Rebecca in Vietnam

Luang Prabang, Laos: A Historical Paradise

2008-12-28T19:59:00.000-08:00

This is my final hello or sabaidee from Laos! I'm writing from the beautiful lobby of the Villa Maly hotel in Luang Prabang. This hotel is a newly renovated house from the French colonial era - in fact, it just opened a few months ago. The lobby, rooms, pool area, and breakfast patio are very European (including the guests here!) and absolutely pristine. Even the sink in the bathroom is like a piece of art, crafted from a massive painted urn with a gold hammered bowl at the top. In a few hours we leave for the airport where we fly from Luang Prabang to Ha Noi and then to Da Nang later tonight. We stay in Da Nang at a beach resort for 4 days and then transfer to HCMC and GO HOME IN LESS THAN A WEEK!! I am so excited.

Our time in Laos has been fantastic. If I were to recommend anything to someone wishing to travel to this country, I would absolutely recommend going to this city. It reminds me of Vietnam in so many ways yet at the same time it could not be more different. In a lot of ways, I think that this trip to Laos has helped me to better understand Vietnam - I am not as far removed from Vietnam as going home to the US yet, but there are so many contrasts I have been exposed to here (cultural, historical culinary, the pace of life here etc) that have helped me synthesize my experience in Vietnam and provide context to my life there this past semester.

The streets of Luang Prabang have a similar Asian and exotic feel as parts of Vietnam, but it is as if people take a deep breath before hitting the streets and move a whole lot slower, with a constant smile on their faces. Everyone (I am not exaggerating) is friendly and smiling and not NEARLY as pushy as the Vietnamese people are. Although there are tuk tuks everywhere to be ridden, the drivers don't harass you as they do in VN. Even the night market we went to is so enjoyable! It is not hot, people don't push, the streets are clean, there is space to walk or even stroll, and you don't have to haggle as much with vendors nagging at you constanty, as is the case in many, many markets in Vietnam. This city is a lot like the Asian version of Key West in terms of its tropical feel and urban pace - just replace all the rainbow flags from Key West with Buddhist monks or statues of Buddhas and it will be as if you are here with me!

In terms of the more historical aspects of this city, the centrality of Buddhism in this culture, this country, and this city specifically is really important to point out. Beginning in the very early morning (around 5:30 AM), the sacred atmosphere and spiritual life central to Luang Prabang becomes evident. Around 5:30 AM, young Buddhist novices dressed in their yellow robes with orange tied belts parade through the streets in a single line, begging bowl in hand as they follow the narrow streets. Villagers come out each morning lining the sidewalks as they offer to the long line of monks different food items, which the novices fill their bowls with. This food is the only food they eat all day and the reason that Lao Buddhists are not necessarily vegetarians as they are in VN - the novices take and eat whatever food the community offers them. This usually means sticky rice, bananas, or instant noodle. Speaking of sticky rice, it is an absolute staple in the diet here, as is curry. Two foods I will definitely miss when we leave! The sticky rice is like the bread of the meal, sticky enough to dip with and is always eaten with your hands. It is eaten from small baskets, always.

Luang Prabang has a beautiful setting in the moutnains of northern Laos on a narrow peninsula formed by the NamKhan river joining with the Mekong. There is a dramatically less amount of visible poverty here compared to Vietnam. In fact, people live in actual houses here in the countryside. Development seems more widespread too - powerlines are not jumbled together, the roads are consitently more reliable, and more people drive cars. This is probably due to the much smaller population here. The entire country has 7 million people, compared to Vietnam's 84 million people. The per capita income here is much higher compared to Vietnam.

Also Luang Prabang has a long history of being the choice location for many temples (there are 32 remaining in this VERY small town of the original 60). We have had the opportunity to visit many (maybe too many?) temples including Wat Mai, Wat Sene, Wat Xieng Thong, Wat Visoun, Wat Aham, and Wat That, all ornately decorated with massive and tiny Buddha statues, mosaics, colored glass, engravings, and lots and lots of gold. We also took a long boatride along the Mekong and visited a rice wine-making village and a few caves filled with tiny sculptures of Buddhas and climbed to the top of an incredible waterfall. We even went through a Hmong village, which was so interesting to me after reading The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, which is one of my favorite books written about a Hmong family from Laos living in the US. This country has been so impressive and so beautiful! Definitely a good decision to come here...I don't regret it for a second!

If there is a computer at our next hotel I will post one last time from Vietnam, but if not this might be my last post from Asia! I can't believe this time is nearly over, but I feel like I have really gotten everything from it that I can and that I wished to. Happy early new year!!

Sabaidee ("Hello") from the Land of A Million Elephants: Laos

2008-12-25T23:23:00.000-08:00

Sabaidee! That is Laotian for "Hello." I am writing to you from the business center of the amazing, beautiful, and elegantly luxurious hotel we are staying in in Vientiane, Laos, the capital. In the language here, the country Laos means the Land of A Million Elephants, so I figured this would be the most appropriate title for this post! Although I have yet to see an actual elephant here other than the elephants decorating the artwork and tapestries abundant in this country, the word is that they can be found in the countryside and remain a sacred animal to many here.

We arrived in Vientiane after an intense 2 day in a row overnight train experience to and from Sapa. We arrived from Sapa to Hanoi at 4 AM two days ago and then went directly to the airport for our flight here. We arrived to this amazing hotel exhausted and dirty from trekking and not showering in two days. As soon as we got to the hotel, however, we were greeted so warmly by the staff here dressed in the traditional Laos dress and holding their hands in the prayer position, which is considered a polite gesture upon seeing someone for the first time. Their beautiful dress, which is similar to the many tapestries and silks my dad has brought back from India during his travels, is so distinct from Vietnamese fabrics - it is amazing that these countries are so close together yet so different. In addition to the obvious differences in attire of the people here, their skin is much darker than Vietnamese and their eyes lighter shades of brown. In fact, the Laotian people look much more Thai and even Indian than Vietnamese people do. My parents laugh when I continue making these comparisons to Vietnam, but after all, this has been my only point of reference for the last 4 months. When exchanging money, I unintentionally converted the currency into VN Dong rather than US Dollars to understand the exchange rate. Another example of a time when my parents got a kick out of the influence Vietnam has had on my thinking and behavior!

Upon entering the lobby of this hotel, which was decorated just beautifully with bright white cushions on the couches, which contrasted the dark wood used on the floors and other furniture, we were ushered into a seating area to enjoy freshly squeezed orange juice with orchids decorating the glasses. What luxury!! It was delicious. We settled into our rooms and took a shower. When I say take a shower, I mean take the best shower I have possibly ever experienced!!! Okay, maybe my perspective is a LITTLE off considering where I have lived this semester, but in any event, this shower was amazing. There was even a private garden for each shower inside a three walled structure, made visible from inside the shower through a huge glass window.

After showering, we headed into town with our guide for a short tour of the city and a glimpse at several structures we looked at in more depth today, such as the city's arc de triumph and many, many ancient Buddhist temples. We had lunch at an amazing restaurant, which like a few restaurants in Vietnam I love, is an NGO to train street children on food preparation and the restaurant business. We had delicious tofu curry, fresh mushroom spring rolls, sticky rice, Lao beer, and all sorts of eggplant, tomato, and mushroom dips. There is definitely a strong Thai and Indian influence on the food, but at the same time, so many similarities to Vietnamese food and culture - such as the rice, fruits, street vendor foods, and cultural mannerisms.

One huge difference: IT IS QUIET HERE!!! I never thought I would appreciate quiet so much. I used to think people were crazy for going on a vacation to a cabin in the mountains in the middle of nowhere where there are no other people, only quiet nature. Now I think that vacation idea is absolutely brilliant. Quiet is a wonderful thing! After being in Hanoi and HCMC for so long, I really have adapted to the constant and almost malicious sounds of the streets - the honking, chatter, oral advertisements etc. It wasn't until I was removed from it, however, that I realized how much the noise can affect you! There are so many less people on the streets here, so many less motorbikes, so many less cars. It is wonderful. For the first time since before Vietnam, I have "checked out." Even though I was on vacation in Vietnam once my parents got there, I was always on-call, helping with communication and making sure the trip went well. Now I can really relax...and I am!

Today we visited beautiful Buddhist temples (one of which had over 10,000 tiny Buddha statues nestled intricately into little lotus-shaped alcoves on all inside walls of the structure - incredible), stupas, and we climbed the arc de triumph, which is modeled after the one in France and overlooks the entire city. We were told by a Canadian woman we met in Sapa that Laos is a sleepy place compared to Vietnam. It is! This sleepiness was so visible as we stood at the top of this massive structure overlooking the city where the tallest building is only 13 stories tall. The pace of life here is literally a slow-motion version of Hanoi or HCMC that is so evident to me that I feel like I can touch it. It also has a much more European feel than Vietnam, even though it is much less developed. There is a central plaza and many more European cafes and coffee shops (the coffee here has such a unique flavor...just when I thought Vietnamese coffee was a one of a kind flavor!). It is cleaner and generally more tolerable and enjoyable.

Tonight we leave for Luang Prabang where we will stay for 3 nights and then head back to Vietnam for a final 4 day stay at a beach resort in Danang. I can't believe that in a week from now I will be leaving Asia! Time has flown by. I can't wait to be home!!!

Alive and Well!

2008-12-23T23:15:00.000-08:00

Hello! I am sorry that it has been so so long since I have last written. I do, however, have a very legitimate excuse - my laptop broke. It is a long story that I don't even want to begin describing, so I am now on a computer in the ecotour company in Sa Pa (where it is freezing temperatures) in northern Vietnam with numb toes (3 pairs of socks later) and my entire family bundled up in our muddy clothing beside me. You would think from this description that I have been roughing it once again in Vietnam over the last week and a half since my family arrived in Vietnam. But that, in fact, is not the case, minus today being the exception. The day my program ended (December 14) was a very bittersweet day. It was very sad to say good bye to everyone in my group, especially after the intensive 4 months we have spent together, just 8 of us. I do realize that the difficulty in saying good bye is only a true indication of the close friendships I have made with them here. Even though everyone is home, I have still been in touch as best I can so far,and I think once I get back home, this communication will remain and be more possible.

After the tear-filled trip to the airport, I went out to lunch with Thuy (program assitant) and Alex, who was also staying longer in Vietnam. After lunch I checked into the beautiful Bong Sen Hotel in downtown Saigon where I stayed the night by myself before my mom and sister arrived the following morning (my dad came 3 days later because of work committments). Although I was worried the night alone would be lonely after saying good bye to everyone, I couldn't have enjoyed it more. I strolled along the Gucci, Burberry, and Louis Vuitton filled streets just outside the hotel, a foreign and "non-Vietnam" experience I had yet to have in Vietnam. As I walked around that evening alone, feeling confident in the Vietnamese environment that I remember was so intimidating to me just months ago, I realized that I really have grown up and changed since I got here months ago --- this realization has become even more clear since my family arrived. I'm not babysitting them by any means, but let's just say I have come in handy communicating and getting around this crazy place. I can't get over the fact that people can get used to anything - there are so many aspects of life here, daily events, and national quircks that have become so normal to me, that I don't even think about them or get shocked by them anymore (e.g., all the trash on the sidewalks, people spitting everywhere, the difficulty in speaking English/getting the correct order in a restaurant, cockroaches, rats...the list goes on). Having my parents here and recognizing their reactions and shock that I somehow managed to live happily here for an entire semester has really made me see how much this country has enabled me to grow and how much this experience has challenged and rewarded me simultaneously.

Although there is this strong desire inside me to just get home, which I CAN'T WAIT to do, I had a great time showing my family around the "real Vietnam" as I call it- this means the broken sidewalks around the University, the grocery store I went to, the old, tattered track (which I got to run on with my dad - half of the track was blocked off so we ran 100 meters over and over and over....typical running experience here). We have had quite an intense traveling experience after we left HCMC - we spent a few days in the central area visiting Hoi An, Hue, and Da Nang, and then Ha Noi and a luxurious cruise along Ha Long Bay. Last night we took the overnight train from the local people-filled train station in Ha Noi to Lao Cai, arriving at 5 AM and then driving an hour on the foggy roads with zero (and I mean zero) visibility to Sa Pa. Today we spent the day trekking in the incredible terraced rice paddies with local Black H'mong girls (google Sapa, Vietnam, or BlackH'mong ethnic minority people to see pictures of this incredibly beautiful place). Even though it was freezing temperatures, the hike was great. We also had a chance to visit the market this morning before the trek, where my family got to experience yet again the smells and grime of Vietnamese markets - including the slaughtered dog meat dispersed throughout the market. At some point when I have my computer alive and well again I will post a picture of the dog head from the market. It is a very traditional winter food here - the yin yang concept applies to food here too. Dog meat is considered a warm food so it perfectly complements the cold of winter. The perfect "Vietnamese hot dog," some say. Although I have eaten bird saliva (which I made my sister and dad try too), cow blood, and a whole bunch of other crazy things, I have never and will never venture to the dog department!

I had a great time in Hanoi also showing my family my daily life there - we had dinner at some of my favorite restaurants and street food places (yes, that's right, I convinced my mother to squat in the insanely crowded old quarter of Ha Noi and eat street food...we have a picture as proof of this noteworthy experience for her). I showed them my infamous Lotus Guesthouse, where I lived for 6 dollars a night and endured the construction noises of the room below me made possible from the massive hole in the ground of my ant infested room. Of course they completely renovated the guesthouse since I lived there, so I couldn't REALLY prove to them that I survived that experience! They also met some of my Vietnamese friends and just in general got a good feeling and sense of my life here in Vietnam. It was amazing for me also how many of the street vendors I went to routinely remembered me - when they met my family they hugged and embraced both me and them. I couldn't believe it and couldn't have enjoyed it more.

