Agent Orange, Disability, and HIV/AIDS in Vietnam

Before arriving in Vietnam, the Vietnam War in my mind was a very impersonal piece of history and only implied basic dates, events, battles, and concepts. As I have been living here and truly immersed in the culture, however, I've realized how personal this war and all the history that goes along with it truly is. This realization came about initially during my trip to Can Tho during a Vietnamese lecture. Our cute little professor, who is about 5'2" and all smiles with a very adorable Vietnamese-English accent, mentioned his family. By this point in the experience, we were pretty comfortable with asking him questions since we had already spent about 30 of the 90 total hours of VN language classes we will have with him by the end of this week (and the end of my VN language studies!). We ended up spending an hour speaking (in English) about his story during the war and how his family was ripped apart because they were from Da Nang in central Vietnam. Through his incredible stories about surviving during this war as an aspiring student, dealing with the death of his siblings, and his moving throughout the country to stay safe, he made me realize something about Vietnam: everyone has a story from the war. Even the most ordinary people, the poorest people, the richest people…if they were alive during the war, they are guaranteed to have an unbelievable story. I think about this a lot when I walk along the streets and observe people. It is rare to have someone actually talk about their experiences from the war because Vietnamese tend to keep fragments of the past like these to themselves in the attempt to move on and progress. At the same time, however, I have come to realize that these stories are there, even if they are untold.

When we were in Da Nang, we visited an orphanage where nearly 90% of the children are severely disabled primarily from Agent Orange effects. It was a really difficult experience for me. Children were not only disabled in ways I have never seen children disabled before, but the facility lacked the technology or equipment to support the disabilities. Most children could not walk without a person holding them up. Children's legs were permanently bent backwards and many had misshaped spines. I had my first interaction with a Vietnamese child who had down syndrome at this orphanage. Keep in mind that any kind of disability that physically manifests itself in a child here results in the child's isolation from society. When I first saw this small child, he was coloring a picture with intense concentration. When he looked up and saw our group, his eyes just became locked with mine. I ended up coloring with him and a few other boys that came over for about half an hour. They were all about five to seven years old, I would guess. I couldn't even get myself to go into the more severe disability room of the orphanage, which had children younger than these kids. This young boy was not able to speak, but he showed me what color and where to draw with hand gestures. Even though the entire visit really upset me (I get upset when just visiting regular orphanages in this country, let alone ones with Agent Orange disabled children), I loved getting a chance to do a little arts and crafts with this boy. It was definitely uplifting to interact with the kids, rather than just observe them and their very serious disabilities.

A note about HIV/AIDS in Vietnam- Vietnam is facing increasingly serious problems with HIV/AIDS transmission, which is mostly through injected drug use (IDU) and sex workers. The problems are concentrated in the cities (Hanoi and HCMC) due to IDU and in the southern Mekong Delta in particular with sex workers. I know this may all seem general to you, but I have had more exposure and experience with some of these issues than I thought I would. A few weeks ago I was running in the park a block away from my home stay. The park is completely exposed to the main street and even has security guards, who just sit at the entrance in their army green uniforms on little plastic stools while they smoke and drink glasses of iced coffee. Although they didn't seem to be patrolling or enforcing any laws at all, they were there nonetheless. As I was running along the path during this early AM run and minding my own business as I listened to my IPOD tunes, I was completely flustered and to be honest, frightened, with what I saw on the curb to the left me. There squatted four or five young men, probably around my age, with their sleeves rolled up, shooting one another up with heroin. They were giggling and so conspicuously injecting drugs into one another's forearms that it was not as if they were even trying to conceal their illegal actions. I literally jumped to the side after I did a double-take look at these men. I did not initially realize that what I thought I saw could actually be happening in such an exposed part of the park, let alone at all in a public location. The security guards obviously don't do anything to prevent this from happening, nor do the large billboards hanging around the park with HIV/AIDS warnings. There is so clearly a problem in city with IDU, but there is limited prevention, if any at all. We did have a lecturer who is the vice chairman of the HIV/AIDS committee of HCMC who spoke to us last week. He explained that he had just returned from the PEPFAR conference in Uganda and was very adamant about making the distinction between HIV/AIDS problems in Africa and in Vietnam. Vietnam, a country receiving the third largest amount of money from PEPFAR in the world, does not have the same governmental structure and system to fight HIV/AIDS as other countries in Africa with similar levels of HIV/AIDS prevalence. There are no NGO's that work to fight the spread, rather the government here has complete control of the situation. They provide the funds and set up the support system. I was impressed to hear that the government does provide free treatment for those who seek it out. ARV treatment is free as long as the individual seeks it out and complies with the treatment, with requires daily visits, consistency, and discipline. The government also provides identification cards for those who visit these clinics, but they are working on preventing the growing stigma associated with the disease by not putting the person's name or picture on the card, but rather only an identification number. The laws surrounding IDU, which is one of the two main modes of transmission here, usually go unenforced, which prevents recognition that HIV has been contracted, and thus results in the disease spreading (in particular to women).

