Off We Go

I actually had a nice day with the girls yesterday, we went to the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, which was interesting. (There are 54 different ethnic groups in Vietnam, so there’s a lot to see.) They even have this cool exhibit out back with all these different types of houses that are typical of different groups, and you can go in and crawl around and stuff – it’s really interesting. There was also some kind of photo shoot going on at the same time for a bridal gown collection. It was actually kind of funny to see these models all dressed up in gowns, but sitting on benches, looking bored and not particularly “bridal”. But we had a nice time – one of the girls is going to be studying in the US for her last year of high school, which is next year, so they both had lots of questions about life in the US, school in the US, all that kind of stuff. I felt a little silly, because they kept asking questions to which the best answer really was “well, that depends…”, like “are classes hard in the US?”, “Is math harder than history?”, and “is college difficult for foreign students in the US?”. I answered the best I could, but…well, a lot of answers just started out with “well, that depends…”

We’re in Ha Tinh Province, in a nice, relatively ant-free hotel. The only problem is that we don’t exactly have water in the showers. They’ve said they’re working on that, but this may be a dealbreaker. A gecko just crapped on my bed, so that’s all kinds of fun – but overall I like geckos (mostly because they eat things like ants). I’m just perhaps not so nuts about this one gecko. As long as he behaves himself for the rest of the week, I suppose I can let that slide. And move to the other bed in the room.

On the way to dinner tonight, I had a perfect example of what’s difficult about these kinds of trips. I distinctly heard someone say my name, which was then followed by laughter. I asked Itsy Bitsy what he said, and she got really embarrassed and said “oh, he was just joking”. I’ve heard this before, and it’s kind of gotten old, so I said “what was he joking about?” and she said “oh, he was just joking.” She later told me, but it was probably really clear to one and all that I was upset. The thing is, I didn’t really care about what he said, which turned out to be fairly innocuous, it was just knowing that people were talking about me, right in front of me, and not being told what was said. When IB told me later, she said the reason she was going to tell me later was because sometimes foreigners get upset or find it rude when people make jokes like the guy in question made. I said that I understood that, but what was rude to me was hearing my name, hearing people laugh, and not being told what had been said – she could have even said that she’d tell me later and that would have been okay. She apologized and I said not to worry about it, but I think the main point of that little episode was probably still not effectively conveyed – mostly because I am lousy at pretending to feel something other than what I’m feeling, so if I’m upset about something, it’s not a big secret. It’s that whole “being the only outsider” thing – just makes you feel like even more of an outsider. I’m also just kind of ready to be home for a while, even though that may not be in the cards for a bit.

But we’re off to more communes again tomorrow, so that should be good. I feel better prepared this time around, which is, I suppose, natural. The more practice you get, the easier it gets and all that. In a switch from most other places, there are no English-language channels on the TV in my room (although they were watching one downstairs…hmm…), so I’m kind of wishing I’d brought more books than I did. Well, no worries – I’ve also still got a DVD that I left in my computer, because I picked this trip to leave my DVD stash in my big suitcase in the hotel, since I didn’t watch anything when we were in Nha Trang and Phu Yen. I’ve got some French books, and the movie has French subtitles available, so maybe I’ll just try to get lots of practice.

I just talked with my mom for a bit (then we got cut off – I’m going to guess it’s because of my phone, but I’m not sure what happened, in any event I was still really glad to hear from her), and we’ve been watching the whole “rioting in Paris” thing. For many reasons, I’m hoping that things calm down over the next couple weeks, but we’ve all agreed that unless something truly massive happens, we’re still going. It’s kind of scary to watch, see all that anger and frustration releasing with no rhyme or reason. Of course, Sarkozy didn’t exactly help by calling people in those neighborhoods “scum” at the outset, but hopefully the tentative talks that have started can continue and the violence can stop. Not just so I can have my vacation there, clearly, but because this kind of thing never helps. Destroying neighborhoods isn’t going to make jobs materialize, eliminate racism, lift people out of poverty, or do any of those things that people want to see happening. And it’s not going to bring back the two kids who died.

Goodness – that’s two times in a row that I’ve gotten all preachy and philosophisizing, isn’t it? Sorry – I’ll try to stick to the more light n’ fluffy in future. (Warning: light n’ fluffy is likely to be challenging in Yemen.)