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.