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Chelsea Cartwright writes......about her experiences while volunteering in Vietnam.Flying low over Central Vietnam, I glimpsed a bright green quilt of rice paddies and door yards, the cafe au lait of meandering rivers. Glad to be home, an old man sang in Vietnamese as we climbed from the plane�s belly. Exhausted from 48 hours of travel, I sagged in the Da Nang heat. Bags full of Maine children�s books, art supplies, clothing, pebbles, one lobster claw and sea glass, I was headed for three months volunteering in Vietnamese orphanages and an arts school for local children--the Home of Affection, the Quang Nam Baby Orphanage and the Love of Music Center. I would live in Tam Ky, the capitol of Quang Nam Province. Dismissed by the Lonely Planet�s Guide to Vietnam as nondescript, all I could picture was a dot on the map, 70k South of Da Nang. During my stay I lived with volunteers from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, England, Chicago and New York. The guest house was above a doctor�s practice for officials from the local army base. In the open hallway, geckos fought for bug-catching territory and our cook�s son and I used a folding privacy screen for a volleyball net. From here we looked out on three stories of lavatories. Nearby was an unmowed square where rangy boys played soccer in their bare feet, a large market, constant construction projects, and an eternity of noodle shops, coffee shops, street stands and internet cafes. Out of the town center there are long beaches where fishermen cast their nets from basket boats, and I spent Christmas Eve day bathing in the breakers. Mornings came with a 5 o�clock street broadcast blaring through the door, mosquito net and blanket to rouse me from my rattan mat. Getting stares in my running shorts, I would take in the sunrise with the opening of the noodle shops (pho or bun) and the sweeping of the sidewalks. Cleanliness in Vietnam is not the antibacterial, Clorox clean of the West. Clean means swishing hot tea in everyone�s cup and tossing the dirty tea over your shoulder. Clean means taking one of the 3X3 inch napkins and vigorously rubbing everyone's chopsticks before eating. This clean can result in gastrointestinal distress for foreigners, but it is a clean that doesn�t scrub or plastic wrap the scents, the character, the soul of place and people. The fish market glistens with scales. Rice dries in the streets. Chickens ride the buses. Food is not found in air-conditioned aisles--it�s mooing in the median strip and growing in the paddies, hanging ripe from the palms and paddling in the puddles. A bad bout of diarrhea and vomiting left me dehydrated in a Vietnamese hospital. I had over twenty curious eyes peering at me through wide open windows. In the paddies, people pee and defecate alongside the cranes and water buffalo. From children to elders, everyone is immaculately dressed. The ethos of cleanliness extends into every facet of life. The children didn�t want to get their hands dirty when painting. They stared at me in disgusted amazement when I brought paper mache and plunged my hands into it, spattering the arm of the child next to me. It took a lot of encouragement before tentative fingers dabbed paint and smoothed pasty newspaper strips onto bowls and vases. Group painting ran into similar barriers. Pushing chairs to the corners, I instructed the children to rotate from painting to painting every time I blew a whistle and make a few brush strokes. The first rotation was pandemonium. Angry that they couldn�t finish their pictures of landscapes and flowers, outraged that someone else would desecrate their painting, they refused to move. By the end of the session, paper and children were saturated in watercolors, the room awash in laughter. Ownership, realism and neatness had been flung aside. It's possible to be a vegetarian, but with a noodle shop on every corner, I wanted to try the full cultural experience; there were two noodle shops less than a block from our guest house. Needing no official paperwork to open shop, they proliferate as fast as the dogs and cats. My favorite noodle shop served pickled shallots along with standard chili pastes, fish sauce, fresh chili and lime. Everyone in the family helped in its operation. The grandmother had black lacquered teeth, an ancient mark of beauty fast going out of style. If I asked for �mot banh my� (one bread) she would cackle and parrot me, still chuckling and grinning her black grin when she brought the small French baguette, warmed over a bucket of coals. It struck me that in Vietnam the elderly