This past Sunday we went to a nearby park and played with HIV/AIDS children and spoke with their mothers. It was a group of about six mothers and six children. Actually, the women were not all mothers because many of the children's mothers have already passed away, but instead they were aunts or even grandmothers who have taken over the care of these children. Although they were reluctant to talk about these issues at first, the women opened up to us and we got to hear about their experiences with HIV/AIDS, the ways they contracted it, the ways they deal with it, and the challenges of living in Vietnamese society while facing treatment. All of the women contracted HIV from their husbands, who contracted it from sex workers. In Vietnamese society, when a husband is disloyal, it is very, very, very rare for the woman to leave him. She is considered to lack the means to survive herself with her children and the terrible image of her in society if she were to leave him would not be any better than just staying with her husband. I honestly can't even imagine having a husband cheat on me with a sex worker, let alone cause me to contract HIV. Even more than that, I can't imagine having a husband cheat on me with a sex worker, cause me to contract HIV, and then not leave him! If it were America, I would take my children and leave any man who did this before even being able to blink an eye. It blows my mind that this never happens here. Instead, there is a passivity about women's responses, it seemed like from speaking with these women. They just deal with it – they deal with losing their jobs once their boss finds out they have HIV, they deal with their children's friends' parents who don't allow their children to play with one another, they deal with the stigma that creeps up on them in so many other ways. Although Vietnam is a developing country, it is so far at the beginning of development. This, coupled with the fact that Vietnamese society is quite traditional, results in women like these to really face significant stigma. These women not only have to deal with the challenges, pain, and sickness of their own treatment, but they have to do it alone (in most cases the husband was no longer living either) and without a job (they will literally lose their job instantly once the boss finds out). To make extra money, the women made little key chains out of small beads that they sell. We all bought at least one. Mine is a little Santa Claus made out of red, green, white, and blue beads. I bought it for less than a dollar. Somehow this money is enough to really impact these women's lives.

I'm sorry for such a depressing post! I just felt like I needed to write about these issues since they have gone unmentioned as of yet. Things here continue to be great. It is getting more stressful as we finish up our VN language this week and have our exam on Friday. We also have a cultural exchange with the English club of the university on Friday night, so we have been practicing for this too. And, our ISP's are coming up too! We have all been working on our proposals. I have changed my topic too, so it's requiring much more preparation than I expected. My project will now be about the cultural importance of fish sauce in Vietnam and how it can be utilized to improve micronutrient deficiencies. My research will aim to answer: How can fish sauce, a staple of Vietnamese cuisine and culture, be used to alleviate national micronutrient deficiencies? In what ways has Vietnamese culture and history impacted the prevalence and significance of fish sauce in the Vietnamese diet? How might fish sauce be used as a unique food vehicle for fortification? I'm really looking forward to the research, which will start on November 12. It is really crazy that I am almost at this stage of my study abroad experience (and that our group will be separate from one another for a whole month!). It is quite an incredible learning experience though. I have never done this kind of intense research before at all, let alone in Vietnam, so there can only be room to grow.

 

Settling Down, Reflecting, and Looking Forward

And life in HCMC continues on. As you can see from the pictures I was able to post, life in Vietnam is constantly stimulating my mind and placing me in situations that are always challenging, rewarding, and extremely unique. I did want to clarify two things before I head into writing. First, I wanted to clarify a small detail about the name of my home stay family in HCMC. Their last name is spelled in Vietnamese as Dung (with lots of squiggels and accents on top). It is pronounced, however, in the Hanoi accent, "Zoom." This is the reason that in some posts I call my host mom Mrs. Zoom and others Mrs. Dung. I'm sorry for that confusion! Also, I wanted to explain the use of surgical masks while riding motorbikes. Like helmets, they have become a fashion statement. Men and women both wear intricately embroidered masks, some with cartoon figures and others with solid colors or patterns. They are used for protection against the sun (as are the long gloves many women wear on hot days…I know, crazy). More importantly, the masks are used against the pollution. It's hard to describe the feeling of breathing in HCMC because it is something you are actually conscious of, unlike in the U.S. I have become accustomed to the thicker, darker air, but you definitely feel like you are breathing (or perhaps I should say "trying" to breath) when you are. The masks are useful on the bikes when this pollution is even more tangible in the air. I am actually thinking about getting one! I know – I ride on the back of motorbikes and wear surgical masks, but hey, I'm in Vietnam. They are actually useful! I promise I won't continue wearing it at home, nor will I continue using my money belt (although it is quite a useful little accessory…I can't even imagine going back to wearing a purse or even not locking up everything I own on a routine basis. I'm not promising I won't be a paranoid person in some ways when I return…)

For the first time all semester, we have some routine! We arrived back to the city on this past Saturday night and will be staying at our main guesthouse here until November 2^nd when we fly to Hanoi. During this time, we have regular classes each day (VN language in the morning and different seminars and lectures in the afternoon). As a result, there is more free time than we've yet experienced. And by that, I mean we have afternoons and a lunch break. It's really wonderful and needed after the last 2 months and leading up to the trip to Hanoi and our ISP's (independent study projects). On Sunday night, Abby, Michelle, and I were going to go to our regular pho restaurant for dinner. Instead we decided to head to the backpacking district, which I have grown to love and know since living there during my home stay. We weren't particularly hungry so we were up for a little exploring before choosing a restaurant to eat at. We took a taxi from our guesthouse to Bui Vien Street, which is right in the heart of the energy of the district. Walking around at 7:30PM on a Sunday night in a city has never in my life been so entertaining and stimulating. In fact, this city always epitomizes these two words: entertaining and stimulating. Granted a whole bunch of other words like chaotic, hot, and polluted can also be thrown into any description of this city, but for the sake of describing this evening in HCMC, keep in mind these two words. We walked along the street rather than the sidewalk because of all the motorbikes cramming the side walk and finally came across a hole in the wall Bun Bo Hue restaurant to eat at (this is traditional beef vermicelli soup from Hue, which is the city considered to be the "kitchen of VN"). I still haven't finished writing about the central excursion…so much left to say and recall! But I will do that in a later post. Anyway, we sat down and with the help of Michelle and her VN language skills, decoded the menu written in dry erase markers on the wall. The menu at these type of places is pretty simple since they usually only serve one dish (rice, broken rice, spring rolls, pho, or bun bo hue etc) per each restaurant, which varies based on the type of meat you choose. The kitchen is in the front of the restaurant, which usually implies a woman, maybe two, ladling soups into bowls, throwing in some mystery meats, vegetables, and maybe some chili if you have your mind set on something spicy. In this case we thought we were ordering beef, but the small differences in tone in the way we ordered our food resulted in our evening meal of noodle soup with chili paste piled on and some crab balls floating on top. I've come to realize that what sounds disgusting and looks disgusting in Vietnamese food usually means that it tastes good (although there some blatantly consistent and disgusting exceptions to this generalization...such as the bird saliva I tasted). By the end of the meal we were all literally drenched in sweat and walked outside to find that the 90 degree heat actually felt cool (the temperature today was 90 degrees with a heat index of 100 degrees...it's hard to describe exactly what this type of heat feels like).

