Today at the toilet site was more of the same. We mixed cement and then sat around while the contractor finished siding the other two walls. We had another held up today when it actually did rain and some of the newly laid cement started to drip. We quickly covered the walls by perching planks of wood over the top then mixed in the remaining cement before it could harden and patched up the dripping walls. This is ending up taking much longer than I expected - we thought we were going to be done by last weekend but my new prediction is that we'll finish by next Tuesday. If I'm right, I'll be bored for another week yet. All of my blisters are going away with all this sitting around. I thought about going over to help the road group for a couple of days just so I could feel useful, but then I really do want to see my project through to the end. At least there are occasionally entertaining visitors coming to the school. Yesterday a couple of people from the local chapter of the Youth Union came by and gave us a care package of coconut candy and sweetsoup fixings. Later a woman from the People's Committee complimented us on the path we'd made before. She said she was impressed that we'd never done anything like this before and were still able to do such a good job (at least that's what I'm extrapolating although if the direct translation was correct she actually said we did nothing at all before).
There was also a pig harvesting day which we were inadvertently thrown in the middle of. The owners were all sitting in a circle in front of the school chatting while the sellers weighed and painted a number on each pig before leading it to a canoe which was docked right next to our toilet. The pigs seemed perfectly fine but it was sad because I knew they were on their way to be slaughtered. But that's the fate of most the world's pigs I suppose. The riverboats here are awesome - they're thin wooden oversized canoes decorated with colorful blues and reds and painted eyes on the bow. As long as I stay here I may not get to do much but at least there are interesting sights and of course, lots of Vietnamese sweet tea.
I only taught about fifteen minutes of science class today. The rockets looked really great and were all decorated so creatively (one boy even made the tip of his rocket with the tip of an eye-dropper rather than paper) - I was impressed and the kids had a lot of fun with the launch. We then moved over to the little kids who were supposed to be having "fun time" which was completely unorganized today. We kept them occupied for about fifteen minutes with Wen and Khang's catapult (which we probably should have cleared with the People's Committee because they were looking on with concerned faces).
When we got back, Kendra, Van, and I got sugarcane from across the street and just sat outside the lobby talking about the differences between our perceptions of Vietnam and America. In the process, we met the owner of the hotel when he politely asked us to move our bikes so he could park his big-ass Chevy. You could tell this guy was loaded because an imported car like that is ridiculously expensive here and he was wearing clothes only recognizable to our generation because of "That 70's Show." It was kind of jarring to look at him because it's so different from how everyone here dresses. In Saigon, everyone wore Western clothes and that's true here only to a much lesser extent. Overall people are more comfortable here wearing traditional Vietnamese clothing like the single-colored shirt-pant combos for women. By comparison, the hotel owners pale yellow paisley shirt and polyester hot pants were a bit jarring.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Vietnam Day 52 (7/29/09)
I mentioned before that I'm becoming quite a speed-demon on the bike. That's not necessarily because I'm in control, but I am getting good enough to enjoy the scenery along the way. The ride along the small path is surreally beautiful as we pass under the shade of palm branches hanging over the trail. Bamboo and lush tropical shrubs brush my legs (and sometimes my face) as I pass. Apart from the motorbikes and children riding their bikes past us (often two or three to a bike), we also came across a lot of pedestrians. Today we passed a family with grown daughters all pitching in to gather reeds from down in one of the shallower ditches just off the road. Every day we pass groups of elderly women, always in threes, walking single file in their conical hats, laughing and gossiping. I've noticed the women who walk alone return my smiles with changeless stony expressions, but the women in these gaggles always smile and sometimes reach out and touch my arm (which, I can't lie, freaked me out a little when I was trying to control the bike).
Today the rest of the group went to the site of the new road so it was just me, Van Anh, and Hieu at the school working on the toilet with the contractor. Sorry, perhaps the term "working" is too strong. I felt entirely useless. We mixed three batches of cement and then spent the rest of the morning literally sitting on our asses on piles of bricks watching the contractor put in the doors we painted yesterday and then add a smooth layer of cement over the outside of one of the brick laws. He was going to do the same thing with the other two walls but then the rain clouds started rolling in and the wind picked up like it was going to storm so we hastily covered the classroom for safekeeping. Just as I walked out from putting the last few shovels inside, the sun came back out and the clouds moved on. Van Anh said the gods were playing with us. It appears she was correct because five minutes later we encountered another delay. The tiny, frail old woman that keeps the key to the school came over to observe our progress. Not knowing that the cement holding the door in hadn't hardened yet, she tried to open the door, instead pushing the hinges clear out of the wall (something I would never have thought possible for such a small person). We had to stop again to go through another long process of attaching the door. By that point, it seemed clear that the contractor wouldn't be finishing siding the other two walls today so we gave him as much cement as we needed then left to see if we could be more useful at the road.
The road crew is making incredible progress. Of course the locals won't trust our group with any cement mixing or laying but then there are quite a few locals working on the path so it's still coming along quickly. The students have been transporting bags of rocks and sand all morning so they're pretty tired. I originally thought the road group didn't get to do anything today except lift bags, but then I found out they've also been doing a lot of eating. The people who live around the work-site have been bringing them tons of foot throughout the day; starchy corn, odd fruits, and coconuts (which I arrived just in time to partake of). I saw the bags of rocks and thought I was finally going to get my chance to do some hard manual labor, but I'd only carried two bags before everyone stopped for the day. The locals had one more edible treat for us before we could go. I didn't feel like I'd earned it but one of the neighbors gave us all sweet soup made from water coconut. It was very different from the sweetsoups we've had in the past - it was much less heavy with a coconut milk base and lots of pieces of cocnut and little colorful balls of tapioca, all served in "Merry Christmas" mugs. It was excellent but no one from the road group had any appetite for lunch (which was fine, more for me).
We didn't have a science class today so Wen and Khang used the time to finalize work on the catapult. They managed to fix the mechanics, not with the help of the carpenter, but with the help of a twelve-year old who figured out that by attaching a bungee cord to one end you could make it spring-loaded. Since we had free time this afternoon, Van Anh went with me to the market to get some cheap adidas sweat pants (which somehow every person in this region owns). Later when Kendra got back from the school, I took her back to the market so she could get the pants too. We went without a roommate but I learned the word for tailor so we managed to get it sent to the tailors without any problem. After that however, the language barrier became a bit of a problem. They spoke to me as if I understood conversational Vietnamese, offering no hand gestures or context clues. I spent the longest time asking how long it would take for the pants to be finished, pointing at the minutes hand on my watch, offering suggestions of five or ten while pointing adamantly at the tailor shop. It was hopeless though - they didn't understand any of our impromptu sign language so Kendra and I decided to just go on an adventure and check back later. We bought a couple of sticky rice bananas and munched on them while we walked around the market. The market is actually quite extensive, selling some pretty nice things, including gorgeous fruit that we plan to come back for and coincidentally the same adidas pants we just bought found at two other stalls. By the time I finished my banana, we had made it back around to the pants stand where we found the pants waiting but not the shirt Kendra had sent along with it to be mended. We proceeded to have an excessively confusing conversation with the vendors. After a couple repetitions we caught the word "sach" meaning clean (which we only know because the girls at school are always commenting on which parts of cloths are clean or dirty after the morning's work) and figured out that they were having the shirt cleaned before Kendra could pick it up. I was pretty impressed that we deciphered that conversation (and by we, I mean Kendra of course). I feel like I should have been carrying around a dictionary the whole time I've been in Vietnam - it's certainly been an interesting experience trying to communicate without one but I haven't been making things easy on myself.
The rest of the night we just watched Hercules, Kendra and I turning it into our own personal karaoke session. I know I complain a lot about the hotel, but we really are spoiled here, watching movies all the time and having internet in the lobby. Apparently the other Green Summer participants are actually living in huts with local families, eating questionable food and showering with chemically treated river water. It's only because the People's Comity wants foreigners to have the best possible perception of their town that we're in a hotel at all. In a way, I'd rather be in the huts. Good or bad, at least that would be unique cultural experience.
Today the rest of the group went to the site of the new road so it was just me, Van Anh, and Hieu at the school working on the toilet with the contractor. Sorry, perhaps the term "working" is too strong. I felt entirely useless. We mixed three batches of cement and then spent the rest of the morning literally sitting on our asses on piles of bricks watching the contractor put in the doors we painted yesterday and then add a smooth layer of cement over the outside of one of the brick laws. He was going to do the same thing with the other two walls but then the rain clouds started rolling in and the wind picked up like it was going to storm so we hastily covered the classroom for safekeeping. Just as I walked out from putting the last few shovels inside, the sun came back out and the clouds moved on. Van Anh said the gods were playing with us. It appears she was correct because five minutes later we encountered another delay. The tiny, frail old woman that keeps the key to the school came over to observe our progress. Not knowing that the cement holding the door in hadn't hardened yet, she tried to open the door, instead pushing the hinges clear out of the wall (something I would never have thought possible for such a small person). We had to stop again to go through another long process of attaching the door. By that point, it seemed clear that the contractor wouldn't be finishing siding the other two walls today so we gave him as much cement as we needed then left to see if we could be more useful at the road.
The road crew is making incredible progress. Of course the locals won't trust our group with any cement mixing or laying but then there are quite a few locals working on the path so it's still coming along quickly. The students have been transporting bags of rocks and sand all morning so they're pretty tired. I originally thought the road group didn't get to do anything today except lift bags, but then I found out they've also been doing a lot of eating. The people who live around the work-site have been bringing them tons of foot throughout the day; starchy corn, odd fruits, and coconuts (which I arrived just in time to partake of). I saw the bags of rocks and thought I was finally going to get my chance to do some hard manual labor, but I'd only carried two bags before everyone stopped for the day. The locals had one more edible treat for us before we could go. I didn't feel like I'd earned it but one of the neighbors gave us all sweet soup made from water coconut. It was very different from the sweetsoups we've had in the past - it was much less heavy with a coconut milk base and lots of pieces of cocnut and little colorful balls of tapioca, all served in "Merry Christmas" mugs. It was excellent but no one from the road group had any appetite for lunch (which was fine, more for me).
We didn't have a science class today so Wen and Khang used the time to finalize work on the catapult. They managed to fix the mechanics, not with the help of the carpenter, but with the help of a twelve-year old who figured out that by attaching a bungee cord to one end you could make it spring-loaded. Since we had free time this afternoon, Van Anh went with me to the market to get some cheap adidas sweat pants (which somehow every person in this region owns). Later when Kendra got back from the school, I took her back to the market so she could get the pants too. We went without a roommate but I learned the word for tailor so we managed to get it sent to the tailors without any problem. After that however, the language barrier became a bit of a problem. They spoke to me as if I understood conversational Vietnamese, offering no hand gestures or context clues. I spent the longest time asking how long it would take for the pants to be finished, pointing at the minutes hand on my watch, offering suggestions of five or ten while pointing adamantly at the tailor shop. It was hopeless though - they didn't understand any of our impromptu sign language so Kendra and I decided to just go on an adventure and check back later. We bought a couple of sticky rice bananas and munched on them while we walked around the market. The market is actually quite extensive, selling some pretty nice things, including gorgeous fruit that we plan to come back for and coincidentally the same adidas pants we just bought found at two other stalls. By the time I finished my banana, we had made it back around to the pants stand where we found the pants waiting but not the shirt Kendra had sent along with it to be mended. We proceeded to have an excessively confusing conversation with the vendors. After a couple repetitions we caught the word "sach" meaning clean (which we only know because the girls at school are always commenting on which parts of cloths are clean or dirty after the morning's work) and figured out that they were having the shirt cleaned before Kendra could pick it up. I was pretty impressed that we deciphered that conversation (and by we, I mean Kendra of course). I feel like I should have been carrying around a dictionary the whole time I've been in Vietnam - it's certainly been an interesting experience trying to communicate without one but I haven't been making things easy on myself.
The rest of the night we just watched Hercules, Kendra and I turning it into our own personal karaoke session. I know I complain a lot about the hotel, but we really are spoiled here, watching movies all the time and having internet in the lobby. Apparently the other Green Summer participants are actually living in huts with local families, eating questionable food and showering with chemically treated river water. It's only because the People's Comity wants foreigners to have the best possible perception of their town that we're in a hotel at all. In a way, I'd rather be in the huts. Good or bad, at least that would be unique cultural experience.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Vietnam Day 51 (7/28/09)
There wasn't a whole lot of work again today after we mixed the first batch of cement. Still, I got a little variety when I was asked to paint the doors for the toilet. We're using this Duke blue paint that is made with gasoline (which the ten-year old Nhi purchased for us) and gives off noxious fumes that can theoretically make you high if you breathe in too much. I avoided that by wearing a carpenter's mask and breathing through my mouth but every time I accidentally took a whiff I started gagging. It was a bit awkward to paint the doors propped up against the front gate because more photographers and reporters showed up again today. I don't know how there can be this many publications in a town this small but there seems to be an endless supply of photographers taking artsy shots of us painting.
Now that I'm done painting, there's nothing to do again for a while as we wait for the contractor to finish laying bricks so we can cement the outside. It feels like we have a long way to go because we still need to put in the actual toilets and pipes, the doors, and the roof and I'm not sure how long all of that will take. The school group on the other hand just finished and will be starting work on a small road tomorrow. I do feel a sense of accomplishment with the school being done - I wasn't technically on the team but I ended up coming around so many times to help when there was nothing to do with the toilet, so I think I contributed something. I just hope the toilet doesn't take too much longer because it will be quite lonely here after the school group leaves.
We didn't have time to do the cement siding so I left with the school group to check out the road I will soon be joining them on (with any luck). It was just off the road we usually take to the school except this one is even more curvy and narrow. I only just got used to the other road and now we're stepping up the difficulty level again. The road we're building is currently a dirt path and we'll be laying cement over the top of it. We walked down the path to scope it out, but it just kept going. At every turn I expected it to end but it never did. Finally we reached the bridge that marked the end. The workers who will be helping us were already there starting to lay concrete. They were all very nice but they were skeptical at first as to whether we were capable of mixing the concrete, but Loan assured them that we'd done it before. The people whose house lies next to the road was so considerate - when they heard we were coming they made us way too much of a delicious cake that's a Ben Tre specialty. It's not so much a cake as a pile of leaves (unique to the region) that have been battered in dough and boiled and are served with warm coconut milk (which is thick and sweet like cream). It was very good but we had to go to lunch at the moms' house right after so all five of us together only finished about one out of three plates of the cake. Hopefully they weren't offended because it really was a nice gesture.
We tried just relaxing again at the house during our break but the kids wasted no time in finding us so we just went to the cafe so we could at least get our caffeine fix. And did we ever - after our coffees we all felt rejuvenated. As Molly said, it's like a drug, and a necessary one to since class was a little rough today. The experiment was certainly interesting enough (Khang made a paper bowl, then put water in it and held it over a flame and the paper neither disintegrated nor burned) but a lot of the kids were being "naughty" and we were struggling to stretch the classes out for the full time. It was worse in the second class because the students from the first had already spoiled the surprise and told them about the experiment. As a result, they were bored and even more unruly. I find it difficult to discipline kids here not only because of the language barrier but also because I can't always tell what behavior is and isn't acceptable in a different culture. Still, we made it through (though we had to let the second class out a little early) and spent some time afterwards playing with them outside.
Now that I'm done painting, there's nothing to do again for a while as we wait for the contractor to finish laying bricks so we can cement the outside. It feels like we have a long way to go because we still need to put in the actual toilets and pipes, the doors, and the roof and I'm not sure how long all of that will take. The school group on the other hand just finished and will be starting work on a small road tomorrow. I do feel a sense of accomplishment with the school being done - I wasn't technically on the team but I ended up coming around so many times to help when there was nothing to do with the toilet, so I think I contributed something. I just hope the toilet doesn't take too much longer because it will be quite lonely here after the school group leaves.
We didn't have time to do the cement siding so I left with the school group to check out the road I will soon be joining them on (with any luck). It was just off the road we usually take to the school except this one is even more curvy and narrow. I only just got used to the other road and now we're stepping up the difficulty level again. The road we're building is currently a dirt path and we'll be laying cement over the top of it. We walked down the path to scope it out, but it just kept going. At every turn I expected it to end but it never did. Finally we reached the bridge that marked the end. The workers who will be helping us were already there starting to lay concrete. They were all very nice but they were skeptical at first as to whether we were capable of mixing the concrete, but Loan assured them that we'd done it before. The people whose house lies next to the road was so considerate - when they heard we were coming they made us way too much of a delicious cake that's a Ben Tre specialty. It's not so much a cake as a pile of leaves (unique to the region) that have been battered in dough and boiled and are served with warm coconut milk (which is thick and sweet like cream). It was very good but we had to go to lunch at the moms' house right after so all five of us together only finished about one out of three plates of the cake. Hopefully they weren't offended because it really was a nice gesture.