are a contributing part of the community. They are not shoved aside to sit in armchairs with other old people. Watching their children, their grandchildren and their neighbor�s children grow, they can serve bread and a smile. Respect for elders is knit into the language and the culture. The roads are a free-for-all of motorbikes and bicycles. Major routes are an insane melee of two and four-wheeled vehicles. While dogs braved the roads with impunity, I was broadsided by a bus. Not seriously injured, I climbed back on my bike and peddled home. Shaken, all bus horns took on the ringing tones of a death knell and I avoided their routes. Not only is traffic insane, what people carry on their bikes stretches credibility. Bicycles are rolling hedges of greenery; roped into rough woven baskets, pigs ride on bicycle racks; three and four college students travel on a single cycle. Children from the orphanage would jump on the back of my bike when I was leaving. Wobbling out the gate, they�d ride back to the guest house with me. Furniture, livestock, firewood, rice sacks, towering basket stacks--all are transported by pedal-power. Walking down the street elicited stares, cries of �Hello! Hello! What your name? Where you from?� and invitations for coffee. The presence of the Quang Nam Teacher Training College provided an endless stream of eager English students. I met Quyen. I met her again. Suddenly I had an invitation to spend the weekend with her family. The tiny village of Tien Phuoc is located 15k from Tam Ky, near the mountains. On her sputtering motorbike we passed muddy paddies on either side of windy roads. I was the first foreigner to come to her home. Her three small cousins ran to pick me flowers. The more I smiled, the larger the flowers became, until the final offerings were enormous fronds that filled my arms. Engulfed in foliage, I thanked them, �Cam on! Dep qua!� Beautiful. Peeing on the packed dirt outside, sleeping beside Quyen and her sister on their rattan mat, dining with the family and their friends in a tight, loving circle on the floor I felt like family. From the minute I arrived in the morning until late at night I was whisked from one house to another. Everyone in the neighborhood invited me in for tea and sweets, watermelon seeds, fruit and song. Song swaps are a Vietnamese tradition. I would sing and in turn get serenaded. Everything in the house had its purpose and each person their daily routine. Electric lights hung from dangling cords, a four-inch mirror was passed around in the morning, a bucket plunged into the well for water, eucalyptus oil cured all ailments. Tradition and circumstance mold their lives. I couldn�t help envying the community, the unconscious simplicity. Theirs was a world dominated by relationships with people, not objects. Vietnamese like to celebrate. In the coffee shops, soccer games are celebrated nightly with loud cheers (Yo!) and clinking of beer glasses. An amateur singing contest for rural farmers, the equivalent of American Idol, was held over four torturous days, at top volume, near our guest house. This same building held raucous meetings with loud speech-making and off-key serenades. Karaoke clubs are audible several streets away. The night I went to a club the power went out and the manager brought us candles. The screen flickered to life and died seven times before the generator kicked in. Heading out to an internet cafe I stumbled on a celebratory presentation at the local college. On entering, I was stormed by English students. I was informed this was National Women�s Day, which honors the efforts of women during the Vietnam-American War. Students were singing to electronic music and dancing. The boys were dressed in army gear. During a long ballad I asked what was taking place. Amid nervous giggles, a girl told me the Viet Cong had just killed an American soldier. Daily I watched older girls cycling to and from school wearing white silk ao dais, the back ends tucked in perfect loops to avoid the gears. Flowing silk pants and a long, fitted dress slit to the navel on either side--ao dais are traditional women�s attire. For fifteen dollars I bought fabric and brought it to a Tam Ky tailor. Cost of labor was five dollars. When I went to pick up my finished ao dai her father asked me where I was from. �Toi sang o My,� I said. Thinking I spoke Vietnamese, he followed me out the door and began telling me an involved story, holding his wrist in front of my face. Nodding, trying to feign understanding, I cast my eyes toward my translator for assistance. He had been a soldier for the Viet Cong. The lump on his wrist is