Feeling hungry…

I recently got an e-mail from a friend who expressed discontent with San Francisco’s temperate weather — which I absolutely was unable to empathize with. Then, this past week he was finally pleased that, for the first time, he felt cold in San Francisco.

Yes, some of this is about the need for seasons in one’s life. But I think this was really a comment on the need for suffering in one’s life. I think quite a bit about the idea of suffering. You know, the “life is suffering” sort of business. But I don’t think I experience it quite enough.

So my vacation plans were thwarted (a whole other story that I’ll get into another time) and I’ve just return to Saigon so I can work tomorrow. And it’s rainy.

Really, really rainy.

So rainy that all the women selling food (it’s all sold off the street) have closed up shop and gone home for the day. So I missed lunch today and, for the first time since being in Vietnam, I am REALLY, REALLY hungry.

And I feel so grateful. In some strange way, I like it when life is a little hard. I think I understand one little piece of my friend a little better now. It think I yearn for a little bit of suffering because it helps me to appreciate all the other nuances — the seasons — of life.

The river boat man

Right after going to see Angor Wat (and the other surrounding ruins), we went on a boat ride down a river just outside Siem Reap (the town we’re staying in near Angkor Wat). We all file into a wooden tourist boat and head down the river. I’m excited, thinking that it’s beautiful to be able to be on the river at sunset, where the weather is pleasant.and we’re away from the crowds. Most of the people on the tour file into the main cabin, putting on their life vests and sitting quietly in their wooden chairs, but I head to the back, noticing a bench with a beautiful, unobstructed view out the boat. I feel a soft breeze whispering by. The setting sun is casting a splash of sheer champagne with a veil of rose. Aah!

Before I know it, a much smaller sampan-like boat approaches and a young girl, no more than 8 years old, leaps onto our boat “Ooh, a staged pirate attack, how fun!” I think, before realizing that she’s carrying a basket of soda and bananas, to sell to the rich tourists (us) for “one dollar, please.” Suddenly, we have six of these tiny skin-and-bones children on our boat. Their skin is a leathery tan from their (at this point less than ten) years of living on the river, constantly exposed to the elements. One little boy approaches me, lifting a soda can with an arm no wider around than my wrist and a plaintive, “One dollar, please.” His deep brown eyes plea, “With a dollar, maybe I could eat tonight.”

A well of emotions is starting to bubble up. These children must live like this daily, begging for just enough food to make it through another day. Is there any hope for their lives to change? What have they done to deserve a life like this? It seems so unfair that some people should live in such poverty while others watch on with an inability to truly help — or worse yet, with indifference. What do they think of their lives? And what do they think of us?

The children realize that they have sold everything that they are going to sell and one by one start to make their way off the boat, leaping off and landing expertly on their sampans. Just as the last boat is pulling away, a young woman on my boat realizes she has a few dollars left and reaches over the side of our boat to hand the dollar to a man rowing one of the riverboats. They’re both reaching toward each other, but our boat is moving quickly. The man reaches a little farther to grasp the dollar. And the woman reaches a little farther. But the man in the riverboat reaches a little too far and I see him falling, as if in slow motion, with every ounce of strength he has toward that dollar bill. His head goes underwater next to our boat and I’m all too aware of our boat’s motor whirring under him as he sinks underwater.

The young woman’s eyes well over with silent tears and she whispers, “for a dollar… he risked his life for a dollar…”

A moment later, the man surfaces, swimming desperately back to his sampan. Will he live another year, I wonder. And does he think his life is worth it?

Kids on the river

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of the man in the story, but here are some of the other kids we encountered.

In Cambodia

I’m currently in Cambodia (since I was out of work for the past few days, I decided to go on a little side trip to Cambodia. Unfortunately, I’m using dial-up so the next few blogs will all be text. There’s no way I’m going to have the patience for my pictures to load. I’ll post more pictures when I get back to Vietnam.

