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.

Can't Explain

For some reason, I am craving two things right now, in a massive way. Two things, mind you, that I’m unlikely to be able to get until I’m back home. And I have no idea why, but the things I’m craving are: lemon-filled donuts – the kind covered with powdered sugar, and macaroni and cheese. The baked-from-scratch kind is nice, my dad and I have a good recipe for it actually, but there’s also a lot to be said for the frighteningly fluorescent orange Kraft mac n’ cheese, where the “cheez” is derived from mixing milk and butter with bright orange, cheese-flavored powder.

Mmm…

Well, I’ll be home in two and a half weeks, I’ll just get some then, I suppose. And maybe stash some mac and cheese in my suitcase for Yemen. It looks like I’m definitely going there, it’s just a matter of timing at this point. I have a feeling that I may be pressured to spend Christmas time there, but there is just no way that’s happening. Our post-Thanksgiving party is on the 17^th, and I will be there, even if I will have just gotten off the plane 2 days beforehand. (I just have a feeling that if I start compromising personal time at this stage in my career, it’s only going to get worse, which I’m not cool with. So Mandy has spoken: home from December 15^th through the 27^th – I think spending New Year’s alone in Yemen is enough of a sacrifice for the powers that be. )

I just got back from one of the worst dinners I’ve ever been to in my life. Not because of the food, which was quite nice, especially the jumbo, fresh-caught grilled prawns. But because the director of the government office with whom we’re working here brought his own gallon jug of homemade hooch, and forced me to drink until I almost vomited on the table. It was something that tasted like grain alcohol, or at least what I imagine grain alcohol to taste like, that had ginseng and deer antlers soaking in it. Lord only knows where the hell he got the deer antlers to begin with, but there they were, hacked into pieces, fuzz and everything. He poured the first shot, had everyone stand for the toast, and then after he downed his, while no one else did, they all looked expectantly at me. I tried, but started coughing – probably because of the grain alcohol thing. He then insisted that I finish it, so I did because I was trying not to offend him, but told Itsy Bitsy “there is no way I can drink more of that” and she said “well, just tell him”, which I tried to do each time. But each freaking time he’d propose a toast, he’d stand there expectantly, with everyone staring at me, and if I tried just taking a sip, that wasn’t good enough, it had to be bottoms up. Finally, I said very clearly, for about the fifth time, “please, I am not trying to be rude, but I really will be sick. I cannot drink anymore” and the implacable face was there, smiling and pushing the glass toward my mouth with everyone staring at me, and a look of sheer misery clearly written on my face. I took one sip, and I could feel my stomach lurch in earnest. I put my head down, and all of the sudden, he must have realized I meant business, and people were shoving water at me, when I was really just trying to swallow whatever was coming up as gracefully as possible, and be left alone. All the attention, of course, made me even more embarrassed when added to the thought of seeing dinner in reverse, and it was generally an excruciating experience. I’m not drunk, although perhaps a little tipsy after six (?) shots of hooch, but wow did I think I was going to lose it.

Honestly, I’m a little of hacked that not one of my Vietnamese colleagues said “Dude – she’s serious, please stop making her drink”, since I know that I would stick up for a colleague of mine in a similar situation. But the gentleman in question is very heavy handed, and apparently the last time our team was here, he was literally forcing the stuff down the throats of the men at the table to the point where some of them couldn’t get up the next morning. I know that he’s not being malicious when he does that, and I’m not opposed to drinking, I just can’t drink whatever that ungodly concoction was. My stomach is still churning.

It’s funny, because here, that’s considered hospitality, but at home it’s considered extremely rude these days to try to force alcohol on someone. (Despite what happens at fraternity parties across the country…)

But backing up, it was an interesting day. We went out to some more communes, and when they asked how many village representatives I wanted to speak with at one particular commune, I said two or three, since it’s difficult to do the kind of question and answer I have to do with a larger group of people. I’d say that five is the maximum. So Itsy Bitsy and I walked into a room to see thirty people waiting for us. Thirty. I felt like a school teacher, particularly when the part came where half of the men there weren’t at all engaged but decided to sit there and have their own conversations, to the point where I had to yell to be heard at all. I was this close to saying “if you don’t care to participate, that’s fine, but could you please go outside?”, but that would have been a no-no. As is usually the case with large groups, there were a couple people who did almost all the talking, so at the end I said “Is there anything anyone would like to add? I’d particularly like to hear from people I haven’t heard anything from yet…” at which point the same two people piped up again. I chuckled quietly to myself and wrapped up the interview.

We then went out to the middle of the commune, and I had another Pied Piper moment. We hopped out of the van near a place where a bunch of men and women were working on a project, and I was mobbed. People were stepping on each other to get closer to me, and started pulling my hair and touching my skin as I was trying to ask some questions. I understand that it’s likely because they don’t see someone who looks like me often, if at all, but it’s still tremendously unsettling. It’s also a little startling when you’re interviewing a group of people and you feel a yank on your hair and feel someone caressing your arm. I looked over at the hair puller (she was first, I just ignored everyone else), and tried to give a look that wasn’t bitchy, but that didn’t convey “hey – please feel free to do that again!” It’s a fine line, really. There were also people staring at me as I wrote, presumably because I’m left handed (apparently, school children are not permitted to be left handed in Vietnam – I know that the wiping thing Karen mentioned is true in the Middle East, but I don’t know about Southeast Asia), laughing every time I said anything, pressing in closer and closer, and it was just getting to be pretty intense. We walked away to look at a project, and people came following us, chattering and staring and pointing. I was asked what I ate as a child to grow “so big and tall” – I said lots and lots of rice. (Because really – how do you answer that question? “I gorged on lard from infancy to get the junk in the trunk. Thanks for asking.”)

