Vietnam Day 59 (8/6/09)

I got to set my alarm a whole hour later today because we’re finished with work. We did still have to get up at a reasonable hour though because the handover ceremony is at eight. (Van Anh has been accidentally calling it a “hangover” ceremony, which has kept the Americans cracking up all morning). We’d heard beforehand that the ceremony would include a “feast” so we ate light and rode of to the road construction site. We were at the same house where we’d had the thank-you brunch last weekend, this time with even more members of the People’s Committee, some of the workers from the road, and faculty from the school where we built the toilet. As we drank hot tea, many people got up to make the usual speeches of thanks and well wishes. Only one speaker said anything unique and it really struck me. He said our work here is helping restore peace after the war, since this area was so devastated by the fighting and by Agent Orange. I’ve thought about this topic a lot riding around Ben Tre – whenever I see someone crippled or scowling at me, I wonder if it’s because of the war and I worry that we’re intruding. It’s comforting to hear someone phrase it differently. After the speeches were done, the food came out. It was a lot of food but it wasn’t exactly a feast in my eyes, as only one of the dishes looked truly appetizing. There was porridge, curry (which looked pretty good), mixed veggies with animal tendon thrown in, and a plate full of hunks of gelatinous pig’s blood. They mystery meat porridge was forced upon me by the sweet older women at the table who insisted on serving us. It was alright minus a few grisly pieces of meat, but I didn’t ask for a second helping. I somehow got away with eating only the curry for the rest of the meal, which had some pretty tasty chunks of chicken and potato in it.

The women sitting at our table (one of whom was Ha and Yen’s grandmother) were very nice and said they wanted to learn more English by the time we come back next year – we didn’t have the heart to tell them the DukeEngage students coming next year won’t be us. At their request, we taught them some English words at the table. One of the women was very studious and pulled out a little notebook (which happened to have hilarious pictures of teen pop stars on the cover) to write down the new vocabulary. The funniest word we taught them was “wafer” (that’s what we had for dessert), which they proceeded to repeat at random for the rest of the morning. After everyone was done eating, different people stood up to sing folk songs. They wanted us to sing too, so the whole group sang the “khop, khop, khop” song we did at the performances, which I miraculously remembered the words to. My favorite performance was from the seventy-nine year old man with a peg leg who can still carry a tune though his voice is shakier than I’m sure it once was. After he was done singing he went back to sit down at the table inside reserved for the elder men. I love the visual of all those old men sitting together, because they all look like caricatures with their skinny frames, elongated features, and perpetual bed-head hairdos (seriously, their was sticking up in all directions, it looked like they’d been through a windstorm). The ceremony ended with the road group unveiling a plaque reading “CET-DukeEngage 2009” which had been nailed to a tree. It stuck out into the road awkwardly, but it was cool to have it there to remind people we’d been in Ben Tre. The ceremony ended there, without a visit to the school but a few of us went back for a little ceremony of our own. Everything seemed to be in order and all the cement on the toilet had finally dried. I was pretty satisfied with what we’d accomplished, though Hieu improved it by adding one final touch – he painted cute little figures of a boy and a girl on the respective doors, so now it’s identifiable as a toilet rather than a shed. We have a plaque for the toilet too, but it’s not up yet so we just held it up and took a picture to commemorate our achievement. On the door of the school was a blackboard with a message about what time school would start the next day. It’s so nice to think about kids really making use of our work.

We’d eaten so recently that we weren’t in the mood to eat lunch, so some of us went back to the hotel to relax for a few hours. When it was time to leave though, my bike was mysteriously missing. Just as I was about to give up and use another bike, a woman in a conical hat (a staff member at the hotel) comes riding up the walkway on my bike. She laughed, motioning how amusing it was that the seat was so high for her, then put the kickstand down, waved, and walked away. I waved and smiled back but I was dumbfounded. I guess she thought I wasn’t using it and needed to go somewhere, which is fine of course but completely unexpected from an American perspective (not to mention hilarious). I guess it’s just part of the communal mentality that’s so common here. It brings me back to a conversation I had with Mr. Vinh back in Ninh Thuan when he told me about the modern Vietnamese version of communism, in which people own individual property but it’s understood that everyone shares everything that they own.