We walked around the streets for a while and ended up walking for an hour or so home instead of taking another $1 cab fare taxi. This was the best idea we have had in a while. There were so many people on the streets. It's one thing for there to be a lot of people on the streets…this happens in Washington DC, New York, or Boston all the time. The difference here is the openness of the street. All the storefronts are completely open to the street. Street vendors keep selling at all hours of the night. Women pushing carts of junk (literally) walk up and down the streets shouting out in a loud, nasal voice what they are selling to attract attention and buyers. People sit on their motorbikes and talk (actually when we walked through the park we realized that when darkness falls, it becomes the place to be for lovebirds. We saw all sorts of public displays of affection that you would NEVER see in daylight in this country! We stopped for some bubble tea and continued scoping out restaurants near the university and our guesthouse and headed home. Despite its simplicity, it was definitely one of the best evenings I've had here! As we were walking we all agreed how this city has really, really grown on us. We actually love living here and love where we are right now in the program. I couldn't have picked another place I would have rather have been for that evening and now in general.

I wanted to briefly talk about the lecture we had this afternoon, because it was really unique and completely fascinating. We had a seminar on the rise of consumer culture in HCMC by Dr. Rylan Higgins, who runs a CET study abroad program in Vietnam. He is about to defend his Anthropology dissertation work in the next few weeks, which he has spent the last few years working on here. The topic of his research is "Negotiating the Middle in HCMC, Vietnam." The two hour lecture literally flew by because it was so interesting – he was able to describe his research, which relates to four major overarching frameworks: economic reform, socialist or capitalist Vietnam, trade imbalance and consumerism, and globalization. On the surface, these are all topics we have studied in depth over the last two months, however, he provided a look at these topics within the context of his American upbringing and through use of pictures, his field notes, and anecdotes. This I've realized is the most important part of any lecture we have here – it is often very hard to understand certain issues when taught by Vietnamese professors, as good as their English skills may be. Rylan understood where WE were coming from and lectured with this as his context, unlike Vietnamese professors who do not know our own upbringings and do not notice the same things we do about VN culture, history, or ways of life.

In general, Rylan argues that the culture of the middle class in Vietnam is regionally, culturally, and economically specific to Vietnam, rather than a fragment of globalization. Although his research has indicated that there is significant change being witnessed and experienced in Vietnam, which is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, this change is not Westernization. Instead, the combination of money, people, and ideas are bringing about regional specific forms of globalization (he basically discarded Thomas Friedman's theories of cultural global individualism). I want to write a bit about his observations from his research because they are totally fascinating and help me to understand life in this city so much better. As any anthropologist would, he has studied the middle class as any other culture in the world, which he describes as a socio-cultural project here in which people in this city are constantly working toward identity formation or a sense of "middle-ness" between the rich and poor. He has summarized his findings into a diagram. On one extreme on the left side are the phrases: too local, too traditional, and too poor. On the other side are the phrases, too global, too modern, and too rich. In the middle is an oval shape where middle-ness falls. In Vietnam, he has classified the middle class as this middle area between the extremes.

I found the most fascinating part of the lecture to be the part when he talked about middle class spaces. For example, he showed us various pictures from his fieldwork of food spaces that are designed for certain classes. A common example is "Com Binh Dan," which is a restaurant specifically serving and advertising "food for ordinary people." We were introduced to this type of food from the first week of the program – it usually means eating on little blue stools on the side of the road or in an open to the street structure and is usually not clean or particularly nice. There are also "office lunch restaurants", where strictly middle class people eat. The stools are usually silver, the bowls may match the chopsticks, and the food is still at reasonable prices for middle class people. His point was that even though HCMC may not be geographically separated by class (for example, apartments for middle class Vietnamese often overlook the canal that transports fecal material out of the city), the notion of performance of middle class culture is very important here. This concept of performances is something I have definitely noticed. I was never able to describe it in words, but he did such a perfect job. He explained certain aspects of Vietnamese culture that exemplify this concept of performance of middle class culture that is so important. For example, squatting. You may have noticed in my writing or seen in my pictures that squatting pervades the streets here. Rylan explained that based on his research, middle class people never squat in public. If you were to go downtown in the office district, no office people are squatting. The taxi drivers or motorbike drivers may be squatting and eating or drinking a cup of coffee, but NEVER middle class people. Another example is motorbike posture. Based on pictures he showed us (something I have noticed in real life as well), middle class people have a certain posture on the motorbike. They sit upright with their wrists bent, arms tucked in, knees as close together as possible. In contrast, women of working class may sit with their knees more apart, slouching a bit, and arms more separated. Although I noticed this before, I have a whole new set of eyes when observing people and street culture. I don't want to bore you all with every detail of the lecture, but I did want to give you all a taste. It was so eye opening and also so interesting because we have had the home stay experiences here and life in general over the last two months as the context to analyzing middle class life and culture through Rylan's research results.