Tonight we spend our second night in a row on the overnight train back to Ha Noi where we will then go directly to the airport there for our flight to Laos. We spend 5 days in Laos before heading back to Danang to spend our last 4 days at a resort on the beach (Whew! That was a mouthful in words...can you imagine in reality?) Despite the hectic traveling, it is nice to be living in much more luxurious hotels etc. This has definitely been a trip to remember so far...

When I find another computer I will update more...but until then, I hope everyone is well and having a great winter break!!

Pictures from Fieldwork

2008-12-03T02:34:00.000-08:00

Fish sauce display and me at Cho Hom open air market in Hanoi where I did my middle-class urban interviews

Trang (my translator and friend from Hanoi University) in Cho Hom during day of interviews

Fish sauce seller in Cho Hom who I interviewed

Fruit and vegetables in market

Fish sauce delivery man came while I was interviewing!

Commune Health Clinic located in Thon Dong Ba Village (where I did rural micronutrient malnutrition interviews)

Thong Dong Ba Village

Fish sauce display in the village just outside the house I conducted some interviews

Wonderful woman I interviewed in Thong Dong Ba village - she suffers from severe iron deficiency anemia. Her children eat rice porridge 3 meals a day, and she spends a total of 1 dollar a day on food for her family.

Pictures from the North

2008-12-03T02:20:00.001-08:00

Massive tirantula we came across during a hike in Cuc Phuong National Park
Beautiful Halong Bay

Girls at sunset on Halong Bay

Muong Ethnic Minority Village we stayed in during the excursion

Worst flooding in Hanoi in 20 years (from early November)

The Final Weeks

2008-11-29T05:59:00.001-08:00

Hello! I'm sorry that I have been a little MIA the last few weeks. I am now back in HCMC happily living with Alex again in a guesthouse that has no internet, hence the lack of blog posts! I ended my time in Hanoi on Thanksgiving day. I loved everything about Hanoi, from the area I lived, the street vendors, the park and lake nearby, the general feel of the city, and especially the work and research I was doing. Other than my guesthouse being absolutely awful (I'm talking…there were ants infesting my bed, I could reach the ceiling it was so low, no windows, they were doing massive drilling in a room below my room and because I had a gigantic hole in the floor of my room, which opened into the under-construction room, it was like living IN the construction site). I've learned that these inconveniences are truly insignificant – in fact, I was living luxury compared to the way that most people in this country live. I have to say that living with Alex again in HCMC is a relief. Living alone was great for the schedule I was living during that segment of my research, but living entirely alone in Vietnam does take a toll on you even when you don't realize it. I can't describe the relief I felt when I landed back in HCMC. I love Hanoi, but something about this city is so comfortable and familiar. Alex and I returned to our pho hole-in-the-wall "restaurant" where they welcomed us realizing we had been away for some time. We returned to the track, where all the old ladies remembered us as well, smiling as we ran past. Even the sticky rice ladies near the university remembered us when we visited this morning. Things are just falling into place here, as strange as it is to think that in two weeks from now, I will be formally finished with this incredible experience. It will certainly be over technically, but what I have learned this semester and especially the last few weeks living alone here, is absolutely indispensible and irreplaceable. I couldn't be more thankful.

Speaking of thankful, happy late Thanksgiving! One would think that being in Vietnam for Thanksgiving would mean no turkey, gravy, pumpkin pie, or mashed potatoes. But think again! Alex and I splurged on a Thanksgiving dinner at the New World Hotel, which is the hotel Bill Clinton stayed at during his famous visit, and the hotel that I longingly looked into each day on the walk to school from my home stay, hoping that one day I would be able to set foot inside. That day finally happened. The food and wine were great, but greater than that was the fact that out of the six or so Americans also eating dinner there, two of them were from GREENSBORO. Yes, that's right! We all sort of raised our wine glasses together as we sat down wishing one another a Happy Thanksgiving and asking one another about where we were all from. After a minute or so, it became clear that two of the men (both in the furniture business, one of them lives here doing quality control at a factory nearby) were from Greensboro, one graduated from Grimsley and one from Smith. What a small world. It was definitely the most memorable Thanksgiving I've ever had. I couldn't have missed my mom's pumpkin chiffon pie more, but nonetheless, I made due with what I have here. On the walk home at around 10:30, Alex and I passed a woman digging through the trash, clearly in the squatting position she would be for the remainder of the night…out on the street. We felt full, happy, and content that we had just allowed ourselves to spend money on a real dinner, but seeing this woman made us squirm inside. We gave her the rest of the money we had in our money belts and walked home. You just can't get away from these situations here – we felt like we were in a bubble of luxury in the hotel, but once you step foot back onto the street, this bubble explodes right in your face and leaves you with a sense of guilt, or rather just plain reality. I enjoyed and loved every moment of my Thanksgiving indulgence, but not without recognizing how lucky I truly am for what I have and how the majority of people here cannot say the same.

I wanted to write about my research and field work the last few weeks. As you may now, I am studying the cultural influences on iron fortification of fish sauce and how national efforts toward widespread fortification can alleviate micronutrient malnutrition, specifically iron-deficiency anemia. I know that sounds like a mouthful, which it is, but I couldn't be more interested in my research topic. In essence, I am studying the nutritional impacts of iron-deficiency anemia in Vietnam and how the role of fish sauce in the Vietnamese diet affects will affect the success of the national project. In terms of fieldwork, I think it's most important to start off explaining the incredible advisor that I have been lucky enough to work with. She is a PhD candidate from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, but is from Vietnam and conducting her research at the National Institute of Nutrition about social marketing of iron-fortified fish sauce. Her American experiences, however, have helped significantly with the language barrier that tends to get in the way of successful verbal interactions here in Vietnam! I spent a few days at the National Institute of Nutrition using their library and primary sources available there, but the majority of my research came from the work I did in the field. With the help of Van and her contacts through the NIN, I was able to set up a day of rural interviews in Thon Dong Ba village with severely micronutrient malnourished women. Van was kind enough to accompany me on the hour trip to the village and be my translator. I conducted pretty in depth interviews with four women over the course of the day. I also had the opportunity to visit the commune health center and see the facilities (or rather lack of them). For a few thousand people in the neighboring communes, there is only one medical doctor. The entire courtyard was filled with plants, which were all the herbal remedies used in the facility. The interviews with the women, however were the most memorable. They were so open to sharing information about their lives, their food intake for their families, the percentage of their budget that goes toward buying meat, fish sauce consumption patterns, and experiences with IDA. One woman, for example, had arms about half the size as mine and was at least five inches shorter than me. She was tiny and clearly malnourished. She had a family of six (which she was embarrassed initially to tell me since there are family planning regulations about having two children – but she and her husband wanted to have a son, so they had children until she gave birth to her fourth child). She and her husband are rice farmers and get by in the off-season by reselling vegetables in a nearby market. Each day, she spends less than one dollar on food for her family. I just couldn't fathom it…it means that her children literally eat no meat, just rice porridge for three meals a day. After the interviews, I gave each woman about six dollars as a token of my appreciation, and realized that I was providing a week's worth of food for most of the women. I also used my grant money to donate six month's worth of iron tablets for each of the women I interviewed. I just couldn't sleep at night knowing that these women and their families were not eating enough each day to survive, let alone the micronutrients to keep them healthy.

The next segment of my fieldwork took place in Hanoi proper. I interviewed four more women through Van's contacts at NIN. Basically we contacted another health center near Van's home and recruited three more women who had recently visited the clinic for IDA. I also did about 10 interviews of fish sauce sellers in four different markets (two supermarkets and two traditional open-air Vietnamese markets, which were totally isolated from any tourists…I was definitely the only white person for miles!). One of the students I befriended from Hanoi University was my translator for the market interviews. Finally, I did a short questionnaire for the Hanoi University students. All in all, I did 17 interviews and 15 surveys. The results were fascinating – I will share them in my next post! For now, I have to go! I hope all is well with everyone there. Can't wait to be home!!!

Northern Excursion & Being a Non-Tourist

2008-11-23T01:30:00.001-08:00

(This post was supposed to be posted almost 2 weeks ago…I'm sorry!!!)

This excursion is our last one in the program before ISP begins. It has been different from other excursions we have had because we are constantly moving and changing locations. Since the last time I posted, we have spent a night in the forest, slept in a stilt Muong house, and rowed boats through a bay of caves and rock cliffs. The general theme of the trip has been more ecological/environmental based. Before we left to the forest, we spent two days in Hanoi doing as much sightseeing as we could given the flooding circumstances. We ended up having to cancel many of our scheduled trips because the flooding completely devastated most areas of the city. People were without electricity and clean water. Upwards of 50 people have died so far in and around Hanoi proper. We even had to reserve a larger bus so that we could drive through the floody streets. On our way to our lecture at the Institute for Social Development, for example, there were parts of the road that were so flooded that men were literally fishing in the street and catching upwards of five fish at a time. The cost of food has nearly quadrupled since the flooding started, which is even evident in the very minimal selection of fruits on the side of the road driving in the villages. One village we drove through had boats delivering instant noodles to the people because they were unable to even leave their homes, let alone travel to a market. In Hanoi we also ate lunch at a restaurant that is an NGO for street children and runs a program to get them off the street. We also visited the Temple of Literature, which considered to be the first university in Vietnam. It had a completely Chinese feeling to it – the rich red colors interspersed throughout, the architectural design similar to a pagoda, and the intricately designed gardens that were expansive throughout. On our last day in Hanoi before leaving for Cuc Phuong National Park, we were supposed to have an all-day seminar at the National University in Hanoi. Because of the flood, however, the entire university was shut down and many areas of it destroyed. We ended up having the same lectures in the guesthouse. Although the lectures were all quite interesting and we also had the chance to spend more time with the Hanoi University students (one of which agreed to be my translator for my ISP!), I had a hard time being stuck in a dark room all day without any sunshine.

Luckily the rains slowed by the evening and we were able to take a long walk around the lake and attend the water puppet show, which is a traditional and trademark element of Hanoi. It is a puppet show, which incorporates Chinese and French influence but has a uniquely Vietnamese twist to it, which is particularly evident in the content of the puppet show stories. The marionette puppets are all intricately designed, ranging from dragons, snakes, to people, and are controlled by a group of about four or five people standing behind the bamboo wall. The most distinct feature of this puppet show is that it is done in two or so feet of water. Vietnamese singers provide the background songs to this production, which left us in our wonderful second row seats a bit wet by the show's end after getting splashed quite a few times throughout the program.

After the show, we walked along the streets by the lake on our way to a late dinner. Co Thanh just radiates energy when she is walking along the streets of Hanoi, which helps fuel my own intrigue with the city. On this walk, we saw so many exciting things, from clothing stores, street vendors, pharmacies, and hotels. All the streets here are compartmentalized – there are streets entirely devoted to shoes, to cups of fresh fruit with yogurt, to scarves, to pharmacies etc. Unlike in HCMC, the sidewalk in Hanoi is an actual sidewalk where people walk. There are even spray-painted lines structuring the rows of parked motorbikes in some parts of the city. In the middle of our walk, Co Thanh quickly crossed the street and told us she would be right back. We saw her talking with a street-vendor woman selling sticky rice. Co Thanh came back to our side of the street with two bags full of sticky rice, each ball of which was wrapped individually in newspaper and felt hot to the touch. Because the walk to our restaurant for dinner was far, she wanted us to have a chance to experience this sticky rice. This is the vendor where she enjoyed sticky rice as a child growing up in Hanoi. Looking back at this small food vendor, nestled away onto the sidewalk of this street, I realized how appreciative I am of Co Thanh and her desire for us to see Vietnam not as tourists. I'm not exactly sure what I am here, but I know that no tourist stops on the side of the road and picks THIS woman to buy rice from. As I bit into this foreign food, I realized that this country is becoming less and less foreign to me after all. I'm learning to enjoy this increasing degree of comfort and confidence in both myself and life in this country with each passing day.

On My Own in Vietnam!

2008-11-13T00:03:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone! I am sorry for not posting in a long time but things here have been (great) but so busy! I have a lot to catch up on in my writing, including our most recent and last excursion to Cuc Phuong National Forest as part of our Northern Excursion, but first I want to update you all on where I am right now. It is now about 3 PM on Thursday and I am sitting outside my guesthouse room in Hanoi on a crammed little patio of bamboo chairs and potted plants overlooking other apartment buildings nearby. I can hear some honking and the sweeping of the woman beneath our patio, but in general, this area is refreshingly quiet. Most important to point out, I am wearing long paints and a sweatshirt, the sun is shining, it is not raining, and there is zero humidity. The weather in Hanoi is absolutely perfect (minus the flood ordeal which was devastating to the city about a week ago). The weather reminds me of early October days in North Carolina when the humidity starts to become less intense as fall puts its first foot in the door. That crisp, fall air is exactly what it is like here. Our guesthouse is about a five minute walk from a huge lake in Hanoi, which is called the Green Lake because the water is greener than evergreen trees. People walk and run around the lake at all hours of the day and there is a beautiful pagoda in the center of the lake. Last night, I went for a longer run around the lake at around 6 PM once it got dark. With a full moon overhead, a breeze, and cool temperatures outside, it couldn't have been more perfect. I have to say escaping the oppressive heat of HCMC is the biggest relief I have sensed in a long time!

