I Know I've Been MIA for Awhile, But There's One Thing I want to Know: Am I on Planet Earth?

Sometimes it is hard to believe I am on the same planet that contains the place I call my home.  Equally as unbelievable is that sometimes I forget I am in Asia.  However, I am quickly reminded of these facts the moment I step out of our 'hotel.'  Vietnam is very direct.  When you meet somebody it is customary to exchange names and ages, no matter how youthful or old the person may be.  Interactions are very blunt and I appreciate this, but sometimes I have to force myself to be truthful because common talk here includes things which would be considered extremely rude or inappropriate back home.  People immediately comment on your physical appearance - if they think you are overweight, they'll call you fat.  Today an old man who annihilated me in Ping Pong last week, told me via a translator, that I am awful at the sport.  Ordinary.

The good news is that I am a local celebrity.  I know this is going to sound like an ego trip, but this is my version of events as truthfully as I can put it.  The guys look at me longly and the girls look at me longingly.  Everybody calls me dep trai (handsome).  They love my skin complexion (very white) because it is what they aspire towards, and everyone wants to know how tall I am - other than the other American guy on our trip and one high school student that I teach, I have not met anybody who is taller than me.  The girl students are hot for teacher and sometimes I need to pull the brim of my hat low and duck out of a side door in order to avoid the post class bombardment that is assured to come my way.  Last week on a bike ride home, two girls riding on the same bike told me I was hot.  I halfheartedly hoped I was not understanding them correctly, so I started fanning myself and said "Yes, I am hot, it's very hot out here."  They responded "No, Max dep trai, dep trai."  Sorry ladies, a little… a lot too young.

Speaking of class, it is going way better than I had initially expected.  On our first day of teaching there were 24 students and ten teachers.  By Friday of that week, there were 62 students.  Word got out and it feels good, particularly because there are often prolonged stretches of time in class when the students stare at us blankly and I feel like I am sometimes talking to inanimate objects.  But, they are extremely smart.  They have the best memories I have ever come across; if you tell them a word and spell it out for them, they are sure not to forget it.  Granted, their pronunciation often needs readjustment, they communicate quite well for having taken little to no English and oftentimes they have learned the language only by reading and writing it.  When we were introducing names, we went around once and every student in the class could tell you every other students' name even though barely any of them previously knew each other.  I find this quite stunning.

The people here do not know the meaning of 'it can't be done.' I have witnessed some unthinkable feats of mental and physical fortitude.  I have watched: somebody ride through Ho Chi Minh City with a full size refrigerator strapped to the back of his motorbike,  elderly women walking miles in the blistering heat carrying heavy amounts of produce to and from the markets all-the-while covered in denim from head to toe (to protect from the sun),  a bus that was chopped in half horizontally be welded back together, a girl from our group (Thuy) thread my hammock in 2 minutes with a pair of chopsticks - it had taken me 45 minutes and I had still yet to finish.  In our construction project, we have not used any power tools nor any leveling devices - all the tools have been made from scrap pieces of metal, etc.  In order to bend steel, we fasten a piece of steel to itself and essentially use it as a wrench to gain leverage.  The only things that have been provided are shovels, a wheelbarrow, a steel cutter, and spatula like devices to smooth concrete, otherwise everything is improvised.  In order to make sure things are level, the builders tie strings around rocks and loop them into place, it is fascinating.  The project is going well, I think we were a little behind schedule last week, but the builders caught us up over the weekend, so the foundation is complete.  Now we are building up so that we can have a roof in place by week's end.  Every day I work until I reach physical exhaustion but I find this to be quite rewarding.  My body is just starting to get past the soreness; after the second day on the job, I could barely grip my spoon, much less chopsticks.  By the time we teach the students in the afternoon, I am running on synthetic energy, but the classes seem to flyby which is good.  From 6 AM (when we arrive at work) until 5 PM (when we are done teaching students) my days are a blur smeared by exhaustion and coffee.  I have become a regular at the Wifi shop that serves the meanest coffee in the world.  Often I am too tired to even do anything relevant on the internet, so I drink coffee while the restaurant workers either sleep or watch over my shoulder and smile approvingly and curiously at my computer doings. 