I still have so much more to catch up on. I want to write an entire post about Agent Orange and other health related issues here that I have learned more about and witnessed, but I will save it for the next post! Today we have two lectures, one about HIV/AIDS, which I'm especially looking forward to. Some of the girls in my program and I found a yoga place in one of our guidebooks that is run by American and Singaporeans and has an entire week of unlimited classes for $25, so we are going to try a core pilates class tonight and spend the $25, which seems like an absolute fortune here, especially compared to our less-than-a-dollar dinners that we have been enjoying each night in the city. Miss you all!

P.S. I mailed my absentee ballot about a week and a half ago! It was quite the experience – I received it in the mail, filled it out, walked the 20 minutes to the main post office where they applied about 15 large stamps. It was so rewarding to send in that vote for Obama halfway around the globe!

Pictures from HCMC homestay...all taken on my 35 minute walk to school

The famous alleyway

sculpture garden I walked through to avoid traffic
No you are not imagining this, it's really what it looks like here

Our university here!
Man in hammock in back of his truck

My street! My alley is just down on the left side of the road, a few signs down..
Motorbike traffic I crossed on the way to school


A typical side of the road scene. Best food I've eaten has been while I'm sitting on small plastic stools

Pictures from Central Highlands (Hue, Da Nang, Hoi An)

Hue citadel
Imperial tomb in Hue, view from top
Monk in village pagoda near Hue at female Buddha dedication Streets of Hoi An

Marble Mountain view
My ancient Champa statue and me
Typhoon flooding on day 1 of 7 in Hoi An
Hue citadel

Pictures from Mekong Delta (I know they are old but thought you would all still enjoy!)

Picture of biodigester
Tank for methane gas/ part of biodigester
Pigs that fuel the biodigester House on the Mekong River
More Mekong River life
Floating market in Can Tho

Rice noodle making farm we visited
Making the rice paper to then become rice noodles

A Catch Up Post

I'm sorry that my last few posts have been a bit sporadic! As I wrote in my latest post, I am now in the central highlands. We started this excursion in Da Nang where we visited the Marble Mountain pagoda. We then spent a few days in Hoi An. Because of the massive rains on the first day, we had to postpone our trip to the Champa ruins. We actually got nearly to the ancient site but the road was completely flooded and locals standing outside warned us we would not be able to make it back if we crossed. We ended up having more time to shop and moved the trip to the ruins and the Champa museum until the next day. We are now in the ancient city of Hue where we have had a chance to visit the imperial court of emperors from the 13^th century, various tombs along the Perfume River from this historical time period, and having seminars at the local university about sustainable tourism in Vietnam.

Traveling back in time a few days, I wanted to update my blog on my HCMC home stay period, which has just ended before this excursion. The first weekend we had free since arriving in Vietnam I spent with my family (this was last weekend). I slept in a bit on Saturday morning and decided to opt for yoga instead of running in the park, which turned into heat yoga after about five minutes of no air conditioning! I went downstairs to find Mrs. Dung stirring spaghetti with chopsticks on the small one coil stovetop. Phuong, Lin, and Mrs. Dung and I had breakfast of spaghetti and meat sauce sitting together in our pajamas. The pace of life in HCMC is so fast that moments like these where people just sit in their pajamas and slow down rarely happen, if ever. I've learned how to appreciate them.

At breakfast, Mrs. Dung asked me if I liked grocery shopping and realizing she was probably asking me if I wanted to accompany her on her grocery trip, I jumped on it. We left after breakfast and hopped on her motorbike in the already insane heat and traffic, both of which are routine parts of daily life in the city. As we drove through multiple traffic circles swarming with motorbikes and down busy streets and alleyways, I kept thinking to myself that I did not know how all the groceries were going to fit on this small bike already full with two people. Images of Costco and the weekly shopping trips many Americans do came to mind, but this world of excess and overconsumption was so opposite and foreign to the situation I was in that this comparison was almost impossible to make. I've become one of those motorbike riders who does not like to talk during the ride (some people consider motorbike rides a time to have in depth conversations, something I can never really understand when you are simultaneously balancing, holding on, praying for your life, and looking around you). I broke my tendencies on that ride to the CO-OP and asked my host mom how we would fit a week's worth of groceries but she just laughed and said she would show me. And she did – we ended up tying the two bags to the bike and holding the bags in with our feet. I guess the most striking part of this experience was not fitting the groceries on the motorbike but seeing how much she bought, or rather how little, she bought for her family for a week. We spent nearly two hours in the jam-packed grocery store pushing our way through people with our cart. Keep in mind that the size of shopping carts in this country are pretty much equal to those kid-carts in America, just a little taller. We went up and down every aisle and talked about all the types of foods and ways to prepare them. Mrs. Dung showed me her favorite brands, her favorite vegetables and fruits, how to find the most ripe fruits etc. We chose between different dish soaps and brands of cheese and spent a fair amount of time in the lotion and sunscreen aisle, making note of the differences between Vietnam and America. For example, here all the SPF's are over 80 because it is favorable to have light skin here. Also, all the lotions and face washes are "whitening" rather than the tanning or darkening lotions that stock the shelves in the stores in America. I'm going to stay away from that whitening lotion concept… Also, the majority of our time was spent in the meat section. Believe it or not, the meat counter OPENS FROM THE CUSTOMER SIDE here. That means that all the people pushing and shoving for specific types of meat are also sticking their hands inside the meat counter as they carefully examine one piece of red meat from the other. Then they take their hands out (no washing obviously) and proceed onward with their grocery shopping. This blew my mind. After packing up our motorbike and balancing our feet over the bags of groceries (only two bags filled 75% with produce and 25% cheese, meats, and noodles), we headed home and cooked a huge feast of fish, rice, and Hanoi sour soup for lunch. During the chaos inside the grocery store and during the ride home, I had one of my "I'm in Vietnam" moments. These are moments I get when I realize what I'm doing here is so extreme, so incredible, so much fun, and just in general makes me so happy. I hope these moments never go away over the next three months, but judging by the trends so far, it's not looking like they will!