We tried just relaxing again at the house during our break but the kids wasted no time in finding us so we just went to the cafe so we could at least get our caffeine fix. And did we ever - after our coffees we all felt rejuvenated. As Molly said, it's like a drug, and a necessary one to since class was a little rough today. The experiment was certainly interesting enough (Khang made a paper bowl, then put water in it and held it over a flame and the paper neither disintegrated nor burned) but a lot of the kids were being "naughty" and we were struggling to stretch the classes out for the full time. It was worse in the second class because the students from the first had already spoiled the surprise and told them about the experiment. As a result, they were bored and even more unruly. I find it difficult to discipline kids here not only because of the language barrier but also because I can't always tell what behavior is and isn't acceptable in a different culture. Still, we made it through (though we had to let the second class out a little early) and spent some time afterwards playing with them outside.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Vietnam Day 50 (7/27/09)
Idle again. I'm writing from inside the nearly completed school waiting for Van Anh and Hieu to return with the toilet. I had a pretty productive beginning to the day and no guys tried to take over my work. I've recently come to understand the reason women are usually discouraged from doing physical work - in Vietnam everything is about the end result and everyone is expected to play to their strength to improve efficiency. That generally means women are supposed to do more skilled crafts while men are supposed to do the manual labor. That's all well and good, but I think I'm more suited to this manual labor than some of the guys - I can shovel more than them faster than them and have at least the same endurance. I just finished mixing the last batch of cement to perfection but now there's nothing more for me to do until we get more supplies. We still need to bring in the toilet for the girls (which is a porcelain bowl but it's a flattened one that you squat over rather than the ones we sit on in the US), the doors from the carpenter, and apparently we forgot to order the aluminum sheets for the roof so suffice it to say we won't finish today.
I love the ingenuity people use to get work done here. We constructed a large sifter so we could filter all of the pebbles and plants out of the sand so we could use it to make the cement that will provide a protective layer on the outer wall. We made the sifter by pinching a sheet of metal netting between random strips of wood and nailing the wood together. While he was hammering, I noticed for the first time that the contractor is missing the tip of his right index finger - yes he's a beast at his job now but it was interesting to see evidence of a time when he was as inexperienced as me (hopefully I'll have better luck). Sifting sand was actually the most tiring thing I've done on this project so far - we shoveled up sand from the existing pile and tossed the scoop at the metal sheet which was propped up with bamboo so that it was almost vertical so that the fine sand passed through creating a new pile. We finished the sifting just before leaving for lunch but we still have a pretty long way to go.
I feel like a terrible person right now. This week I was planning on finishing my analysis of the data from the survey I conducted in Saigon, but it appears I'm already late and didn't even know it. I as talking with Hieu today and apparently when he visited the Institute for Tropical Biology headquarters, our contact there gave us grades for our internship. He gave us ten out of ten on everything except data analysis on which we scored a six out of ten. I was rather taken aback, not only because of how odd it was that we were receiving grades for our work (a rather presumptuous way to give feedback), but also because I had emailed Mr. Vinh before leaving Saigon and told him I would be sending a more thorough summary. Now I'm afraid I've taken too long and he thinks I've forgotten or something. I held off because I haven't had a lot of time and I wanted to devote my full attention to it but now I just feel awful because he's been waiting longer than he'd expected. I absolutely hate having people mad at or disappointed in me and I'm afraid Mr. Vinh might be both. I'm trying to finish the summary by tonight so maybe Mr. Vinh won't go on thinking I'm unreliable...Good news! I just officially sent off the completed survey and it's not half-bad actually - at least it feels more useful than just raw data based on random questions. I inserted a lot of extra information not contained in the survey questions.
The whole group made a little culinary adventure this evening, riding over to a sweetsoup vendor to try egg sweetsoup, which only Van Anh has tried and has been deemed crazy by all of the Vietnamese roommates for saying it's delicious. However she's convinced, so all of us went to try it for the first time. Kendra and I shared the warm chicken egg sweetsoup rather than the cold quail egg one, which in retrospect was a good choice. It was certainly an odd mixture of ingredients, containing not only egg but also peanuts, red beans, tapioca, and seaweed. It was pretty good, though I personally think it would have been much better without the seaweed. All these different sweetsoups just keep getting more and more weird as I go along.
I love the ingenuity people use to get work done here. We constructed a large sifter so we could filter all of the pebbles and plants out of the sand so we could use it to make the cement that will provide a protective layer on the outer wall. We made the sifter by pinching a sheet of metal netting between random strips of wood and nailing the wood together. While he was hammering, I noticed for the first time that the contractor is missing the tip of his right index finger - yes he's a beast at his job now but it was interesting to see evidence of a time when he was as inexperienced as me (hopefully I'll have better luck). Sifting sand was actually the most tiring thing I've done on this project so far - we shoveled up sand from the existing pile and tossed the scoop at the metal sheet which was propped up with bamboo so that it was almost vertical so that the fine sand passed through creating a new pile. We finished the sifting just before leaving for lunch but we still have a pretty long way to go.
I feel like a terrible person right now. This week I was planning on finishing my analysis of the data from the survey I conducted in Saigon, but it appears I'm already late and didn't even know it. I as talking with Hieu today and apparently when he visited the Institute for Tropical Biology headquarters, our contact there gave us grades for our internship. He gave us ten out of ten on everything except data analysis on which we scored a six out of ten. I was rather taken aback, not only because of how odd it was that we were receiving grades for our work (a rather presumptuous way to give feedback), but also because I had emailed Mr. Vinh before leaving Saigon and told him I would be sending a more thorough summary. Now I'm afraid I've taken too long and he thinks I've forgotten or something. I held off because I haven't had a lot of time and I wanted to devote my full attention to it but now I just feel awful because he's been waiting longer than he'd expected. I absolutely hate having people mad at or disappointed in me and I'm afraid Mr. Vinh might be both. I'm trying to finish the summary by tonight so maybe Mr. Vinh won't go on thinking I'm unreliable...Good news! I just officially sent off the completed survey and it's not half-bad actually - at least it feels more useful than just raw data based on random questions. I inserted a lot of extra information not contained in the survey questions.
The whole group made a little culinary adventure this evening, riding over to a sweetsoup vendor to try egg sweetsoup, which only Van Anh has tried and has been deemed crazy by all of the Vietnamese roommates for saying it's delicious. However she's convinced, so all of us went to try it for the first time. Kendra and I shared the warm chicken egg sweetsoup rather than the cold quail egg one, which in retrospect was a good choice. It was certainly an odd mixture of ingredients, containing not only egg but also peanuts, red beans, tapioca, and seaweed. It was pretty good, though I personally think it would have been much better without the seaweed. All these different sweetsoups just keep getting more and more weird as I go along.
Vietnam Day 49 (7/26/09)
For two weeks now I've eaten nothing but egg and bread for breakfast, but now it's the weekend and I finally have time for pho. It wasn't bad for hotel pho, but I must admit I was a bit underwhelmed. I miss having five hundred pho places to choose from like we did in Saigon, but this will just have to do for now. I'm finding MoCay harder to live in than Saigon. Still unclear whether that's because there's simply less to do here or because I'd settled into a routine in the city and now I'm being shaken out of it. I'm becoming more aware every day of how little time we have left here.
We rode over to the same room where we met the politician last week, this time for a discussion with a war veteran. He was a very skinny, frail old man but whenever he spoke he got out of his chair and stood up straight until he'd finished, an impressive feat given how long-winded he was. He said repeatedly that he didn't have enough time to tell us all about his experiences in the war but he did share with us the story of the most glorious victory he ever took part in. In this battle, the Vietnamese infantry was greatly outnumbered but they had a very strategy, hiding along the sides of a very narrow path that American troops used. Because of the way the path was set up, only the American soldiers on the sides could fight and those in the middle. My first reaction was admiration for the tact and intelligence of the Vietnamese troops, but then I caught myself and realized that my countrymen were on the other side of this "victory." I asked him how many casualties were on both sides and he reported twenty three Vietnamese to roughly four hundred and fifty American dead. Purely in terms of statistics these numbers are very impressive but when you think of the real people involved it's incredibly tragic. That makes the fact that this battle is his fondest memory of the war a little more questionable to my mind. He was forty seven at the time of this battle (much older than I expected), so he was a fully conscious adult, not just some naive kid with nothing but orders and a rifle.
When Molly asked about his feelings about America today, he responded with a very calm diplomatic answer about the war being in the past, expressing his support for the current economic cooperation. He did however accompany this statement with his one complaint that the Vietnamese government has done its part to recover remains of American soldiers while the US has taken no responsibility for the continuing effects of Agent Orange. Following her translation of this comment, Alice added some extra information, telling us that when Clinton normalized relations with Vietnam, he got them to sign off saying that America was not financially responsible for the affects of Agent Orange. She added that most Vietnamese don't know this because the government won't admit to the people that they waive the right to blame America for this devastating mistake (though personally I think it was Clinton who was morally reprehensible in this case). This added information was very interesting to us, but Hieu informed Alice afterwards that if any of the People's Committee officials in the room at the time had understood English she could be in huge trouble right now. Politics of the war are still a hot-button issue here and the government continues to keep many details very hugh-hush.
When he answered the Americans' questions, the veteran was very collected, but as soon as the questions started coming in Vietnamese he got very agitated. He explained the patriotism that motivated him to join the war with fervor in his shaking voice and powerful sweeping hand gestures. He told a story about an eighteen year old American soldier he met during the war who threw down his gun to express his disdain for the war so the veteran said he understands that the American people didn't often agree with the government about the war but many of his other comments conflicted with this statement. His voice raised in anger as he blamed the US entirely for all the fighting between Northern and Southern Vietnamese people and complained of the hypocrisy of an America that claims to believe in freedom but invaded his country to take away Vietnamese liberty (and I can't say I entirely disagree with him). He closed by asking us to go to America and tell people the truth, an odd request given that Americans are taught about his perspective among others to get the whole picture, whereas he only knows one version - hearing him talk was affecting but I don't think I learned any new "truths." Before leaving, he asked that one of the Americans make a closing statement, either implying or outright requesting a formal apology from us for the war. This is one speech I might have actually wanted to give if only I knew how - I certainly don't feel qualified to speak for the American government and I wasn't sure how to tip-toe around that. Fortunately, Molly took the ball and thanked him for speaking to us and giving us his perspective, carefully avoiding an apology. He seemed pacified enough but he didn't really makes eye-contact with any of us. I do feel very sorry for what he's been through, but I still don't feel compelled to apologize for my government.
After only two weeks, I feel like I'm already over MoCay. I'm not exactly homesick, but I prefer either the Saigon or the US to here. It's just that there's nothing to do here and no freedom to go where we like. We feel very under the thumb of the government with the police and the People's Committee constantly spying on us because we're foreigners and they don't want us to get hurt on their watch (for instance, they delivered an official-looking envelope to Alice and inside were instructions to ride our bikes in a single-file line and with both hands on the handlebars - how could they have known we weren't doing that unless they were being creepy and watching us constantly). I also hate the feeling of living in a hotel. It feels so artificial and doesn't make for a good living space. My cubical room feels very cramped and claustrophobic and all the naked women depicted on every wall of the hotel are still pretty weird. Maybe it's just the bad feng shui in my room messing me up (we have mirrors facing each other which is apparently a big no no).
We rode over to the same room where we met the politician last week, this time for a discussion with a war veteran. He was a very skinny, frail old man but whenever he spoke he got out of his chair and stood up straight until he'd finished, an impressive feat given how long-winded he was. He said repeatedly that he didn't have enough time to tell us all about his experiences in the war but he did share with us the story of the most glorious victory he ever took part in. In this battle, the Vietnamese infantry was greatly outnumbered but they had a very strategy, hiding along the sides of a very narrow path that American troops used. Because of the way the path was set up, only the American soldiers on the sides could fight and those in the middle. My first reaction was admiration for the tact and intelligence of the Vietnamese troops, but then I caught myself and realized that my countrymen were on the other side of this "victory." I asked him how many casualties were on both sides and he reported twenty three Vietnamese to roughly four hundred and fifty American dead. Purely in terms of statistics these numbers are very impressive but when you think of the real people involved it's incredibly tragic. That makes the fact that this battle is his fondest memory of the war a little more questionable to my mind. He was forty seven at the time of this battle (much older than I expected), so he was a fully conscious adult, not just some naive kid with nothing but orders and a rifle.
When Molly asked about his feelings about America today, he responded with a very calm diplomatic answer about the war being in the past, expressing his support for the current economic cooperation. He did however accompany this statement with his one complaint that the Vietnamese government has done its part to recover remains of American soldiers while the US has taken no responsibility for the continuing effects of Agent Orange. Following her translation of this comment, Alice added some extra information, telling us that when Clinton normalized relations with Vietnam, he got them to sign off saying that America was not financially responsible for the affects of Agent Orange. She added that most Vietnamese don't know this because the government won't admit to the people that they waive the right to blame America for this devastating mistake (though personally I think it was Clinton who was morally reprehensible in this case). This added information was very interesting to us, but Hieu informed Alice afterwards that if any of the People's Committee officials in the room at the time had understood English she could be in huge trouble right now. Politics of the war are still a hot-button issue here and the government continues to keep many details very hugh-hush.
When he answered the Americans' questions, the veteran was very collected, but as soon as the questions started coming in Vietnamese he got very agitated. He explained the patriotism that motivated him to join the war with fervor in his shaking voice and powerful sweeping hand gestures. He told a story about an eighteen year old American soldier he met during the war who threw down his gun to express his disdain for the war so the veteran said he understands that the American people didn't often agree with the government about the war but many of his other comments conflicted with this statement. His voice raised in anger as he blamed the US entirely for all the fighting between Northern and Southern Vietnamese people and complained of the hypocrisy of an America that claims to believe in freedom but invaded his country to take away Vietnamese liberty (and I can't say I entirely disagree with him). He closed by asking us to go to America and tell people the truth, an odd request given that Americans are taught about his perspective among others to get the whole picture, whereas he only knows one version - hearing him talk was affecting but I don't think I learned any new "truths." Before leaving, he asked that one of the Americans make a closing statement, either implying or outright requesting a formal apology from us for the war. This is one speech I might have actually wanted to give if only I knew how - I certainly don't feel qualified to speak for the American government and I wasn't sure how to tip-toe around that. Fortunately, Molly took the ball and thanked him for speaking to us and giving us his perspective, carefully avoiding an apology. He seemed pacified enough but he didn't really makes eye-contact with any of us. I do feel very sorry for what he's been through, but I still don't feel compelled to apologize for my government.
After only two weeks, I feel like I'm already over MoCay. I'm not exactly homesick, but I prefer either the Saigon or the US to here. It's just that there's nothing to do here and no freedom to go where we like. We feel very under the thumb of the government with the police and the People's Committee constantly spying on us because we're foreigners and they don't want us to get hurt on their watch (for instance, they delivered an official-looking envelope to Alice and inside were instructions to ride our bikes in a single-file line and with both hands on the handlebars - how could they have known we weren't doing that unless they were being creepy and watching us constantly). I also hate the feeling of living in a hotel. It feels so artificial and doesn't make for a good living space. My cubical room feels very cramped and claustrophobic and all the naked women depicted on every wall of the hotel are still pretty weird. Maybe it's just the bad feng shui in my room messing me up (we have mirrors facing each other which is apparently a big no no).
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Vietnam Day 48 (7/25/09)
We spent the entire afternoon practicing for the performance tonight and frankly our rehearsals didn't instill much confidence. We were frequently offbeat and uncoordinated and we were still making last minute changes to the choreography up until we left. Molly and I left a little early so we could practice with the microphones but when we got to the People's Committee headquarters we got a little distracted by the children who were already waiting outside. By the time we finished playing with them the rest of the group arrived anyway. It's probably bet they did though because the microphones were really echoey like they are in karaoke and we had no idea how to ask the technician to reset them. The whole group did a mini-dress rehearsal, quite a spectacle in our blue work uniforms. Most of the audience consisted of the People's Committee members and lots and lots of children. The performance began about an hour after it was scheduled to because we had to wait for the vice-chair to arrive before we could start (yet another politician making us wait).
The first performance was a song by the school children - it was not nearly as painful to listen to as most children's concerts are and it was really adorable to watch them try (and fail) to sway in unison. That was definitely the highlight of the night and after that followed numerous solos by members of the community taking advantage of an open mic. The gaggle of children had absolutely no patience for such a long show and kept talking and acting up. I felt so bad for the performers who were trying so hard even though none of the kids were paying attention. There were times when, at the beginning of a song, some of the children would run up on stage and hand the singer flowers during the song. Some of the Vietnamese roommates (and the rest of us at times) went up on stage for a couple of songs and just did impromptu dances to the music. The rest of the time when we were in the audience we clapped and waved our hands in the air, trying to support the performer. We were soon in their shoes as we went up on stage for the group Vietnamese song. As predicted, the choreography was pretty disorganized but I think we pulled it off pretty well - I just threw myself into it and kept smiling (not hard since I was laughing half of the time).
Next up were me and Molly singing "For Good" from "Wicked." We started out really well, singing as if we were old hands at performing. The, in the middle of my solo, a slew of kids from the audience suddenly rushed the stage thrusting flowers into our hands. It was as distracting as I had expected (especially when a thorn pricked my finger), but made it even more fun. The grand finale was us singing "Heal the World" which I wouldn't call quality singing, but we did alright - at least we didn't burn the place down with the candles we decided to add to our choreography at the end. It was a long night but I did have a lot of fun. We rode back in the dark again but at least this time I had my super-stylish headlamp to light my way. I'm completely wiped out but tonight I can finally rest without the performance looming over my head.