Yesterday our independent study period began. I feel a strange combination of both being overwhelmed and simultaneously relieved. The few days prior to yesterday and after our Cuc Phuong Forest excursion, we had our final paper and various other academic obligations to complete before starting ISP that got a bit stressful, so in many ways being "set free" yesterday was a relief. I now have an entire month of time that I get to budget entirely by myself, without the structure of any academic program whatsoever. Granted I have a massive research project that would terrify me to complete in the United States let alone in Vietnam, but I am really excited. I have set up all my contacts at the National Nutrition Institute, will be conducting interviews with micronutrient malnourished women in the countryside, and will even be accompanying my advisor on nutrition field research in a nearby village on Saturday. I promise to explain more about my project as time goes on. Despite this sense of liberation I feel, it is a bit scary to be on my own away from the eight other SIT students I have spent intensive time with the last two and a half months. The only real contact I have with my program director is updating phone calls here and there plus my $19 a day stipend for housing and food. Although there are a few other SIT students in Hanoi while I am here, I am living on the other side of town by myself, other than these few days with Danielle. I feel more vulnerable to the hardships of living in this country, but at the same time very excited and honestly feel ready for this experience. I think about what my life would be like now in the US if I hadn't gone abroad. I would be in the library studying some concept or book or writing a paper. Instead, I am in Vietnam studying nutrition, which I've come to realize is something I am really passionate about, with firsthand contact with people here and life here. I can't even imagine how I will look back on this experience one day in the next few years when I am stuck in a cubicle in some office building. This is so energizing, real, exciting, and unique. I am not letting myself forget that, even when things get challenging!

This morning I spent at the World Bank Library, which is the most pristine academic building I have yet to see in Vietnam. The resources were fantastic for me. It was actually reenergizing to use actual books for research rather than internet articles. The library windows overlook the Opera House of Hanoi, which is a beautiful building reminiscent of Versailles in France (it was built during French occupation). I think I may be going back there to do more research because it is both a comprehensive library and an enjoyable place to work. Last night, Danielle and I (my roommate for the next few days before she leaves to Danang for her research, at which point I will move into a single at this guesthouse) went out for a nicer dinner near the American Club and ended up walking around the lake and meeting up with a few other SIT'ers in Hanoi for some $.30 beer in the old quarter. There is such an interesting mix of Westerners and Vietnamese in that neighborhood, which I far prefer over HCMC's backpacking district. As you can tell, I am just loving Hanoi and can't wait to spend the next few weeks here before I return to HCMC for the last segment of my research. This is a city that still has many of the same infrastructure problems that HCMC experiences, but the cooler temperatures and different type of people here (which is almost visibly apparent) make the day to day experience of living here much more enjoyable. In Hanoi you can use an umbrella (in HCMC there are too many people to even think about opening an umbrella). You can walk on the sidewalk and not touch anyone else if you wish not to. You can even walk around and not be harassed constantly by motorbike drivers, cyclo drivers, and fruit-selling ladies. Although I'm not sure if it's my growing confidence in the Vietnamese ways that make some of these observations true or not, but in general I am much more at ease here. I have even used more of my Vietnamese skills here and people are so entertained. For lunch today, for example, Danielle and I ate the most amazing bun bo, which is beef vermicelli soup, sitting on little red plastic stools on the side of the road. We ordered completely in Vietnamese and even had a mini conversation with the women working about how old we are, how long we have been here so far, and how delicious the food is. Obviously the content of our conversation was nothing complex, but I'm beginning to realize how necessary basic Vietnamese language skills are in order to experience the most authentic elements of Vietnamese culture, such as street food eaten off of little plastic stools. A small interesting side note – all the street vendors like the one we ate at for lunch are nomadic. By that I mean that this amazing bowl of soup we had for lunch today may not be there tomorrow or even in a few hours. Unless it is an official restaurant, the vendors just move around the streets for the most part. It's like the Vietnamese culinary disappearing act!

Even though I knew this entry would be extremely long, I did not think it would take me this long to reach the point to talk about the latest excursion. I think for the sake of your eyes and sanity, I will stop here for now and use my next post to write about the forest, tarantula experiences, Obama victory in Vietnam, and Halong Bay experiences. Miss you all! Sending love from Vietnam.

The Halfway Point

2008-11-02T03:28:00.001-08:00

The time has come – I am halfway through my study abroad experience in Vietnam. It is hard to believe that in only 12 days from now, I will be on my own in this country doing my independent research project. I remember at the very beginning of the program, I told myself that when the time came for the Hanoi excursion, (which we left for at 5:30 AM this morning), I would really be "over the hill" of my time here. This past week has been strange in a lot of ways because it has really been like an ending. We finished our Vietnamese language classes, had our final exam, had a cultural exchange program with university students here, and on Friday night we had our final dinner with professors and home stay families at a fancy buffet restaurant. Despite the difficulty of the language classes, we were all pretty sad to be finished. We have grown to really love our cute, little professor and all of his quirks – such as consistently calling me "Berrecka" instead of Rebecca (everyone in my program now calls me Berrecka), being a grandpa figure and taking care of us on excursions, or asking us to join him for a smoke during our 15 minute break during each three our lecture (don't worry, no one has taken him up on this offer). After our test yesterday we gave him a framed picture of all of us and made a cute card as well. An interesting fact about gift giving in VN culture: it is not appropriate to open a gift in front of the people who give it to you. Professor Nghia was blown away that we asked him to open the gift once we gave it to him. During the oral part of the exam which was done one by one, I realized that I was actually able to speak Vietnamese! Although the questions were not complex questions by any means and he spoke slower than anyone actually speaks here, I could respond in Vietnamese with little difficulty.

Last night was one of the best nights I've had since I've been here. In the afternoon we had our cultural exchange with university students. We had been told that they were practicing hours on end for this two hour show, so we decided to put some effort in as well. We ended up singing and dancing to a few classic American songs like "Amazing Grace", "Ain't No Mountain High," and "Lean On Me." We sounded pretty pathetic but we had a great time nonetheless. The Vietnamese performances were absolutely, positively HILLARIOUS. It's guaranteed to be funny when Vietnamese try to cater to American pop-culture tastes. When we sat down at our seats, there was a paper printed with the lyrics to "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands." Luckily we never got to that part of the program, but one game they performed/played that we did get to was called the "I Love You Game." The two VN hosts would clap and then suddenly stop. Whoever continued to clap would be "punished," as they called it, and come up to the stage. In order to sit down, those on stage had to go up to someone else in the audience and say I Love You. It was so silly, but because the VN students were so enthusiastic, dressed in their wigs and glasses for Halloween, it was so funny. It was the kind of humor worse than any cheesy, American game show, if that makes any sense. I was also "pet" for the first time yesterday. The girl sitting next to me was taken by the length of my eyelashes and asked if she could "touch" them. I'm going to assume this was a complement, not her attempt to make me feel like a puppy in a pet store!

After the cultural exchange, we went back to the guesthouse and got ready for our dinner event. For the first time in a long time, maybe weeks, I broke away from the simplicity that has been central to my daily routine here. This simplicity means that the only consistent thing I wear or apply to my body every day is deodorant. No makeup, jewelry, etc. But last night, we all broke away from this simplicity and looked nice for a change! We walked to the restaurant along the streets of the downtown area, which is completely different from "real" Saigon. That is, the area with all the fancy hotels for foreigners is a world apart from the real life in HCMC. Gucci, Armani, and Prada stores line the blocks in this area, which in my opinion is the biggest irony to exist in this country. Here are stores where the average item sold costs more than most Vietnamese families' annual income. Beggars and all forms of street culture are missing for blocks on end. Everything is written in English. It was bizarre to experience, especially since the majority of my time Vietnam has been spent in such ordinary places where ordinary people spend their time. In many ways, it bothers me that this is what an average foreigner considers Saigon to be when they visit. It's too bad that this average foreigner doesn't always go down the random alleyways or eat at ordinary restaurants to see what Vietnam is really like for most people. After the delicious dinner which lasted nearly three hours, my entire group went back to our guesthouse and dressed up in some Halloween attire and went dancing at a club downtown. We all had a great time together, as usual!

It is now Sunday evening and I have been up since 4:30 AM and am exhausted! We are in Hanoi now, which I have grown to absolutely LOVE over the course of the last 8 hours that we have been here. Many describe this city as the Paris of Asia. Although I have not been to Paris, I truly believe this expression to be the case. Over the last two days, there has been massive flooding and rains here, which is worse than Hanoi has experienced in two decades. Just yesterday, the streets were flooded up to two meters, but today there has been significant improvement. We were on the verge of cancelling or postponing this trip, but because the rains have slowed down, we decided to continue on. The situation has become so serious, however, that food is running out for many families in the surrounding districts of the downtown area. Prices of food have nearly quadrupled because all the farmland is completely inundated by the water.

Landing in Hanoi was a world different from landing in HCMC just two months ago. Instead of the colorful arrangement of crammed houses in HCMC that were so evident during the landing, the scene landing in Hanoi was the stark opposite. Farmlands were extremely flooded and many homes were completely submerged in water. Despite the natural disaster that has taken place here, there was a charm to the place that I couldn't help but notice right from the start. The roof tops are all terra cotta and the homes are modeled like French villas with dark yellow stucco. The land is much hillier and the buildings are spaced much further apart than in HCMC. Flower fields, horse drawn carriages, and motorbikes all line the countryside on the way into the city from the airport. In general, there seems to be a fascinating combination of modernity and ancient times. Once we drove into Hanoi proper, my initial impressions became even truer. Tree lined boulevards, yellow stucco villas, sculpture parks, multiple large lakes lined by trees, less traffic, slower pace, elegant stores, cyclos, space between all forms of vehicles – these are all things I noticed. The opera house in the center of town is gorgeous, as is the high school my academic director went to, which is the same yellow stucco with a terra cotta roof and massive wooden shutters (she is from Hanoi and her parents still live here). Hanoi seems completely livable and enjoyable, unlike HCMC, which as much as I have learned to love is only tolerable. People dress differently here as well. There is a real sense of fashion and elegance to the way people present themselves. I remember my home stay mom in HCMC telling me about Hanoi because she is from here as well. Although she complained that life here has become too materialistic, she swears that the men are more handsome and the women more beautiful. I have to say she is right – people look strikingly different here, with rounder eyes, smaller noses, and they seem to have a more sophisticated, European demeanor (if the people weren't Asian here, I would think I am in Europe).

After lunch at a wonderful bistro called Paris Café, where we enjoyed delicious salads, French baguette sandwiches, chocolate mousse cake, and strong cappuccinos, we had our second drop-off exercise. It started to TORRENTIALLY raining again as soon as Alex and I began our trek to the ancient quarter. When I say torrential, I mean the strongest rain I have EVER experienced or even seen on TV. I have never used every feature of my Marmot rain coat and still gotten soaked. Even with the wrists Velcro-ed tight and my hood fastened around my head, I came home from a five hour shopping experience/exploration of the ancient quarter soaked to my underwear (keep in mind also that it is much cooler here, so the rain is cold rain)! It was interesting to note the difference in infrastructure here, though. If it rained this much in HCMC, I would feel like I was bathing in gasoline, motorbike grease, and dirt. Here, the sidewalks are open, consistently paved, and walk-able, so walking through flooding streets is a bit less miserable. Alex and I had a great time, though. The shops in the ancient quarter have some of the most beautiful artwork, bowls, plates, chopsticks, jewelry, and other household items that I have seen in Vietnam so far. I wish I could just ship entire stores home with me to outfit my apartment in Atlanta! Soaked in our wet clothing about halfway through the drop-off exercise, Alex and I stopped for another cup of bittersweet Vietnamese coffee. After my third boost of caffeine for the day, we were ready to continue. We ended up walking around the flooding streets for nearly five hours. Now that I've had my hot shower and am curled up in my bed, I couldn't be happier. Our (very, very modest) guesthouse is having many problems with the rainwater, as are other restaurants and hotels in Hanoi. The room just reeks of mold and none of the sheets are dry. Despite these small inconveniences, I couldn't be happier here. I really love the city and can't wait to spend more time here over the next month. Sending love to you all from the Paris of Asia!

Agent Orange, Disability, and HIV/AIDS in Vietnam

2008-10-28T23:11:00.001-07:00

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

2008-10-22T17:58:00.001-07:00

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

2008-10-19T04:36:00.001-07:00

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)

2008-10-19T04:21:00.000-07:00

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!)

2008-10-19T02:48:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-15T04:19:00.001-07:00

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

2008-10-14T04:48:00.001-07:00

(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

2008-10-03T02:23:00.001-07:00

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!

First night in HCMC home stay + Mekong Delta Continued

2008-09-30T03:03:00.001-07:00

It is now about 8:30 PM and I am lying down in my mosquito tent on the wood platform that is my bed in my HCMC home stay. This morning we had three hours of Vietnamese language class and a two hour seminar on the economic transition in Vietnam. We had the opportunity to have lunch with a Fulbright scholar from UGA studying Anthropology (and who did her research over the last year about food insecurity in the Mekong Delta). We also met her husband who did an SIT program studying abroad in Samoa during his college career four years ago. This opportunity to hear about this woman's research, but most importantly her experience living in Vietnam, being challenged by the lifestyle here (as we all are as well), and the advice she was able to provide to ease this process for us were all such valuable things for me. Both she and her husband kept reiterating how amidst the challenges associated with living in this country, it is most important to find those moments where you feel inspired or those "gems" of experiences as he called them…learning how to do this is the most important part of living in a country so outside your comfort zone. They also emphasized how we have such a unique opportunity because of the nature of the SIT program to really step back from the tourist version of Vietnam and see, learn, and understand the reasons why ordinary people act and live the way they do here.