That night the people from my group met up and went out for Danielle's 21^st birthday. The best part of the weekend was the next day – we spent the entire day at Long Hai beach enjoying the absolutely incredible views, large rocks on the beach, calm waters, very few people, and relaxation (plus some homework too). Speaking of homework, I've really started improving my VN language skills! Since we have had three hours of class a day, I can actually speak sentences, pronounce words, and understand too! The language is sounding less like sounds and more like words, which is actually really awesome. In terms of other classes, the seminars have been great. We have had a chance to hear lectures from so many reputable people in Vietnam, including one seminar by the head of the Fulbright Center in HCMC who had just delivered the same lecture about Economics in Vietnam to the Prime Minister earlier that week.

It was really sad ending my home stay, which once again reiterated to me how quickly this experience is going by! At our last family dinner, Mr. and Ms. Dung and I sat at the table after dinner for about an hour discussing issues relating to Vietnam's development and culture, such as the differences in Northern Vietnamese culture and southern culture, education systems, economics, and health issues in particular. Because my host mother and host father both work in academia and my mom's English is excellent, we were able to have such deep, insightful conversations after every dinner. Usually it's just my mom and me sitting on the red plastic stools eating the remaining food, picking off small ants (and putting them in the designated ant bowl, because yes that did exist in my family. It was a small bowl in the center of the table that was understood as the "place to dispose of ants you fish out of your soup"). After ten minutes or so of discussion each night, Mrs. Dung and I moved onto eating dessert, which was always some kind of fruit. The last few evenings it has been soft, red persimmons that look like small roma tomatoes on the outside and are soft and insanely sweet on the inside. On my last night my host dad took a huge pomello from the small Buddhist shrine in the living room and showed me how to peel the tick skin with a knife in one long, winding peel. I'm glad I finally know how to peel them!

Even though the food and physical conditions of my home stay were much less ideal than anyone else's in my group, these after dinner conversations I had each night are some of the most valuable memories I will take away from my Vietnam experience as a whole. On my last morning with the family, I even learned how to make pho from my host mom! She knows how much I love her beef pho, so she taught me how to make it the way she does. You know you are in VN when the first step in a recipe is "soak pig bones in water." In any event, it was really fun to do and great to write a recipe from actual cooking rather than from a published, American recipe book. The entire recipe lacks any exact measurements such as one cup of this or 200 grams of that. Instead, the portions of every ingredient are written in the recipe as they relate to the other ingredients. Mrs. Dung even bought me the small seasoning cubes so that I can bring them home and make pho when I return to the states.

In general, my home stay period living with the Dungs has taught me so much about the Vietnamese people in particular through the lens of Mrs. Dungs own life in particular. I have also gained knowledge on so many small mannerisms and behaviors that I now have learned to incorporate into my life and which help me to fit in better with the culture here. I have also really become a part of the family. They invited me to live with them when I return to HCMC and they welcome my parents and sister to visit them when they arrive in Vietnam. It's hard to describe a relationship like this with another family than my own because it's something I have not experienced until this point. But because of the hospitality of my family and their openness to learn and make me feel welcome, I feel like I can return to VN anytime in my life and have a welcoming place to say. It's a great feeling!

Happy and Content in the Central Highlands

(This was supposed to be posted days ago but internet has been absent from my life until now! I will post more soon about what we have done in the last few days since I wrote this post as soon as I can).