On architecture

I certainly don’t think of Vietnam when I think of contemporary architecture. (For those of you who don’t know, I LOVE contemporary architecture and design — almost as much as I love eating. That’s saying a lot!) A few nights ago, I had a really great conversation with one of my cousins (who is an architect here) about his vision for architecture in Vietnam. It was really amazing to hear what he had to say (This is what I think he was trying to say. My Vietnamese is pretty spotty in this realm. How do you say “deconstructionist” again?) He says that he hopes to help change Vietnamese society through the buildings. He says that he feels that the society has a glass ceiling – the people are constantly copying the ideas of other people, but aren’t creating brand new ideas of their own. By changing the style of one’s surroundings, you change the way that people think and relate to one another. So he hopes to create a more creative, forward thinking, openly associating society.

It was so amazing to see some of his designs. He’s really good! (Almost half of the pictures he brought in were images of his buildings in magazines!) His buildings have an open, airy, almost ethereal feel as well as an organic edge evocative of Frank Gehry. I designed my potential future house when I was in college and haven’t thought about it for a couple of years, but now I think I’ll have my cousin design my house!

My lucky day

Apparently it’s good luck in Vietnamese culture to run into a funeral (they say that people are only allowed to be buried on auspicious days so if you run into a funeral it must be auspicious for you). I guess today was my lucky day. One of the neighbors who lives a few houses down from our hotel recently died. (You can tell by the constant chanting on the PA over the street… and by the people dressed in all white, the color of no life… and by the funeral bier.)

On field work abroad

I was mentally prepared for this to happen, but I was still disappointed when I received a call Monday morning saying that my refractionist would be unable to go south with me tomorrow (and the following day) to visit one of the schools for the blind – and would I like to examine nuns in HCMC for cataracts instead. I totally understand: she’s 7-and-a-half months pregnant and doesn’t want to make the 5-hour bus trip and overnight stay. But it still would’ve been nice to have more than 21-hours notice that she didn’t want to go. I was unable to find another refractionist to go with me. So now I’ve lost two days of work, missed the opportunity to see kids in a more remote location (with, potentially, a different set of eye diseases), and will likely have to drop 30-50 kids from the study.

I know that working in other countries puts me at the mercy of other people (and their last-minute schedules). So I’m grateful that when my collaborator told me “we’ll collect all the data we need in less than one week so you only have to come here for one week” I ignored his advice and planned to stay for 3 weeks.

With this sudden change in plans, I tried to make some last-minute arrangements. First, I thought that maybe I could go up north to observe the 3-day cataract camp that’s going on today, tomorrow, and the next day. So I hauled over to a travel agency to try to book a last-minute ticket to fly up north and then book a bus for the 4-hour trip to Ha Long Bay – but there are no airline tickets left until the afternoon of the last day of the cataract camp. So I moved onto Plan B: I called my refractionist and agreed to examine the nuns for cataracts. She agreed and we planned on meeting at 8:30am.

Then, I got a text message from her at 9:30 last night saying, “I was unable to reach the nuns so we’ll have to examine them another day.” Drat! Foiled again! (Seems apropos that the trait I’m working on this week is “flexible/easy-going.”)

The good news is that we still have 150 kids to examine at the biggest school in the country (Nguyen Dinh Chieu School for the Blind here in HCMC) so I’ll hopefully still have at least 150-175 kids in my arm of the study (depending on what percentage of the kids at Nguyen Dinh Chieu we’re able to examine).

Smoking indoors

This is one of our relatives at the Duxton last night. (Apparently, he’s a “famous” writer — so my mom says.) I thought the way he was smoking was just hilarious! No front teeth and only a few teeth on the bottom, but still holding onto every bit of tobacco possible.

Asparagus?

I was walking through the market and saw these funny little bunches for sale. I didn’t know what they were and thought they looked a little like asparagus… until they started wiggling! I guess they’re actually… Seasnails!

Blind girl jumping — with beer cans

I shot this picture because I thought it was so absurd that this little blind girl probably had no idea that the little noise-makers that were rustling every time she jumped were beer cans!