We arrived at the school a little early for our last day. As the children rode up on their bikes, they shouted my name and waved, then Ha, Yen, Nhi, and Linh came running over to play. We had planned a full day of games, including tug-of-war, a relay where the kids had to balance a lime on a spoon held in their mouths, and a race where one blindfolded child gave a piggy-back-ride to another who had a stick to pop a balloon at the other end of the yard. All the kids were adorable and I had a smile on my face the whole two hours as I ran around taking pictures of the kids with their class pictures of the kids. At one point, we had a CET tug-of-war battle, pitting teachers against teachers. My team won the first round hands-down and was about to win the second when a dozen kids ran to the other side and helped the opposite team win. At the end of the day we presented the kids with their class pictures, which they stayed after to have us sign – it was like we were celebrities with all the kids pushing their photos into our hands. A few of them gave us gifts, an origami heart from Ha, a jar full of origami cranes and marbles with “good lucky” written on it (adorable) from Le Thi Hong Luyen (the older girl who’s house we had lunch at), and even a marble from the normally fiendish little boy who always hung around the cafe. It broke my heart when they all came up to give me hugs – I wonder if customs will let me take some of them back with me. As we left, Ha, Nhi, Linh, and Yen rode alongside us until their turnoff, then we said our final goodbyes and continued on to the hotel. It’s strange to think I won’t see them tomorrow – we’ve been here such a short time and yet they’ve had such a powerful impact on me.

So, funny side story – as I was leaving the school, a random guy who I’d met once hanging around the school came up to me again and asked me to write down my name and email address. That was normal because everyone else had done it too, but then he handed me a letter and gave the distinct impression it was a love letter. When I got back to the hotel and read it, I confirmed my suspicions though it went even further than I’d expected. In the letter he declared his earnest love for me, which was very sweet but really something I’d prefer to hear from someone I’d met for more than two seconds. Then my roommate, the traitor, informed me that the boy (Vo Minh) had already been talking to her, Khang, Hieu, and whoever else about this for weeks and she’d already told him I would meet him for coffee this evening. I don’t know how this usually works in Vietnam, but I’m not really a fan of blind dates. To be honest, I was a bit annoyed that all this had been arranged without my knowledge, especially since I didn’t really feel up to sitting through the awkwardness that would surely ensue. Van Anh tried to convince me he just wanted to practice English, but I was still concerned I’d have to let him down because of the admission of love in the letter. At dinner I discovered my concerns were warranted. Phil had been part of the band that had helped Vo edit the English in the letter and told me that Vo was excited when we left the school, going on about having a date with me this evening.

Eventually I had to meet with Vo (trying desperately to ignore the letter), but I made sure we stayed and talked in the hotel so it was less like a date. That plan was soon crushed as he gave me a wrapped gift, a yellow barrette in the shape of a heart. It was a nice gesture but just made me feel even more terrible for not reciprocating his feelings. As expected, the rest of the “date” was painfully awkward – not so much that I needed to be rescued (as Alex, Van, and Hieu all generously offered to do should I need it), but it was pretty bad. He had a long list of questions written out for me in English. I had to give all of my responses in writing because he didn’t understand much spoken English. That was all fine, albeit a little boring because it was more like an interview than a conversation. Then we got to the portion of the evening where I did want rescuing. He’d run out of questions so it was my turn to ask him, but I didn’t have the advantage of a prepared list so I had to think fast. The problem was that I could only ask him very simple questions (because of the language barrier), which he answered in five words or less and then pressed for a new question. Still, it could have been worse and I don’t think I let him down too hard. At least now I’ve talked to the man who loves me for more than two seconds, though I’m afraid my feelings haven’t changed much.