[Remember how I mentioned the police visiting during the witching hour last week? Well now I've had a chance to see their whole operation in action. I'm writing in the lobby pretty late at night so I was here to watch half a dozen cops come in and sit down at the coffee table going through our passports and take down our information in their notebooks. I don't know what they were writing down but hopefully it won't result in them knocking on my door at an unreasonable hour again.]
The first performance was a song by the school children - it was not nearly as painful to listen to as most children's concerts are and it was really adorable to watch them try (and fail) to sway in unison. That was definitely the highlight of the night and after that followed numerous solos by members of the community taking advantage of an open mic. The gaggle of children had absolutely no patience for such a long show and kept talking and acting up. I felt so bad for the performers who were trying so hard even though none of the kids were paying attention. There were times when, at the beginning of a song, some of the children would run up on stage and hand the singer flowers during the song. Some of the Vietnamese roommates (and the rest of us at times) went up on stage for a couple of songs and just did impromptu dances to the music. The rest of the time when we were in the audience we clapped and waved our hands in the air, trying to support the performer. We were soon in their shoes as we went up on stage for the group Vietnamese song. As predicted, the choreography was pretty disorganized but I think we pulled it off pretty well - I just threw myself into it and kept smiling (not hard since I was laughing half of the time).
Next up were me and Molly singing "For Good" from "Wicked." We started out really well, singing as if we were old hands at performing. The, in the middle of my solo, a slew of kids from the audience suddenly rushed the stage thrusting flowers into our hands. It was as distracting as I had expected (especially when a thorn pricked my finger), but made it even more fun. The grand finale was us singing "Heal the World" which I wouldn't call quality singing, but we did alright - at least we didn't burn the place down with the candles we decided to add to our choreography at the end. It was a long night but I did have a lot of fun. We rode back in the dark again but at least this time I had my super-stylish headlamp to light my way. I'm completely wiped out but tonight I can finally rest without the performance looming over my head.
[Remember how I mentioned the police visiting during the witching hour last week? Well now I've had a chance to see their whole operation in action. I'm writing in the lobby pretty late at night so I was here to watch half a dozen cops come in and sit down at the coffee table going through our passports and take down our information in their notebooks. I don't know what they were writing down but hopefully it won't result in them knocking on my door at an unreasonable hour again.]
Vietnam Day 47 (7/24/09)
Kendra and I were the first to get to the school today and we were surprised to find the next arrivals were from the house group. Apparently their contractor was sick today so everyone would be working at the school. I could tell from the start it was going to be too many people for the job - we barely even had enough room to park our bikes. There wasn't even much work left for the normal group to do, just some more scrubbing and then laying down a concrete path from the gate to the front door. I've learned from experience that more than two or three people mixing cement can actually reduce efficiency, so a lot of people were left to stand there "supervising."
There wasn't anything more we could have done today, so we left for lunch early and helped the moms set out the food (the carrots were heavenly, an adjective I never thought I'd use to describe a vegetable). Instead of going to the cafe for the break, I decided to stay at the moms' house a little longer and chill on the tiled patio. It's very relaxing there, so open and light. Loan and Hieu were singing next to me as chickens strutted past. I felt the stifling tropical heat penetrating my skin but the next moment a light breeze rolled by and I slipped back into total comfort. This feels like real Vietnamese life - friends are sprawled out around me, napping on the patio and in hammocks. The music has stopped now and I can hear the moms chattering back in the kitchen, the dull hum of motorbikes in the distance, squeaky bike wheels passing the house, and a very sporadic rooster crowing somewhere behind me. This may not be my home, but if I had to choose another this moment, this would be it.
Science class today was one of the first where I really felt effective in sparking the kids' interest in science. We had another space day where the students first learned the names (in both Vietnamese and English) and order of the planets and then marched outside to watch the bottle rocket demonstration. We were teaching the younger kids today and their reactions were priceless. When we took them outside for the demonstration, they formed two lines and the line in front squats down so the row behind can see (like stadium seating) but when the rocket went off many of the children in the front row jumped up in excitement. We set the rocket off four times and with each trial, the whole class counted down in unison, "nam, bon, ba, hai, mot, BOOM," repeating this chant in unison until they got it right. They were so excited that it made the whole teaching experience that much more worthwhile.
We finished before the older classes, so a bunch of us stayed and played outside with the little kids. They seemed to have boundless energy (which sadly I didn't possess to the same extent) - first we kicked around a soccerball, then gave piggy-back rides and raced (the kids made wonderful jockeys). Afterwards I felt tired and disgusting but pretty happy overall. Dinner this evening was extremely entertaining. Van Anh had placed an request for spaghetti, egg rolls, and french fries, a bit of East meets West. The spaghetti was very much like what we eat in America with the same noodles and meat sauce, although the chef added a little Vietnamese twist by throwing in a bit of chopped squid. What I preferred were the Asian noodles, clear rice noodles that we wrapped in lettuce with a small egg roll and dipped in fish sauce - delicious. The Western dish I was happy to see was the plate of french fries, which were actually pretty close to good ones at home (or maybe they just seemed better because I hadn't had any in a while).
After dinner, we made a little excursion to the convenience store around the corner. This place is great - it's a little hole in the wall that doesn't contain much but the things it does have include a magnificent hoard of packaged junk food with everything from Mentos to durian cakes. The women who run the shop are hilarious - they go into a tizzy when we get there, trying to use their limited English and getting overly-excited when we use Vietnamese. As we were walking back, we could have sworn we heard a duck quacking behind us but when we turned around there was only a motorbike. As it passed however, we heard the quacking again and looked to find a bag hanging on the bike's bars carrying two white ducks that were peering out. It's still pretty strange for us to see farm animals anywhere, let alone hanging from a motorbike.
There wasn't anything more we could have done today, so we left for lunch early and helped the moms set out the food (the carrots were heavenly, an adjective I never thought I'd use to describe a vegetable). Instead of going to the cafe for the break, I decided to stay at the moms' house a little longer and chill on the tiled patio. It's very relaxing there, so open and light. Loan and Hieu were singing next to me as chickens strutted past. I felt the stifling tropical heat penetrating my skin but the next moment a light breeze rolled by and I slipped back into total comfort. This feels like real Vietnamese life - friends are sprawled out around me, napping on the patio and in hammocks. The music has stopped now and I can hear the moms chattering back in the kitchen, the dull hum of motorbikes in the distance, squeaky bike wheels passing the house, and a very sporadic rooster crowing somewhere behind me. This may not be my home, but if I had to choose another this moment, this would be it.
Science class today was one of the first where I really felt effective in sparking the kids' interest in science. We had another space day where the students first learned the names (in both Vietnamese and English) and order of the planets and then marched outside to watch the bottle rocket demonstration. We were teaching the younger kids today and their reactions were priceless. When we took them outside for the demonstration, they formed two lines and the line in front squats down so the row behind can see (like stadium seating) but when the rocket went off many of the children in the front row jumped up in excitement. We set the rocket off four times and with each trial, the whole class counted down in unison, "nam, bon, ba, hai, mot, BOOM," repeating this chant in unison until they got it right. They were so excited that it made the whole teaching experience that much more worthwhile.
We finished before the older classes, so a bunch of us stayed and played outside with the little kids. They seemed to have boundless energy (which sadly I didn't possess to the same extent) - first we kicked around a soccerball, then gave piggy-back rides and raced (the kids made wonderful jockeys). Afterwards I felt tired and disgusting but pretty happy overall. Dinner this evening was extremely entertaining. Van Anh had placed an request for spaghetti, egg rolls, and french fries, a bit of East meets West. The spaghetti was very much like what we eat in America with the same noodles and meat sauce, although the chef added a little Vietnamese twist by throwing in a bit of chopped squid. What I preferred were the Asian noodles, clear rice noodles that we wrapped in lettuce with a small egg roll and dipped in fish sauce - delicious. The Western dish I was happy to see was the plate of french fries, which were actually pretty close to good ones at home (or maybe they just seemed better because I hadn't had any in a while).
After dinner, we made a little excursion to the convenience store around the corner. This place is great - it's a little hole in the wall that doesn't contain much but the things it does have include a magnificent hoard of packaged junk food with everything from Mentos to durian cakes. The women who run the shop are hilarious - they go into a tizzy when we get there, trying to use their limited English and getting overly-excited when we use Vietnamese. As we were walking back, we could have sworn we heard a duck quacking behind us but when we turned around there was only a motorbike. As it passed however, we heard the quacking again and looked to find a bag hanging on the bike's bars carrying two white ducks that were peering out. It's still pretty strange for us to see farm animals anywhere, let alone hanging from a motorbike.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Vietnam Day 46 (7/23/09)
I'm getting I'm getting so good at this biking thing. Today for the first time I went over every single bridge, from the rickety ones with the missing planks to the high stone ones not wide enough for two people. I wouldn't call them fun but at least I get to work faster. The first thing I did when I got to the school was go around to the back to see what the contractor needed me to do on the toilet. When I got there, I found the boys had already been called back to mix the cement. It was frustrating because I thought I'd been making progress in my effort to prove to everyone that I'm tough enough to handle all these jobs usually reserved for men. Now I'm back to being treated like a helpless little girl as I was on my first day here. It was too early in the morning to pick a fight so I went inside to help scrub dried paint off the desks and floors. For the next batch of cement however, I was really assertive and mixed the whole batch entirely on my own. It was a pretty good batch (if I do say so myself) and I left today feeling very confident about what I'd done. The school is actually near completion and we're trying to finish it by tomorrow and Van Anh and I will keep trying to work on the toilet over the weekend so that next week the school group can move on to cementing a small road.
There were even more children than ever at the cafe this afternoon. I was writing in my journal and literally a dozen people were hovering behind my head, observing the amazing feat of writing left-handed - the owner of the cafe told me I was very talented. At the school, the rain once again kept a lot of the students away so we combined the two classes of older students and I taught the science lesson with a film canister rocket - it was a huge success as the rocket shot up to the height of the roof, inducing many ooos and ahhs from the students. They certainly had fun, which is all I can ask for.
Molly and I continued practicing that evening and it's sounding pretty good considering we started learning it two days ago. The group songs were a little less enchanting. We're getting there, but there are definitely a lot of sour notes and we're never completely on tempo. Nevertheless, our singing seems downright professional compared to our dancing. There appears to be some sort of cowboy theme to the Vietnamese song so one of the moves requires us to clop around and wave our hands in the air as if we were swinging a lasso. We practiced this move while clopping around in a big circle and it would not be a stretch to say it was the silliest thing I've ever seen. Oh well, when else in life do you get to do something like this in front of a big crowd of people - might as well go with it.
There were even more children than ever at the cafe this afternoon. I was writing in my journal and literally a dozen people were hovering behind my head, observing the amazing feat of writing left-handed - the owner of the cafe told me I was very talented. At the school, the rain once again kept a lot of the students away so we combined the two classes of older students and I taught the science lesson with a film canister rocket - it was a huge success as the rocket shot up to the height of the roof, inducing many ooos and ahhs from the students. They certainly had fun, which is all I can ask for.
Molly and I continued practicing that evening and it's sounding pretty good considering we started learning it two days ago. The group songs were a little less enchanting. We're getting there, but there are definitely a lot of sour notes and we're never completely on tempo. Nevertheless, our singing seems downright professional compared to our dancing. There appears to be some sort of cowboy theme to the Vietnamese song so one of the moves requires us to clop around and wave our hands in the air as if we were swinging a lasso. We practiced this move while clopping around in a big circle and it would not be a stretch to say it was the silliest thing I've ever seen. Oh well, when else in life do you get to do something like this in front of a big crowd of people - might as well go with it.
Vietnam Day 45 (7/22/09)
I somehow got it into my head that having an extra half hour of sleep would make me less tired than usual, but I woke up feeling groggy. The reason we got extra sleep is that we had a meeting with a government representative of Ben Tre and politicians don't get up early. This one however was even worse than usual and kept us waiting for nearly half an hour at a long wooden table in a meeting room presided over by a marble bust of Ho Chi Minh. When he finally arrived, he entered with a stiff smile that never left his face as long as the hoards of cameras surrounded him. He went around the table making all the usual diplomatic moves, shaking our hands, asking our names, and trying to find out what we thought of his realm. I ended up as spokesperson for this last part, so I essentially delivered the same speech I gave our first day here when we met the People's Committee, only I made it a little shorter and more cliche (if that's possible). As we finished our mini-press conference, the official awkwardly handed us two wrapped boxes as a gift - when we opened it later we discovered it contained fixings for sweetsoup, which we've decided to re-gift to the family we're building the house for since I think they'd appreciate it more than we would. The whole process involved so much pomp and circumstance and it was really obnoxious because it took time away from our work and we have deadlines to meet.
Finally we made it to the school, but there wasn't as much to do as I'd hoped. I piled bricks and mixed cement for the contractor, but that only took so much time and after that I had nothing to do but go back around to the front and help paint. I was bent over painting the blue footer on the wall when a member of the government representative's staff grabbed my arm and (somewhat forcefully) pulled me away from my work and outside for a group photo - I guess he didn't get enough campaign shots earlier. When I walked outside, I realized the entire caravan from the "press conference" had followed us.
The Vietnamese government is unfailingly committed to structure and consistency. We had painted the entire exterior of the school yellow, but apparently the pillars are always white on schools in this region. Those high spots had taken Kendra and Wen nearly an entire day’s work to paint and it would take at least twice as long to redo it with out watery white paint (which was unlikely to cover the bright yellow). Even after we politely pointed this out to the People’s Committee, they still wanted it redone – it would have just looked absolutely ridiculous otherwise. Eventually, after trying to lay the white on, even they realized how difficult it would be and gave up.
Once again I found myself nervous to teach the older kids. They have higher expectations than the younger ones and to be honest we didn’t have much of a lesson plan for today. We spent most of the time helping them construct kaleidoscopes and then I stalled the rest of the time, trying to explain molecules and density via the liquid demonstration from yesterday (layering cooking oil, water, and condensed milk). I thought we did pretty well considering our resources, though the second class complained that we didn’t teach them long enough. Never have I met kids so eager to learn – they were actually complaining and shaking their heads in disappointment.
When we got back to the hotel, Molly and I finally made progress with our song. We finally found a song that worked well with both of our voices – we downloaded the karaoke version of “For Good” from the musical Wicked. The whole night ended up being nothing but practice. After Molly and I were done for the night, then everyone gathered to practice the group songs, this time adding in a little dance number to the Vietnamese song. The choreography hasn’t quite come together yet but I’m thrilled with my partner – Phat is so much fun and happens to be as uncoordinated as I am. We’re always wonderfully in sync with each other while at the same time wildly off from other people. It’s alright, I’m sure we’ll get there eventually.
Finally we made it to the school, but there wasn't as much to do as I'd hoped. I piled bricks and mixed cement for the contractor, but that only took so much time and after that I had nothing to do but go back around to the front and help paint. I was bent over painting the blue footer on the wall when a member of the government representative's staff grabbed my arm and (somewhat forcefully) pulled me away from my work and outside for a group photo - I guess he didn't get enough campaign shots earlier. When I walked outside, I realized the entire caravan from the "press conference" had followed us.
The Vietnamese government is unfailingly committed to structure and consistency. We had painted the entire exterior of the school yellow, but apparently the pillars are always white on schools in this region. Those high spots had taken Kendra and Wen nearly an entire day’s work to paint and it would take at least twice as long to redo it with out watery white paint (which was unlikely to cover the bright yellow). Even after we politely pointed this out to the People’s Committee, they still wanted it redone – it would have just looked absolutely ridiculous otherwise. Eventually, after trying to lay the white on, even they realized how difficult it would be and gave up.
Once again I found myself nervous to teach the older kids. They have higher expectations than the younger ones and to be honest we didn’t have much of a lesson plan for today. We spent most of the time helping them construct kaleidoscopes and then I stalled the rest of the time, trying to explain molecules and density via the liquid demonstration from yesterday (layering cooking oil, water, and condensed milk). I thought we did pretty well considering our resources, though the second class complained that we didn’t teach them long enough. Never have I met kids so eager to learn – they were actually complaining and shaking their heads in disappointment.
When we got back to the hotel, Molly and I finally made progress with our song. We finally found a song that worked well with both of our voices – we downloaded the karaoke version of “For Good” from the musical Wicked. The whole night ended up being nothing but practice. After Molly and I were done for the night, then everyone gathered to practice the group songs, this time adding in a little dance number to the Vietnamese song. The choreography hasn’t quite come together yet but I’m thrilled with my partner – Phat is so much fun and happens to be as uncoordinated as I am. We’re always wonderfully in sync with each other while at the same time wildly off from other people. It’s alright, I’m sure we’ll get there eventually.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Vietnam Day 44 (7/21/09)
Our beloved contractor (sketchy though he may be) was missing again today (still working at the house), so I helped out with painting like I did yesterday. For a while I had nothing to do but paint the tiny crevices on the window with a second coat of white, which let me tell you is no thrilling task. After that however the blue paint came out, which is even more fun than the yellow. I don't know what it was - perhaps it was satisfying some sort of OCD urges or maybe the color just reminded me of Duke, but either way crouching on the floor meticulously painting that trim was really fun. It could however have been hazardous to my health as my face got very close to the noxious fumes and the paint splatters on my skin have put me at increased risk for lead poisoning (just kidding).