I can tell this blog could become a novel if I don't start focusing my ideas! My home stay move in went pretty well, although I think that is only because of my attitude towards it, rather than the actual situation. My home stay mom arrived on her moped to the guesthouse we have been staying at in HCMC decked out in her pink moped helmet, heels, and suit from work. It is clear that she is a very busy working woman, running around from work to picking up her two girls at school each day (in addition to all the other tasks associate with being a woman in a household in this country). Even though she was about half an hour late picking me up, I didn't really mind. Again, my whole 'go-with-the-flow and embrace all challenges' mindset really has begun to pay off. I've already noticed my greater confidence level in both myself and my ability to get by and be happy in this country. After a quick hug she informed me that she had to go pick up her girls from school, so I would take a taxi by myself to her apartment. I was pretty concerned about handling my two large suitcases and two backpacks by myself, but I somehow managed. Picture this, because it may be worth your laugh now that it has already happened and turned out okay.

I arrived at the infamous alleyway where they live, but the taxi dropped me off on the opposite side and around the corner from last time when I visited, so I was completely turned around. Wheeling two huge suitcases with a backpacking backpack on my back and my school backpack on my front, I wandered down this long, dark alley looking for the address number 100/22. In HCMC, if your address has a slash in it, it means it is located in one of these alleys. I really couldn't find the address so I managed to pull off to the side of the narrow alley as multiple mopeds whisked passed me eyeing me down. I asked a woman where the address was, showing her the written address to avoid speaking in a terrible English accent. She pointed me down one way and around the corner, and after about 5 minutes (and breaking a significant sweat), I arrived at the door of the apartment. Mr. and Mrs. Zoom were waiting for me and helped me carry all of my luggage up the three flights of concrete stairs to my room. Even though this family may not be the most wealthy or well off, they are such nice, hospitable, friendly, and caring people. I am really looking forward to these next two weeks so I can have some more time to myself and a little more down time with the family too. We have class everyday until 3:30 and I have dinner with my family at 5:30 PM (this early because Mr. Zoom teaches night classes and one daughter has an extra English class every night). This will allow me to explore this area of HCMC more as well. It is the edge of the backpacking district, so there are actually a lot of foreigners once you get out of the labyrinth of alleyways! Lots of coffee shops, stores, restaurants etc. Mrs. Zoom says there are lots of internet cafes nearby, so hopefully I will get some internet as well. After dinner, which was …let's just say much more typical northern VN food (Mrs. Zoom's mother cooked dinner and they are all from Hanoi). Less flavor, less spices. We had white rice, shrimp, green beans, small balls of chicken meat, a marble-y pork substance (which I ate because they said they made it especially for me…I can't even imagine what part of the pig this came from, nor do I want to know!), and a soup with pork stuffed pumpkin flowers. For dessert we had dragon fruit, which is the neon pink fruit with tentacle-like pieces on the outside and black and white soft, juicy fruit inside, and small segments of tangerines. After dinner, Mrs. Zoom and I sat down with a gigantic map of HCMC and all the districts and mapped out how I will walk to school tomorrow morning. I am also going to try out running in the nearby park, so we will see how it goes! In general though, I'm really happy so far. My family seems to be very busy and living very hectic lives, so I'm excited to have some more time to just hang out rather than be the center of attention of the home stay family, as I was in my other two home stays. To be honest, being hot all the time, never having hot water, sleeping in a mosquito net, eating mysterious meats for dinner, engaging in often awkward dinner table translated conversations, seeing people clean their toe nails with tooth picks on the side of the road, having cockroaches or gecko lizards in my room (or in your suitcase….this has happened too with multiple cockroaches) and having people stare at you all the time are all things that barely phase me anymore. I have learned to be much more calm inside so I can better deal with the often hectic, crazy, or unexpected things that happen outside. It may take me a little bit to get used to sleeping on a piece of wood or hearing everything from apartments across and beside this house (the apartments are so close together and the windows are large glass panes always open, so I can literally hear when someone across the alley sneezes or coughs), but these are all small, insignificant things in the long run. I really am optimistic about these next two weeks of getting to know my family and another district of this city. I am sad that right now in America my family is celebrating the first day of Rosh Hashanah and I am alone in a mosquito net with my laptop, but I have learned that it is all in the way you think about things. I may be alone, sweating like crazy, and contained in a mosquito net while my family celebrates one of my favorite holidays, but I am also in Vietnam… living, experiencing, and engaging in the most exciting period of my life so far…literally every day here has at the very least one significant memory that I will be able to recall my entire life, which is more consecutive memories like these than I have ever had in my life. So for all of this I am thankful, optimistic, and energized. I would write more, which I will do soon, but last night I bought all seven seasons of Sex and the City for 10 bucks (and it works perfectly), so I think I am going to treat myself to that tonight! Last night we also tried shopping at this cute clothing shop, but literally none of us (mind you, six petite American girls) could fit into any of the miniscule clothing items. I felt like I was shopping at Gap Kids or some other children's clothing store. We laughed our entire way home for sure. Good night world!

Biodigesters, Sustainable Development, and the Vietnam village life…

2008-09-28T08:27:00.001-07:00

I know it's been a while since my last post, but I'm alive and well, not to worry! We got back last night from an extremely busy, exhausting, intense, and rewarding two week adventure in the Mekong River Delta. I don't have that much time right now to write about the entire two week experience, so I am going to right now just write about building biodigesters. The next two weeks I will be here in HCMC living with my third and final home stay, so my schedule will be much more routine than I have experienced in the last month (which has been everything BUT routine), so I would rather not rush writing about this incredible two week adventure, but instead spread out my postings as I have time over the next week or so.

The focus of this excursion was rural development study, and we certainly did exactly that. We had various lectures about sustainable development at Can Tho University and on the farms we worked on, learned about the alternative methods in agricultural and farming practice that are both more economically and environmentally beneficial, and met with members of the Women Union and Farmer Association in My Khanh village. The trip culminated with actually being able to put these alternative methods to use as we built two biodigesters for two separate farmers throughout the two week experience. For those of you who are not familiar with a biodigester (I certainly wasn't before this experience), let me give a brief description. They basically are the most simple, yet manageable way to assure the interconnectedness within a farming system. The biodigesters we built are made from plastic, so they only cost about $100 to build. The process begins in the pig sty, where at least four pigs must be present for this system to operate properly. The pig waste from this sty travels through a system of small pipes into a large plastic container, which is about 10 meters x 1 meter. From this container some of the waste is used as compost and the remaining waste is released into the fish pond, which in turn feeds the algae, zooplankton, and the fish. In fact, 50% of the fish food is supplied by this biodigester system (cutting ½ of a farmer's budget for fish food). In addition to the fish food provided by this system, the electricity for the farmer's house is powered by the CH4 (methane) that also comes from the biodigester of pig waste. In essence, this interconnected system cuts down on the costs farmers must pay for fish food and electricity, is much more sanitary, cuts down on the time women must spend in the kitchen (charcoal grills take a long time to clean), and it is sustainable and economical.

It would have been one thing to simply learn about this concept from a book. But instead we got to see it come to life for two separate farmers. The first farm that we installed the biodigester was a pretty unique situation. The woman is a widow since her husband and three children died recently from illness. She is extremely poor and vulnerable, yet she has four pigs so she has the capacity to begin use of this biodigester system. SIT provided the funds to build this biodigester since this woman was only financially capable enough to provide the terra cotta pipes used on either side of the plastic tube. Meeting this woman was just about as upsetting as her story sounds. Her home and land were both in pretty terrible condition. Throughout the entire process, which takes at least four hours, she was standing beside us watching, smiling, wiping tears from her face, and pouring coconut milk from coconuts she picked off of nearby trees for us to drink as we worked. The process is fairly simple, but it definitely took all 8 of us in addition to Bac Hai (the village man who began this process of installing biodigesters in this village – there are about 30 now) in order to complete the process. We overlapped layers of plastic to make a three layer plastic "chamber" to be used for the pig waste, and cut tires to make rubber pieces used to wrap around the terra cotta pipes on either side of the main container. We spent nearly an hour in thick, bubbling, brown mud digging the hole for this large plastic contraption to be placed. We also went through a similar process to create the plastic chamber for the gas to be held. We then had to actually assemble these pieces into the ground and hang the gas chamber over the pig sty. The pigs were so cute! Actually the mother I thought was a disgusting creature… I don't know how I eat so much pork in this country. The little baby pigs were so cute though. One of them had a broken foot because the mother pig stepped on it. Its leg was completely blue and we were told that it would likely not survive. Even though there are instances like this of pig sickness, it is interesting to contrast these types of farms that we learned about and experienced in rural Vietnamese villages with the large scale pig industry farms in the U.S. where they basically just shoot up their pigs with all sorts of antibiotics. Here, because there are so few pigs within each farm, the rates of disease are much lower. We learned a lot these past two weeks about Vietnamese development in terms of the farmer-to-farmer relationship. That is, because Vietnam is still on the cusp of all out development, farmers still rely heavily on learning from one another. This is called the "copy cat" syndrome. So in this case of the pigs, farmers copy each other on ways to heal pig sickness based on different situations and instances of pig sickness and recovery. We saw this "copy cat" syndrome even more real when we built the second biodigester in a village where no biodigesters have been built before and where farmers looked over our shoulders and worked with us to learn how this system works. After we completed this project, which was only after much sweating, mosquito bites, extreme mud, and exhaustion, we realized how rewarding and unique this experience was. Even though what we did was seemingly minor and not that significant (although exhausting nonetheless), we literally changed this woman's life. Her daily life will be completely reinvented with this biodigester in place.

I found another incredible part of this experience to be learning about how to build the biodigesters from the farmers earlier in the day. Over lunch of hot pot (a very traditional southern Vietnam food – a small stove top is placed in the middle of the table and broth, vegetables, fish, pineapple, and other spices are cooked together), the two main farmers of the village took out a large, dirty, and tattered at the edges piece of paper. On this paper, they drew a simple diagram of the biodigester and its main physical components. These two men, standing barefoot with dirty pants and shirts, each barely over 5 feet tall, were able to communicate us with their basic farmer to farmer talk (through translation of course) and really be able to explain this process and the incredible impacts it has had on farmers in this area. Something was so simple about their explanation, but so insightful too. In general, this whole community in the first village where we built the biodigester was so grateful to us. They flooded us with food, the best fruits I have ever had (definitely the best pineapple in my entire life), coconut milk, smiles, rice wine, and just a general sense of gratitude towards our work which almost seemed tangible to us as we worked. One farmer was so excited by our work in his village that he literally RAN into his fish pond from the pit of mud in which we were digging and caught a GIGANTIC tilapia for us to put in our hot pot for lunch that day. He ran out of his pond with this huge fish (probably a good 17-20 inches long, still alive and flapping everywhere), still dripping water down his bare back and smiling to show us the fish he caught for us. That day for lunch we had the freshest and most delicious fish I have ever eaten! Although I had a bit of hesitation eating a fish that was alive an hour before, it was really delicious. In fact, all food in this area was pretty unique due to its freshness. Nearly every tree in the Mekong Delta is a fruit tree, so fruit is the most abundant aspect of Mekong Delta culture. All sorts of spikey and colorful objects I learned were fruits. And delicious fruits too!

The second biodigester we built later in the week in a different village. It was a bit more of an urbanized village, but also fascinating because it was the first biodigester to be installed in the entire village. At least a dozen farmers in the area came to watch the process and learn from it. They were all laughing the entire time, which Co Thanh (academic director) explained to be a part of the folk culture. I was feeling pretty sick on this particular day, so the 85 plus degree day combined with humidity really did a number on me. At the time it was pretty miserable, but looking back on this entire manual labor experience of building biodigesters was truly incredible. We had the opportunity to work side by side the most simple, yet brilliant farmers in some of the most remote places I have ever been to on earth. We got to challenge the stereotype of American college students. We got to learn and experience an interconnected system that has the capacity to change the lives of everyday farmers. We got to see the gratitude in the farmer's faces! I worried studying abroad in a country with so much poverty like Vietnam would make me feel helpless, sad, and depressed. Instead, I am so grateful to my academic director for recognizing that small deeds like this one can literally change the lives of farmers and simultaneously make us feel like members of this culture as well.

I know this is just one small story, but I promise more will come trickling in over the next week or so. Things have been unbelievably busy, but hopefully moving in with my home stay tomorrow and starting a more routine schedule will make things settle down a bit. I'm looking forward to it all as usual!

Photos from Mekong Delta

2008-09-27T21:33:00.000-07:00

A Bit More Tropical, Rustic, and Rural…The Mekong Delta

2008-09-21T03:52:00.001-07:00

Xin Chao! I apologize for not posting anything since I got to the Mekong Delta on Wednesday, but the schedule has been unbelievably (and a bit overwhelmingly) busy and I have had no internet until now. I'm now sitting in a coffee shop with my roommate for this trip taking in the internet for the next bit of time before dinner with our host family, so again, this may be an abbreviated version of the realities of my life these days, but I promise to expand on everything when I return to HCMC on the 27^th.