I think this might be my third blog post written from inside a mosquito net. Welcome to Vietnam…This time, however, I'm no longer in a mosquito net on a wooden plank "bed" with no air conditioning in my home stay in HCMC, but instead inside of the most delicate mosquito net, which I just unraveled from its intricate knot hanging from the ceiling, with air conditioning blowing overhead. I'm lying down on the most comfortable bed I've yet to experience while in Vietnam and rain is trickling down the drain from outside the hotel. Yes that is right! I am in Hoi An at a BEAUTIFUL hotel!! Last night I enjoyed my third hot shower since being in Vietnam for the last month and a half, so in terms of amenities, all is well! This hotel is extremely nice, even by American standards, the concept of which I am having a hard time even remembering. We flew into Da Nang yesterday morning after ending our home stay period and spent the day yesterday at a pagoda on top of a high mountain overlooking the China Sea. Because it is the rainy season here, the rains were pretty heavy and left the 160 step climb to the top of the pagoda quite treacherous. It was incredible to see this pagoda in the rain, especially because it meant very few tourists or even people on top of the mountain. The pagoda is located on Marble Mountain, which by its title gives away that it is an area known for beautiful marble and marble statues. Our tour guide suggested we go to the very top of the mountain, which is only accessible through climbing up a rocky cave. He explained that during the historical period of kings in Vietnam, the kings would travel up to this point for the views of the ocean and the river. We decided to go for it, despite the rain. It turned out to be a beautiful view at top unlike anything I have ever seen before. The crashing waves of the ocean from above made the waves appear to be moving in slow motion. The most hazardous experience I have yet to have in this country took place on the way down from the top of this cave (okay, maybe it ties with enduring a typhoon in a wall-less structure in the middle of the Mekong river). The combination of rain, mud, sharp rocks, and a very steep downward slope was pretty unbelievable. We all literally went down this cliff on our behinds and moved as slow as possible to avoid slipping and completely losing control, which would have happened with one small slip of a foot. Once again my Chacos (strappy, outdoorsy shoes) that I have grown so fond of saved my life a few times yesterday. Best traction ever, I highly recommend investing in a pair if you come to Vietnam at any point in your life!

On a slight side note but related to our experience climbing down the pagoda cliff, it was until I arrived in Vietnam and have been exposed to a country SO devoid of infrastructure that I can truly grasp what the concept of infrastructure means. This realization became clear once again on our trek down the rocky, muddy cave, which is apparently in the process of becoming "a road for people to walk down." Change the word "road" to the phrase, "hazardous rocky cliff" and the phrase "people to walk down" to the phrase "people to fall down and almost break every bone in their bodies," and then maybe they will have the right idea of what they are getting into! We all made it down safely, though, and it was well worth it and actually a good time, despite the permanent mud stains on the outfit I wore yesterday.

We had lunch yesterday at Bread of Life, which is a restaurant and NGO run by an American couple who moved to Vietnam 15 years ago. The entire restaurant operation is run by this couple but the proceeds go directly to their NGO, which is for the deaf in Vietnam. Deaf in Vietnam have a completely different quality of life than in America where they are accepted and can lead normal, healthy lives. Here, they are cast out as dumb and incapable. They are isolated their entire lives and denied even the very basics, such as an education. In reality, however, the ability to hear has no correlation with intellectual capabilities. This American couple saw this issue and jumped on it- they opened this restaurant, developed a place for deaf to live and interact with each other using Vietnamese sign language (which they had to teach them because most people here, even deaf people, do not know Vietnamese sign language). It is so interesting how sign language varies by culture. For example, here the sign for bathing is pouring something over your head, because that is how people bath here. And the sign for foreigner is holding your hand over your nose in the shape of a long nose, since foreigners always have long noses in comparison to Vietnamese people's short, flat noses. It took this couple quite some time, in fact years, to set up a system to teach deaf people they recruited from all around the country how to sign, at the same time as teaching them skills like cooking, so that they can work at this restaurant or even other restaurants and in turn, make a life for themselves. The food was INCREDIBLE! I had my first real, hot cup of coffee with milk in it. Although coffee is huge here, it is always really sweet and condensed into little tiny cups that are never filled completely and never really hot. What a treat to have a real cup. All the food was "American" portion sizes too, which made me realize just how much my stomach has shrunk since I've been here. I could not even come close to finishing the "egg in a hole" dish I had, which was two pieces of bread with egg cooked in a hole in the middle of each, as its name implies. The best part of the meal was the SALAD I had, which was with lettuce, cucumber, and tomato, with dressing too. I would definitely put salad in the top three list of foods I miss most in America. We all couldn't have been happier to have such delicious food, and also support the NGO.

We ended the day back at the hotel for a nice dinner as the rains continued in full force outside. After dinner we walked around the main streets of Hoi An in our 10 cent neon colored ponchos. Hoi An has become quite a tourist destination because of its historical significance (it is the place of origin for Romanized Vietnamese language characters, a key place of European missionary influence in terms of religion and culture, and its favorable conditions between both the river and the sea made it a sought after location for European trade). It is also recognized by UNESCO as a world heritage site, which demands a certain standard of restoration and level of quality. It also is known for its INCREDIBLE shopping. You literally go into any clothing store that line the streets of the old town and can have any pair of shoes, pants, clothing replicated in a new fabric of choice. You can come with drawings and have shoes or clothing made in 2 hours time. Apparently this tailor tradition started during the historical times when the Europeans arrived in this port city and only stayed for short 2 day visits or even less. Because this region is not a rice basket like the north or south of Vietnam, the people here had to find a way to economically support themselves, so they began to take advantage of the European merchants coming through and learned to make clothing for them in record time. Since then, Hoi An is known nationally and internationally for incredible clothing and shoes. I am having a few dresses, pairs of shoes, and pants made for so cheap. It's a lot of fun to be able to pick out your own fabrics, design, and tailor too.

I will post more as soon as I can about the rest of my HCMC home stay since there is so much left to say, but in the meantime know that I'm still doing great, miss you all, and have SO many incredible stories to share!