During our cafe break, I was dead tired from my new sleep schedule (which happens to be similar to the absurd hours I pull at Duke) so I didn't really have the energy to play with the kids that come to the cafe every day to see us. To avoid them (as terrible as that sounds), I pretended to be asleep in my chair (a slightly unconvincing act given the two empty glasses of cafe sua nong sitting in front of me). Sadly, these girls have little respect for the weary. They came up behind me while my eyes were closed and started stuffing flowers in my hair with little regard for my "slumber." It was cute as always though - the kids kept taking Kendra's camera to play with and continually ran across the street to the People's Committee building to find even more flowers for us.
Because of all the rain today, we combined our science class with the P.E. class and with the two classes combined, the class felt empty (I guess a lot of the kids just don't come in when it rains). We spent almost the whole time playing indoor games like hopscotch and telephone during the P.E. class, and ended with a short science demonstration. I showed them how different liquid densities cause water, cooking oil, and condensed milk to sit on top of one another without mixing, keeping my explanation in the simplest terms possible.
During our cafe break, I was dead tired from my new sleep schedule (which happens to be similar to the absurd hours I pull at Duke) so I didn't really have the energy to play with the kids that come to the cafe every day to see us. To avoid them (as terrible as that sounds), I pretended to be asleep in my chair (a slightly unconvincing act given the two empty glasses of cafe sua nong sitting in front of me). Sadly, these girls have little respect for the weary. They came up behind me while my eyes were closed and started stuffing flowers in my hair with little regard for my "slumber." It was cute as always though - the kids kept taking Kendra's camera to play with and continually ran across the street to the People's Committee building to find even more flowers for us.
Because of all the rain today, we combined our science class with the P.E. class and with the two classes combined, the class felt empty (I guess a lot of the kids just don't come in when it rains). We spent almost the whole time playing indoor games like hopscotch and telephone during the P.E. class, and ended with a short science demonstration. I showed them how different liquid densities cause water, cooking oil, and condensed milk to sit on top of one another without mixing, keeping my explanation in the simplest terms possible.
Vietnam Day 43 (7/20/09)
It was definitely harder to get up this morning and when we left for our work site, I could feel it was Monday. We actually came to work expecting there to be more progress made on the toilet since the contractor had aid he would work on it over the weekend but not only is the work not done (which is fine of course because I would have wanted to help anyway), but the contractor isn't even here today since he's helping with the house project. Without him, we can't proceed on the project so we just helped paint. I started out with the same watery primer from before and then we broke open the new yellow paint which fortunately wasn't fake this time. It was much more satisfying to use colored paint than it was to put up primer because now we could see our progress as we went along rather than waiting for it to dry before seeing a visible difference - it was such an encouraging sight that we worked even faster than before and painted the entire interior and a good portion of the outside walls in just one morning.
At the cafe this afternoon, the girls reappeared with even more flowers to stick in our hair, once again putting in so many that they wouldn't all fit and were falling out. Ha also made these extraordinary origami cranes out of newspaper and gave them to us as gifts. Today they made us leave our restful cafe, grabbing our hands and leading us across the street to the People's Committee building. We all raced there and played around, then proceeding upstairs where we found a small war museum full of photographs. These things really are everywhere, though this one was more in celebration of victory than in acknowledgment of tragedy like many of the others we've seen. As we walked through the museum, I was reminded why Ha's my favorite student - she's so sweet-tempered and patient. She was the only one of the girls to stop playing long enough to walk around and really look at the pictures, thoughtfully reading the placards next to each one.
None of the science group (Van Anh, Wen, Khang, and myself) went to the school today because we didn't have a class and could make better use of the time by testing our upcoming experiments. We first stopped by the carpenter's shop, nothing more than a work table and oven under a thatched roof awning. The carpenter (who has quite the beer-belly which he unfortunately feels compelled to share with the rest of us by wearing nothing but boxers) had nearly finished constructing the waist-high catapult Wen plans to use for our final class. When we got back to the hotel we tried to salvage my floundering film-canister rocket lesson plan. I needed Alka Seltzer to make the rocket but apparently they don't sell that in Vietnam and the antacid I picked up in Saigon turned out not to be effervescent. However, Van Anh went to the pharmacy here and got an energy drink capsule that works famously. If the kids react to the rocket the same way Van Anh and Khang did, we'll be in good shape - they were so excited they made me do the experiment half-a-dozen times over. As we finished, a slightly drunk guest at the hotel stopped to meet us, vigorously shaking our hands and giving me and Wen his business card. He then made a very strange offering, dropping to a squat and breaking off pieces of the durian he'd just bought, afterwards making us promise to have dinner with him at some unknown place and time. It was a generous offer (and the durian is always appreciated), but I'm not sure we'll ever see him again, let alone have dinner.
At the cafe this afternoon, the girls reappeared with even more flowers to stick in our hair, once again putting in so many that they wouldn't all fit and were falling out. Ha also made these extraordinary origami cranes out of newspaper and gave them to us as gifts. Today they made us leave our restful cafe, grabbing our hands and leading us across the street to the People's Committee building. We all raced there and played around, then proceeding upstairs where we found a small war museum full of photographs. These things really are everywhere, though this one was more in celebration of victory than in acknowledgment of tragedy like many of the others we've seen. As we walked through the museum, I was reminded why Ha's my favorite student - she's so sweet-tempered and patient. She was the only one of the girls to stop playing long enough to walk around and really look at the pictures, thoughtfully reading the placards next to each one.
None of the science group (Van Anh, Wen, Khang, and myself) went to the school today because we didn't have a class and could make better use of the time by testing our upcoming experiments. We first stopped by the carpenter's shop, nothing more than a work table and oven under a thatched roof awning. The carpenter (who has quite the beer-belly which he unfortunately feels compelled to share with the rest of us by wearing nothing but boxers) had nearly finished constructing the waist-high catapult Wen plans to use for our final class. When we got back to the hotel we tried to salvage my floundering film-canister rocket lesson plan. I needed Alka Seltzer to make the rocket but apparently they don't sell that in Vietnam and the antacid I picked up in Saigon turned out not to be effervescent. However, Van Anh went to the pharmacy here and got an energy drink capsule that works famously. If the kids react to the rocket the same way Van Anh and Khang did, we'll be in good shape - they were so excited they made me do the experiment half-a-dozen times over. As we finished, a slightly drunk guest at the hotel stopped to meet us, vigorously shaking our hands and giving me and Wen his business card. He then made a very strange offering, dropping to a squat and breaking off pieces of the durian he'd just bought, afterwards making us promise to have dinner with him at some unknown place and time. It was a generous offer (and the durian is always appreciated), but I'm not sure we'll ever see him again, let alone have dinner.
Vietnam Day 42 (7/19/09)
Today I got much more of the lazy weekend day I was hoping for. We did have one outing in the morning but it was just around the corner. We took a tour of the factory that makes coconut candy, tasty toffee-like chewy candies that are sure to rot your teeth (you can literally feel the tooth decay as you chew). The factory ended up being only two rooms, one with a furnace for burning old coconut shells and mechanized mixers, then another room where a few employees cut the candy into squares while a number of women sitting around two cramped tables wrapped the candies so fast I could hardly see their fingers move (it reminded me of the scene from "Willy Wonka" where Mr. Salt's entire factory is busy unwrapping candy bars at lightning speed). The women wrapping all seemed very nice and smiled sweetly at us as we watched. We got some free samples then bought some sweets for ourselves and biked back to the hotel.
I should have spent the rest of the day journaling, but instead I took it easy with everyone else and just watched movies the whole time (using the projector we brought from the CET office). We ate way too much of our coconut candy while we were watching, but I still managed to have room for dinner. Today Sarah Trent from DukeEngage and Jocelyn from CET arrived to observe our operation. Presumably in their honor, the food served at the hotel was especially good. We made rice paper wraps with excellent char-grilled beef cooked on a skewer wrapped in a special leaf. When we first got the food, the hotel cook didn't give us the traditional fish sauce that goes with the dish because she thought it would be too pungent for our delicate foreign senses. It took some convincing but eventually she brought us the right sauce which ended up being worth the trouble and the smell (which I actually didn't find as bad as everyone else did).
After dinner, everyone gathered to practice the two songs the whole group will sing in the performance - the English song is Michael Jackson's "Heal the World" and the Vietnamese one is "Ngẫu Hứng Lý Ngựa Ô" (which I can't pronounce very well). We're all picking up the Jackson song pretty quickly but the Vietnamese song is a little more challenging for the Americans. The song is sung quite fast, but at least the Americans are only singing the chorus (though that's pretty rough in and of itself). The roommates keep clapping when we sing but without just cause in my opinion. At least we have a little less than a week to practice still.
I should have spent the rest of the day journaling, but instead I took it easy with everyone else and just watched movies the whole time (using the projector we brought from the CET office). We ate way too much of our coconut candy while we were watching, but I still managed to have room for dinner. Today Sarah Trent from DukeEngage and Jocelyn from CET arrived to observe our operation. Presumably in their honor, the food served at the hotel was especially good. We made rice paper wraps with excellent char-grilled beef cooked on a skewer wrapped in a special leaf. When we first got the food, the hotel cook didn't give us the traditional fish sauce that goes with the dish because she thought it would be too pungent for our delicate foreign senses. It took some convincing but eventually she brought us the right sauce which ended up being worth the trouble and the smell (which I actually didn't find as bad as everyone else did).
After dinner, everyone gathered to practice the two songs the whole group will sing in the performance - the English song is Michael Jackson's "Heal the World" and the Vietnamese one is "Ngẫu Hứng Lý Ngựa Ô" (which I can't pronounce very well). We're all picking up the Jackson song pretty quickly but the Vietnamese song is a little more challenging for the Americans. The song is sung quite fast, but at least the Americans are only singing the chorus (though that's pretty rough in and of itself). The roommates keep clapping when we sing but without just cause in my opinion. At least we have a little less than a week to practice still.
Vietnam Day 41 (7/18/09)
Ahh Saturday - I cannot possibly describe how blissful it was to sleep in until 10:00 this morning. The opportunity to be lazy is like a magical gift from the heavens. True, it means I missed formal breakfast, but I was perfectly content with the yogurt and bread with jelly left out for stragglers. Sadly, my beautiful lazy day was interrupted when we all went to the "obligatory" soccer game with the People's Committee. I begrudgingly changed out of my nice clean cloths and back into my grimy work shirt, since we all had to look like a team. I only changed to support my team since I won't be playing - I cut the bottom of my foot on some broken brick embedded in the mud yesterday at the work site and all the chauvinists on the People's Committee team don't want girls to play anyway because they "won't be able to play at their usual level." It really makes no sense for us to agree to those terms because a lot of the American girls are better than the guys at soccer (especially Alex, who's dying to play). Kendra's plan is to go out and play anyway and then "accidentally" kick the People's Committee guys in the shins while aiming for the ball - I showed my support for her noble mission with hysterical laughter.
The soccer pitch was an extremely muddy patch of ground on the side of the road with no nets on the posts and cows grazing just behind each goal. The People's Committee players looked so serious about it with their team jerseys but we didn't care. Despite their request for no female players, our starting lineup included Alex, Kendra, and Van Anh. Our lineup changed a lot throughout the game and we frequently had at least two more players than the opposing team - we even had three goalies near the end of the game. Despite these advantages, we still lost, but at least our muddy players had fun.
A little while after the game ended, we went for dinner at the contractor's house. We were greeted by the contractor's family, which surprisingly included Ha and Yen (two of the cutest little girls at the school) who turned out to be his nieces. They helped us make a tasty drink from tamarind, water, and a lot of sugar. While we drank, the girls adorned us with crowns made from string and yellow flowers and their grandmother proudly pointed to tons of pictures of them that had been slipped under the glass tabletop. The crepe-like pancakes were delicious (though they were filled with perhaps a few too many beansprouts) but the seating arrangement during the meal felt a little strange. There was a girls table where we sat loudly gossiping and laughing about the boys who had their own table so they could drink. There was sporadic exuberant clapping that got more and more frequent as the "men" continued to take shots. For once, I was happy for the sex discrimination. By the time we left, the sun was rapidly setting and we would have to ride home on the same little paths we take every day but this time in total darkness - I didn't need any alcohol to make that a wobbly ride. It was actually really frightening - I had a tiny bit of light from the motorbikes of the People's Committee members riding behind us, but that light was inconsistent and the light on my bike wasn't working. We all did pretty well, systematically calling down the line to warn each other of upcoming bridges (none of which we rode over obviously) and approaching motorbikes. The People's Committee were less organized - one of them was riding next to me and he kept swerving in and out of my "lane," completely freaking me out (maybe he'd had too much rice wine). Still, we all got back without any major accidents and I even rode through the market for the first time, not necessarily a big accomplishment since there were almost no people there at that time of night, but I'll take it.
The soccer pitch was an extremely muddy patch of ground on the side of the road with no nets on the posts and cows grazing just behind each goal. The People's Committee players looked so serious about it with their team jerseys but we didn't care. Despite their request for no female players, our starting lineup included Alex, Kendra, and Van Anh. Our lineup changed a lot throughout the game and we frequently had at least two more players than the opposing team - we even had three goalies near the end of the game. Despite these advantages, we still lost, but at least our muddy players had fun.
A little while after the game ended, we went for dinner at the contractor's house. We were greeted by the contractor's family, which surprisingly included Ha and Yen (two of the cutest little girls at the school) who turned out to be his nieces. They helped us make a tasty drink from tamarind, water, and a lot of sugar. While we drank, the girls adorned us with crowns made from string and yellow flowers and their grandmother proudly pointed to tons of pictures of them that had been slipped under the glass tabletop. The crepe-like pancakes were delicious (though they were filled with perhaps a few too many beansprouts) but the seating arrangement during the meal felt a little strange. There was a girls table where we sat loudly gossiping and laughing about the boys who had their own table so they could drink. There was sporadic exuberant clapping that got more and more frequent as the "men" continued to take shots. For once, I was happy for the sex discrimination. By the time we left, the sun was rapidly setting and we would have to ride home on the same little paths we take every day but this time in total darkness - I didn't need any alcohol to make that a wobbly ride. It was actually really frightening - I had a tiny bit of light from the motorbikes of the People's Committee members riding behind us, but that light was inconsistent and the light on my bike wasn't working. We all did pretty well, systematically calling down the line to warn each other of upcoming bridges (none of which we rode over obviously) and approaching motorbikes. The People's Committee were less organized - one of them was riding next to me and he kept swerving in and out of my "lane," completely freaking me out (maybe he'd had too much rice wine). Still, we all got back without any major accidents and I even rode through the market for the first time, not necessarily a big accomplishment since there were almost no people there at that time of night, but I'll take it.
Vietnam Day 40 (7/17/09)
I was so much more comfortable on the bike today. I still deliver warnings to anyone riding behind me that my riding may be sporadic when I approach bridges, motorbikes, or chickens along those tiny paths leading to the school, but I'm getting better at avoiding a lot of these obstacles. Today I rode over some of the medium-sized stone bridges for the first time, which is a big deal for me because they may not be very high but they're still super-narrow and I always feel like I'm going to fall into the stream. There are still some really high bridges that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to ride over but at least I've made some progress.
I've been helping some with the painting of the school whenever I have a break from work on the toilet, but today the painting crew encountered an obstacle you don't often find in the U.S. so far we've been putting up primer, but today the contractor opened up the actual paint for the first time only to discover that it was fake - it wasn't really paint, just a milky liquid with yellow food coloring. We've been warned about fake goods since coming to Vietnam (not mimic goods that just have fake labels, but fake goods that actually don't serve the function they're meant to). Somehow I always imagined that only foreigners get taken in by these scams and that locals can tell the difference, but now I realize that was completely off.
The toilet project is coming along quite nicely. The cement base dried quickly enough that we could start laying the bricks for the walls. I mixed concrete mortar again today, an arduous process similar to mixing cookie dough but on a much larger scale involving shovels. Today was the first time it wasn't questioned that I would help with shovel in hand and it was quite refreshing. Once we finished mixing, the contractor went to work. This guy is an absolutely ridiculous human being. He's incredibly strong and efficient at his job (he mixes concrete and lays bricks so fast he makes us all look lazy). He's really nice too, though he does have his quirks - when he was talking to Wen earlier he had his hand on Wen's lower back and as he kept talking the hand moved further and further down. I'm sure he was just being friendly and I know guys touching and holding hands is normal here, but even the Vietnamese roommates thought that was pretty awkward.