We arrived in Can Tho City in the Mekong Delta after a four hour van ride this past Wednesday, which made clear to us the great differences in terrain, economic disparities, and culture that exist in places within this country just hours apart from one another. To get to Can Tho City (where the other SIT Mekong Delta Sustainable Development program is based), you must also take a ten minute ferry across the Mekong River. Immediately I was struck by the different forms of houses in this part of the country. Because everything is built on the water and tropical green trees abundant with bananas and other fruits and palm trees overwhelm any view of the horizon, the houses and buildings in general are extremely low lying and seem to almost hover over the water's edge. They are generally made out of large pieces of tin with flat roof tops (which I do not understand given the insane rainfall levels here). There are also a ton of shack boats, as I call them – these are wooden boats that are low and oval-shape in which people live, work, and float simultaneously. This concept of the "all in one" boat became even more apparent this morning (at 6:30AM!) when we got the opportunity to visit the floating market in Can Tho. To arrive at this market, you must go by boat as early as possible in the morning, and basically weave in and out of boats choosing the type of produce you wish to buy, as you haggle away with the head of the boat. On each boat is the most primitive form of advertising – there are tall sticks with one piece of whatever produce is for sale stabbed at the top of the stick. So, for example, the boat literally overflowing with pineapples will have a tall stick with a pineapple attached to it so that boats from afar can see and be drawn to what is for sale. It was crazy to see how these boats get around. One shirt-less man on a boat held up a huge bundle of low hanging power lines so that his boat could get through into the main market scene. This was definitely another "only in Vietnam" moment (we have started making a list of such things and I will post it at the end of the trip…). Since being in Vietnam, I have tasted, seen, and been exposed to SO many fruits that I can guarantee (unless you have been to VN), you have never seen or heard of! It's really incredible. Boats at this market were just brimming with such fruits such as dragon fruit, nhan, tamarind, the most giant pomellos you have ever seen, durian, and a million others that I don't even know the names of. Small paddle boats seemed to swarm our boat after seeing our "western" faces trying to sell various cans of soda and water to us. These sorts of things are a pattern here in VN and they upset me each time they happen – here are people whose life revolves around selling cans of soda and bottles of water for less than a penny each. Given the fact that they only have about 15 of such bottles on board, there is no possible way that they make more than 15 cents each day. Regardless of the fact that money is relative, it still upsets me when realities like these make themselves evident to me. After the floating market, we docked the boat (keep in mind, when I say dock in any post of mine, I do not mean that there is an actual dock because these do not exist in this country…instead I mean the boat runs into the shoreline, usually into a large slab of mud, and you climb out of the boat into the mud, and then on from there). We walked along a dirt road for about ten minutes until we reached a very modest little house. In the backyard of this house is a rice paper making industry. It is a family industry, in fact, with members of all generations working in harmony with one another to a) make the rice paste b) spread it over hot canvas to cook c) lift the rice paper "pancake" with bamboo sticks onto large straw drying racks where they dry for 3-4 hours and d) into machines that cut these pancakes into rice noodles. Finally, the 500 kilos a day of rice noodles that are made here are packaged into large sacks and sold to a "middle man" who comes through the village periodically and who then sells it to various markets in the main city of Can Tho. The simplicity of this operation was absolutely astounding, even though the actual process is technically quite complex. I kept thinking to myself how this kind of life would be so boring to me – there is zero attachment to the outside world and zero interaction with others outside the immediate family for these people. At the same time, however, they were laughing and enjoying themselves (despite the UNBELIEVABLE heat in this part of Vietnam, which is so overbearing, it is as if a pile of bricks is permanently placed on your shoulders that you must deal with at all times. The heat here literally sucks the breath out of you). It was also interesting to see how in this very rural setting, families will bury their deceased family members in their backyard so that their spirits will never die. The little, adorable son at this farm was running around trying to impress us Americans and was playing hide and seek from behind his grandfather's grave. It was so bizarre.

The main focus of this excursion is to gain an understanding of the Mekong Delta life and culture, which is strikingly different than anywhere else in the country. There is a difference in food, climate of course, terrain, gender roles, cultural norms, and occupations (the majority of farming that goes on in this country, including the rice production which makes Vietnam the #2 exporter of rice in the world, transpires here in the Mekong Delta). We are paired up with another person in our program living with our second home stay of the experience here. Abby and my family here continues to be great and has taught us so much about the norms of life in VN. Living with a family definitely gives you a non-tourist and completely realistic look at this country – we have learned everything from how to stay cool in a house with no air conditioning, lots of mosquitoes, and how to eat using the best manners, which implies you eat every grain of rice from your bowl because each leftover grain is considered a pearl that is left abandoned. It is apparently a sign of courtesy and appreciation to finish every single grain of rice. The mother of our house works at a bank in Can Tho (and is a very religious Buddhist, so we have learned a lot of about this and will partake in her all vegetarian diet on Monday for a Buddhist holiday). The father is a provincial governor in a nearby province, so we have only met him once because he only comes home on the weekends. The daughter is 18 and just began university and the older son works in HCMC. There is definitely a different kind of energy and reality in this home as compared to my Dalat home stay, so it is more and more interesting everyday to see how different families act, live, eat, and behave differently.

As part of this gaining understanding of Mekong Delta culture, we have spent the last two days (and will spend another day tomorrow) in My Khanh village. This three day experience represents our village study while in Vietnam. We have had various lectures by local government officials as we have delved into the government structure within the village, the education systems, health systems (of course particularly interesting to me), economics etc. We have also had VN language lessons, which continue to get more intense as we get into more than just common expressions. Knowing we have our first language test on Wednesday definitely gets me motivated to study and learn, which somehow happens during our incredibly crazy and hectic schedule during this excursion. We also have learned a significant amount about semi-structured interviews. Yesterday for example we were each split into groups (we are doing this excursion with the other SIT VN program, so it adds another 8 people to the mix!) with one translator. Each group had a different topic. My group had Education and Health. We then proceeded to walk through the village and choose randomly two homes to interview. I unfortunately am running out of time before dinner, but when I post next I will write about my incredible experiences in both homes and what I learned. I think I may even be changing my independent study project research topic because of these interviews because I was exposed to so many more health related concerns in this country. Today we learned a lot about biodigesters and sanitary toilets within the rural village context, and tomorrow our project will culminate with actually building two biodigesters for two separate farmers. It is amazing to actually be changing people's lives here, rather than just watching or observing culture and development in Vietnam. The heat, mosquitoes, extensive traveling to get the village (we have to go by boat, taxi, and sometimes bike) and other challenges have made this excursion very difficult, but rewarding nonetheless. I really have so much more to say but no time and am being eaten alive by mosquitoes as I sit at this cafe, so I promise to write more later. I hope all continues to be well with everyone in the States and I miss you all so much!

Pictures from Da Lat Excursion

2008-09-15T23:19:00.000-07:00

Accepting, Not Expecting

2008-09-15T23:12:00.001-07:00

I'm back in HCMC sitting with the girls in my program at our favorite nearby coffee shop called Trun Nguyen, savoring each minute of internet access after a wonderful five day excursion in the city of Dalat in the central highlands. We used the Phuong Trang Bus line, which is a public bus that runs throughout the country. After barely making the bus because of horrendous traffic on the cab ride to the bus stop, I felt both relieved and excited. Even though it is a relatively long bus ride to Dalat (it takes about six hours, but with traffic a few more), the scenery was just incredible. Here are a few things I observed on the bus ride. Similar to my experience landing by plane in this country, the colors are striking and unique. Even the poorest shacks and shanty towns we passed through on this drive were often full of color, exposing a hodge-podge of varying colors. Tarps seemed consistent as a means to repair holes or damage to people's homes. In addition, the laundry lines pinned with clean clothing added to this sense of color that seemed so tangible to me. In general, the scenery on this drive was completely in line with what I pictured the outskirts of HCMC to be like before I came – sort of a mix of tropical plants and trees with shacks, rural roads, girls wearing the au dais (traditional Vietnamese dress), more rustic mopeds than in the city, bikes, pagodas, and women selling produce on the side of the road wearing the typical Vietnamese conical hats. I know it may seem like a crazy analogy, but the mountainous landscape lined tightly with trees (and waterfalls!) looked just like broccoli. Just imagine a giant, massive piece of fresh broccoli and you will understand what the wilderness of the central highlands of Vietnam looks like!

Using a public bus like this one in Vietnam implies a pretty jam packed bus, a bus attendant to announce the stops, really awful Chinese action movies on the bus TV, and a few stops for the bathroom and eating lunch. Only in Vietnam can you stop at a rest stop and have vendors selling all sorts of tropical fruits, rather than fast food, beef jerky, ice cream, sunflower seeds, and whatever else American rest stops specialize in! The bathrooms at these rest stops are also quite interesting. Just like you would in any traditional Vietnamese home, you remove your shoes before entering and place a pair of indoor flip flops on, which the bathroom provides (pretty unsanitary once again if you think about it). At these rest stops, there are so many child beggars. Children who seemed to be between three and six years old walked up and down alongside the buses, barefoot and barely wearing clothing, with a small plastic bucket. Given their body sizes, these children were clearly malnourished. One of them was even holding a newborn baby in one hand and her begging bucket in the other. It was another reality check this country just seems to throw at me – we live such privileged lives in America. It is sometimes so painful for me to see how so many other people live and struggle to get by.

Once we arrived in Dalat, I couldn't help but notice the difference in temperature and landscape. Dalat is located in a much hillier terrain than HCMC and is built in the valley of mountains. Houses line the mountains surrounding the more developed city in the valley. Even though the streets are a bit narrower and curvier, the city is not rustic or rural. Right off the bat, the more European and romantic feel of the city was evident to me, which I found out later is very accurate considering the city of Dalat was built by the French. There is even an Eiffel Tower in the center of the city along the lake in the valley. A canal of water originating in this lake flows throughout the city as well. The streets are a bit more narrow, rustic, curvy, and intimate. Although there are still many mopeds, the distance between them is probably tripled compared to HCMC and the flow of traffic in general seems a bit slower and a whole lot calmer. In Dalat, you can take a deep breath and not feel as though you are contaminating your lungs as you feel in HCMC. Little European-like coffee shops are everywhere in Dalat as it is known as the coffee and tea capital of Vietnam. Even the food has a more French feel to it – rice almost consistently is replaced in the diet in Dalat by French baguettes. Dalat is also known as the flower and vegetable capital of Vietnam. Wild flowers, flower farms, and vegetable gardens are everywhere – so gorgeous! The weather is also significantly cooler and crisper– although the city has a five month rainy season, the cooler and less humid temperature (in addition to the quieter hustle and bustle of the city) was an extraordinary relief. This sense of relief became even more apparent once Alex and I met our home stay family and moved into their home for our short five day stay.

The first evening with Vy's family (home stay mom) was the best evening I've had since I got here so far. When we got to the hotel where all the host families greeted us with small bouquets of local flowers, I immediately (and superficially) wanted Vy to be Alex and my host mom. Her long hair with dainty ringlets, hells with bright pink outfit, and smiling face made her come across so inviting and friendly. When she turned out to be our host mom, both Alex and I were excited. We hopped in a cab with our luggage and drove to her home beginning on narrow paved roads, which gave way to rocky, curvy, dirt roads, leaving only enough room for one car and maybe a moped too if it squeezed next to the car. The area appeared quite wealthy for Vietnamese standards, with a colorful array of actual homes versus apartments located in alleys (like my HCMC host family), which ranged from single story to tall, narrow three story homes. We bumped up and down on these roads for a few more minutes and finally reached Vy's beautiful three story, bright violet colored home. So quaint and beautiful (which we found out later makes sense considering her husband is a well known architect in Dalat!). A rod-iron gate surrounded this colorful gem of a home while their small dogs barked from inside. The view from her home is also spectacular – a massive flower farm is just down the hill spanning nearly the entire horizon, with the bustling city center also in viewer eyesight. I can't describe his feeling Alex and I had upon entering her home. Not only was the home spotless, clean, artsy (her brother is an incredible artist), colorful, large, and beautiful, and peacefully quiet, but meeting the rest of her family was SUCH a treat! Her children and husband live in the main house together and her parents and sister's family live in a house sort of jointly built onto the violet house. The stronger sense of community and family became clear immediately. As I learned after talking more with the family (mostly through hand motions and constant use of the English-Vietnamese dictionary), people tend to be born, raised, and married in Dalat. Vy's father, who speaks no English but is an adorable old man that reminded me of Grandpa (hand gestures, smile etc) spent about half an hour with Alex and me drinking tea in the living groom while Vy cooked dinner. Although we could not really communicate, Alex and I realized that even a technically superficial conversation due to language barrier is really not superficial when it comes down to it- we used our hands, the Vietnamese language skills we are acquiring, a map of the United States, and our logic to figure out how to communicate. It was a fun and challenging experience.

Dinner the first evening was fantastic as well, even though neither Alex nor I could eat one bite of food without having one of the grandparents use their chopsticks to add more food to our bowls. They all complemented my chopstick skills, which clearly means that I have progressed in the last few weeks considering how awful I was before getting here. The grandmother also complemented how beautiful my eyes are, telling me that I looked like her people. I have been told I look Spanish or South American, which always gets me, but NEVER Asian! Alex and I got a kick out of that. After dinner, we went to Vy's coffee shop. Their two adorable kids (one boy who is five and one girl who is seven), piled into their old 1950's bench seat car and drove down the bumpy, gravely road as it started to drizzle. I felt like I was going back in time – from the car, to their style of dress, to the undeveloped roads around their home. The coffee shop was Alex and my favorite part of the evening. We are both the coffee addicts in the group, so they definitely chose well with the home stay families giving us the family who owns a coffee shop. The coffee shop was so quaint, located near Dalat University. It is a five room house, with each room a different theme, but all revolving around "love" (the name of the coffee shop is Eros Coffee and Dalat is often called "The City of Love"). Each room in the house was delicately arranged with tables, chairs, fireplaces, and beautiful art. The outdoor courtyard was also designed with beautiful outdoor furniture, a bon fire, a little creek running throughout, and swings as well. What a contrast to the uniform and boring design of Starbucks in America! Alex and I had the best coffee ever – which Vy made for us especially – a mixture of three types of strong blends from a coffee plantation in northern Vietnam. After an hour or so, the rain began to really pick up, so we got back into the family car and did a little driving tour of the town, the gardens, markets, and saw the gorgeous lake in the center of the town, and then headed home and went to sleep by 9:30 pm. It was SO relaxing and necessary after the last few weeks of intense travels.

