Real Life Merry-Go-Round

I am absolutely exhausted, in a good way. I wish I could write an indulgent, beautiful blog...but I need to rest up and do my homework! I have the bulk of an essay to write, due in a couple of days, and have been working and playing hard! Hopefully in the next few days, I can sit down to reflect more and do the past few days justice...

They say a picture's worth a thousand words, so I hope that combined with the following annotation of the recent days, these few pictures give a good feeling of what it's been like:

Where do I even start?? Dong Ha has been NUTS.

Day 1: watched a bomb explode, and saw a container full of unexploded bombs; drove out to super remote areas, saw rivers/streams/jungle/mountain/water buffalo/people lounging in hammocks; played soccer with a bunch of locals

Day 2: Dug holes in cement & installed playset for elementary school; painted the swingset, planted trees, visited a huge citadel and grave, called a "meat grinder" by the professor due to the enormous amt of deaths in the citadel...saw a french colonial prison where they kept Viet Namese rebels and civilians (1868-1954); there were huge spiders in the prison, and bullet holes! The citadel was destroyed in 1973 by American carpetbombing, I believe.

Day 3: planted trees in a field, went to the De-militarized Zone line drawn at the 1954 geneva convention, hung out at the Laos border for awhile, where there's a large market; went to a SNAKE RESTAURANT, drank SNAKE BILE and SNAKE BLOOD, and ate snake meat and snake skin.

Day 4: Visited a rubber plantation, saw raw rubber seep out of a tree! visited a pepper farm, saw real pepper bubbles growing up vines, went to a whole city BUILT UNDERGROUND during the war!!! went to an empty, white-sand beach, swam out to a sandbar, met 2 fishermen who gave us their goggles and led us underwater to tropical fish!! soaked in the sun for 3 hours before heading home.....

Day 5: Poured concrete base in house for family; laid tile (much cooler temperature wise, and much cleaner/healthier for the family). Finished in late afternoon; went to ANOTHER snake restaurant, drank more snake blood and bile, ate a snake heart! Now, I blog and sleep...

The pictures are not presented in chronolical order.

Here's a video of the snake-heart consumption, as well as one of the sea snakes (2nd snake restaurant). I must say, the sea snakes aren't as big as the first snakes we ate, but they are snakes nonetheless...

If you want to watch the video on a bigger screen, go to this link:

snakes, pre-eating: http://youtu.be/OCAqHDrISKU

shooting the snake heart: http://youtu.be/-je7RUPHPfQ

snake hearts:

Unexploded chemical bombs:

rural family hangs their laundry:

Gorgeous country on the way to preschool:

At the Laos Border Market:

Kiddies!!!

We dug holes in the cement in order to install the swingset & fill with concrete:

French colonial prison, blasted out by bombs!

Tiny, Tiny cells:

Lots of cows and water buffalo in the countryside!

BLOOD AND BILE

 Snake skin

 Pepper Trees!

 Just came out of the underground tunnel network; at the beach!!

Today we left Hue and arrived in Dong Ha, Quang Tri Province! Last night we went out to a bar called "brown eyes," that turns into a dance club at night. Apparently there are a lot of bars around here that kind of seem like divebars until about 10 pm, when the strobe lights roll out and people start pouring in! After embarrassing myself at a game of pool, I had a great time!! It was lots of fun.

Before we went out to the bar, we went to a bridge by the river, where there's an informal night market, a couple of restaurants, and lots of families, teenagers, and couples hanging out. We enjoyed ourselves greatly! I managed to capture an interesting few minutes on camera...

Here's the link to the youtube video, in case you want to watch a bigger-screen version directly from YouTube:

http://youtu.be/mzyhKTXjsHQ

Anyway...on to Dong Ha/Quang Tri (quite a change of pace, I assure you)

Today we visited a preschool in "Friendship Village", an NGO that helps widows, children, and families who have been severely disabled or impoverished as a result of unexploded bombs left over from the American War in Viet Nam. We will be working here for a few days...all I can say is that I am EXHAUSTED and it was HOOOTTTTT hot hot hot to

More bombs were dropped in this area, about the size of King County (Seattle) than all of the bombs dropped in WWI and WWII combined. There are unexploded ordinances everywhere here, and thousands of people are killed, injured permanently, or badly wounded every year. In many cases, small children go playing in the fields or stray off of a path, and find hand-sized round metal things and think they are toys, but they explode and kill the child. Family breadwinners (fathers) usually work out in the fields, as Viet Nam is a highly agricultural society. Often times the father/breadwinner hits a bomb (sometimes a HUGE one) and either loses his legs/arms, or is killed on the spot.

