Bumpy Start

Yesterday got off to a very rocky start, I have to say. I was still feeling like crap from the hooch, I’d been kept up late because the other team members were next door being incredibly loud, and we all know what happens to Mandy’s state of mind when that magic combination of too little sleep and too much stress comes to pass. It ain’t pretty. I try to keep it to myself, but like I said, I’ve always been terrible at trying to hide my emotions, and it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I was miserable, which was embarrassing, because it wasn’t really anyone’s fault, there wasn’t anything to really do about it anyway, and I didn’t want to call any more attention to myself – I was kind of ODing on that anyway. I was just feeling like I was exhausted from not knowing the rules, from sticking out, from being alone in the middle of a crowd, from being a burden to the people who are forced to chaperone me, and from generally just not having access to anything or anyone that I would normally turn to in order to make myself feel better.

One of the people on our team, a nice lady in her late 30s, early 40s probably (let’s call her Tannie), came by my room yesterday morning to tell me that everyone except her had decided to stay an extra night as originally planned, but that she was heading back by bus tonight, if I wanted to come with her. I said that I would like to, and then she apologized for the previous night and asked how I was feeling. I said that my stomach was still not feeling well (quite true), but that it was okay. But as we talked, I just started getting upset. She explained that in Vietnamese culture, the whole “insisting that people drink” thing is just what people do, and I explained that I certainly didn’t think anyone was trying to be rude, and I appreciated that the gentleman in question was showing me hospitality, but that in my country it is, in fact, quite rude to force someone to drink when they have politely declined. I said that I tried and tried to be nice and say no, that I was going to be sick, but that he wouldn’t listen and no one would help me, so it was very upsetting. She looked like she felt awful, and I certainly didn’t mean to unload on her, and was embarrassed that I couldn’t seem to stop talking, but she was there and she asked, unfortunately. However, I really should have thought better of the verbal diarrhea.

It did, however, end up being a good day. We went to the district government office, and no one was there, apparently they were confused about the times. So we went out to the commune, and they took me to a nearby memorial and museum in Can Loch, dedicated to ten young girls who were killed by a single bomb during the Vietnam War (or, The War Against America, as they say here). They were working in a heavily bombed area, filling in holes made by bombs on the road. The youngest girl was 17, the oldest was 24, and they were all working in the middle of shelling when a bomb fell on them and killed all of them. The Vietnamese had work crews made up of young volunteers, who were trying to keep the roads intact, because they were a major supply line and target for US bombers. It has been estimated that that one area was hit by 49,000 bombs, which works out to approximately 3 bombs per square meter – it looked like the surface of the moon. It’s a very moving memorial, and I was explaining how the Vietnam War is still quite an emotional and controversial topic in the US, it was interesting.

After a fairly uneventful day, we went out to the commune we were scheduled to visit, but were delayed by an impassable road. Or, at least, it was impassable for the Sprinter. So we got out and walked for a little while, then they called some people to come get us on motorbikes. As we were hurtling toward the commune offices, I had an image go through my head. On of the many funny visuals in “A Fish Called Wanda” is near the end – it’s a scene where Michael Palin, who is about 5’9”, is driving John Cleese to the airport on his scooter. John Cleese is about 6’5”, so the visual of him sitting up perfectly straight on the back of the scooter quite resembled what I thought I must have looked like, sitting up behind my Vietnamese driver who was at least 7 or 8 inches shorter than me. But while we were waiting for our rides to get there, some people started to gather, and I spoke with a couple of young boys. I say “spoke”, but they basically only knew how to say “HELLO!” and “WHASSA NAME?” So, our conversation was somewhat limited. But I got some cute pictures, and it was nice. We had a good meeting, then went to meet the group for dinner, which was also nice and uneventful. Tannie and I were waiting for our bus, which was to pick us up at 10 pm, arriving in Hanoi around 4 or 5 am. I had a few reservations about going, but I mostly just wanted to get back to Hanoi after the last few days.

The bus rolled up, and it was kind of funny to see people do a double take when they saw me standing out there with Tannie. Her uncle (we were in her home town, so she had lots of friends and family to see) had given her some…stuff, I still don’t know what it was, but she had sacks and sacks of things in addition to her normal luggage. In any event, I had been warned that things on the bus can get stolen, but since my suitcase was locked and the only things people could get to were my dirty socks and underwear in the outside pocket, I figured the contents were safe. Although Tannie reassured me that it would all be fine, she kept asking one of the bus monitor-type guys to make sure my bag was okay, so maybe she wasn’t quite so sure it was safe… But she had my laptop by her feet, and I had my purse on my lap, and that was about the most we could do for preventive measures. There weren’t two seats together, so Tannie asked one woman if she would mind swapping seats with someone else so she and I could sit together, and it sounded to my untrained ears like she told her to take a long walk off a short pier. However, some other very nice women offered to switch, so we were able to sit down together. I, however, had some problems actually sitting, because the bus is made for people the size of your average Vietnamese person. I could barely fit my legs in the allotted space, sitting bolt upright. I ended up finding a semi-compromise that had one leg hanging out into the aisle and the other at an angle that was painful, but at least it fit. It occurred to me then that my decision to take the bus was really not what anyone would call a “good idea”, but I had committed to a course of action, so I decided that it would be an adventure. Besides, it only cost 50,000 Vietnamese dong, the equivalent of about $3.15.