The first day of the excursion we visited Dalat University after a breakfast of beef pho and a run that absolutely terrifying (EVERYONE was just staring at me! It is so much worse in this rural setting). We had a lecture by Professor Hung about Higher Education in Vietnam at Dalat University, which exposed to us the similarities and differences between the education systems in America and in Vietnam. The system here is clearly in need of some major changes, such as keeping the qualified students in the country to study rather than studying abroad, improving the male to female ratio among students, and increasing the number of qualified and educated professors). After the lecture, over green tangerines and sweet butter crackers, we talked with students in the English club at the University. We had lunch at a nearby restaurant, where the food was a bizarre mixture of French, American, Vietnamese, and whatever cuisine eats ostrich on a regular basis (it was actually really good). After a short discussion about coffee culture in Vietnam and in particular in Dalat, we had the opportunity to visit a coffee shop next door. We learned how in Vietnam, especially in Dalat due to the French influence, drinking coffee is as much about sharing company and partaking in social interaction as it is about the coffee. Coffee is just the excuse to converse. For this reason, coffee here, always brewed in individual French presses with a thin layer of sweetened condensed milk onto which the coffee brews, is a slow, slow process. Unlike the American "coffee on the go" culture with a focus on a huge, hot cop, Vietnamese coffee requires time, leisure, social interaction, and savoring the robust, thick flavor.

After our coffee we headed to a monastery up in the mountains. The silence and peacefulness upon entering the gates of the pagoda was absolutely striking. The smell of incense traveled from the meditation room, which coupled with the cool breeze, felt so cleansing. What a contrast to HCMC! Go Thanh (academic director) is Buddhist, so after she completed her meditation in the temple, we met with the head monks at the monastery library over small cups of green tea. We discussed Zen meditation, sutras, the five principles of Buddhism, and much more. Although the discussion was interesting and special considering these monks' status, the formality of the lesson was a bit intimidating. The meditation was so evident in everything these monks said and their behavior in general. When a fly landed on them, for example, they did not flinch or swat at it, they simply focused on the conversation we were having until they flew away. We had the privilege of entering the inner quarters of the monastery, where only a selected few may go and where silence is of the upmost importance. A slight misty rain accompanied us through the gates, where we were greeted by the most incredible and expansive gardens that I have ever seen, with the most intricate planting layouts and shocking colors. The head nun showed us through these gardens and into the nun meditation room, where the nuns meditate four hours daily in two separate segments, once from 3:30 – 5:30 AM and again from 7:30 – 9:30 PM. They also only eat two meals a day, skipping dinner and eating a simple broth soup instead. We got a chance to learn how to meditate and position ourselves in the unique Lotus position they meditate in each day. All the yoga I've been doing helped me snap right into the lotus position and it was actually really comfortable! At first when we sat in the library with the monks, I was both taken and impressed by the way of life these people lead and the permanence this lifestyle seems to uphold. By the time we spent four hours at the monastery, however, I realized how isolated and artificially immune these people are to the world. Relationships with others than themselves and those in the monastery are virtually impossible since they can only visit home once every three years.

After the monastery visit, we headed home and helped Vy and her entire family cook dinner. I loved partaking in this family affair of cooking dinner. We made rice flour pancakes with shrimp sauce and wrapped spring rolls together. Everyone worked together and Alex and I had such a special and unique opportunity to learn from them. That evening, Vy, her mother, Alex, and I made soymilk from scratch! Not only was it delicious, but the experience was so interesting. You soak whole soy beans for one whole day, wash them, place them in a blender with 1/3 beans and 2/3 water and then proceed to do a series of straining in order to isolate the liquid from the pulp. Although it took a while to make, it was DELICIOUS! I can't wait to try to make it when I get home to the States. Vy explained that she and her family drink a glass of this hot soy milk each evening before bed.

The next day was just as chalk full of activity, but I'm running out of time before class so I am going to have to condense my descriptions unfortunately! In the morning we had a relaxing class outside the hotel our academic director stayed at over coffee and tea and discussed the readings we have been reading about Vietnam and development. We had a Vietnamese language lesson as well (see we also study here!) and then went to this man's home up the hill on another hilly, gravelly road. He makes these beautiful calligraphy drawings for a living, although you would never know you were in Vietnam in his home. He wears a French burette, speaks French fluently, and his home was so European feeling and not Asian at all. Dalat in general felt this way a lot. We played some music together on his guitar and got a chance to do some of our own calligraphy using his materials. Having doodled in all sorts of scripts in my notebooks my whole life, this experience was completely up my alley! We had the afternoon to explore the city, so we all visited the Dalat outdoor market. Okay, maybe the city of Dalat feels French, but the market is completely Asian. There were crowds and crowds of people and so much fruit, vegetables, meat, and fish to see. Much of the meat selection were still living, including the bowls of maggots, fish, octopus, and so many other disgusting creatures impossible for an American eye to recognize. Because it was the mid-Autumn festival that evening, the Chinese dragon and parade came right through the market street as children sang and danced. We even ran into another white person, who happened to be the tallest man I've ever seen in my life. Alex (the basketball player in my group) went over to him and we took some pictures of them towering over EVERYONE in the street. It was really entertaining! That evening we attended a local school's mid-Autumn festival show, had dinner with our host families, ate the traditional mid-Autumn festival moon cakes (made from rice of course) and spent some more time with our host families.

The last day we headed to the Lat ethnic minority community house in their village. I guess you could equate this ethnic minority to a Native American tribe in the U.S. They live in a separate village and still uphold the traditions of their heritage. They eat everything (including monkey and tiger) and make this special wine from the roots of trees, which they ferment over a long period of time in special jugs. They also specialize in weaving. We hiked to the peak of the Langbian mountain with some members of the tribe, which was a pretty rigorous hike. The views were unlike anything I have ever seen in my whole life. That night we did a cultural exchange with them, learning some of their tribal dances. One boy found a special liking for me, asking me to dance with him every chance he had and asking me to share in a special drink of the strange wine with him. It was also so funny. We slept on the floor of the wooden cabin and swatted the cockaroaches off our blankets quite frequently, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. Our group gets along so well, so the lacking the small comforts is not a big deal to us. The next morning we got on the bus and headed back to HCMC. The traffic was horrendous, so it took a longer time than expected. We are here in HCMC until tomorrow when we head to the Mekong Delta for 10 days. Miss you all! Again sorry this is not the best post, but this loud coffee shop is not so conducive for my writing! I would love to hear from you all too! I love receiving your emails.

From One City to the Next…

2008-09-10T02:35:00.001-07:00

Sin Chao to all! I just wanted to write a quick update because tomorrow we leave for an excursion to Dalat in central Vietnam for about a week, and I'm not going to have my computer let alone internet access while I am away, so I figured I would write a quick update now! I have so much to say since I last posted, but for the sake of time, I'm going to be super brief.

Yesterday was a very rainy day here. I honestly think that the expression, "it's raining cats and dogs" was invented in this country. When it rains, it really rains. And keeps raining. And even when you think it is breaking, it isn't, it's just your optimism getting in the way! It was really nice actually to run yesterday morning in the rain because it was significantly cooler and as strange as it is given the rain levels here, no Vietnamese people run in the rain. The track was completely empty minus us American runners, so it was quite a treat. My Ipod somehow managed to be on the "R" songs, so by chance I listened to the Counting Crows song, "Rain King" and the Akon song, "The Rain." I love coincidences like those.

Classes have kind of gotten into full swing here, as the last week we have had our 3 hour intensive Vietnamese language class in the mornings, with a break and then a Culture and Development seminar in the afternoon. The Vietnamese professor is good, but the language is literally next to impossible, so by hour 3, EVERYONE is ready to get out of class. The benches made for people about 4 feet tall don't help either! I've never felt as tall as I do in this country in my entire life. Despite making my Vietnamese lessons uncomfortable because of the small benches, I sort of like this feeling! The afternoon seminars are quite interesting - we have visiting professors from different departments and areas of research. The first day our lecture was about Vietnamese culture. We had one about more historical issues in VN, and then one on the economic issues here, which I found the most interesting. We learned a bit about the inflation problems resurfacing here and were exposed to many statistics that make you just want to take out your wallet and just give everything you have to people here (not that my wallet could be of much assistance, but you get the idea). One statistic for example: it would take 50 years for one Vietnamese person in to make what the average American makes in one year (keep in mind that this is the AVERAGE American salary, which IS only $35,000 a year. An average Vietnamese person makes $800 a year). 50 years! And that is assuming that the US average income remains the same during these 50 years, which is just not realistic at all. Getting that perspective was truly shocking to me.

In terms of nightlife here, we've started to get a taste of it as well. We went to the backpacking district a few times, where we have found many foreigners and "couch hoppers" as they are called. The scene was interesting and fun, but I am glad we are not living in that area. Last night we also went to this Czech beer garden a few blocks from here, which was fun as well.

Tomorrow we are headed to Dalat, where we will have our first home stay, have a seminar on Higher Education in Vietnam, visit the Thuyen Vien Truc Lam Pagoda, discuss Zen mediation with a monk there, visit a coffee and tea producing factory, have a seminar about Tea Culture and writing calligraphy in Dalat, visit to a job-training center for the disabled, and much, much more. We will also trek to the peak of the Langbian mountains with members of the Lat ethnic group, and have dinner and a cultural exchange with the Lat ethnic community. It looks like a full itinerary as usual, but I'm looking forward to it. I'm sorry this post is so short and more informative than reflective, but I promise to have lots to say (and may pictures) when I return on the 15^th.

I had my first street food consumption today and it was delicious! I feel fine too, so all is well!

Pictures from Can Gao excursion

2008-09-08T07:33:00.000-07:00

View from the top of the mangrove tower looking down on the staircase we climbed. The whole structure was swaying back and forth when we were on top...Monkeys and me! Cutest children ever in village outside Can Gao

Example of the shack boats that were all along the river...these people literally eat and work on these boats year round.

Planting our mangrove seeds! Muddy feet after planting

The farmer's house where we ate lunch during the excursion

Sorry for the influx of posts!

2008-09-08T03:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry for overwhelming you all with 2 huge posts at once...my computer has been having some issues and the internet is not so reliable here, so I've been saving these up to post, and finally have internet to do so. Enjoy!

Navigating Between the Known and Unknown

2008-09-08T03:17:00.003-07:00

I think the title of this post describes perfectly what I have been feeling and experiencing the last few days since my last blog post. There is so much about this country that is unknown to me –the food, language, cultural mannerisms, modes of transportation, and the fact that so much history is incorporated into daily life here. At the same time, I feel so much comfort in the fact that I am not on this journey alone. The group and academic director of my trip continue to be great.

Since my last post, so much has happened and I have felt so many emotions it's really hard to even put it in words. Every night when I go to sleep, my mind is just inundated with thoughts and feelings and it is often hard for me to even process and synthesize how I feel. I will do my best in this post to kind of sort through everything, but in advance I apologize for this scattered-ness of this! Before we left for our two day excursion to Can Gio, we had our first day of classes, which entailed a three hour intensive Vietnamese Language class, a break for lunch with the group, and then a Culture and Development Seminar in the afternoon. The language class was so intense! This language is incredibly multi-faceted and complex. Being a tonal language, it makes it particularly difficult even to master the simplest of words and phrases. The professor seems really great, although it will definitely be a challenging class. It is pretty entertaining to look around the room at everyone's faces as they attempt to even just repeat the words the professor asked us to! I'm not expecting by any means to become fluent or even close to fluent, but it will be nice to actually be able to understand and speak basic expressions. It is so hard to get around not knowing the language. Although many young people speak English, it is not as widespread as I expected. The seminar in the afternoon was very interesting too. We talked in general terms about culture and development and the interrelation between these two concepts, yet the challenges Vietnam in particular faces as a result. For example, even though Vietnam has the fastest growing economy in Southeast Asia, developing industries here based on the western model is often quite problematic. The western model, typically quite individualistic and standardized, often challenges the more community-based characteristics of Asian countries like Vietnam. The development in Vietnam occurred so abruptly that there are often problems with the professionalism of industries as well. We saw this when we visited a monkey island on this latest excursion – the monkey island advertises its "ecotourism," yet there is nothing about it that even resembles this idea.

Onto less academic things, I want to share a bit about this excursion we went on, which was a complete eye opener for me not only about this country and the great poverty that we witnessed, but also as it relates to me and my life. We left on Friday morning for Can Gio, which is located in a much more remote, swampy, and impoverished area than HCMC. There were so many shocking contrasts we felt, saw, and experienced, right from the start. We left the hectic chaos of HCMC for the quiet, more remote countryside, which immediately translated into witnessing such unbelievable poverty. Because we had to take a ferry to cross the river, we saw so many shack-like boats and crippling homes along the shoreline, in addition to the ferry filled with mopeds, cars, and people on their way to work across the river (we were the only white people once again in site).