I made sure Van Anh told the contractor that I wanted to help lay bricks. I was hoping he'd lay the first two layers and then I'd be able to just align the bricks I was laying with the ones already there. Unfortunately, the contractor found it more amusing to give me my first chance by laying the very first layer of the wall. Before I jumped up to start, he put extra pressure on me by joking that he had a wife and kids at home and didn't have time to redo it if I screwed up. It wasn't too difficult, though it was hard to figure out how far on the edge of the concrete floor to start and I was pretty slow going. The process was made slightly more nerve-racking by all the people who'd come to watch the silly American girl try to lay bricks - half a dozen children along with several members of the People's Committee and other contractors had turned this into a spectator's sport. I must say I performed pretty well though. It may have taken me a lot longer than it would have the contractor, but I produced a decently straight row of bricks (straight enough to rival the contractor's row) that will forever be the foundation for this structure. It was really quite fun and I wish I could lay more bricks, but the contractor wants to finish on the weekend when we don't come in, so I guess that was my only shot at it.
After all the work was done, drama ensued. Yesterday, I'd checked for my cellphone at lunch and found it had been stolen out of my purse. When Van Anh reported this to the People's Committee, they snapped into action. Since it's such a small town and everyone knows each other, it wasn't hard to figure out who'd taken it and I had my phone back within half an hour. Apparently, one of the kids had taken it while everyone was occupied in the back yesterday. I had my suspicions about who it was but I didn't want to confirm them at the risk of treating him differently because of the incident (though I can't really see myself doing that in any case). Van Anh and I went to great lengths to convince everyone that I wasn't angry and didn't want to turn this into a big thing. The People's Committee however has its own way of doing things and they weren't about to take my advice on this matter. They proceeded to sit down with Van Anh and draw up a number of official documents for us to sign - by official documents I of course mean hand-written letters on lined notebook paper. They then took my phone back from me for about an hour until they could return it to me with all due pomp and circumstance. I was taken to an office at the People's Committee headquarters where the boy who'd taken the phone, his grandmother, and an out-of-uniform comp were all sitting around a desk. It was the same boy I'd expected, a tall skinny kid with a mushroom haircut. I tried to give him an encouraging smile but he did his best to avoid eye-contact with me. His grandmother apologized for the boy but said he was just a curious kid (a fact I understood full well) and that she would teach him better next time. I made it as clear as possible to everyone in the room that it was really alright. I turned to the boy whose head was drooping into his chest, his cheeks flushed and dripping with tears. I patted him on the shoulder, gave him a smile and said "see you in school" in Vietnamese (since we were most worried that this incident would keep him from coming back to class). I felt so sorry for him - the crime really wasn't severe enough for all the People's Committee put him through and he only had to go through it because I'm a foreigner and the government is desperate to save face.
The rest of our break was spent back at the cafe where we were attacked by children bearing flowers. Nhi, Ha, Yen, and the other Yen, along with some of the other schoolgirls stuck dozens of flowers in our hair. Some were less flattering than others - for instance I ended up with a random purple flower hanging down in the middle of my forehead, not a good look for me. They guys didn't escape either, Ming and Wen ending up with the most out of anyone because the flowers fit so perfectly in the crooks of their glasses. To avoid insulting the girls, most of us left the flowers in during classes in the afternoon. It's possible we lost some credibility because of how ridiculous we looked, but it was fun. However, it may not have been the best day for reporters from the local newspaper to be there snapping pictures. We're essentially celebrities here, so the photographer followed us around, rather obnoxiously getting in our faces when we were trying to teach. Not that there was much teaching to be done of course. We once again had only English class for the whole two hours, so half of us stood around with literally nothing to do. I made quite an effort for a while, trying to engage the two trouble-makers in the back row. One of them actually turned out to be a really good kid with pretty good English pronunciation when he tried, but he was under the influence of the truly unruly boy. This older boy was all trouble, not doing any of the work and noticeably mocking me in Vietnamese. Nevertheless, I stood there at there bench in the back for the entire period, but after that there was nothing more I could do - they'd reached their limit with me and I had nothing else to do but join the rest of our idle volunteers outside. The saddest part of the day though was that the boy who'd taken my phone never showed up. Then again, he did have a very emotional day so I'll just have to hope he's there on Monday.
I've been helping some with the painting of the school whenever I have a break from work on the toilet, but today the painting crew encountered an obstacle you don't often find in the U.S. so far we've been putting up primer, but today the contractor opened up the actual paint for the first time only to discover that it was fake - it wasn't really paint, just a milky liquid with yellow food coloring. We've been warned about fake goods since coming to Vietnam (not mimic goods that just have fake labels, but fake goods that actually don't serve the function they're meant to). Somehow I always imagined that only foreigners get taken in by these scams and that locals can tell the difference, but now I realize that was completely off.
The toilet project is coming along quite nicely. The cement base dried quickly enough that we could start laying the bricks for the walls. I mixed concrete mortar again today, an arduous process similar to mixing cookie dough but on a much larger scale involving shovels. Today was the first time it wasn't questioned that I would help with shovel in hand and it was quite refreshing. Once we finished mixing, the contractor went to work. This guy is an absolutely ridiculous human being. He's incredibly strong and efficient at his job (he mixes concrete and lays bricks so fast he makes us all look lazy). He's really nice too, though he does have his quirks - when he was talking to Wen earlier he had his hand on Wen's lower back and as he kept talking the hand moved further and further down. I'm sure he was just being friendly and I know guys touching and holding hands is normal here, but even the Vietnamese roommates thought that was pretty awkward.
I made sure Van Anh told the contractor that I wanted to help lay bricks. I was hoping he'd lay the first two layers and then I'd be able to just align the bricks I was laying with the ones already there. Unfortunately, the contractor found it more amusing to give me my first chance by laying the very first layer of the wall. Before I jumped up to start, he put extra pressure on me by joking that he had a wife and kids at home and didn't have time to redo it if I screwed up. It wasn't too difficult, though it was hard to figure out how far on the edge of the concrete floor to start and I was pretty slow going. The process was made slightly more nerve-racking by all the people who'd come to watch the silly American girl try to lay bricks - half a dozen children along with several members of the People's Committee and other contractors had turned this into a spectator's sport. I must say I performed pretty well though. It may have taken me a lot longer than it would have the contractor, but I produced a decently straight row of bricks (straight enough to rival the contractor's row) that will forever be the foundation for this structure. It was really quite fun and I wish I could lay more bricks, but the contractor wants to finish on the weekend when we don't come in, so I guess that was my only shot at it.
After all the work was done, drama ensued. Yesterday, I'd checked for my cellphone at lunch and found it had been stolen out of my purse. When Van Anh reported this to the People's Committee, they snapped into action. Since it's such a small town and everyone knows each other, it wasn't hard to figure out who'd taken it and I had my phone back within half an hour. Apparently, one of the kids had taken it while everyone was occupied in the back yesterday. I had my suspicions about who it was but I didn't want to confirm them at the risk of treating him differently because of the incident (though I can't really see myself doing that in any case). Van Anh and I went to great lengths to convince everyone that I wasn't angry and didn't want to turn this into a big thing. The People's Committee however has its own way of doing things and they weren't about to take my advice on this matter. They proceeded to sit down with Van Anh and draw up a number of official documents for us to sign - by official documents I of course mean hand-written letters on lined notebook paper. They then took my phone back from me for about an hour until they could return it to me with all due pomp and circumstance. I was taken to an office at the People's Committee headquarters where the boy who'd taken the phone, his grandmother, and an out-of-uniform comp were all sitting around a desk. It was the same boy I'd expected, a tall skinny kid with a mushroom haircut. I tried to give him an encouraging smile but he did his best to avoid eye-contact with me. His grandmother apologized for the boy but said he was just a curious kid (a fact I understood full well) and that she would teach him better next time. I made it as clear as possible to everyone in the room that it was really alright. I turned to the boy whose head was drooping into his chest, his cheeks flushed and dripping with tears. I patted him on the shoulder, gave him a smile and said "see you in school" in Vietnamese (since we were most worried that this incident would keep him from coming back to class). I felt so sorry for him - the crime really wasn't severe enough for all the People's Committee put him through and he only had to go through it because I'm a foreigner and the government is desperate to save face.
The rest of our break was spent back at the cafe where we were attacked by children bearing flowers. Nhi, Ha, Yen, and the other Yen, along with some of the other schoolgirls stuck dozens of flowers in our hair. Some were less flattering than others - for instance I ended up with a random purple flower hanging down in the middle of my forehead, not a good look for me. They guys didn't escape either, Ming and Wen ending up with the most out of anyone because the flowers fit so perfectly in the crooks of their glasses. To avoid insulting the girls, most of us left the flowers in during classes in the afternoon. It's possible we lost some credibility because of how ridiculous we looked, but it was fun. However, it may not have been the best day for reporters from the local newspaper to be there snapping pictures. We're essentially celebrities here, so the photographer followed us around, rather obnoxiously getting in our faces when we were trying to teach. Not that there was much teaching to be done of course. We once again had only English class for the whole two hours, so half of us stood around with literally nothing to do. I made quite an effort for a while, trying to engage the two trouble-makers in the back row. One of them actually turned out to be a really good kid with pretty good English pronunciation when he tried, but he was under the influence of the truly unruly boy. This older boy was all trouble, not doing any of the work and noticeably mocking me in Vietnamese. Nevertheless, I stood there at there bench in the back for the entire period, but after that there was nothing more I could do - they'd reached their limit with me and I had nothing else to do but join the rest of our idle volunteers outside. The saddest part of the day though was that the boy who'd taken my phone never showed up. Then again, he did have a very emotional day so I'll just have to hope he's there on Monday.
Vietnam Day 39 (7/16/09)
I was jarred awake by a loud knock on the door. It was 12:30 in the morning and I was hardly coherent. Van Anh answered the door and she told me it was the police. I remember mumbling "what do they want?" just before my head hit the pillow again and I fell back to sleep without waiting for the answer. At a more humane hour, I asked again and Van Anh told me the police are allowed to do random checks of the hotel (which traditionally occur during the witching hour) because it also offers karaoke and massages, which are often fronts for brothels. They were interested in us because they found out Alice was with us but the only names they had on their registry were the students, Van Anh worked it out of course, but it was a reminder that I'm in a communist country and monitored all the time.
After my casual breakfast of eggs and malaria pills, I got back on my mortal enemy the bicycle and set off to the school. I did rather well on the bike today, not crashing once, though I had to do some pretty tricky maneuvers a couple of times to achieve this record success. When I went around back, I found the toilet area much different from how we left it yesterday. The bricks had been built up all the way around up to ground level - apparently the bricklayer had finished this first step of the foundation after we'd left yesterday. We started our work day by carrying wooden planks from down the road to use as a base for the concrete floor. After that we had to wait for the rain to stop before continuing so we went inside to help paint the school. We were still using the splotchy primer that consisted mostly of river water. When I made the first stroke with the primitive but ingenious straw brush, the white milky substance cascaded down the walls.
I was so busy painting that I didn't realize people were out back working on the toilet again. I was kind of annoyed that I wasn't told that we could go back to work but it was alright, I just went back and found something to do. As the day went on, I experienced more and more examples of the different accepted roles for men and women in Vietnam. Not only was the bricklayer (our main contractor) reluctant to let me do any of the tough physical work, but Van Anh too kept calling for a "big strong man" to help her with things that I could have done just as easily (like shoveling concrete). I'm not sure if I have different expectations because of my upbringing or if the American girls are simply physically stronger than a lot of Vietnamese women (which seems highly unlikely given the work I've seen some of the women do), but for whatever reason no one ever wants to let me work on my own project but they always call for a boy to help them. I've been pretty good about being assertive and pushing my way in to do a job. I've developed a wonderful system for finding out when there's physical work to be done: I work next to the boys and follow wherever the contractor sends them.
I've had great success with this system and so far I've had a chance to mix concrete (combining of sand, powdered cement, water, and small stones - definitely not a job intended for women) and create a metal grate to act as a frame for the cement that will go on the floor. Making the grate was a very interesting process. We laid short poles intertwined with longer ones set perpendicular to each other and then we took tiny pieces of wire and used a hooked tool (that resembled those used in crocheting) to twist small metal wires at each poles' intersection to secure them together. I'm actually really surprised the contractor let us girls do that job. The other project is working on rebuilding a house and the contractors there wouldn't let any of the students put the frame together. The work I did today wasn't as tiring as in previous days, but it took longer. We had to finish the foundation of the house today before leaving or the concrete would dry up. This ended up being a much longer process than expected since the wooden base we poured the concrete onto collapsed mid-way through, so we had to start over, resetting the boards before laying the concrete down again. By the end we had everyone involved because all of the girls who'd been painting the school were done for the day so we created a very effective conveyor-belt system to pass the concrete.
Even with all those people helping we were still almost an hour late for lunch. Today the mothers made one of the best meals I've had here yet, a vegetarian curry with heavenly potatoes. After lunch, Van Anh and I took our turn washing the dishes. We took them around back where we squatted on the ground next to a tap and hand washed the dishes the best we could. All the while, one of the mothers was squatting next to us trying to take the dishes out of our hands while yelling at us because, as she said, we were already tired and cleaning was her job. Nevertheless, we were committed to helping and stayed until the job was done.
Teaching this afternoon was a little disorganized as usual - it's always unclear who's teaching what and when. A lot of us end up just standing around with nothing to teach because we have too many people instructing so Molly and I decided to make use of our idle time by going to the next room and trying to figure out what song to sing for the duet we're doing at the performance for the school children and People's Committee next weekend. We did actually get to help a little with the P.E. class afterwards, playing a game outside with the kids. Still, I feel like they didn't need me at all to teach the kids how to play the game - I just wish there was more I could really do to help instead of standing around feeling useless.
After my casual breakfast of eggs and malaria pills, I got back on my mortal enemy the bicycle and set off to the school. I did rather well on the bike today, not crashing once, though I had to do some pretty tricky maneuvers a couple of times to achieve this record success. When I went around back, I found the toilet area much different from how we left it yesterday. The bricks had been built up all the way around up to ground level - apparently the bricklayer had finished this first step of the foundation after we'd left yesterday. We started our work day by carrying wooden planks from down the road to use as a base for the concrete floor. After that we had to wait for the rain to stop before continuing so we went inside to help paint the school. We were still using the splotchy primer that consisted mostly of river water. When I made the first stroke with the primitive but ingenious straw brush, the white milky substance cascaded down the walls.
I was so busy painting that I didn't realize people were out back working on the toilet again. I was kind of annoyed that I wasn't told that we could go back to work but it was alright, I just went back and found something to do. As the day went on, I experienced more and more examples of the different accepted roles for men and women in Vietnam. Not only was the bricklayer (our main contractor) reluctant to let me do any of the tough physical work, but Van Anh too kept calling for a "big strong man" to help her with things that I could have done just as easily (like shoveling concrete). I'm not sure if I have different expectations because of my upbringing or if the American girls are simply physically stronger than a lot of Vietnamese women (which seems highly unlikely given the work I've seen some of the women do), but for whatever reason no one ever wants to let me work on my own project but they always call for a boy to help them. I've been pretty good about being assertive and pushing my way in to do a job. I've developed a wonderful system for finding out when there's physical work to be done: I work next to the boys and follow wherever the contractor sends them.
I've had great success with this system and so far I've had a chance to mix concrete (combining of sand, powdered cement, water, and small stones - definitely not a job intended for women) and create a metal grate to act as a frame for the cement that will go on the floor. Making the grate was a very interesting process. We laid short poles intertwined with longer ones set perpendicular to each other and then we took tiny pieces of wire and used a hooked tool (that resembled those used in crocheting) to twist small metal wires at each poles' intersection to secure them together. I'm actually really surprised the contractor let us girls do that job. The other project is working on rebuilding a house and the contractors there wouldn't let any of the students put the frame together. The work I did today wasn't as tiring as in previous days, but it took longer. We had to finish the foundation of the house today before leaving or the concrete would dry up. This ended up being a much longer process than expected since the wooden base we poured the concrete onto collapsed mid-way through, so we had to start over, resetting the boards before laying the concrete down again. By the end we had everyone involved because all of the girls who'd been painting the school were done for the day so we created a very effective conveyor-belt system to pass the concrete.
Even with all those people helping we were still almost an hour late for lunch. Today the mothers made one of the best meals I've had here yet, a vegetarian curry with heavenly potatoes. After lunch, Van Anh and I took our turn washing the dishes. We took them around back where we squatted on the ground next to a tap and hand washed the dishes the best we could. All the while, one of the mothers was squatting next to us trying to take the dishes out of our hands while yelling at us because, as she said, we were already tired and cleaning was her job. Nevertheless, we were committed to helping and stayed until the job was done.
Teaching this afternoon was a little disorganized as usual - it's always unclear who's teaching what and when. A lot of us end up just standing around with nothing to teach because we have too many people instructing so Molly and I decided to make use of our idle time by going to the next room and trying to figure out what song to sing for the duet we're doing at the performance for the school children and People's Committee next weekend. We did actually get to help a little with the P.E. class afterwards, playing a game outside with the kids. Still, I feel like they didn't need me at all to teach the kids how to play the game - I just wish there was more I could really do to help instead of standing around feeling useless.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Vietnam Day 38 (7/15/09)
I woke up today with the terrifying knowledge that I'd have to get back on the bike for the first time since my wipeout yesterday (yes I know, I still can't believe I'm afraid of a bicycle). I got a reprieve however because my bike was still at the school being fixed so I was "forced" to ride with Van Anh. We made it to the school without incident, though I've noticed a trend where I and anyone towing me are always the last to arrive (guess I'm heavier than I thought). I went straight around the bakc to check on our tin structure (we propped up a couple sheets of metal like a roof to protect the hole against rain), which was still standing (shocking given the storm yesterday) though it only helped so much as the hole had still turned entirely to mud.
