A Catch Up Post

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy and Content in the Central Highlands

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

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

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

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

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

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

Life in the Alleyway

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First night in HCMC home stay + Mekong Delta Continued

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…

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

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

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!