I woke up before dawn for the Fajr prayer. Today felt a little different from the previous days because it was finally my turn to go to the market and help prepare breakfast and dinner for everyone. Each group sent two people, making a total of six students responsible for cooking each day. We left while it was still completely dark. The sun hadn't even begun to rise, and the heavy rain from the night before had faded into nothing more than a light drizzle.
Our plan for breakfast was simple: martabak mie. A few of us had made it before at home, so we thought it wouldn't be too difficult. The recipe sounded easy enough—cook the noodles until they were half done, mix them into seasoned beaten eggs, and fry everything together. To make things more efficient, we split into two teams. Three people would buy the noodles and eggs, while the other three searched for the remaining ingredients. I was assigned to the noodle team. Instead of heading into the market, we walked in the opposite direction toward what we thought would be the nearest convenience store because we wanted to buy Indomie, an Indonesian brand of instant noodles. After walking for about fifteen minutes, we suddenly realized our mistake. Of course no convenience store would be open this early in the morning. By the time we arrived, we found nothing except disappointment.
With no other choice, we headed back to the market to meet the rest of our team. Along the way, we came across someone selling eggs, so we bought them immediately before continuing on. It didn't take long to find our teammates. They had already managed to buy almost everything we needed. Almost. The most important ingredient—the noodles—was still missing. While we were trying to figure out what to do next, one of our teachers came over and reassured us that there should be a place selling noodles somewhere on the way back to the accommodation. That gave us a little hope.
As it turned out, our teacher was also buying a chicken that morning. Since Vietnam is not a Muslim-majority country, there was a good chance the chicken hadn't been slaughtered according to Islamic practices. Fortunately, the seller still had live chickens. After a brief conversation and some negotiation, the seller allowed our teacher to slaughter the chicken himself. Once it was done, the seller cleaned it and removed all the feathers for us. We bought one whole chicken before finally heading back.
When we arrived at the accommodation, our group mentor, Mr. Tio, looked surprised. He immediately asked why the chicken hadn't been cut into smaller pieces. He was right—it would be much harder for us to cut up a whole chicken ourselves. So, for the second time that morning, we returned to the market. We asked the seller to chop the chicken into smaller pieces, and since we still hadn't found any noodles, we searched deeper inside the market. Eventually, we found some, although they weren't the noodles we had been looking for. They were more like the egg noodles commonly sold in Indonesia rather than instant noodles like Indomie. Still, there weren't any better options, so we bought them and returned to the accommodation.
Back at the accommodation, we finally started cooking. We sliced onions, chilies, and spring onions, boiled the noodles, cooked the rice, and prepared everything for the martabak mie. That's when we discovered that making it wasn't nearly as easy as we had expected. Our first attempt failed completely. Instead of looking like martabak mie, it looked more like scrambled eggs. We couldn't help but laugh. We kept trying, and although each attempt looked a little better than the last, the final result was still far from what we had imagined.
After breakfast, I took a shower and attended class until around noon. Once class ended, we were supposed to gather for another assignment. The problem was that I was absolutely starving. So a few of my friends and I quietly returned to the accommodation. There happened to be some leftover rice, and without thinking twice, we decided to make fried rice. We sautéed onions, added the rice, seasoned it, poured in some sweet soy sauce, and before long, it smelled incredible. The fried rice was ready, our plates were already in our hands, and we were just about to take our first bite when the door suddenly opened. Mr. Tio walked in. Judging by his expression, he wasn't in the best mood. It turned out everyone had been waiting for us because we were supposed to have gathered much earlier. I won't lie—I was disappointed. Not because of the assignment, but because there was a plate of freshly cooked fried rice right in front of me, still warm, and I had to leave it behind. But rules are rules, so we put everything down and headed downstairs.
Our new assignment was called a Colour Hunt. Each group had to take photos matching a specific color theme. As luck would have it, my group—Group 5—was assigned the color red. That couldn't have been more perfect because Vietnam is filled with red. Red flags, red signs, red decorations—you can find them almost everywhere. We finished the assignment much faster than we had expected and returned to the accommodation.
By the time we got back, the fried rice had already gone cold. At that point, though, I was far too hungry to care. Cold or not, I happily finished every bite before taking an afternoon nap. When I woke up, our cooking duty wasn't over yet. Since we had bought a whole chicken earlier that morning, dinner would be chicken. The only problem was that none of us had ever cooked chicken before. We searched online for recipes, but we didn't have all the ingredients they recommended. In the end, we simply made do with whatever we had and hoped for the best.
After overcoming one obstacle after another, dinner was finally ready. Unfortunately, the result was disappointing—really disappointing. After putting in so much effort, the meal turned out nothing like we had hoped. My friend Mumtaaz looked genuinely upset. I was disappointed too, although probably not as much as he was. More than anything, I was worried that our friends wouldn't enjoy what we had cooked for them. Still, we had done our best. In the end, it wasn't as bad as we had feared. One or two people admitted that it wasn't very good, but they still finished their food. Most of our friends encouraged us instead, reminding us that none of us had ever cooked chicken before. I guess everyone has to start somewhere. And just like that, another day quietly came to an end.