So, capping off the day with doing shots of deer hooch and swallowing my own vomit was just too much for me. It’s only 8:30, but I may just watch the only DVD I have with me, think of how I’ll be home in a couple of weeks, and turn in early. If I had my druthers, I’d say that I want my Mommy, but that’s not an option at the moment. I’ll have to settle for some Pepto. We’re heading back to Hanoi tomorrow night, and in exactly one week from tomorrow, I leave for Paris! I know that Paris is having some serious problems at the moment, there’s not much debate about that, but I’m still excited to go. I realize that I’m probably being a smidge naïve, but I’ve been looking forward to this trip for months, so that’s all there is to it.

For Starters

There’s no visible gecko crap anywhere, so a big hurrah for that! Very exciting. Today was interesting – lots of time in the car. A Mercedes Sprinter, for the curious out there, is indeed a minibus/minivan type vehicle, with plenty of room for all, so that’s far more comfortable than our previous “eight people in an SUV” modus operandi.

We’re seeing the same problems crop up and hearing the same misunderstandings over and over on these projects, and it’s kind of interesting how it’s so uniform. There are also some things that are uniform to the point of being suspicious, but there’s little I can do to prove the suspicions, all I can do is report the data I have. Nonetheless, it’s still a good trip so far. There are a couple new guys with us, who are quite nice. A guy at the commune today said that if I wanted to stay in Vietnam, he’d introduce me around and see if he could help me find a husband. I tried not to snort when Itsy Bitsy told me what he said, and said “that’s a kind offer, but I really must decline” or something obsequious like that. He was joking (99.9%), but perhaps a teeny bit serious. PM was telling me yesterday that when women in Vietnam get to be my age, the ancient age of 29, people are worried if they’re not married, and their odds of finding a husband decline dramatically. I said that I didn’t see much point in getting married until I met someone I actually wanted to marry, so if that decreased my odds, then I was okay with that tradeoff. But that still remains the one question that every single person here asks me – it’s a very typical Vietnamese “getting to know you” question. It doesn’t bother me, although I think people expect that it will for some reason, it’s just funny.

Of course, I need to practice saying “yes, I am” for when I get to Yemen. A fake wedding ring is no good without the proper answers lined up, no?

I finally received the Terms of Reference for the Yemen project yesterday. Unfortunately, however, I’m in Ha Tinh province, at the mercy of a very s-l-o-w dial up connection. So it will have to remain a mystery until Friday or Monday, depending on when we head back. There is some talk about heading back on Thursday night, which I’m all for, even though it will mean a very late arrival back in Hanoi. If my hotel can take me a day early, I think I’ll go for it.

For reasons that defy understanding, PM has taken to correcting my English the past few days. It’s usually when I use an idiomatic expression or a secondary meaning of a word, and he doesn’t understand it. I said something that was a coincidence was funny, and he said “you shouldn’t say it’s funny. I would say that it’s ‘interesting’.” I started to try to explain what I was saying, and then gave up because he was insistent that I didn’t know how to speak properly in my own language. That’s going to get old quickly, especially when I have to edit his writing. I remember Millie telling me, in no uncertain terms, that Vietnamese men can be very difficult. I haven’t really experienced that per se, but it’s interesting to watch PM sometimes. He can be very nice and accommodating and interesting – and then he can be a complete tool. I’m never really sure which side I’m going to see from day to day. Keeps me on my toes, I suppose – but I much prefer working with Eye Patch, if I have a choice.

The more I travel, the more I notice that people really do think that Americans live the way we’re represented on TV and in movies. I suppose that’s not an unreasonable assumption, but since I know that it’s a load of crap, and I know virtually no one whose life resembles a TV show, although there are a few candidates for “The Simpsons”, it’s just strange. They’ll ask me questions about life in the US and are dumbfounded when I say that yes, we do have poverty in the US, and yes, it’s a very real problem, and yes, there are people with no electricity and nothing to eat. Perception is a tricky thing, I suppose. Of course, I think there are plenty of people in the US who think that life, at least for some people, really is what it looks like on TV and in the movies – or that it should be.

We had some time to kill before our afternoon meetings at the commune, so we went out to the beach to chill out for about an hour. Some people grabbed hammocks, which seemed like such a good idea that I was scared I might not get up were I to grab one myself, and the rest of us walked on the beach a little, then came to sit under this large cabana-palm-roof-hut-thing. I’m sure that it’s probably a restaurant in the summer months or something. In any event, I was wearing a long-sleeved cotton shirt and some khakis and the weather was perfect. There was a light breeze coming in from the ocean, and it was just quiet – the gentle whoosh of the surf was the main sound I remember. Every so often, some fisherman would come down the shore with some nets or hop into their boats and shove off to the ocean. There were little sand crabs digging all over the place, chucking perfectly formed spheres of wet sand out onto the surface as they burrowed. For some reason, I didn’t want to destroy that inadvertent artistry, so I did my best to step around them. It was a lovely and unexpected interlude – kind of like stepping into Gilligan’s Island for an hour, but without all the wackiness. It was one of the times when I didn’t mind at all that people were talking in Vietnamese all around me – it made it easier to tune out everything but the surf and the ocean breeze.

We’re off to some more communes tomorrow, so that should be fun. Itsy Bitsy is scared of dogs (well, she’s scared of a lot of things, to tell you the truth, including “anything with more legs than necessary”), and there are dogs all over the place in these areas. In the cities, too. But we’ll be at a restaurant and there’s usually a dog or three wandering around, hoping for table scraps. I think the dogs are cute, although I do remember that it’s probably not a good idea for me to try to pet them, but she just coils up into a little ball of tension – it’s kind of funny. Or maybe I should say “interesting.” In any event, it should be another interesting day. Now comes the fun part – where I try to dial in and see if it works…

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.)