the flesh memory of American bomb shrapnel. There is a bullet embedded in his head and a rib is shattered. He was not angry. Perhaps he was just an old man who needed to share his story. To most of the Vietnamese I spoke with the Vietnam-American War is a thing of the past. America is not a former enemy but an economic interest. For others, deformed by Agent Orange and without health coverage, the horror of the war continues. The U.S. dumped 19 million gallons of Agent Orange on Vietnam. An estimated 40,000 Vietnamese are currently effected by dioxin poisoning. I met with the Vietnamese Red Cross, who are raising funds for Agent Orange victims and their families and advocating for U.S. involvement. They had hair-raising pictures, but only $120,000. The U.S. says there is no conclusive evidence that these disabilities are caused by dioxin, but refuse to help fund testing that could supply the evidence. What is most important seems hardest to put into words. The soul of my journey was the children. My first day at the baby orphanage was intimidating. Thirty pairs of child eyes stared. No one smiled. We were the first foreigners they had ever seen. A small boy burst into tears and ran away. A three-year-old girl fell and began to cry, tears hitting the tiled floor. I lifted her and two arms wrapped around my neck. This was Trang, and she became my barnacle. Every day I walked through the gate and a solemn face awaited me. As the children adjusted to our presence, we established a basic structure. Mornings were for art, followed by songs, dancing, games, stories and cuddles. After �class� we helped feed them. This may not sound like a lot of organization, but simply getting the children to sit and participate was a challenge. Not having any personal possessions, the kids would grab crayons and hoard them. Or eat them. The staff�s regard for us was mixed. Our teaching was a bizarre, noisy intrusion into their routine and they left us alone. Some found our antics amusing, but they too stayed away. We were on our own. The longer we stayed the less crayons were hoarded and eaten, the more art hung on the walls, the more smiles appeared. More smiles, but Trang remained catatonic. She did not color, she did not smile. She would catch a ball, but would not throw it back. In a month, Trang was playing hide and seek. Hiding behind a pillar, I would peer around at her. With a shriek of feigned shock she would grin and giggle her way into the closest room, only to pop out again. Feeding her became a game. She would turn away from the spoon or stand up until I tickled her into submission. Each tickle brought bursts of laughter and an impish smile. She became a firefly. I carry her with me in the jar of memory, but it�s not the same. I miss her. Tinh was twenty-two years old. Eighteen is the cut-off age for the Home of Affection, but Tinh was a special case. He had mental retardation, a speech impediment, and deformed legs. Truc was ten, also mentally retarded. They both participated in everything we did, with the help of other children. This was not our doing. Tinh and Truc were helped by the others because that is what you do. Family bonds are strong in Vietnam. An orphanage is no different--it�s an extra-large family. Teasing, poking, squabbling and classroom brawls happened on occasion, but after it was over the aggressor helped the person they�d hurt. On some basic level, people were accepted. During a party thrown in our honor, children took turns at the microphone, their strong voices filling the room. The microphone was handed to Tinh. In his guttural noises I heard the pride of any child on stage for the first time, cheered on by a loving circle of fans. There is less medical knowledge about mental illness in Vietnam, yet there seemed to be more social acceptance. It is hard to write about the Home of Affection kids. They were my gang. They were my reason to stay. Even on days when I rode my bike home feeling discouraged, when soccer balls bounced off the classroom walls and fights sabotaged my teaching plans, I felt a glow from being with them. My favorite time was after class was over. With children draped over me, we would play Go Fish, draw pictures, give airplane rides, or just sit quietly. Verbal and written communication are supreme in the adult world, but there is no language barrier with children. Setting words aside, I caught the washed hair smell of the child in my lap, I felt the texture of tiny palms, played charades and wildly danced. I didn�t need to learn Vietnamese, they didn�t need to learn English--we were talking from the beginning. A rutted alley past the