Nevertheless, a little mud was not about to stop me from jumping in and digging. It was a little more difficult at first but that was primarily because my feet felt so heavy in the mud. The mud was like clay and I could hardly see any of my boots beneath all the mud caked up on them. I soon followed the locals, taking off my shoes entirely. It was a little more dangerous using shovels with bare feet, but we were careful. I found a great system for leveraging the shovel with only my upper body, which took a little more effort but I didn't have to press on it with my foot. the other Americans were eventually convinced to take off their shoes as well, though I think they were still nervous about the "burrowing maggots" we'd been warned of before coming (the way I see it, if they're going to get you, it will happen so why waste time worrying about it). By the time we finished the hole, we'd dug so far down that we were standing ankle deep in river water and we'd apparently made the perimeter about a meter longer than necessary - now that's commitment. We then moved on to trying to flatten out the dirt (well now mud) path we'd made from the door to the toilet using the dirt from the hole.
Alex, Kendra, and Wen had all come out to help because, after having almost no volunteers in the beginning, the toilet project has turned out to be the most popular. We also had help from the three little local girls we teach in the afternoon, Nhi (the same girl who's been helping us the past couple days) and her friends Ha and Yen. They helped us move bags of dirt from the hole to the path like yesterday (although Yen, dressed in a frilly white polk-a-dot outfit and pink pearls, daintily moved one grapefruit-sized chunk of mud at a time so she wouldn't get dirty) and alter started to help us flatten the path with our feet. They were a big help at first, but suddenly became a huge distraction by starting a mud fight. It started with them wiping mud on our feet and dashing away laughing as we did it back to them. It eventually escalated to them rubbing mud all over our arms and legs until we'd developed a second skin of slightly crusty mud. When they were finally tired of playing, they took me over to a bucket of river water to wash my hands and arms. We'd been told before coming that along with the burrowing maggots, the water here can "make you itchy" (for some unknown, no doubt disgusting reason), so we were all reluctant to wash up. However, the girls kept pressuring me so I decided to go for it then rinse off a little with bottled water afterwards. Apparently it gained me some brownie points with the girls who went over to Kendra and Alex and called them lazy for not washing their hands.
Before we could start building the foundation for the toilet, we had to wait for the tide to go down so we could get rid of all the water in the hole. In the meantime, a shipment of building supplies came in. The little wooden river boat just pulled up alongside the school and the men on board started rapidly unloading piles of bricks, cement sand and gravel all around our hole. The local men helping us build wouldn't let any of us except Wen mix the cement (which was rather annoying of them), but they did let me shovel gravel, which was pretty hard work (I mean this only in the most positive sense). We're not supposed to help at all on the actual brick laying portion of the foundation. They don't want us to hurt ourselves or lay the bricks crooked (in which case they'd have to rebuild it) - essentially the don't trust us, especially the girls. One of them said that if he had a daughter he wouldn't let her do the Green Summer Campaign because it's too hard. I rather resented this chauvinist attitude (a common one in Vietnam I'm afraid). I may be small but I was strong enough to dig out chunks of dirt just as big as the ones the guys were shoveling out - I can hack it. I understand for right now he's laying the foundation, which I want him to do so we can make sure the base of the building is perfect, but I watched him lay the bricks and I feel like we could manage it. Tomorrow I'm just going to have to assert myself and jump in there no matter what crack they may make about girls. When there was nothing more to do, we played with some adorable puppies at the little cafe next door and then helped the school group apply crappy primer that was mostly water and just made the walls look dirty when it went on (applied with brushes made from straw). It was fun in its own way, but I still hold that the toilet is the most fun.
Since my bike was fixed and waiting at the school, I had no choice but to ride it back on my own. The ride was fine, though I was still swerving a lot but the point is I made it safely to lunch. When I got there I went behind the mother's house to rinse off my legs since they were covered in mud. One of the daughters in law helped by pouring water from a bowl onto my legs while I scrubbed dried mud off until I was presentable. That afternoon at the cafe, Nhi and a bunch of other kids showed up. They were all completely adorable, tickle-attacking me, Molly, and Kendra (a little more dangerous in Kendra's case since she was tilting precariously in a hammock), then all gathering around us as they took turns writing their names and drawing pictures in Kendra's journal.
We were scheduled to teach two science classes today with the younger kids from the first day. We started off again with the Mentos and soda demonstration but with mixed results. We'd bought a Vietnamese brand of soda instead of the Seven-up like last time (because it was cheaper), but when we did the experiment, the soda bubbled over but didn't shoot up like like it's meant to because the Vietnamese soda wasn't carbonated enough. For the next class Ming ran across the street to get Seven-up so we had a much more impressive demonstration. In both classes, we hit a wall with the science lesson because once Van Anh explained her kaleidoscope assignment we had nothing else to teach so Kendra and I started teaching them new English songs like "Heads, shoulders, knees, and toes." It was a little embarrassing but they liked it and it was definitely fun. We also taught some conversational English, going around asking "how are you?" I find it really hard to approach the kids because I don't know Vietnamese, not to mention I feel bad for singling them out to speak in front of the class since I always hated that when I was little.
I was one of the last people out when we were leaving the school and through some horrible mix up, I was left to get back to the hotel by myself. For a few minutes, I was freaking out. I was pretty confident in my ability to figure out the way back on my own, but I'm still the worst bike rider in the group. The mental picture of myself sprawled out on the side of the road, tangled in the twisted metal of my bike spokes was not an appealing one. I tried calling everyone in the group up ahead of me, but no one picked up so I had no choice but to carry on the best I could. I must say I did very well and even had the energy to stop in the market on the way to get one of those amazing bananas in sticky rice that I had the other day. I considered it my reward for getting back without dying.
Nevertheless, a little mud was not about to stop me from jumping in and digging. It was a little more difficult at first but that was primarily because my feet felt so heavy in the mud. The mud was like clay and I could hardly see any of my boots beneath all the mud caked up on them. I soon followed the locals, taking off my shoes entirely. It was a little more dangerous using shovels with bare feet, but we were careful. I found a great system for leveraging the shovel with only my upper body, which took a little more effort but I didn't have to press on it with my foot. the other Americans were eventually convinced to take off their shoes as well, though I think they were still nervous about the "burrowing maggots" we'd been warned of before coming (the way I see it, if they're going to get you, it will happen so why waste time worrying about it). By the time we finished the hole, we'd dug so far down that we were standing ankle deep in river water and we'd apparently made the perimeter about a meter longer than necessary - now that's commitment. We then moved on to trying to flatten out the dirt (well now mud) path we'd made from the door to the toilet using the dirt from the hole.
Alex, Kendra, and Wen had all come out to help because, after having almost no volunteers in the beginning, the toilet project has turned out to be the most popular. We also had help from the three little local girls we teach in the afternoon, Nhi (the same girl who's been helping us the past couple days) and her friends Ha and Yen. They helped us move bags of dirt from the hole to the path like yesterday (although Yen, dressed in a frilly white polk-a-dot outfit and pink pearls, daintily moved one grapefruit-sized chunk of mud at a time so she wouldn't get dirty) and alter started to help us flatten the path with our feet. They were a big help at first, but suddenly became a huge distraction by starting a mud fight. It started with them wiping mud on our feet and dashing away laughing as we did it back to them. It eventually escalated to them rubbing mud all over our arms and legs until we'd developed a second skin of slightly crusty mud. When they were finally tired of playing, they took me over to a bucket of river water to wash my hands and arms. We'd been told before coming that along with the burrowing maggots, the water here can "make you itchy" (for some unknown, no doubt disgusting reason), so we were all reluctant to wash up. However, the girls kept pressuring me so I decided to go for it then rinse off a little with bottled water afterwards. Apparently it gained me some brownie points with the girls who went over to Kendra and Alex and called them lazy for not washing their hands.
Before we could start building the foundation for the toilet, we had to wait for the tide to go down so we could get rid of all the water in the hole. In the meantime, a shipment of building supplies came in. The little wooden river boat just pulled up alongside the school and the men on board started rapidly unloading piles of bricks, cement sand and gravel all around our hole. The local men helping us build wouldn't let any of us except Wen mix the cement (which was rather annoying of them), but they did let me shovel gravel, which was pretty hard work (I mean this only in the most positive sense). We're not supposed to help at all on the actual brick laying portion of the foundation. They don't want us to hurt ourselves or lay the bricks crooked (in which case they'd have to rebuild it) - essentially the don't trust us, especially the girls. One of them said that if he had a daughter he wouldn't let her do the Green Summer Campaign because it's too hard. I rather resented this chauvinist attitude (a common one in Vietnam I'm afraid). I may be small but I was strong enough to dig out chunks of dirt just as big as the ones the guys were shoveling out - I can hack it. I understand for right now he's laying the foundation, which I want him to do so we can make sure the base of the building is perfect, but I watched him lay the bricks and I feel like we could manage it. Tomorrow I'm just going to have to assert myself and jump in there no matter what crack they may make about girls. When there was nothing more to do, we played with some adorable puppies at the little cafe next door and then helped the school group apply crappy primer that was mostly water and just made the walls look dirty when it went on (applied with brushes made from straw). It was fun in its own way, but I still hold that the toilet is the most fun.
Since my bike was fixed and waiting at the school, I had no choice but to ride it back on my own. The ride was fine, though I was still swerving a lot but the point is I made it safely to lunch. When I got there I went behind the mother's house to rinse off my legs since they were covered in mud. One of the daughters in law helped by pouring water from a bowl onto my legs while I scrubbed dried mud off until I was presentable. That afternoon at the cafe, Nhi and a bunch of other kids showed up. They were all completely adorable, tickle-attacking me, Molly, and Kendra (a little more dangerous in Kendra's case since she was tilting precariously in a hammock), then all gathering around us as they took turns writing their names and drawing pictures in Kendra's journal.
We were scheduled to teach two science classes today with the younger kids from the first day. We started off again with the Mentos and soda demonstration but with mixed results. We'd bought a Vietnamese brand of soda instead of the Seven-up like last time (because it was cheaper), but when we did the experiment, the soda bubbled over but didn't shoot up like like it's meant to because the Vietnamese soda wasn't carbonated enough. For the next class Ming ran across the street to get Seven-up so we had a much more impressive demonstration. In both classes, we hit a wall with the science lesson because once Van Anh explained her kaleidoscope assignment we had nothing else to teach so Kendra and I started teaching them new English songs like "Heads, shoulders, knees, and toes." It was a little embarrassing but they liked it and it was definitely fun. We also taught some conversational English, going around asking "how are you?" I find it really hard to approach the kids because I don't know Vietnamese, not to mention I feel bad for singling them out to speak in front of the class since I always hated that when I was little.
I was one of the last people out when we were leaving the school and through some horrible mix up, I was left to get back to the hotel by myself. For a few minutes, I was freaking out. I was pretty confident in my ability to figure out the way back on my own, but I'm still the worst bike rider in the group. The mental picture of myself sprawled out on the side of the road, tangled in the twisted metal of my bike spokes was not an appealing one. I tried calling everyone in the group up ahead of me, but no one picked up so I had no choice but to carry on the best I could. I must say I did very well and even had the energy to stop in the market on the way to get one of those amazing bananas in sticky rice that I had the other day. I considered it my reward for getting back without dying.
Vietnam Day 37 (7/14/09)
Some decisions have a way of coming back to nip you in the butt later in life – for me, that fateful mistake was not learning to ride a bike until I was fourteen. As a result of this decision, I had almost no experience riding a bike before coming to Ben Tre. The morning bike ride to the school started out reasonably well for the first few meters, but then we came to the market. I’m obviously not confident enough to ride through such a tiny space so I got off and walked like before. As it happens, I’m just as incompetent at walking a bike as I am riding one and I accidentally walked the front wheel right into the back of a little old woman’s foot. I felt so terrible and I was really apologetic, but no matter how many times I said “xin loi” she just kept scowling at me and ranting in Vietnamese. While I stood there apologizing, the rest of the group kept going and by the time I looked up they were out of sight and I was lost. I called Van Anh and she gave me directions out of the market and went with me the rest of the way.
The street wasn’t bad but when I hit that little cement path I got really nervous and wobbly. On one particular turn I lost control of the handlebars and turned right into a ditch. I stopped the bike from rolling all the way to the bottom, landing on my side with my cheek in the mud and the bike on top of me, my legs tangled in it. For a few moments I couldn’t move – I was in complete shock, my mind went blank and I started inadvertently tearing up. I came to my senses as Alice grabbed my shoulder to help me out. It took a while for me to actually get out because the bike was wedged in some plants and I was trapped underneath. I moved very tenderly, checking each limb to make sure I wasn’t hurt. Eventually I managed to untangle my legs and pushed myself up from the muddy slope. It was low tide so I didn’t get wet, but the mud was disgusting, squishing between my fingers and sticking to everything.
When I got back to the walkway I found a lot of people waiting for me. Along with Alice and Loan, I was greeted by the concerned faces of two men who help us repair the school as well as a few other random cyclists who’d stopped to help. It really was an amazingly fast response and it was nice to know we have that support system here, though frankly I was mostly embarrassed to have all these people see me pulled out of a ditch covered in mud. After my bike was retrieved, I jumped back on and continued on. However, I was really gun-shy after my last fall so it was taking me so long I eventually stopped altogether and rode on the back of Loan’s bike. I felt like such an infant for being scared of a bike but I was really emotional by this point.
I tried to use the time on Loan’s bike to compose myself but we were closer to the school than I thought so I didn’t quite have it together when we arrived. Of course the first people I saw were the schoolchildren there to watch us and, since I teach them in the afternoon, I really didn’t want them to see me like that – I rushed inside, pulled myself together and went back out to check on the toilet situation.
We planned to start digging the septic tank today and a couple of guys from our project came out to help. However, help turned into them doing all the work, leaving me with nothing to do but go inside the school and help sand. Finally, I reasserted myself and went back out to claim a shovel. It was at this point that we spoke with the community members again and found out we needed to make the hole about ten times bigger than we’d planned so that we could lay a foundation for the bathroom floor. This was the perfect opportunity for me to jump back in there and get my hands dirty. At first, the local man who’s been helping with the toilet project didn’t want any of us (including the other guys) to do anything because he didn’t want us to hurt ourselves. Eventually we just had to give it a go and he backed off and just offered assistance and supervised. I think he was actually impressed and/or surprised that I could do the digging.
We worked in teams to carry dirt from the hole over to the wall of the school to make a path to the toilet. The little girl Nhi who helped us yesterday came out to help us again. She’s one of the most adorable little girls I’ve ever seen and I was so excited when she learned my name. She’s an amazingly hard worker, helping us not only with cleaning the school but also with moving the big piles of dirt for the path – the first time she helped with it, I had playfully prompted her to team up with me to move one of the sacks, not expecting her to do it but she picked up the heavy load with me and kept on doing it for the rest of the morning. I was so proud when she picked up the shovel and tried to dig after watching me for a while – she didn’t do too badly considering how thick the dirt was. I really wanted to show her that women can do more than just the roles traditional outlined for them. As we were finishing up, our local friend supervising the toilet work singled me out to go around the edges making the edges straight. I was really excited that he asked me because it was a pretty tough job – I had to slam the shovel down into the ground with both considerable force and decent aim. That was the most difficult part of the day. I must say I did pretty well, though all I wanted after we finished was a cold glass of water and a defibrillator.
It turns out my bike was broken (though it remains unclear whether that caused my crash or if my crash broke it), so we left it at the school for someone to fix and I rode on Phat’s bike to go to lunch. Phat (the former assistant of CET, not Phil’s roommate Phat) is just awesome. He’s really nice and helpful about all of my bike problems and is just a really fun person to hang out with. On the way to lunch, we talked and sang “In the Jungle” as we rode. Lunch today was as excellent as yesterday, though it seems the theme today was pumpkin since we had pumpkin shrimp soup and it was also added to both pork dishes as well as Alex’s vegetarian dishes. At the coffee shop, I was so tired but I made the effort to stay awake because this was our last opportunity to talk to Rylan and Chi Hao. They were leaving for Chicago to work out details on Rylan’s new job at Loyola and they wouldn’t be coming back until after we left. It was quite sad to see them go, but it’s hard to make anything truly sad with Rylan walking around chatting cheerfully.
While we were at the cafe, it started pouring buckets. This was possibly the most intense rain I’d seen since coming to Vietnam. We moved our bikes in and sat in the cafe enjoying the spray that blew in and shouting to each other, trying to hold a conversation over the deafening pounding of rain on the tin roof. It stopped long enough for us to get over to the school, but when we got there we found most of the grounds flooded. There was one spot in particular where we had to cross that was deep enough I thought water might get into even my high-topped hiking boots. We were about to give up and ford the river but then we found a few bricks and created stepping stones so we could tip-toe across.
