bicycle and feeling rather like a species into extinction.
The second image is the green of this island of peace which is where we live, the Swedish Camp. Just 200 hundred meters north of Ki Ma , one of the busiest streets of the town, we have had the luck of living in a green compound where in the morning is possible to listen to birds singing. Where I can sit, as I did today. Watching the drops from the rain falling one by on from the leaves of the bushes and trees of this compound. I do not know how long will it take before this compound will make place to a high rising building. I hope not too soon. Anyhow this has been our island in this town Ha Noi, where we have leave two years of our lives and where we have seen Olga and Venla grow and play wit our Swedish friends .
Good bye Lang Thuy Dien. Good bye Ha Noi.