We lurched off down the road, and I noticed that the bus didn’t exactly have air conditioning. It was a cool evening, so that wasn’t a tragedy, but apparently in an effort to increase circulation, they kept the front door open. For the entire seven hour journey to Hanoi. Did I mention that it took 7 hours to travel 350 km? Vietnam has highways, but they’re nothing like our highways – at least nothing like the interstates. We would pull over every so often, and the guy perched by the front door would yell “HANOI??” to see if anyone else wanted a ride. After we’d been driving for about an hour, I heard an ominous-sounding clunk as we went over a small bump. The bus pulled over, and three guys with a single flashlight dove out to investigate the cause of said “clunk”. There was some shouting and rustling, and they all reboarded the bus, and we set off again, with a metallic rattling sound chiming in with the usual shakes and shudders that characterized our journey. Every so often, they’d pull over again, hop out, and rummage underneath the bus before we would heave back onto the road, hurtling down the road to Hanoi, weaving in and out of trucks and other long-haul busses. After a “rest stop”, during which the bus refueled, the men hopped out to urinate against the nearest available flat surface, and the women sat there, wishing that we could pee standing up, the woman in front of me decided that she wanted to recline her seat back all the way, eliciting a yelp of pain from me as she sent the back of her seat crashing into my swollen and aching knees. Tannie asked her if she would mind keeping her seat up, and she obliged, for which I was grateful. I slept in fits and starts, and we finally rolled into the bus station at 5:15 am. Tannie’s husband was there to pick us up, bless him, and they very kindly drove me to my hotel. The lights were out and the front door was locked, but after knocking the guy at the front desk was roused from his nap, and unlocked the door. My room wasn’t ready, but they found one for me to use so I could sleep and clean up. I slept for a couple of hours before getting up, showering, eating breakfast, and stumbling into the office. I am now safely ensconced in my old room, lending a certain sense of consistency that has been lacking so far on this trip, so that’s nice. And it’s really only a matter of a few more days here before I’m off again.

I’ve got a dinner meeting in Paris the night I arrive, so here’s hoping I can stay awake for it! Especially since D and I are going out afterward. But back to the subject of my meetings, the more I read about Yemen, the less I want to spend any time there, but I’m developing a list of things that I will need to insist upon if I’m going to go. Chief amongst these is a female interpreter and a driver, but if I’m going to have to buy yet another set of entirely different clothes just so that I can be treated respectfully and professionally, I’m not paying for it. Apparently, I’m not supposed to wear pants. Women must wear pants with long, full skirts over them, and other things that either no longer exist in my closet, or never really did in the first place. I don’t know how well what I’ve been reading corresponds to on-the-ground reality, it’s difficult for me to gauge. It’s also confusing to me, because modesty keeps being emphasized in what I’ve been reading, but my culture’s definition of modesty doesn’t prohibit me from wearing sleeveless shirts or speaking to men to whom I’m not related through birth or marriage, and all of the rules I have to follow are totally foreign to me. It’s not good – I haven’t even arrived there, and my feelings toward so much of what I’ve been reading about what I can expect my life to be like are already so negative. I’m also going to emphasize in my meetings that I want to spend the least amount of time there possible. And, of course, I feel awful and closed-minded for feeling this way.

For now I’m going to focus on the fact that I’ll be in Paris in a week, that my parents will be joining me a week from tomorrow, that I’m going to have a great time there, and that I get to go home and see the rest of my family and friends a week after that. Hurrah!!! I noticed that, as with the last trip, as the end approaches, I really start to miss people – I think it’s because that’s when I start to let myself miss people.

You know, I don’t think I ever really valued my anonymity until I lost it. I am so looking forward to walking down the street and just being ignored. Okay, I’m looking forward to a lot more than that, but that’s one of the few things I can’t get at all in Hanoi. Otherwise, life in Hanoi is good and pleasant and fun – you can get really good food, there’s good shopping if you’re so inclined (which I really haven’t been this time, apart from getting clothes made), and it’s a very interesting city. But I’m ready to start my journey home.