Vietnam Day 58 (8/5/09)

This is officially the strangest place I've ever written from. I'm currently sitting on a little wooden fishing boat (about twice as long as a canoe) just off the bank next to the toilet project. We're tied to a water coconut plant but we're still in motion as Hieu and I take turns pushing off from opposite ends so we glide back and forth. Hieu and Van Anh are on the seat across from me reading the newspaper while across the river behind them is a family shaving a mountain of coconuts in their backyard. This is our official mid-morning break from toilet work. It's our last day of work and I'm approaching it with a different attitude than I have any other day. I've come to terms with the fact that we're not going to finish before we leave so now it's just about speed and efficiency, trying to finish whatever we can before leaving.

When we first got here in the morning I was all business. I made sure I was doing something every second, preparing the tools before anyone else arrived, mixing cement, and then helping the others arrange bricks on top of the dirt walkway to make it more stable. Laying the bricks was satisfying because we actually got to see our progress at a glance and also provided me with the opportunity to play with the machete, something I've been wanting to do for a while. There was an empty space in the path that could only fit half a brick and since the contractor was occupied, I split the brick myself. I'd seen it done before when they were building the walls so I knew the procedure - whack it down the middle, then flip it over to the other side and whack it again. I was very safe and controlled with the machete and the brick broke beautifully – I came away beaming with pride just like Nhi did when she was able to help us with the school project early on. We had a different contractor today because our usual guy had switched with the contractor from the house project. This contractor is just as good and might even be faster, which is a nice change from the methodical pace of our perfectionist contractor. Still, no one would deny that our usual contractor is a formidable character. Yesterday he needed to shorten this hollow metal stick he uses to smooth out the wall, so he just took a little hand saw and cut right through metal!

When we’d done as much as we could on the path, I put another coat of paint on the back wall. It’s still really runny because it’s not meant for the outdoors and can’t survive this weather, but at least one side has more color now (even if it did come out pink instead of yellow). We can’t paint the sides because there’s still wet cement, so we have to leave only the backside painted. I’m not sure the People’s Committee wanted something this avant-garde, but they can fix it when we leave if they’re really concerned. Once I had nothing else to paint, I climbed back into the boat. We’d had a little fiasco earlier as Hieu untied us to turn the boat around, but inadvertently sent us drifting off into the middle of the river. Then Khoi (who had just climbed in) tried to pass Hieu a long bamboo stick to push us back to shore, but it went right by Hieu’s hand and into the water. We eventually recovered the stick and got back to the bank just fine, but it was hilarious to watch everyone panic in the meantime. This time, however, we had a little help with the boat. The same local who’d helped us with the first day of digging stopped by and hopped into the boat with us. He grabbed the long stick of bamboo we’d used earlier and steered the boat like a gondola until we came to an intersection with the big delta. The water was still and relatively deserted except for a couple of bigger boats transporting coconuts. There were little huts scattered along the shore with cows in their backyards. One hut was actually a convenience store where boats could dock and quickly buy the essentials. I love being on the water – it just feels so natural and on such a beautiful sunny day I couldn’t help feeling instantly relaxed.

When we got back to the bank, I was helped out of the boat by members of the People’s Committee, who’d come to visit with yet another government official whose title I didn’t bother to ask. Like any good politician, he stopped everyone in their work (the school group had come back to spruce things up) in order to give a speech thanking us, awkwardly adding advice that we should forget any grievances we might have with the People’s Committee and look to the future. I’m sure even he didn’t know what those grievances might be but he clearly considered it his place to smooth things over and make nice with the foreigners. I didn’t hear the whole speech because I was busy washing off my feet. They were caked with mud from when I’d flattened out the dirt path by stepping on it. My ankles had been abnormally itchy underneath all that muck and I was anxious to get clean. I was hoping I wasn’t itchy because of the burrowing maggots we’d heard about, but sure enough when I’d washed the mud off I found lots of little red spots that looked like mosquito bites at a glance but with tiny specks of blood in the center where the little bastards had entered. I’m still not entirely certain what burrowing maggots are, but Rylan mentioned them briefly before we left, warning us that if we went in the water we could pick up these little bugs that (as their name suggests) tunnel into your skin like ringworms. Well, I followed his advice and stayed out of the water, but as usual nasty bugs are determined to get me by whatever means they can. I’ll get it checked out when I go home but I talked to the locals about it and it should be fine for now.

All the usual kids (Ha, Nhi, Linh, Thien, and both Yens) plus some were at the café today to play with us. I was planning on writing in my journal but when they got there I simply had to put it down. We have so little time left with them and I want to savor every moment. They wrote and drew in my journal and I learned a new game that’s a variation of Rock-Paper-Scissors – in this game there’s a fourth option somewhere between scissors and rock and whenever you lose, the winner slaps the palm of your hand, kind of like a low-five but Thien’s slaps really hurt. They were all really disappointed that we weren’t teaching today but most of us had to go back to do more work on the construction sites this afternoon.

On the way back to the toilet site, I found My (one of the cute girls from the school who always wears a pink baseball cap that reads “hip-hop”) knelt on the side of the road trying to fix her bike chain. The chain had clearly been broken before because two of the links were tied together with a flimsy string, but the knot had come undone. I helped her retie it a few times but it kept coming undone every time she put it back on. Hieu and Van Anh came up behind but hey didn’t know what to do either so we suggested taking it to a bike shop, but she started crying saying she didn’t have the money. It broke my heart to see this brilliant, usually tough-as-nails little girl on the ground fiddling with the rusty chain while tears rolled slowly down her cheeks. She’s one of the most talented students, but she’s so desperately poor I hope she still has the opportunity to continue in school unlike a lot of kids in this area who have to stay at home to work. We told her we’d pay to get her bike fixed (a nominal fee to us) and she went off to class, still wiping her tears into her sleeve.

When we reached the toilet site we found four contractors there. Only two of them seemed to be actually working but they made good time. I’m truly in awe of what these guys can accomplish when they want to – or rather when the People’s Committee is coming to look at their work in the morning. They made so much progress, completing the roof, the siding on the front, and even managing to put in the actual toilet fixtures for the boys and girls. It was everything I’d hoped we would finish and I’m thrilled with the finished project (especially compared to what I thought we’d have done given where we were just a few days ago). Even though I didn’t have anything more to do than usual after mixing the cement and finishing off the brick path, I felt considerably more at peace than I have these past few mornings. There’s something about the afternoon light at the school that’s infinitely more cheerful than in the mornings and it turned me back into my usual giggly self. I had one last good play with the puppies (who incidentally have gotten a lot bigger than when we first got here and make even more of a mess when they trounce through wet cement), and then we kicked off at five on the dime (the concept of overtime doesn’t exist here). I’m so happy to finally be done. I’m very pleased with the outcome but it’s been a long stressful road to get here (much longer than the two weeks I originally thought it’d take).

Before leaving, one of the contractors brought us huge water coconuts. He started them off by smacking each on the ground, then progressively breaking off the huge corn kernel-shaped sections. He then split each section with a machete and gave us the halves along with a little spoon (like the ones used in American ice cream shops) made from a shard of the coconut. The meat of the coconut came out like jelly and it was pretty good (though nothing to write home about). Regardless of how the coconut tasted, sitting on pieces of broken bricks in a circle with friends by the river, I felt Vietnamese.