We first visited the Mangrove forests. Before 1975, these mangroves were primary forests in Vietnam, but the forests were devastated during the War by the U.S. and our use of Agent Orange and other chemical weapons (700,000 gallons of Agent Orange were used on these forests). In March 1975, the local government decided to replant the forest and the majority of trees were replanted, mostly by locals living in the area. It was interesting to me how it was a completely local decision and operation. It continues to be the people living in the forests who plant these trees. We then climbed this tower that overlooked the mangroves, which was another example of how this country is an absolute hazard! Granted this tower was steel and probably quite sturdy, it was absolutely terrifying. It was probably about 10 stories tall with a spiral staircase and grid-like metal stairs. Somehow seeing straight to the ground by just looking between your feet made the experience pretty terrifying. In America, climbing this tower would require signing your life away to some kind of waiver, but no, in Vietnam, you just go for it. When we got to the top, it was swaying back and forth. So terrifying, but a beautiful view. I will try to post pictures of this tower. We then had lunch at this really remote restaurant run by the Can Gio forest reserve where we were the only customers there. I ate catfish for the first time (by the way, I found out that last week when I met my host family and had dinner, I ate pig skin, which I thought was some kind of fried vegetable)! It was actually delicious. The heat on this day was absolutely unbearable. This restaurant had two fans blowing, but because of all the dogs roaming around that clearly had not been bathed in weeks, the fans just spread the smell of dirty dog, which let me tell you, is not the most appetizing smell ever. Hey, at least we didn't have to eat the dogs (this does happen here). We then visited a monkey island, where monkeys and crocodiles were everywhere! The monkeys loved posing for pictures, so we got to take quite a few of them! From the monkey island we took a tiny boat through the way-too-shallow water to the guerilla headquarters from the War. We kept having to stop because the water was so shallow and the mud was so thick. The swampy river we navigated through is literally the same water and physical landscape in which the Vietnam War was fought. This sensation, coupled with the fact that I sat next to Michelle (whose father fought in the war along these same waters and escaped to America afterwards) was quite eerie and emotional, especially for Michelle. Dr. C – I thought of you as well as I remembered vividly the History class when we talked about John Kerry and the swift boats, since these were the same waters in which Kerry commanded his swift boat. When we got to the guerilla headquarters, we learned about the innovative and resourceful techniques used by the guerilla fighters, such as their use of unused ammunition, ability to transform salt water into drinking water, and "T" and "H" shaped underground hide-outs. It was fascinating to see this site and realize that 'no wonder the U.S. lost the Vietnam War.' Seeing and learning about the War from another perspective was without a doubt, incredible.

After an extremely busy and active day, we checked into the "resort" that we stayed at for the evening. It was so relaxing and wonderful to take showers! Once again, we were the only guests at the resort – there were more security guards and employees per square inch than visitors! All the girls stayed in one massive room with six beds, which felt like Madeline (one of my favorite childhood books!). We swam in the salt water pool, had a nice meal, walked along the China Sea, and went to sleep very early. The next morning I went for a run along the China Sea as well, which was so peaceful, tranquil, and quite entertaining because of all the stares I got from the security guards placed literally everywhere within the resort property. Instead of returning the stoic look they all gave me, I lived the American, southern way - smiling and waving. I can't even describe the perplexed stares I received. On this run, I even came across this little Buddhist shrine as I was running on the beach.

We began our second day of excursion adventure by visiting a salt making field, an organic shrimp farm, and a mangrove forest located two hours by boat from Can Gio so that we could plant mangroves ourselves. The car ride from Can Gio to the boat was pretty incredible on its own. We drove through villages along an incredibly one lane bumpy road as we "dodged" the oncoming traffic (that is what it felt like). There were so many wild animals like goats and dogs and the homes were literally just four walled shacks. It made me realize how much we take for granted in America – this is real poverty we saw. When I came back from Moldova I remember resenting the American way, the excess, the indulgences. After this experience, however, I think I will only appreciate how much we have in America. It is no wonder that there is a strong sense of community here in Vietnam. In America, you can trust the system more, you can find comfort in the fact that your home, car, children's toys, roads will be generally safe. Here, there is no safety net whatsoever. I have to assume that is why there is a stronger and less superficial sense of community and camaraderie here.

There is a proverb in Can Gio that says that those that come to Can Gio and stay, make the mangroves grow. Keeping this proverb in mind, we got the opportunity to plant our own mangroves. We took a boat ride through swamp lands to then dock the boat. When I say dock, I don't mean dock as in there was a dock. I mean we stopped the boat into a downward slope of mud. At first we were cautious and tried to avoid the mud, but that was impossible. We sunk a solid eight to ten inches into the thick mud with each step and then hiked about 20 minutes into the forest before reaching the mangrove planting spot. The mangrove seeds are long, slender "sticks" resembling ink-pens, which you simply insert a few inches into the ground. It was really roughing it by this point, which was a lot of fun, especially with the group. I think it is time I tell you all about the "bathroom" I had the wonderful privilege of using after the planting session. We stopped in this village home (I believe it was a family-friend of our mangrove reserve guide). Another example of the hazard that is this country, this "bathroom" looked something like this. After passing the beautiful and adorable children that were running through the dirt road through the center of the village (they kept yelling "Hello!" and "How are you?" in English – it was so cute!), you take off your shoes before entering the house and then proceed to the second room in the house, which entails a space of about 12 tiles or so and a pale of water placed at the entrance. The back left corner tile is removed and there appears to be a hole in this back corner. The floor is not slanted towards this hole either (don't forget you are barefoot at this point). You squat to go the bathroom on this floor, and then use the pale of water to wash the floor. Oh my gosh! This was DISGUSTING! I kept thinking that this is how cholera is spread. I have never used so much Purell in my entire life. I guess I technically should have Purell-ed my feet versus my hands, but so it is. Once again, no concept of sanitation in Vietnam…not even the faintest idea of it, making me realize yet again how we take so much for granted in America. Even the most unsanitary public bathrooms in America likely have soap, running water, or you at the very least have the privilege of wearing shoes in them. What an eye opener. After this slightly traumatic (but entertaining in retrospect) bathroom experience, we visited this all-organic shrimp farm in the quietest place I have ever been to on earth. Literally silent. It was so peaceful! I managed to get no mosquito bites, although everyone else in my group was literally eaten alive. I still don't understand why I never get mosquito bites, but hey, I'm not complaining. I guess I won't be getting any malaria or Dengue Fever (actually quite common in southern Vietnam unfortunately). We trekked through hornet nests and jungle forests to get there because our boat had some technical difficulties, but it was so worth it. We ate a meal entirely on the floor of this farmer's home with our muddy feet and all. It was so simplistic, so peaceful. Just us, our chopsticks, and the most basic, just-from-the-ground-and-sea food. This farmer lives so far away from civilization that his children and wife moved to the nearest village so that his children can go to school. He stays back at this farm to harvest the shrimp and make the family living. He is hoping to set up an "ecotourism" center at this farm, but once again, this concept of ecotourism is a little sketchy here. It once again illustrated to me the contrasts of this country—this farm is located in the most remote place in the world I have ever been to, yet his cell phone with its American pop-song ringtone still went off during our meal seated on the floor of his one-room shack.

This is getting quite long! Even though I have much more to say, I am going to stop. Today we have our first free day, so I've been relaxing, hand-washing some clothing in the bath tub, doing homework, maybe some yoga later, and having dinner with my host family. I have to get myself to their home, so that should be interesting but I'm up for the challenge. Things really are great here – it is sinking in that I am actually here for four months, which is a long time, but I keep reminding myself that people live in this country year round for their entire lives, and I really am fortunate to get a taste of it. I'll try to keep my head up, even when it gets hard and keep my attitude positive and excited. Miss you all so much!

Meeting My Home Stay Family

2008-09-08T03:17:00.001-07:00

I just got back from visiting my HCMC home stay family. I took a cab to their apartment myself to meet them at 6 pm, which was not too bad at all. The ten minute cab ride cost less than one dollar! Comparing this to my experience in DC this summer is pretty crazy. The cab driver dropped me off along this street that looked simply like storefronts and markets. I was really confused and a bit concerned that he had not taken me to their apartment. Being used to actual apartment buildings, this seemed completely foreign. He kept knodding his head that yes indeed this was the correct address as he pointed to an alley. Vietnamese alleys are like New York alleys but a little more intense. Think dark, narrow, dilapidated, please. I proceed down this alley, very confused but kind of amused actually. I figured out that this alley is lined with gates to apartments that all open into this alley. I had to ask two people before I found someone who spoke English, but I eventually found the gate number that matched the address my home stay mom gave me. The gate was dark and looked uninhabited, so I was even more confused at this point. Luckily I have a cell phone here, and it started to vibrate in my pocket. I was so relieved to hear Ms. Dung (pronounced "Zoom") on the other line. She kept asking and repeating, "Are you coming? Are you coming?" And I kept answering, "Yes, I think I am here, but there are no lights on…maybe I was driven to the wrong location?" She kept answering that with, "Are you coming? Are you coming?" Oh, language barriers. Some friends and I were talking today about how it is really becoming a challenge here, much more than we expected. Eventually I heard her real voice and realized that this was in fact the correct apartment. (It turns out the cab driver took me to the back of the apartment). I took my shoes off at the entrance as is appropriate here and placed my feet into a pair of house flip flops. Ms. Dung and her two daughters greeted me. The two girls are literally the cutest girls EVER! One is 17 and goes to an international high school and will be going to university next year in Australia. She is clearly absolute dynamite and her English is fantastic. The other girl is 12 and so cute too. They both have choppy, stylish haircuts and have white rimmed, square glasses and wear lots of pink jewelry. They are like little Asian dolls, really! Both the girls and their mother speak great English, so I am really lucky. The actual apartment is extremely modest, very minimal, but clean and nice. There is a living room with one couch and the family moped (located centrally in the room where a fireplace would be in America…figures!), a kitchen with a small table (the size of an American coffee table), little plastic stools, one gas stove top, a mini fridge, and a washing machine.

I actually have the nicest room in the house, which is completely unnecessary and makes me feel a little uncomfortable! I am on the third floor with my own bathroom, shower (no hot water, which is fine given the heat), and a desk in my room as well. When we walked in to the room, two cockroaches scurried to the center of the room and the girls and the mother just smiled (smiling in Vietnam is definitely not the same as in America…I have come to learn that it means "I am really uncomfortable right now." For example, when our boat broke down in the middle of the river, every Vietnamese person on board started to smile). Anyway, I really am fortunate with the living conditions, especially compared to many others in my group. Although my commute to school may be a little long and I have to do it myself unlike many others who have host sisters who also attend the University, it is nice to have my own room and bathroom.

Back to the meal, it was interesting to note the gender roles at play. When the father came home in the middle of our meal (which was beef pho, which entails rice noodles, beef broth, herbs, fresh basil, chili sauce, onions, and two small pieces of beef), he almost stand-offishly introduced himself to me and then began eating his meal, calling on his daughter to bring him water and a fresh piece of lime. He was not unfriendly by any means, but he was not smiley or overly eager to speak with me either. We had two bowls of pho for dinner, which was only because I was the "honored guest," as Ms. Dung called me. No wonder everyone is so thin here- it is impossible not to lose weight given what people eat here. Everything is in smaller portions, and you are naturally more conscious of every bite you put into your mouth, especially because you generally eat family style and use chopsticks to pick from the center of the table each bite. It was clear that my family is fairly well off given that their kids are going abroad to study, yet by American standards they would be very poor. For example, because I was the guest, we had fruit for dessert, which entails splitting one grapefruit amongst six people (a cousin came for dessert). We shared two tea bags among four people. Small things like this were so evident to me. They are the sweetest people though, and I am looking forward to it despite being a bit anxious about it - I know it will be very challenging though. Everyone else in my group is really nervous about their home stays as well.

I rode a moped tonight for the first time! Ms. Dung took me home after our long after dinner conversation at the dinner table. It was pretty scary at first, but actually fun! They were giggling at me as I put on my helmet and got onto the moped for the first time, which was so cute too. I still can't get over the absence of traffic laws for these mopeds! We literally just wove in and out of traffic, but somehow it works. She kept telling me that she is a great driver and not to worry. She also showed me the University from their apartment, which is a twenty minute walk, but hopefully she isn't expecting me to remember the route, because it was definitely at least ten different turns on confusing Vietnamese named streets that make no sense! I am really excited about the whole experience, though, and I will post more later! Must go to sleep. Miss you all!

On being a foreigner, standing out, and being stared at…

2008-09-03T08:44:00.001-07:00

The last few days have been a whirlwind of activity, but I am still enjoying myself and already feeling the rewards of this experience. Yesterday we did the famous School for International Training (SIT) "drop-off" exercise, which entails being paired up with one other person in the group and being given a name of a location and a few hours to navigate ourselves there and back and make observations about the location. We waited for the daily afternoon thunderstorm to pass as Abby and I scoped out the Binh Thanh Market on our large, colorful HCMC map. Unable to find it at first, I resorted to one of the Vietnam guidebooks that I brought with me. After literally 30 minutes of trying to decode and remember different Vietnamese street names, we thought we could get ourselves to this market. We ended up having to ask five different people on the street for more directions, but eventually we arrived at this lively, energetic, and equally chaotic outdoor market. To be honest, the walk getting there was just as important to me as the experience observing and experiencing the market. Abby and I walked along streets and darted across lanes and lanes of moped traffic (a completely normal occurrence here in HCMC) but were literally THE ONLY white people for blocks and blocks. It's hard to describe this feeling. It is one thing to stand out and be different in physical appearance from others around you, but it is another for you to be stared at by curious and perplexed Vietnamese natives! Kids playing soccer on the sidewalk literally stopped playing and just stared at us walking by. Abby and I tried to embrace this feeling and our unavoidable conspicuousness, but I imagine that this will get tiring to do at some point.