Life in the Alleyway

This was supposed to be posted last night but the internet went out until today…

It is now about 5:30 pm on Thursday evening and I am upstairs on the third floor in my room waiting for Mrs. Zoom to get home from work so we can have dinner. I am listening to very heavy rainfall outside my open windows as it hits the various apartment rooftops in this alleyway and gushes out of poorly designed gutter systems. At all points of the day, it is very, very noisy in this neighborhood. Right now I also hear the sounds of children screaming, people sneezing, conversing, loud karaoke music, and dishes clanking together. I was lucky enough to have Tui (our program assistant who is 23, an incredible mentor and friend to have on this trip) take me home in this rainstorm on her moped so that I would not have to walk. Just when you think drivers are crazy here in normal, non-rainy conditions, it just gets more insane when it is raining. People cut corners completely, driving all over the sidewalk to avoid standstill traffic. As a result, the traffic patterns are even further from patterns and much more like chaos. Today I even saw a truck literally hit a driver on a moped and then drive off, leaving the moped driver on the pavement. My cab driver sped up to chase after the hit-and-run truck and proceeded to reprimand him by yelling out his window. Needless to say, the truck driver still did not turn around after this whole thing happened…

With today's moped ride as an exception, I always walk to the University and back each day, which takes about 35 minutes in each direction. Even though I'm the only SIT student who has to walk rather than being driven by moped by a member of the host family, I have learned how to appreciate this walk. I see so many unique fragments of street culture, many of which are literally engrained into my memory. Before reaching the main street, I walk through the winding alleyway, which to be honest has become my favorite part of my walk to school. These alleys are just filled with scenes of Vietnam that no tourist can see. Tourist books of Vietnam should recommend to readers to just find one of these alleys and walk down it, making note of whatever it is that you see. It is impossible not to be completely intrigued by the activities that go on behind the scenes of the main and hustling streets. The scenes down my alley I believe epitomize urban Vietnam as I have learned to understand it. Despite the narrow walkway, women squat to the side hand washing dishes with soapy water that overflows from the buckets and trickles down the path, leaving a smell of soap mixed with rotten food. I see the same man everyday sitting on a mini lawn chair repairing the soles of shoes. Women squat to the side carving pieces of red meat into various colorful bowls, throwing the bones or unwanted pieces to the side (though it seems like people here eat every part of the meat). Sometimes I can even look into the apartments and see little snippets of life as well, like what appeared to be a sewing shop with a wife and husband sewing together with the TV blasting a popular Vietnamese soap opera.

Once I exit the alley and hit the hustle and bustle of the streets, I don't just see mopeds swarming the streets but also other little scenes like the ones in the alley that are so unique to this city. For example, in the MIDDLE of the sidewalk down the road from my house, there is an independently standing reclining barber chair with a barber and all, in addition to a line of men waiting to get their hair trimmed by the various tools placed on a metal tray next to the chair. An elevated slab of concrete on one segment of sidewalk further down the road was the spot where six men and women played card games (and also gambling hence the 100,000 Dong bill placed next to the cards, which is about $5 dollars). Sunglass shops. Wooden, hand-drawn open carriages roaming up and down the street, filled to the brim with bananas and a scale to weigh them before buying. This morning I bought an entire plastic bag filled with bananas for 500 Dong, which is equivalent to a few pennies. Women squatting on the side of the road with a small handful of chom chom fruits (small red, spikey fruits…delicious). Cyclo and moped drivers begging me to have a ride. Men literally squatting, on the sidewalk, playing a game with small, round marble pieces. A woman methodically peeling pomellos in large quantities and throwing the thick, yellowish peels to the side. Motorbikes driving and parking all over the sidewalk so that there are actual blocks where you must walk on the street because of the lack of space to walk. I have also begun walking through the sculpture garden near the Reunification Palace to cut out an entire corner of heavy moped traffic. Unlike the parks I have run in here, this park is really beautiful and dozens of people do Tai Chi along the pathway near the sculptures. This park is something I now look forward to everyday! I have never been so appreciative of a semi quiet sculpture garden before. I know these are all just little segments, pieces, moments of my 35 minute walk, but to me these are the little moments that I remember each night when I go to sleep and that I hope I will remember when I leave this country and return back to the completely different pace of life in America.

I have finally found a park big enough to actually RUN here! It is around the corner and down the block from my house. There are actually people running in the park too! I never had a chance to write about my experience running in Can Tho in the Mekong Delta in the park each morning near my home stay there, so I will use this opportunity to write about both experiences! If I were a writer, I would definitely write a book about my adventures in Vietnam, told through my experiences running in various parks throughout the country. As annoying as it is sometimes to get up at 5:30 AM to run before the heat sets in, I have had so many memories made from these runs. The park in Can Tho was much smaller than the park here. It was essentially a deserted theme park with rusty carousels, swings, and other rides and sculptures. Men and women flooded the park each morning (unless it was raining, in which case I was the ONLY runner…I really don't understand the Vietnamese fear of exercising in the rain when it rains so often). Many played badminton along the path or did various forms of "movements" or "morning exercises" as they call them here. I say "movements" for lack of a better word. In Vietnam, no one really runs, except for the five or so runners I saw in the park this morning. Everyone else in the park exercising do MOVE their bodies, but these movements are completely different from running or playing any other sport. What I mean is, the men and women working out in the park simply move their bodies in repetitive motions while sitting on benches, standing, leaning against the park gate, or even lying on the grass. These movements include head bobbing, flexing arms and releasing them, swinging legs over and over while sitting on a bench, etc. Older women in the center of the park were definitely doing a variation hokey pokey. All these things make for pretty entertaining running experiences!