Tomorrow we are going to visit an "unexploded ordinance" clearing organization. I am not sure if this is happening tomorrow, but I know at some point we are going to watch the disposal (i.e. explosion) of a batch of bombs that the organization has gathered. I'm nervous!

Anyway, there you have it - two VERY different days lived here in Viet Nam. I'll upload more pictures later!

Yesterday I had the privilege of speaking with Mom on Skype! She asked what was new, and I said, "Oh nothing unusual, everything has been pretty ordinary. Class, then homework."
Later, I realized that my circumstances are anything but ordinary at the moment...Here's some basic details about "ordinary"!

Though organized nicely, Vietnamese streets do wind a bit. Most streets have names of famous leaders, like U.S. streets named "MLK" or "Washington." However, to save my life I cannot even begin to memorize street names here. I am starting to really love the Native American way of naming places - "Big Hill Place", "2 streets east of bridge street", "Yellow Sign in bottom-left-hand-corner-of-convenience-store-on-corner-Street", or "Street with many appliance stores street" all seem like fine names to me!

As I said in a previous entry, streets here used to be organized by trade. In the past, "Street A" for example, would be lined with vendors selling food, "Street B" with people selling toys, and "street C" known for tailors and seamstresses....you get the picture.

To this day, many stores sell just one product. So, for example, there is a "toilet store" that sells nothing but toilets, and a "sink" store that sells nothing but sinks. Thus far, the kind of store that has caught my attention most are the Mannequin stores! I have seen 3 shops filled to the brim with mannequins , all with creepy facial expressions, some without makeup, some with wigs or simply bald...but every one of them blaringly naked and staring strangely out into the street. I'm sad I didn't take a picture!!

Real estate used to be priced based on a storefront or house's width against the sidewalk - with no limit on how many stories a building could be. As a result, most shops, homes, and stores sit very narrow, but stand 3-7 stories high. Restaurants often walk their customers up 3 flights of stairs, where patrons sit and eat with a nice view.

Many people here dry their laundry on their porches on clotheslines. I kind've like seeing people's laundry strung about the city and up high on porches - it gives me the feeling that there are people, not just buildings, in the city. You can see this man standing on top of his house! Many people's roofs serve as a deck.

Bicycles and Mopeds are the main method of transportation here. I rode on the back of one with a woman once, against my better judgement, but no harm came of it and it was really fun!! There are also "siclos" - the bicycle-powered cabs that seat 3 small people (Beth, Nicole, Aften) or two larger people (Dad, Granpdpa).

To beat the heat, I like to get ice cream. Here, I get either Coconut, Taro, or Mung Bean flavor. Taro is a plant/root. So delicious....(sigh) Mung Bean and Taro both have a rich, creamy taste like coconut or Chai, but also have a bit of a nutty flavor like almond. Taro flavored things are lavender colored, and Mung Bean foods are green.

       A/C's are a novelty here, and one mainly used for tourists. Outside of my hotel room, I find myself sweating at the strangest times. For example, the group eats breakfast upstairs, and by the middle of breakfast, a nice, reflective sheen of sweat forms on everybody's forehead. Upon arriving at the airport in Hanoi, Tucker, Jessy, and I stood at baggage claim for about 15 minutes. I hear Jessy say, "Is anyone else sweating?" I laugh-- standing in an "air conditioned" building, without moving or exerting myself, my clothes had started sticking to me with sweat about ten minutes prior. Another distinct time I remember feeling like I was in some weird, hot dream was at a gravestone of a revered leader. The dead man was very important...but it was sooo hot outside, and I began to drift off. I whipped out a fan and started fanning myself. Is it disrespectful to fan yourself at a gravesite, over someone's dead body? Who, in this case, has more serious problems?

 Fortunately, our hotel has a swimming pool! It is sooo nice!!

The scenery here is beautiful - mountains on every side, trees, jungle, greenery everywhere. Banana leaf trees are my favorite! They spread out like big, wild, fluffy fans

So, that is ordinary life here in Viet Nam! Hopefully I will be able to take more pictures of food and other common scenes.

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Here is a video of some of the beautiful Vietnamese landscape! We drove through the mountains to get to Hoi Anh, and had to turn the A/C off...in 100 degree, humid heat...

Here is a video showing a lot of typical Vietnamese countryside! Rice fields, middle/upper/poorer houses, business, food stands, dirt roads, paved roads, water, mountains...Professor Giebel offers some information, shortly followed by a lovely commentary by Mr. Hao...