Today we met the older students, which actually made me more nervous than yesterday because middle-schoolers are generally less eager to learn than are elementary school students, not to mention less entertained by silly activities. We managed alright though, first teaching the same introductory English lesson we did yesterday and then jumping right into the science class. We started the class off with a bang, taking them outside to demonstrate the experiment where you drop Mentos into soda and it fizzes over. We had a little trouble explaining the scientific mechanisms behind it because of the translation issue but we found a pretty simple way of getting the point across. I still don't know how much the kids learned but at least they were entertained (and after all, the main goal of our class is to show them that science is fun).
To get back to the hotel, I rode on the back of Khang's bike again, which made me feel a little helpless, but it was a good way to see more of the town. It was raining so we were all wearing ridiculously colorful ponchos and got a lot of stares for it. Still, I preferred those incredulous stares to the pitifully sad looks we got from two children standing near the road holding their hands over their heads in a futile attempt to keep dry. After dinner, Molly, Loan, My, and I did karaoke at the hotel - because there were fewer people to judge us, Molly and I sang at the top of our lungs making complete fools of ourselves, embracing the true spirit of karaoke. After that, a large group of us gathered in Kendra's room to eat grapefruit and mangaya (a cross between a mango and a papaya). We set up the iPod speakers and then, out of nowhere, Kendra turned off the lights and put her headlamp on the strobe-light setting and we had an impromptu dance party. Normally we would have been worried about waking the neighbors, but it's only fair since they keep us awake every night with dreadful, off-key karaoke.
The street wasn’t bad but when I hit that little cement path I got really nervous and wobbly. On one particular turn I lost control of the handlebars and turned right into a ditch. I stopped the bike from rolling all the way to the bottom, landing on my side with my cheek in the mud and the bike on top of me, my legs tangled in it. For a few moments I couldn’t move – I was in complete shock, my mind went blank and I started inadvertently tearing up. I came to my senses as Alice grabbed my shoulder to help me out. It took a while for me to actually get out because the bike was wedged in some plants and I was trapped underneath. I moved very tenderly, checking each limb to make sure I wasn’t hurt. Eventually I managed to untangle my legs and pushed myself up from the muddy slope. It was low tide so I didn’t get wet, but the mud was disgusting, squishing between my fingers and sticking to everything.
When I got back to the walkway I found a lot of people waiting for me. Along with Alice and Loan, I was greeted by the concerned faces of two men who help us repair the school as well as a few other random cyclists who’d stopped to help. It really was an amazingly fast response and it was nice to know we have that support system here, though frankly I was mostly embarrassed to have all these people see me pulled out of a ditch covered in mud. After my bike was retrieved, I jumped back on and continued on. However, I was really gun-shy after my last fall so it was taking me so long I eventually stopped altogether and rode on the back of Loan’s bike. I felt like such an infant for being scared of a bike but I was really emotional by this point.
I tried to use the time on Loan’s bike to compose myself but we were closer to the school than I thought so I didn’t quite have it together when we arrived. Of course the first people I saw were the schoolchildren there to watch us and, since I teach them in the afternoon, I really didn’t want them to see me like that – I rushed inside, pulled myself together and went back out to check on the toilet situation.
We planned to start digging the septic tank today and a couple of guys from our project came out to help. However, help turned into them doing all the work, leaving me with nothing to do but go inside the school and help sand. Finally, I reasserted myself and went back out to claim a shovel. It was at this point that we spoke with the community members again and found out we needed to make the hole about ten times bigger than we’d planned so that we could lay a foundation for the bathroom floor. This was the perfect opportunity for me to jump back in there and get my hands dirty. At first, the local man who’s been helping with the toilet project didn’t want any of us (including the other guys) to do anything because he didn’t want us to hurt ourselves. Eventually we just had to give it a go and he backed off and just offered assistance and supervised. I think he was actually impressed and/or surprised that I could do the digging.
We worked in teams to carry dirt from the hole over to the wall of the school to make a path to the toilet. The little girl Nhi who helped us yesterday came out to help us again. She’s one of the most adorable little girls I’ve ever seen and I was so excited when she learned my name. She’s an amazingly hard worker, helping us not only with cleaning the school but also with moving the big piles of dirt for the path – the first time she helped with it, I had playfully prompted her to team up with me to move one of the sacks, not expecting her to do it but she picked up the heavy load with me and kept on doing it for the rest of the morning. I was so proud when she picked up the shovel and tried to dig after watching me for a while – she didn’t do too badly considering how thick the dirt was. I really wanted to show her that women can do more than just the roles traditional outlined for them. As we were finishing up, our local friend supervising the toilet work singled me out to go around the edges making the edges straight. I was really excited that he asked me because it was a pretty tough job – I had to slam the shovel down into the ground with both considerable force and decent aim. That was the most difficult part of the day. I must say I did pretty well, though all I wanted after we finished was a cold glass of water and a defibrillator.
It turns out my bike was broken (though it remains unclear whether that caused my crash or if my crash broke it), so we left it at the school for someone to fix and I rode on Phat’s bike to go to lunch. Phat (the former assistant of CET, not Phil’s roommate Phat) is just awesome. He’s really nice and helpful about all of my bike problems and is just a really fun person to hang out with. On the way to lunch, we talked and sang “In the Jungle” as we rode. Lunch today was as excellent as yesterday, though it seems the theme today was pumpkin since we had pumpkin shrimp soup and it was also added to both pork dishes as well as Alex’s vegetarian dishes. At the coffee shop, I was so tired but I made the effort to stay awake because this was our last opportunity to talk to Rylan and Chi Hao. They were leaving for Chicago to work out details on Rylan’s new job at Loyola and they wouldn’t be coming back until after we left. It was quite sad to see them go, but it’s hard to make anything truly sad with Rylan walking around chatting cheerfully.
While we were at the cafe, it started pouring buckets. This was possibly the most intense rain I’d seen since coming to Vietnam. We moved our bikes in and sat in the cafe enjoying the spray that blew in and shouting to each other, trying to hold a conversation over the deafening pounding of rain on the tin roof. It stopped long enough for us to get over to the school, but when we got there we found most of the grounds flooded. There was one spot in particular where we had to cross that was deep enough I thought water might get into even my high-topped hiking boots. We were about to give up and ford the river but then we found a few bricks and created stepping stones so we could tip-toe across.
Today we met the older students, which actually made me more nervous than yesterday because middle-schoolers are generally less eager to learn than are elementary school students, not to mention less entertained by silly activities. We managed alright though, first teaching the same introductory English lesson we did yesterday and then jumping right into the science class. We started the class off with a bang, taking them outside to demonstrate the experiment where you drop Mentos into soda and it fizzes over. We had a little trouble explaining the scientific mechanisms behind it because of the translation issue but we found a pretty simple way of getting the point across. I still don't know how much the kids learned but at least they were entertained (and after all, the main goal of our class is to show them that science is fun).
To get back to the hotel, I rode on the back of Khang's bike again, which made me feel a little helpless, but it was a good way to see more of the town. It was raining so we were all wearing ridiculously colorful ponchos and got a lot of stares for it. Still, I preferred those incredulous stares to the pitifully sad looks we got from two children standing near the road holding their hands over their heads in a futile attempt to keep dry. After dinner, Molly, Loan, My, and I did karaoke at the hotel - because there were fewer people to judge us, Molly and I sang at the top of our lungs making complete fools of ourselves, embracing the true spirit of karaoke. After that, a large group of us gathered in Kendra's room to eat grapefruit and mangaya (a cross between a mango and a papaya). We set up the iPod speakers and then, out of nowhere, Kendra turned off the lights and put her headlamp on the strobe-light setting and we had an impromptu dance party. Normally we would have been worried about waking the neighbors, but it's only fair since they keep us awake every night with dreadful, off-key karaoke.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Vietnam Day 36 (7/13/09)
We got up at 5:30 for breakfast so we could make it to work on time for our first day. Since I take my daily malaria pill in the morning, I was afraid of upsetting my stomach so I ordered the blandest breakfast available – egg with a baguette, which I went really crazy with by adding strawberry jam. I was a little drowsy but I was doing alright because I was so excited to get started. I was considerably less excited to get back on the bike by myself. I had practiced a little late last night riding around the block – the streets were nearly deserted and yet I managed to almost crash into the only three people out at that hour, not the best track record. I started out again rocky this morning, having trouble finding my balance. I couldn’t ride in a completely straight line but I wasn’t too shaky considering. I had to walk through the market and across the wooden bridges, but I like riding on the road overall – there’s enough room for those behind me to get around and I like the security of knowing I have room to swerve if I need to.
The problem comes when we turn off the road onto the narrow cement path that winds its way to the school. Lush tropical trees and shrubs surround us as we ride, growing over onto the road with palm branches forming arches above our heads. For most of the ride, there is no solid ground on either side of the path, but muddy ditches with pools of water at the bottom. Everyone seems to be a little nervous about the possibility of falling into one, but I think I’m the most likely to actually do it. I’m very unstable on the bike and every time my eyes float to the sides as I gaze fearfully down into the ditches, my handlebars start turning that direction too. I’m trying to keep my eyes straight ahead but it’s difficult because the road is so curvy.
There are other obstacles as well. Motorbikes and other bicycles often come at us going the opposite direction, making for some pretty tricky passing. There’s barely enough room for one bike on the road for one bike on the road, let alone two alongside each other. Everyone else just slows and rolls past oncoming traffic but I can’t ride in a straight line along the edge so I usually stop completely until the other bike has passed me (and even so I’ve still bumped handlebars a couple of times). The animals are an even bigger problem – you never know when a dog or chicken will jump into your path and I’d sooner run myself off the road than hit an animal. Then there’s the wonderfully treacherous stone bridges – there are about half a dozen of them along the way (some of them pretty high) and they’re all really narrow and terrifying so I just walk my bike over. All of my precautions paid off pretty well and I crashed only once into a pile of logs, but I’m just happy it wasn’t into a ditch.
When we got to the school, I went over plans for the toilet with Van Anh and the contractor CET hired. We’re going to start by digging a big pit in the solid so the urine will pass through the soil instead of running directly into the river like it does now. We’re then going to build up a brick structure over that and separate it for boys and girls. Today we just started by demolishing the old toilet and clearing the land so we could build on top of it. With the help of a local man hired to assist us, I learned how to pull up grass and weeds by squatting on the ground angling a shovel almost parallel to the ground and skimming the surface – it’s even more effective than a weedwhacker. We finished pretty quickly so I had extra time to help the school group dust and sand down the rough spots on the walls so we can paint. It was pretty tedious work, but not to hard. We had an extra pair of hands we hadn’t counted on to help us with the cleaning. A number of the school children had come by to watch us and one of the girls, Nhi, picked up a piece of sandpaper and helped us scrub. She’s a really good worker and very eager to speak English with us (though it’s not much).
At noon, we biked over to the moms’ house where they had a wonderful meal prepared for us – honestly that was the largest quantity of vegetables I’ve eaten since coming to Vietnam which was quite refreshing. Part of our daily routine is a break after lunch at a cafe around the corner. It was very relaxing with hammocks and reclining chairs and we sipped (or rather downed) cafe sua das with way too much sua and talked until it was time to leave.
I’m supposed to be teaching science class, but since it’s the first day and only the younger kids are here, we decided to combine the classes so we could introduce ourselves and give them a joint English lesson. They were all too adorable for words, trying to hold our hands and smiling up at us. Cute as they were, I was still intimidated. Everyone else in the group had worked with kids in Saigon as part of their internships, but I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I didn’t know how I was going to teach the kids when we didn’t speak the same language and I was afraid of disappointing all those eager faces. Honestly I’ve never seen a group of kids so eager to learn, especially at such a young age (they were all in elementary school). We were going to play a game with them outside, but they all filed in their seats, took out their notebooks, and said they wanted to learn, not play. There were a few of the “cool kids” who didn’t want to come to class and just played marbles outside the classroom, but the rest of the kids were surprisingly excited to be in school during their summer break. As it turns out, I didn’t have to worry about being a bad teacher just yet, because I didn’t even get a chance to instruct them today. We had way too many teachers for just one English class, so we all spread out and squeezed onto the benches with the kids to give them individual attention and help if they needed. The students I sat with were pretty good at English so I spent most of my time watching the girls write – they all brought their own fountain pens and some of the girls’ handwriting was so good I would call it calligraphy. They certainly put my chickenscratch to shame.
I then endured another stressful bike ride back to the hotel, this time without incident. On the way back, we stopped in the market for a snack. The vendor was just one woman with a small grill-top cooking bananas surrounded by a layer of sticky rice (that had hardened into a pastry-like texture), then wrapped in a banana leaf for cooking. These things are incredible and I’m very seriously thinking about stopping for one every day. Some people dipped the banana in a coconut milk frosting, but I think the bananas are sweet and delicious enough on their own. Just an hour later we had a big dinner at the hotel. It was all very good but I wolfed my meal down way faster than was called for. Maybe I was just stress-eating – my nerves were shot after all that bike riding today.
The problem comes when we turn off the road onto the narrow cement path that winds its way to the school. Lush tropical trees and shrubs surround us as we ride, growing over onto the road with palm branches forming arches above our heads. For most of the ride, there is no solid ground on either side of the path, but muddy ditches with pools of water at the bottom. Everyone seems to be a little nervous about the possibility of falling into one, but I think I’m the most likely to actually do it. I’m very unstable on the bike and every time my eyes float to the sides as I gaze fearfully down into the ditches, my handlebars start turning that direction too. I’m trying to keep my eyes straight ahead but it’s difficult because the road is so curvy.
There are other obstacles as well. Motorbikes and other bicycles often come at us going the opposite direction, making for some pretty tricky passing. There’s barely enough room for one bike on the road for one bike on the road, let alone two alongside each other. Everyone else just slows and rolls past oncoming traffic but I can’t ride in a straight line along the edge so I usually stop completely until the other bike has passed me (and even so I’ve still bumped handlebars a couple of times). The animals are an even bigger problem – you never know when a dog or chicken will jump into your path and I’d sooner run myself off the road than hit an animal. Then there’s the wonderfully treacherous stone bridges – there are about half a dozen of them along the way (some of them pretty high) and they’re all really narrow and terrifying so I just walk my bike over. All of my precautions paid off pretty well and I crashed only once into a pile of logs, but I’m just happy it wasn’t into a ditch.
When we got to the school, I went over plans for the toilet with Van Anh and the contractor CET hired. We’re going to start by digging a big pit in the solid so the urine will pass through the soil instead of running directly into the river like it does now. We’re then going to build up a brick structure over that and separate it for boys and girls. Today we just started by demolishing the old toilet and clearing the land so we could build on top of it. With the help of a local man hired to assist us, I learned how to pull up grass and weeds by squatting on the ground angling a shovel almost parallel to the ground and skimming the surface – it’s even more effective than a weedwhacker. We finished pretty quickly so I had extra time to help the school group dust and sand down the rough spots on the walls so we can paint. It was pretty tedious work, but not to hard. We had an extra pair of hands we hadn’t counted on to help us with the cleaning. A number of the school children had come by to watch us and one of the girls, Nhi, picked up a piece of sandpaper and helped us scrub. She’s a really good worker and very eager to speak English with us (though it’s not much).
At noon, we biked over to the moms’ house where they had a wonderful meal prepared for us – honestly that was the largest quantity of vegetables I’ve eaten since coming to Vietnam which was quite refreshing. Part of our daily routine is a break after lunch at a cafe around the corner. It was very relaxing with hammocks and reclining chairs and we sipped (or rather downed) cafe sua das with way too much sua and talked until it was time to leave.
I’m supposed to be teaching science class, but since it’s the first day and only the younger kids are here, we decided to combine the classes so we could introduce ourselves and give them a joint English lesson. They were all too adorable for words, trying to hold our hands and smiling up at us. Cute as they were, I was still intimidated. Everyone else in the group had worked with kids in Saigon as part of their internships, but I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I didn’t know how I was going to teach the kids when we didn’t speak the same language and I was afraid of disappointing all those eager faces. Honestly I’ve never seen a group of kids so eager to learn, especially at such a young age (they were all in elementary school). We were going to play a game with them outside, but they all filed in their seats, took out their notebooks, and said they wanted to learn, not play. There were a few of the “cool kids” who didn’t want to come to class and just played marbles outside the classroom, but the rest of the kids were surprisingly excited to be in school during their summer break. As it turns out, I didn’t have to worry about being a bad teacher just yet, because I didn’t even get a chance to instruct them today. We had way too many teachers for just one English class, so we all spread out and squeezed onto the benches with the kids to give them individual attention and help if they needed. The students I sat with were pretty good at English so I spent most of my time watching the girls write – they all brought their own fountain pens and some of the girls’ handwriting was so good I would call it calligraphy. They certainly put my chickenscratch to shame.