The actual market was so lively and wonderful! It really demonstrates HCMC's "street culture," which I've been told is a distinguishing characteristic of this urban center as compared to Singapore or other highly developed places in the world. Everything on the street is in miniature: tiny tables and chairs (literally the plastic tables and chairs you see in a child's play set in America) line the streets as people sit crouched over eating and drinking. We saw women sifting through piles and piles of clams, oysters, and other seafood on the sidewalk. One woman even kneeled over a massive ice block, shaving ice chips into plastic bags for customers (forget Western concepts of sanitation…they simply don't exist in this country). Two old men kneeled over a chessboard engaged in an intense game on the corner of a main intersection near the market. It really epitomized street culture and was truly an ultimate contrast to any American city street, especially because the sidewalk and the great deal of activity on it left no room for pedestrians. Instead it was geared toward hosting the cultural practices such as ice shaving, shellfish sorting, chess playing, and eating. Abby and I realized that it is the pedestrian's job in this city to navigate oneself through this street activity, commotion, and culture. As we entered the market, there were booths and booths of beautiful fabrics, jewelry, belts, purses, meats, spices, and herbs. I even ran into someone from the Chabad in HCMC! I spotted his Kippah, long beard, and Tzizit from across the aisle and heard his distinct Yiddish-English accent. I went over to him and introduced myself and he welcomed me to join them for Shabbat. The combination of this traditional Vietnamese market and an ultra-religious Jew was just so bizarre. Back to the market, it was interesting to note that all the seafood is sold live, which plays into the "freshness" factor of Vietnam. Because food preservation/refrigeration is not widespread, foods like shellfish, meats, and other fish are kept alive until they are sold. In general this exercise definitely showed me the connectivity between the Vietnamese people and their social life.

Later last night we went out to dinner and ice cream at this massive six story ice cream shop. It was Independence Day here yesterday so the streets were even more crowded than usual. Literally I would estimate a three inch space between each moped. Apparently it is common on Independence Day to just go out on the mopeds to ride around and be a part of all the activity…and boy did everyone do just this! It was literally impossible to cross the street without just stepping out into the intersection and crossing your fingers for dear life that people will ride around you, rather than over you. The craziest part of this traffic last night and in general here is that the chaos does have a rhythm. I haven't seen any road rage – there is sort of a peace to the craziness. We did learn today at the Family Medical Practice Clinic we visited that 38 people die every day in Vietnam from road accidents. That figure is just astounding to me, but to be honest, I am surprised it is not more than that given the insane traffic patterns and mere number of mopeds and cars on the roads here. I'm still not sure if I have enough guts to get on a moped here, even with the Honda helmet SIT provides us with. When I met my host family today, they couldn't believe I have trepidations about mopeds. The way of thinking here is sometimes just crazy to me!

This clinic we visited was another reality-checking experience. The director there (an Israeli doctor) gave us the low-down on the state of health, disease, and sickness in Vietnam today, flooding us with terrifying statistics and the reality of diseases like malaria, Dengue Fever, Avian flu, Japanese Encephalitis, Rabies, HIV/AIDS. He explained that Vietnam has no neuro-surgery facilities, which in context to the road safety issues is extremely problematic. Any brain injury that occurs in Vietnam demanding surgery requires being airlifted to either Singapore or Bangkok. Another noteworthy health statistic he provided is that the average per capita health expenditure in the U.S. is $5,000 per person, while in Vietnam it is just a mere $4.20! He explained the need for government prioritization of these critical health issues in Vietnam. While the rates of mortality and morbidity have improved since the 1980's, there seem to be serious problems and threats that remain, especially when it comes to road safety.

On a much happier note, I got to go for a run this morning! My academic director loves to work out and run, so she showed some of us interested in working out (there were three of us this morning) a running track a few blocks away. The track is small and made of what seemed to be ancient concrete, but it is slightly shaded (I still sweated as much as I do during any heat yoga class from a short 30 minute run) and even has a basketball court in the center of it, which is perfect for my friend Alex who plays basketball for Hamilton College. So just picture this: three American girls enter onto this track this morning, one brown curly haired and brown eyed, one blond, and one a college basketball player. Then imagine the Vietnamese people there working out wearing clothing you would associate with aerobics videos from the 1980's (think spandex, tall socks, sweat bands). Then picture us again on this track lapping nearly every Vietnamese jogger and zoned out with our I-pods. I felt like a celebrity yet again, as people just stared at us with such confused stares as if we were foreign aliens or something! It was great to run, though, and I'm planning to go again tomorrow morning.

This is getting so long and I need to get to sleep, but I have so much left to write about and reflect upon! To remind myself for next time, make sure to write about meeting the home stay family and more about the food and coffee here! Much love to you all and good night! Tomorrow we start Vietnamese language classes, so hopefully I can scatter some phrases throughout my next post.

Travel reflections

2008-09-01T07:25:00.001-07:00

I am in VIETNAM! I'm currently sitting in my hotel room with wireless internet, which is so surprising and wonderful. The last few days have been an absolute (but incredible nonetheless) blur. My travel began on Friday when I flew from Greensboro to Dallas to Salt Lake City to visit my grandparents for the evening. It was such a perfect way to begin my long days of travel ahead. Note to self: always stop at the grandparents' before traveling internationally. I started off my 2 day travel around the globe fully stocked with multiple sandwiches, snacks, and an overall rested feeling. I even got to go for a morning run and endure the altitude of Salt Lake before my flight to LA on Saturday.

On Saturday, I flew from Salt Lake to LA. When I arrived in LA, I had many hours to spare before my flight to Hong Kong, but I ended up meeting up with others in my program, a few people in the SIT Mekong Delta program, and also an SIT program in China. Even at these initial stages of this experience, these other students all seemed so interesting, engaged, and most notably well-traveled. It was really impressive to hear about all the places these fellow 20 and 21 year olds have already traveled. It certainly eased some anxieties and made me feel more excited and energized. After a long 13 hour flight to Hong Kong (which I thankfully slept for most of), we landed and made our way through customs. Hong Kong's airport was really incredible – the airport is sort of carved out of the mountains and there is water on either side of the terminal. I'll skip to my arrival in Vietnam, which has been extremely exciting (and equally exhausting!).

Landing in Vietnam was like landing onto a colorful quilt. I never thought a developing country like Vietnam could be so colorful. Buildings with purple, blue, pink, and yellow rooftops were visibly crammed next to one another. Lacking any symmetry or uniformity, these buildings appeared to be crammed together, leaving what seemed to be absolutely no space between one another. Because of the vibrant colors of each rooftop, however, even this jammed-urban feel was really beautiful. It was also striking to make note of the vast farmland that surrounded the urban center of HCMC. Once on land, it was hard to avoid noticing the smell of this country, which is not particularly pleasant. I really do think that developing countries in the world have a uniform, distinct smell. I can't quite diagnose or describe this smell, even when I consciously try to. I think you all must come visit Vietnam to experience it yourselves (from what I can tell so far, it is so worth the trek halfway around the globe).

After making it through customs just fine after even more inspection of all the prescription medicines I brought with men, everyone's luggage made it successfully. It must have been all the finger-crossing that went on in baggage claim. Exhausted and simultaneously excited, we walked outside. Now let me explain exactly what that means. That means walking outside into the type of heat that causes you begin to sweat immediately…heat that makes your mind feel like it can't even function properly (mind you this was at 10AM). We met our academic director, who I have come to realize is just GREAT, and then piled into cabs to make our way to the guesthouse. When you all do make your way to Vietnam sometime in your life, which you should, you must prepare yourself for a taxi ride like this. Cars are the minority here in HCMC. They are outnumbered completely by the insane number of mopeds that literally SWARM the streets. When I say swarm, I mean the exaggerated meaning of "swarm." These mopeds weave their way in and out of the cars, while the cars honk incessantly to "warn" the mopeds that they are nearby. This honking, however, results in a non-stop honking sound on the streets of HCMC, as if a horn is continuously being sounded. Wow is all I have to say. Oh, and also, no one wears seatbelts. Seatbelts can't even be found in the backseats of cabs. It is interesting though that there is a relatively new law within the last few months about helmets for those driving on mopeds. It is now a law to wear helmets – as a result, the women ride these mopeds sporting what intend to be fashionable helmets. Some are pink with white brims, some have Disney stickers all over them. It is really quite the fashion statement, I have to admit. The craziest part of it all is that everyone wears helmets except the infants and toddlers who also ride these mopeds. Literally children of two years of age ride around HCMC on mopeds WITHOUT helmets. I can't even begin to understand this trend.

Since I could go on for hours about the rest of my day if I don't give myself a limit, I will give you just a brief summary. Once we arrived and showered, we went out for our first real Vietnamese meal, which entailed steamed morning glories (a common veggie here), snake head fish in a fish sauce soup, crispy tofu, a strange looking beef concoction, chicken wings, and white rice of course. It was actually delicious, minus the red meat which I have yet to decide if I want to eat here. I loved learning from my academic director about each of these foods and the different table manners relating to chop stick use and order of consumption that accompany them. We then walked to the Independence Palace, which is now museum-like and located on a pristine boulevard. During the Vietnam War, however, this palace was the location of several bombings and a symbol of the crumbling government in South Vietnam. It is truly incredible to visit a piece of history like this, and reminds you how even countries that seem at the verge of collapsing can recover and be rebuilt. We also exchanged some money, bought some postcards and stamps, and visited a very European like coffee shop, which had the most delicious coffee. The café was mostly outdoors with some roof covering and was very middle-eastern feeling in ambiance actually. It turns out that Vietnam is the world's second largest exporter of coffee, and with the French influence on Vietnam in general, this café in general makes a lot of sense. After a short rest and some more walking around the streets of HCMC being stared at by every passerby, it was time for a light dinner. After dinner walking back to the guesthouse, a terrible thing occurred which really reminded everyone that despite this city's exciting and modern energy, it is a city like any city, that has its bad people in it. When I tell this story, keep in mind that when you cross the street, this entails literally bolting out into 8+ lanes of moped traffic (without pedestrian "walk" signs of course) and basically just hoping the mopeds ride around you, versus hitting you. When my academic director crossed, a moped appeared like it was going to hit her, coming extremely close. As it passed by, the driver snatched her entire purse and rode off. She started screaming and running after him through the dozen lanes of traffic in both directions and proceeded to hop on a random moped with a random driver to chase after him in panic. She did not get her bag back of course. (I can't imagine what important documents she had in there, let alone her personal items since she's leading this program). It is really awful – I felt terrible for her, especially because she had to keep her composure since she is leading our group, although you could tell she was panicked and on the verge of tears. This is the reality of this country. I think it is best not to wear a purse at all and just stick to the money belt. I'm not going to lie and say that I'm not extremely anxious to walk on the streets…

I can't describe well enough the contrasts that seem to describe this country. You walk along the street beside peddlers carrying a bamboo pole with a bucket at the end filled with produce they are hauling, yet you also see similar peddlers squatting along the road and texting on their I-phones. It seems so developing and backwards in terms of everything from sanitation to its helmet wearing on mopeds, yet there are still Gucci and Burberry stores, ten story malls, and an abundance of technology. I am anxious to see if and how these contrasts apply to the more rural settings that we will soon experience. My academic director seems like she will provide us with a very well-rounded understanding of Vietnam. She is making sure we get to places without tourists so we can really experience Vietnam as any resident of this country would. (She also is an avid runner, so I already have a running date set with her and another girl on my program tomorrow morning before the brutal heat of the day sets in)! Other than the really unfortunate purse-snatching, this experience has been only incredible so far. I am loving the people in my group, my academic director, the country, and just an overall difference in culture and way of living. Tomorrow is Independence Day, so I'm sure that will be exciting as well. Hoping my academic director's purse-snatching got that out of my groups' system for the entire trip, but as I can tell already, life here and the expectations of it are just so completely different from anything I am accustomed to. Mom and Dad, don't worry, I'll be wearing that handy money belt you bought me from here on out…

A glimpse into my adventures ahead…

2008-08-27T18:32:00.001-07:00

In two days I leave for Vietnam. This expression that leaves me with so much excitement is certainly a unique expression that carries a completely different meaning for earlier generations of young people in this country! In any event, I really am looking forward to discovering the meaning this expression will hold for me. With just two days before I leave, I have very little anxiety – I think I am mentally and physically prepared (and psyched!) for this experience. I realize and appreciate how unique this period of time is in my life -- a time with so much independence and relatively little responsibility (other than for myself of course). I can't wait to make Vietnam a part of it…

To give everyone a little glimpse into my adventures ahead as promised from the title of this post, I'll just explain a little about the course of my program as I know of now. My program has a total of 9 people, including myself. I know you may be realizing that I seem to ATTRACT small classes/programs etc (think Bnai Shalom, AHA…). In any event, after an orientation period, we will buckle down for ten weeks of intensive language classes and seminars. The Culture and Development Seminar is taught by a group of Vietnamese and international professors, and will include educational excursions, lectures, and discussions on history, culture, development, and contemporary social issues. Excursions throughout the country will take us outside of our "home-base" in Ho Chi Minh City (for the sake of ease of typing, I will from here on out refer to Ho Chi Minh City as HCMC or Saigon!), Central Highlands (Dalat), Central coast (Hoi An, Hue, Da Nang), Mekong Delta, and Hanoi. During these 10 weeks of classes is when I will prepare for my Independent Study Project (ISP) which I will conduct during the final month, from mid-November through mid-December. I plan on doing my research on food insecurity and the influence of foreign fast food, but this is subject to change once I get to Vietnam and really get a better lay of the land etc. At the end of my study abroad in mid-December, my parents and sister, Emily, will join me in Vietnam and we'll spend about 3 weeks traveling throughout Vietnam and Cambodia. I know I've crammed lots of information in so far, but I look forward to filling in this general itinerary with lots of personal stories, anecdotes, and exciting tales. I hope you all enjoy and write to me in emails too! Though my internet may be a bit sporadic throughout this experience, I will do my best to post as much as I can. In advance, I will warn you that I am a 100% "blogging" amateur, if that phrase can even exist, and as far from a computer savvy individual as they come. I will do my best! I guess these next few months will be a learning process in all sorts of ways. Next time you hear from me I will be half way around the world and 11 hours of time zone away...!