Challenges in Viet Nam

The MV Explorer gingerly navigated her way up the broad, brown Saigon River, passing acre after acre of rice paddies, a dazzling patchwork of bright green. The deep tone of the ship’s horn bellowed through the early morning calm, warning small sampans and fishing boats of our approach. I leaned against the rail and let all the memories and remembered emotions of Viet Nam wash over me. I listened to the excited chatter of students who had crawled out of bed before dawn to watch our passage up the river to Ho Chi Minh City. They had no idea what lay ahead but they were up for it.

In the days before and since our time in Viet Nam, the students expressed frustration at how little they knew about both the country and the war. One boy said his high school teacher had marched them through the decades of American history, but when she got to the Viet Nam War, her voice trailed off into silence. They said no one told them, not their professors, not their parents. Larning about the war is hard enough. How could they be expected to get past it to see the country, the culture and the people?

During the two jam-packed days between Thailand and Viet Nam, the faculty, staff and Lifelong Learners who were old enough to have lived through “The War” talked in small groups about our own feelings and experiences. Soon the conversations turned to what the young people did or didn’t know and what they were about to be confronted with. Some of us had been to the War Remnants Museum in Saigon which vividly portrays the atrocities of Agent Orange, past and present. I also knew what awaited the students who were traveling to Cambodia: the baffled or defiant faces staring out from mug shots of new inmates at the Phnom Penh prison just before they were brutally tortured or the gut-wrenching crunch of human bones underfoot at the Killing Fields. The large majority of these students had never heard of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge or the Cambodian genocide.

We wanted to prepare them but we knew there is really no way to be ready to confront unspeakable horrors. We wanted to protect them but we knew that their age of innocence had passed. We wanted to support them but we were barely able to cope with our own emotions and memories. Ready or not, the ship’s community poured down the gangway and into the scorching heat of Ho Chi Minh City.

My plans for this port were quite tame, having dealt with all that sad history in my last two visits. I had been commissioned by a friend to buy a particular kind of hair clip at the enormous and sweltering Ben Tranh market and that mission took up a lot of my first day in port. I got my pho fix at a local restaurant made famous by Bill Clinton’s visit there. For dinner, I went with some friends to a French restaurant recommended by the tour agent on the ship that had just okay, expensive food. The evening was jovial and enjoyable because of the company.

The next day I left for a three day, two night tour of the Mekong Delta, a beautiful area I had heard a lot about but not yet visited. Of all my SAS trips thus far, I have to say this one was the least memorable. I traveled with a group of people that included no one I knew very well and with whom I never really clicked. We spent lots of hours on the bus and visited many places, like a coconut candy factory and a brickworks, which were somewhat interesting but not wonderful. I’m not a huge fan of coconut and standing beside blisteringly hot kilns on a 100 degree day is not my idea of a good time. We were, however, on the water a lot, visiting the fascinating floating markets and watching the everyday life along the river banks. We saw many examples of how industrious the Vietnamese people are, but also how warm and gracious is their hospitality and their family life.

We spent one night in a dormitory-style, unair-conditioned guest house, on a small Mekong River tributary, somewhat out in the countryside. The best part about it was the food, including another cooking opportunity, this time learning to make spring rolls. I pride myself on being able to rough it with the best of them, but the night was miserable and the early morning disappointing. When we arrived, I chose an army cot in a small room with the male guide to try to protect my companions from my legendary snoring. Although I don’t think the air temperature could have possibly dropped below 90 all night, the guide told me the next morning that he had gotten chilled during the night and turned off our only fan. So that’s why I kept wondering, as I tossed and turned, why the night wasn’t feeling cooler as it dragged on and on. I can’t say I was abruptly awakened by the roosters because they crowed relentlessly all night and also because you have to be asleep to be waked up. Anyway, I finally went out on the porch to watch the sun come up and look for birds. The birds never showed up since, as the guide explained, almost all are shot and eaten. The sun arrived about the same time as a motorboat with a deafening engine that had never even been in the same zip code as a muffler. He made four (I counted) revved-engine passes at the dock of the neighboring family before finally tying up and unloading some building supplies, including a pile of those bricks I saw being made.

Some of you know what happened later that day. We arrived at the hotel for our second night’s stay and – hooray – it had not only air conditioning but FREE INTERNET! Knowing that everyone on our trip was just as Internet-starved as I was, I decided to grab one of the computers in the lobby before going up to my room. The “Business Center” was a bank of four computers lined up near the reception desk. I leaned my rolling backpack up against the wall behind a chair, put my purse down beside it and sat down. I was delighted to find Dave on Facebook and we had a wonderful chat. When I got up to go to my room, my purse was gone. The bad news is that I lost my iPod, my cell phone, about $75 worth of dong (Vietnamese currency), my ship ID, my ATM card and, worst of all, my field notebook. The good news is that my camera was in my backpack. In my money belt were my passport, Visa card and plenty of extra dollars. My friend Hugh Straley had an extra iPod Nano he lent me and I’m thoroughly enjoying a new playlist of music. Some of you know I was due for a new cell phone, (okay, way overdue) so I’m going to buy an iPhone when we get to Honolulu. The money was not a huge amount and not all I had anyway. They replaced my ship ID when I got back aboard. I had a problem with my ATM PIN so I wasn’t even relying on that; shouldn’t have even been in my purse. I brought enough cash from home so that’s not an issue I got an email from my banker the next day that someone had tried unsuccessfully to use it up in Hanoi – must have been fenced quickly. The field notebook is another story. I still have my journal which I never take off the ship for just this reason, but my notebook was full of ideas and facts I hate to lose. Its loss, I’m afraid, means the end of my project on markets for my multi-writing class because it contained many ports-worth of notes and observations. I could probably manage to recreate some of it if I had to, but I don’t, and that’s the beauty of being a Life Long Learner. Also, I could really use the time to focus on my other writing projects.

My Mekong trip wasn’t a disaster, it just wasn’t that great. But that has turned out to be a good thing. Viet Nam was such a challenging port for the students that they have needed lots of listening and support as they cope with and try to make sense of all they saw and felt. Because I had a less than stellar time myself, it’s been easier for me to be focused on my young friends and shipboard “children”. I’m a much better listener when I can manage to get my own stuff out of the way.

I am always hesitant to write about anything negative on this voyage. To do so seems colossally petty and whiny. I’m on a voyage around the world with a magnificent group of people, participating in a program I love! Because most people in my generation either lived or heard about unspeakably horrific experiences in Viet Nam, for me to recount my trivial difficulties in this country particularly seems patently absurd. However, as is often said, Viet Nam is a country not a war. I have had the privilege to explore this beautiful country three times now and to experience it in peace.

I have to say I was only bummed out by the challenges of my experiences in Viet Nam for a very short time before my default attitude took over. Through lots of years of living and learning, I’ve created a place I return to more and more easily, more and more quickly after each difficulty. Inside that space, I am filled with an awareness of the abundance of rich experiences and love that fill my life. In that place, the only possible response is gratitude.