Is It Really Thursday???

Things go by fast when you’re working 14-hour days in the field! I’m writing from the beautiful and tremendously rainy city of Nha Trang. I don’t know if it’s officially the rainy season or not, but my gosh is it doing a good imitation of one. It has been pouring for the last two days, which makes it highly unlikely that I’ll go diving this weekend. I’m kind of bummed out about that, as I’ve never been and would really like to try it. Also, it’s supposed to be gorgeous around here for diving. Well, if the weather’s not good, I think we can take boats out to some of the islands around there. Not that a boat ride in storms like we’ve been having is the best idea in the world either, but it could still be a lot of fun.

The last few days have totally been a blur, up early, on the road for hours with too many people in one SUV, meeting with commune officials, talking to villagers, back in the SUV, and out to dinner with the whole team. Someone Vietnamese orders in Vietnamese, and they bring out massive plates of food and it’s served family-style. You really can’t refuse anything, it’s very rude, so this means an endless assortment of things, some of which I might order myself, and some of which I wouldn’t. I had the best shrimp I’ve ever had in my entire life today, but I also had braised frog. It wasn’t bad, really, tastes like chicken and all that, but it didn’t do much for me. I’ll probably just order chicken if I want something that tastes like chicken.

My favorite part is getting to talk to people in the villages, to learn about their lives, to see if what we’re doing is helping them. It’s interesting, though, I have a feeling that we’re being shown the best projects in the best communes, as everyone is enthusiastically 100% in favor of the projects. The project coordinator (PC – ironic, since he’s one of the least PC people I’ve met) who’s been showing us around actually came into the meeting I was running today, told Itsy Bitsy not to translate what he was about to say, then berated the commune officials and community participation specialists I was speaking to, saying that I would think it was suspicious if everyone’s answers were the same and everyone was over the moon about the project. I’m not sure what his point was exactly, but it took him about 20 minutes to make it. But the little kids and the shy women in the corners and the genial rice farmers are all great to talk to, really open and friendly, and grateful that we’re paying attention to them. I’m just grateful that they want to talk to me, because there’s certainly no reason why they should, but they do, and they’re hospitable and kind.

Monday we flew down here to Nha Trang, and the unwieldy size of my suitcase (I brought the big one, because I figured that the small one wouldn’t cut it for two weeks. Then I remembered that I only brought the small one with me from Pakistan when I came here for what turned out to be six weeks. Oh well.) was the subject of much comment and laughter. It’s not too hard to figure out that someone’s talking about you, even if you don’t understand the language, when they point right at you as they’re talking and so on. Maybe I’m just intuitive. But it’s fine, it’s just the way things go. However, given the constant buzz of Vietnamese, R and I don’t feel quite so bad about talking in French in front of other people. (Apparently, I have a really thick American accent when I speak French. Ah well – it’s hardly surprising.) But he leaves today, and then it’s just me from here on out with the rest of the local team.

The hotel we’re staying in is nice (and $12 per day), it’s clean and the beds are comfy. But it’s got an ant problem. They’re everywhere. By now, they’re in my suitcase, my clothes, my bed, everything – if I feel an itch, it’s a 50/50 shot that there’s something crawling on me. It’s not my favorite thing in the world, in fact I freaking hate ants, but I have to admit that I’m getting to be less girly about it. Not that I ever want to feel like an ant infestation is something that I’m cool with, but I suppose that if I have to deal, I know I can. Oh, and my room flooded the other night. Fortunately, Eye Patch was around and I asked him to call down to the front desk and tell them what was happening, so they came in and swept all the water out and mopped the floor. I’m looking forward to the swank hotel in Hanoi again, I have to admit. Next week we’re heading to a different province, where the accommodations are alleged to be less nice than they are now, and two weeks after that…supposed to be much worse. I mean, if I’m spending my days interviewing people who earn less in one year than I pay toward my student loans every month, I don’t want to be a complete jackass and get all prissy. But I have to admit – if we’re in a place like the communist guesthouse where we stayed last week, it’s going to be a *rough* week. But Nha Trang is nice – it’s right on the ocean, the seafood is amazing, as you might imagine, and it’s a resort-y destination for the country.

So, to sum up, the city girl in me wouldn’t mind getting back to Hanoi, but all of me is enjoying driving from the beach up into the mountains, curving along hairpin turns on mountainsides, watching the peaks disappear up into the low-hanging clouds. The only thing scarier than driving on 1 ½ lane mountain roads in Vietnam is doing so and rounding a hairpin turn, to find yourself face to face with an Army truck. I’m not driving, and our driver is a fairly typical Vietnamese driver, although PC was telling him to chill out on Tuesday because he was making me nervous. He actually wasn’t, he was making Itsy Bitsy nervous, and me teasing her for flinching was construed as me being the one flinching. Ah well – she never corrected the assumption, but we seem to have moved past it, largely because I had a beer at lunch today. To say that PC is quite the drinker is an understatement, and I decided to avoid taking anything more than the tiniest sip every time someone said “Cheers!!” which was about every five minutes. Otherwise, I’d be drunk, with beer spilled down the front of me. Like PC was on Tuesday night.

Life in Hanoi is good, but now it’s time for me to turn off “Kung Phooey”, close up the computer, and get to bed. Must definitely get to bed. So…very…sleepy.

As a P.S. I'm sending this at 6:30 am on Friday. This is because someone has been letting their children run around in the hotel halls screaming since 5:45 am. In these situations, not only do I massively resent the lack of sleep, but I blame the parents 100%, not the kids, who are just being kids. For those of you parents out there - would you be okay with your kids running around screaming in a hotel since the crack o' dawn? I'm not a parent, but I can't imagine I'd be okay with it... My meeting this morning is going to be brutal.