I then endured another stressful bike ride back to the hotel, this time without incident. On the way back, we stopped in the market for a snack. The vendor was just one woman with a small grill-top cooking bananas surrounded by a layer of sticky rice (that had hardened into a pastry-like texture), then wrapped in a banana leaf for cooking. These things are incredible and I’m very seriously thinking about stopping for one every day. Some people dipped the banana in a coconut milk frosting, but I think the bananas are sweet and delicious enough on their own. Just an hour later we had a big dinner at the hotel. It was all very good but I wolfed my meal down way faster than was called for. Maybe I was just stress-eating – my nerves were shot after all that bike riding today.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Vietnam Day 35 (7/12/09)
We woke up before sunrise today and put our luggage in the bus so we could leave right after the kickoff ceremony for the Green Summer Campaign finished. Shockingly, we were ahead of schedule which was wonderful news for my growling stomach because it meant we had time to grab pho at my favorite place again. As in last night’s pho, there was an explosion of bean sprouts but I approached more cautiously this time and had no further choking incidents.
The kickoff ceremony was held inside the zoo (the kind of zoo any animal-lover like myself tries to stay away from) and though I didn’t see any animals, it certainly felt like a zoo. There was a stage some distance from us where a boy band (presumably famous Vietnamese pop singers) were performing in super-stylish white jeans while hoards of Vietnamese college students went nuts. There were groups of volunteers from scores of different schools and organizations bearing flags and banners to identify themselves in a sea of blue. Everyone there, including us, was wearing the official uniform of the Green Summer Campaign, a blue polo with indiscernible Vietnamese writing silkscreened on (I’m sure at least some of it lists sponsors) and floppy army green hats.
We were quite literally the only non-Asians at this ting and we were thus subjected to countless stares, shoutouts, and photos. For the most part, the students were too busy swaying to the music and waving their arms in unison like waves (one person flourishing a Vietnamese flag among the masses) to pay too much attention to us, but the television cameras never left us for a moment. According to Van Anh’s family, we were indeed on TV and she’s been teasing me ever since about being a celebrity. The cameras were a little awkward but we eventually embraced it and got pretty camera-happy in return. Fortunately this ceremony didn’t last nearly as long as kickoffs from previous years so we didn’t have too long to stay before we were on the bus headed to Ben Tre.
The bus ride was pretty comfy compared to ones I’ve been on in the past although the ferry ride was an interesting new addition. We had to get off the bus so it wouldn’t accidentally roll into the river with us on it. Instead we went up some very slippery steps to the upper level and took thousands of pictures of the river. When the ferry stopped on the other side, all of the motorbikes sped off, leaving a cloud of exhaust fumes behind for us to walk through to get back to our bus. We drove through some incredibly poor areas that looked like a mix between city slums and rural villages. Some of the areas were picturesque scenes of farm life but others just made me sad – the houses weren’t huts but they were still tiny and dingy and all over the towns things looked as if they were falling apart.
We soon arrived at our home for the next four weeks – it’s a hotel that’s no five-star resort but it’s a far cry from the hut we’d been expecting after our DukeEngage interviews. I must admit, the décor of this place weirds me out a little. There are depictions of naked women everywhere, from the large photo of a couple in a raunchy pose hanging above the fountain (which incidentally is presided over by statues of peeing boys like the one in Brussels) to the paintings of topless Egyptian women hanging in all of the bedrooms. My room I’m afraid is something of a disappointment. Other people in the group lucked into the honeymoon sweets, huge rooms with large windows and huge bathrooms with heart-shaped sinks. Mine however, is a tiny box (which I’ve dubbed the cubical in honor of its shape) walled with tiles that should have stayed in the bathroom where they belong. I’m suddenly glad I just brought duffel bags instead of my suitcase because it literally wouldn’t have fit – there’s not even a wardrobe like in most of the rooms (except for Phil and Ming who have even smaller floor plans than mine) so everything is just lying on the floor. The worst part about it is that there’s no natural light, making it feel cold and sterile, not exactly a homey place. But it’s alright, I can certainly tough it out for four weeks. At least there’s AC and, as an added bonus, actual doors for the shower. The other surprises left in the drawers of all our rooms were condoms (the very popular “OK” brand). It’s unclear whether they were left by the hotel or by former guests, but the heart-shaped mirror on the headboard of my bed is starting to make more sense. I suspect this hotel has another little operation on the side, based on all the greasy businessmen staying here with their female companions, as well as the karaoke rooms upstairs (since karaoke is often a cover for brothels in Vietnam). I know this is the only place to stay in Mo Cay but it really is suspect.
We had just a little time before heading to the welcome ceremony so we decided to practice riding the bikes we’ll be using every day to get to work. Now, I haven’t ridden a bike in at least four years, and I only ever rode one for one summer of my life, but there’s literally no other way for us to get around Ben Tre so I just have to roll with it. Mind you, that’s easier said than done. My practice session with the bike didn’t go well at all. I couldn’t get going or find my balance and kept veering off to the left. When I stopped, I discovered that the reason I couldn’t keep the bike straight was that the handlebars were crooked (most of these bikes are pretty old and beat up). I didn’t have time to get it fixed because we had to leave for the ceremony immediately. I decided I’d have to ride on one of the wire seats on the back of someone’s bike.
Unfortunately, all of the Vietnamese roommates had already taken off and I was in danger of being stranded because riding the bike really wasn’t a feasible option for me. The only person who offered to take me was Alex (who probably only weighs as much as me). We started out really shaky but we were doing alright under the circumstances until we had to cross a big road. We had to turn onto the main road on something of an incline and we’d almost made it when suddenly we lost control and wiped out on the tarmac. We landed on our sides with the bike on top of us. Miraculously, no motorbikes ran over us or anything and we got out without injury. Some of the Vietnamese roommates were waiting up ahead and I jumped on the back of Khang’s bike. I was still really shaken up by that point – I’ve never been in a road accident of any kind and I was kind of in shock.
When I finally calmed down I was able to enjoy the scenery as we passed lots of little vendors and farm animals (primarily cows and chickens) on the side of the road. We crossed over two incredibly frightening bridges to get across the river – they were long rickety bridges with lots of missing planks, which weren’t overly noticeable because the ones that were there were so uneven. Khang and I got off and walked the bike across but brave souls in the group actually rode over it. I don’t care how good I eventually get at riding a bike, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to ride over these. The ride was forty-five minutes and it was an uncomfortable one at that – the wire seat dug into me the whole way and by the time I got off my tailbone was numb and every muscle in my body was tensed from trying to maintain my balance on the back.
We arrived in time for the opening ceremony at the People’s Committee Hall of Dinh Thui. The hall is set in a courtyard next to a large white building with a huge sculpture on top that’s supposed to be a flame but looks more like a big red onion to me. Out front is a tablet that honors “The Heroes of the Dung Khoi Rebellion who achieved victory and exterminated the Americans,” quite the welcome for us. There weren’t many people in attendance but there was still a great deal of pomp and circumstance. Apparently they wanted one of the Americans to make a speech and Alice generously volunteered me. When I got up on the stage I took a page out of Obama’s book and opened with “xin chao” (similar to the way Obama started his recent speech to the Muslim world with “asalamalakam,” though I’m sure his pronunciation was considerably better than mine). I then proceeded to give a very short speech thanking them for welcoming us and saying how excited we were to work on such a worthwhile project. Alice translated, I said thank you (or rather “camon” because they were so excited when I used Vietnamese before), and eagerly went back to my seat. We then presented gifts to mothers seven and nine, the nice older ladies who will be cooking all of our lunches during the weeks.
Then, accompanied by the People’s Committee on motorbikes, we rode over to a house the Robertson’s Scholars had built a few years ago, which is similar to the one some of us will be building. The family gave us coconuts to drink out of as a welcome – the coconuts weren’t bad but there were way too many of them and they were so big I couldn’t possibly finish one on my own and had to share (seriously, they were bigger than my head). We then moved on to the site of the house that we’ll actually be building. The family is really nice and welcomed us with tea and what else but more coconuts (there appear to be an inordinate number of coconut trees in this region). We sat down to drink at tables standing on all that’s left of the foundation of the demolished former house – the family will be living in their small kitchen until construction is completed on the new brick house.
Out next stop was the school site where I’ll be starting. I wouldn’t say that the school was in massive disrepair, but it could use a little touching up so we’re going to give it a new paint job and hopefully replace the doors and build a path from the gate to the door. The biggest problem spot is what I’ll be working on – the toilet in the back. To call it a toilet is very gracious. In fact, it’s nothing more than a brick floor surrounded by some aluminum siding (with no roof) that acts as a screen. It’s incredibly unsanitary, overgrown with vines and swarming with bugs. The teachers are afraid the kids will catch diseases (a concern I share after seeing the facilities) and the children have recently stopped using it all together and just relieve themselves right into the river right next to the existing “toilet” because they won’t go inside. Not only is it environmentally harmful for that much urine to be going straight into the river, but it’s a major health risk to the kids to leave this toilet the way it is. Hopefully we can build up an entirely new, more sanitary one for them.
For dinner, we walked through the market to a fried noodle place and for desert we had coconut candy, a toffee-like concoction, world-famous for rotting teeth. I could feel the sticky candy eating away my enamel as I chewed (and chewed and chewed), but it was durian flavored and so good I couldn’t resist.
The kickoff ceremony was held inside the zoo (the kind of zoo any animal-lover like myself tries to stay away from) and though I didn’t see any animals, it certainly felt like a zoo. There was a stage some distance from us where a boy band (presumably famous Vietnamese pop singers) were performing in super-stylish white jeans while hoards of Vietnamese college students went nuts. There were groups of volunteers from scores of different schools and organizations bearing flags and banners to identify themselves in a sea of blue. Everyone there, including us, was wearing the official uniform of the Green Summer Campaign, a blue polo with indiscernible Vietnamese writing silkscreened on (I’m sure at least some of it lists sponsors) and floppy army green hats.
We were quite literally the only non-Asians at this ting and we were thus subjected to countless stares, shoutouts, and photos. For the most part, the students were too busy swaying to the music and waving their arms in unison like waves (one person flourishing a Vietnamese flag among the masses) to pay too much attention to us, but the television cameras never left us for a moment. According to Van Anh’s family, we were indeed on TV and she’s been teasing me ever since about being a celebrity. The cameras were a little awkward but we eventually embraced it and got pretty camera-happy in return. Fortunately this ceremony didn’t last nearly as long as kickoffs from previous years so we didn’t have too long to stay before we were on the bus headed to Ben Tre.
The bus ride was pretty comfy compared to ones I’ve been on in the past although the ferry ride was an interesting new addition. We had to get off the bus so it wouldn’t accidentally roll into the river with us on it. Instead we went up some very slippery steps to the upper level and took thousands of pictures of the river. When the ferry stopped on the other side, all of the motorbikes sped off, leaving a cloud of exhaust fumes behind for us to walk through to get back to our bus. We drove through some incredibly poor areas that looked like a mix between city slums and rural villages. Some of the areas were picturesque scenes of farm life but others just made me sad – the houses weren’t huts but they were still tiny and dingy and all over the towns things looked as if they were falling apart.
We soon arrived at our home for the next four weeks – it’s a hotel that’s no five-star resort but it’s a far cry from the hut we’d been expecting after our DukeEngage interviews. I must admit, the décor of this place weirds me out a little. There are depictions of naked women everywhere, from the large photo of a couple in a raunchy pose hanging above the fountain (which incidentally is presided over by statues of peeing boys like the one in Brussels) to the paintings of topless Egyptian women hanging in all of the bedrooms. My room I’m afraid is something of a disappointment. Other people in the group lucked into the honeymoon sweets, huge rooms with large windows and huge bathrooms with heart-shaped sinks. Mine however, is a tiny box (which I’ve dubbed the cubical in honor of its shape) walled with tiles that should have stayed in the bathroom where they belong. I’m suddenly glad I just brought duffel bags instead of my suitcase because it literally wouldn’t have fit – there’s not even a wardrobe like in most of the rooms (except for Phil and Ming who have even smaller floor plans than mine) so everything is just lying on the floor. The worst part about it is that there’s no natural light, making it feel cold and sterile, not exactly a homey place. But it’s alright, I can certainly tough it out for four weeks. At least there’s AC and, as an added bonus, actual doors for the shower. The other surprises left in the drawers of all our rooms were condoms (the very popular “OK” brand). It’s unclear whether they were left by the hotel or by former guests, but the heart-shaped mirror on the headboard of my bed is starting to make more sense. I suspect this hotel has another little operation on the side, based on all the greasy businessmen staying here with their female companions, as well as the karaoke rooms upstairs (since karaoke is often a cover for brothels in Vietnam). I know this is the only place to stay in Mo Cay but it really is suspect.
We had just a little time before heading to the welcome ceremony so we decided to practice riding the bikes we’ll be using every day to get to work. Now, I haven’t ridden a bike in at least four years, and I only ever rode one for one summer of my life, but there’s literally no other way for us to get around Ben Tre so I just have to roll with it. Mind you, that’s easier said than done. My practice session with the bike didn’t go well at all. I couldn’t get going or find my balance and kept veering off to the left. When I stopped, I discovered that the reason I couldn’t keep the bike straight was that the handlebars were crooked (most of these bikes are pretty old and beat up). I didn’t have time to get it fixed because we had to leave for the ceremony immediately. I decided I’d have to ride on one of the wire seats on the back of someone’s bike.
Unfortunately, all of the Vietnamese roommates had already taken off and I was in danger of being stranded because riding the bike really wasn’t a feasible option for me. The only person who offered to take me was Alex (who probably only weighs as much as me). We started out really shaky but we were doing alright under the circumstances until we had to cross a big road. We had to turn onto the main road on something of an incline and we’d almost made it when suddenly we lost control and wiped out on the tarmac. We landed on our sides with the bike on top of us. Miraculously, no motorbikes ran over us or anything and we got out without injury. Some of the Vietnamese roommates were waiting up ahead and I jumped on the back of Khang’s bike. I was still really shaken up by that point – I’ve never been in a road accident of any kind and I was kind of in shock.
When I finally calmed down I was able to enjoy the scenery as we passed lots of little vendors and farm animals (primarily cows and chickens) on the side of the road. We crossed over two incredibly frightening bridges to get across the river – they were long rickety bridges with lots of missing planks, which weren’t overly noticeable because the ones that were there were so uneven. Khang and I got off and walked the bike across but brave souls in the group actually rode over it. I don’t care how good I eventually get at riding a bike, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to ride over these. The ride was forty-five minutes and it was an uncomfortable one at that – the wire seat dug into me the whole way and by the time I got off my tailbone was numb and every muscle in my body was tensed from trying to maintain my balance on the back.
We arrived in time for the opening ceremony at the People’s Committee Hall of Dinh Thui. The hall is set in a courtyard next to a large white building with a huge sculpture on top that’s supposed to be a flame but looks more like a big red onion to me. Out front is a tablet that honors “The Heroes of the Dung Khoi Rebellion who achieved victory and exterminated the Americans,” quite the welcome for us. There weren’t many people in attendance but there was still a great deal of pomp and circumstance. Apparently they wanted one of the Americans to make a speech and Alice generously volunteered me. When I got up on the stage I took a page out of Obama’s book and opened with “xin chao” (similar to the way Obama started his recent speech to the Muslim world with “asalamalakam,” though I’m sure his pronunciation was considerably better than mine). I then proceeded to give a very short speech thanking them for welcoming us and saying how excited we were to work on such a worthwhile project. Alice translated, I said thank you (or rather “camon” because they were so excited when I used Vietnamese before), and eagerly went back to my seat. We then presented gifts to mothers seven and nine, the nice older ladies who will be cooking all of our lunches during the weeks.
Then, accompanied by the People’s Committee on motorbikes, we rode over to a house the Robertson’s Scholars had built a few years ago, which is similar to the one some of us will be building. The family gave us coconuts to drink out of as a welcome – the coconuts weren’t bad but there were way too many of them and they were so big I couldn’t possibly finish one on my own and had to share (seriously, they were bigger than my head). We then moved on to the site of the house that we’ll actually be building. The family is really nice and welcomed us with tea and what else but more coconuts (there appear to be an inordinate number of coconut trees in this region). We sat down to drink at tables standing on all that’s left of the foundation of the demolished former house – the family will be living in their small kitchen until construction is completed on the new brick house.
Out next stop was the school site where I’ll be starting. I wouldn’t say that the school was in massive disrepair, but it could use a little touching up so we’re going to give it a new paint job and hopefully replace the doors and build a path from the gate to the door. The biggest problem spot is what I’ll be working on – the toilet in the back. To call it a toilet is very gracious. In fact, it’s nothing more than a brick floor surrounded by some aluminum siding (with no roof) that acts as a screen. It’s incredibly unsanitary, overgrown with vines and swarming with bugs. The teachers are afraid the kids will catch diseases (a concern I share after seeing the facilities) and the children have recently stopped using it all together and just relieve themselves right into the river right next to the existing “toilet” because they won’t go inside. Not only is it environmentally harmful for that much urine to be going straight into the river, but it’s a major health risk to the kids to leave this toilet the way it is. Hopefully we can build up an entirely new, more sanitary one for them.
For dinner, we walked through the market to a fried noodle place and for desert we had coconut candy, a toffee-like concoction, world-famous for rotting teeth. I could feel the sticky candy eating away my enamel as I chewed (and chewed and chewed), but it was durian flavored and so good I couldn’t resist.
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