It is hard to believe we have been in Quang Tri (pronounced Wang Chee) for twelve days.  I feel like I have known these Vietnamese students - my roommate in particular - for the majority of my upbringing, yet I feel as though I got to this city yesterday, even though we have done so much in a short period of time.  The tightness I feel with these students, because of cultural differences, produces a line that is tricky to balance at times.  For instance, aside from 'Mushroom' (who is as crazy as I am), it is not acceptable to hug girls or have any contact with them.  Yet holding hands is perfectly acceptable by all.  Even flirting is often seen as distasteful, so at times it is hard to keep myself amused or, should I say, in check.

Other notes: The food is quite good, if you can get past the fact that it is ubiquitously unsanitary by American standards; I have been forced to overcome my aversion to seafood (often it is the lone source of protein) and have even developed a liking for shrimp, squid, and clams.  Even I didn't see that coming.  This next point might be contentious with Ian Rice (with whom I broke bread over some glorious meals in Cambodia), but the best meal I have had in Asia was hands down Banh Xeo last Tuesday.  Given a stipend we dined in a restaurant that initially terrified me.  The menu was a cracked board with 3 options, only one of which they were serving that night and the price was printed next to it on a sheet of paper.   I was convinced that we were the first visitors in quite some time and when the food arrived this suspicion was only furthered - it looked like it had been collecting dust in a closet.  To boot, they stacked all the plates on top of one another in the middle of the table, forming a mound of food that was overwhelming and nearly impenetrable.  The waitress however, rolled my first rice for me and this broke the ice, I proceeded to demolish my plate.  I will never be able to find this restaurant again but I highly recommend it.  Afterwards we drank this weird stuff named Che Buoy.  I picked about 7 ingredients, which seemed to be around the average, and my drink cost 8,000 Dong (about 40 cents), which apparently is quite pricey.  However, my drink included things which would go for exorbitantly more in the United States, namely the stack of pomegranates sitting at the bottom of my drink.  Possibly the most diverse dining experience came last week when we ate French Fries and Mayonnaise, with our chopsticks!

In other news, this past Saturday we visited the 17th Parallel and some underground tunnels among many other things.  The tunnels were stunning.  They only took twenty months to build, they spanned many kilometers, and nearly 400 people lived in them .  Other than the newly installed lights for tourists, they were pitch black, and the ceilings were about 54-60 inches high on average with walls that were about a yard apart.  I cannot imagine living in there for a day, much less 6 years.  They opened up into a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean covered by bamboo and tree foliage.  Actually, the tunnels were so well hidden that after stepping out if them, it became practically impossible to locate where we had exited.

On Sunday I adventured to the local market on my own, which was quite the experience.  The first thing I saw was two old ladies fighting, one hitting the other to the ground with a meter stick.  When the fight subsided, the people around me snapped too,  and began laughing at the realization that there was a tall white man in the presence of this fight.  This obviously made me crack up and start cheering, which was met by more laughter.  It was quite the scene.  For the next half hour I walked around, constantly being followed and photographed, while making certain to not get caught eyeing any particular items - this would have caused a ruckus that I was not looking to stir. 

Side note: it is fun to be the center of attention in the bubble that surrounds me, and I would not have it any other way, but it can also be quite a chore at times.  As I zip by on my bike, there is a pretty constant flow of people eagerly asking my name and excitedly yelling "Hello." Not wanting to disappoint  any of these people I try always to respond,  but it is hard to engage of them, mostly because I would never get where I wanted to go.  It's like there's Paparazzi everywhere, except nobody, me foremost, knows why I am famous, so while I try and soak it all in, I cannot at the same time let it bog me down (if that makes any sense). 

For now that's it.  I will try and post more frequently so that these are not so long in the future and also so that the material is fresher in my mind.  Hen gap lai (see you later)!

Here are some more pictures to make up for my not having posted in so long:

Our Entire Group Outside of the Elementary School (Where we are building the bathroom)

Before Moving All of the Cinder Blocks

Me and Thuy

(From R to L) Phoung, Bao(from Duke Engage), Mushroom, Yours Truly, Toine (HS student - knows everything), Alison, Anonymous

After Dancing with the Vice Principal of the Elementary School at the Opening Ceremony