A note about food: we have completely branched out to the street food! It turns out that it is a) delicious and b) the cheapest food I have ever eaten. For lunch today, for example, I had a baguette with a cooked egg, salt and pepper, cucumbers thinly sliced, and soy sauce. This meal cost 5.000 Dong, which is probably less than 50 cents! The street coffee is also really delicious, and now that I've been here a month, I can even tolerate the ice without any stomach issues. Not only have we branched out to the street food, but we have stopped going to restaurants filled with foreigners or more expensive entrees (and by expensive I mean over 1 dollar). As long as you go to crowded places to eat, you are generally okay. Our favorite pho restaurant, for example, looks like the inside of a garage with a retractable door and everything. The tables are simple metal tables with little metal stools. On each table in restaurants like these here, there is a plastic canister of chopsticks, bottles of hoi sin sauce, a container of toothpicks, spoons (for the pho combined with chopsticks if you are eating it properly). There are also little plastic plates of cut up limes and chili peppers. Even though these restaurants look dirty, and probably are, the food is delicious and cheap, and no one has gotten sick at all yet from these types of places. In fact, my roommate in Can Tho had violent food poisoning one night after eating at a fancy restaurant. Needless to say, I didn't eat very much myself for a few days after this now infamous night of taking care of Abby. I definitely thought we would make it to the hospital at some point that night, but she was a trooper and survived without!

Also relating to food, I have had the opportunity to try so many foods that I never have tried before, and many of which I never hope to try again. For example, I have had a glass of bird's saliva. Yes, that's right folks. I did say a bird's saliva. It is this drink here called "Bird's Nest," which is made from the saliva of a certain bird that is indigenous to Halong Bay and whose nests are made from the bird's actual saliva. They basically extract the saliva and add sugar to it and maybe some water, and it is sold in cans (and is very expensive). My host family in Can Tho told me about it the night before I tried it and they were so excited to have me drink this special drink. Needless to say, I drank it with as much enthusiasm as I could possibly foster. It was the texture of …well, mucus. Maybe a little thinner with pieces of white specks floating in it. I'll stop talking about it now because I am trying to work up an appetite for dinner and I'm sure you all have heard enough too! I have also eaten duck eggs, fermented fish, and a whole bunch of mysterious meat substances and floating meat balls…

Generalizations about Vietnamese culture: we spent much of our Culture and Development lecture yesterday talking about the cultural domains in the U.S. as compared to Vietnam. Our professor reiterated to us something we have all already noticed. That is, the passivity and acceptance which are dominant features in the Vietnamese people. For example, the traffic situation here. Unlike in America where a traffic jam or unfavorable traffic conditions often cause road rage, outward displays of emotions, or even social action if the situation is bad enough, here people just accept the traffic chaos and deal with it. They don't resist or try to change it. In a lot of ways I think this acceptance can be a positive thing, especially given so many other realities of living here, but at the same time it can prevent the social change that is so characteristic of America. It prevents building the needed infrastructure to change problems. Other small differences in culture or rather differences in social norms, the Vietnamese have a completely different conception of time than in the U.S. It is almost considered RUDE to be early! In fact, for any social gathering, like a wedding for example, one should be at least 30 minutes late. I see this difference of time more as a "plus fifteen minute" rule, however. Any event, class, lecture, or place we go to, it is completely acceptable to be at least 10 minutes and up to 15 minutes late. Another small difference is the almost non-existent use of toilet paper. When I asked my home stay mom for toilet paper, she gave me a plastic container shaped like a puppy dog filled with cut up pieces of dinner napkins. And that I consider to be a luxury! I'm not exactly sure what people do without toilet paper, but I'll leave that up to your imagination.

A bit more about our excursion in the Mekong Delta and in particular our experience weathering a typhoon in a wall-less shack structure in the middle of the river (literally a 45 minute boat ride from any remnants of civilization). After two days visiting Tram Chim National Park, we spent the last night camping out at the site of this shack/wall-less cabin. We took a 45 minute boat ride through the beautiful water that was filled with lily pads, bright pink lotus flowers, lots of greenery, and so many rare, endangered birds flying overhead. We even saw a rainbow on the ride to the camp site. When we got there, we were greeted by a tall tower that allowed us to see the view of the sunset later that evening (see pictures already posted in the blog) and also the wall-less shack where we would be sleeping (in addition to the other SIT Vietnam program who we got to spend the excursion with!). After taking a million pictures of the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen…well, I guess it ties with the sunrise on Massada…we started preparing our dinner. The four men from the national park who were staying with us that night went out on the boats to catch snails, fish, crab, and the lily pads that would be the serving "plates" for our dinner once prepared. All was going splendidly until after dinner when the rains started to hit. We had a small tarp that we used for one segment of the structure to prevent the water from coming in. Rain is no uncommon thing here, so we thought nothing of it until it failed to stop or even slow down. Instead the storm began to intensify to such a degree that the lamp we had went out and the winds really picked up. Well, we ended up weathering a typhoon that night. We got word from the national park headquarters that the low pressure system was intensifying and turning into a typhoon. We would either need to evacuate or just tough it out. The problem with evacuating was that we were 45 minutes by small, rickety boats away from land and given the speed of the winds, it would be extremely dangerous. They were talking at one point about when the winds die down to get in the boats and go 15 kilometers to another site, but none of us were big fans of this idea either. In any event, it was a very long, hot, and extremely bug-gy night with very loud winds and a lot of rain. By no means a pleasant experience, but we are so lucky that it was only a minor typhoon because if it were any more intense than it was who knows what would have happened. In retrospect it is a great story, but at the time, EVERYONE was absolutely panicked and very worried. I hope never to be in a typhoon again, let alone stranded in a wall-less and non-durable structure in the middle of nowhere weathering the storm!