Home of Affection took me to the Love of Music Center. The rainy season made this dirt path a snaking river of mud, home to millions of fly-sized leaping frogs. Monday nights I taught an English lesson for 26 students, Thursday afternoons a piano class for five, and Friday nights were for art and games. The children at the Music Center were more focused than the children in the orphanages--perhaps the difference of having a family. On National Teacher�s Day the children sang and presented us with flowers. Following tradition, we sang to them. Before National Teacher�s Day, flower vendors pop from the sidewalks, making the street a vibrant botanical garden. When the day arrives children go out and visit the homes of present and past teachers. Even adults will return to pay respects to a favorite mentor. Weekends were reserved for traveling. Backpacks loaded, we would head for the bus stop. I found myself seated on packing cases, dangling over a sea of chickens, holding the conical hats of ancient farmers and detouring to deliver a furniture set. Traveling for me is not about seeing monuments and memorials, staying in hotels and catching boat tours. Travel wakes my senses. The river in My Son, beside the Cham towers, was more interesting to me than the ruins. Distant mountains are rimmed in gum trees, their knobbly outlines so different from the sharp points of Maine spruce. At China Beach, we swam naked beside round basket fishing boats, beneath the stars. A restaurant owner at the beach had a dog named Itchy who was eaten by his neighbor. Marbled orange-brown bricks paved the courtyards and paths of a Hue monastery. We danced barefoot over them while rain pelted our ponchos, raced in torrents down the paths. A boy fished from a wooden railing. A man peed next to an ancient wall. I met two Vietnamese-Chinese living in Kentucky who had been visiting relatives in tea fields in the mountains. Brother and sister, this was the first time they had returned to their birth country. The boy told me how his parents met in prison. His father was a Viet Cong soldier, one of five in his regiment to survive. His mother was a dissident poet. They moved their family to Kentucky in 1995. His father hits him over the head and says, �Men shed blood not tears.� He is expected to remain stone-faced. His father is his idol. In Hoi An, a woman who poled a tourist boat on the Bon River told me of her island home and her three children. Only one is sent to school--it�s all she can afford. Schooling is 200,000 dong per year, per student, the equivalent of roughly 12 U.S. dollars. Traveling to Da Nang to see a fellow volunteer off at the airport, I rode through two feet of water. Shop keepers stayed open, with their pants rolled to their upper thighs and their goods moved to top shelves. Rising flood waters in Dai Loc forced volunteers staying there to leave by boat to catch their plane. They had to duck beneath the telephone wires. Our translator�s family in Dai Loc invited us for lunch and we picked guavas from a neighbor�s tree. Their house is built of woven mats, with a five inch gap at the bottom for flood waters to run out. When the water is high, the family climbs onto a roof ledge and fishes from the rafters. When we returned from our weekend travels we would be sweaty and dusty. A napkin swiped across my face would come away brown. Vietnamese protect themselves from dust by wearing cloth face masks. Masks also shield them from the sun. White skin is considered beautiful. This has nothing to do with foreigners. Farmers who must work under the relentless sun in the paddy fields turn a golden brown. The less someone has to work, the whiter they are. To maintain light skin many girls wear gloves to their armpits and socks even in broiling temperatures. All the shops sell whitening creams. Swimming at a waterfall in Dai Loc I saw a girl jump into the water with her jeans, gloves, face mask and sneakers on! People constantly came up to touch and pinch me, saying I was beautiful. Holding one of their arms against mine, they would point at their skin and frown. Bothered by this, I learned to say �nguoi Viet Nam dep qua� (the people of Vietnam are beautiful). They never looked convinced, but they always smiled. What is it to know a place? Three days are a wisp of passing time, three months a moment. You can live a lifetime without knowing a place deeply. Depth is mental travel. My Vietnam travels are physically over; my mind is still digesting. Full with the love, energy and spirit of the children, I am richer, and ready to continue the journey. |
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