But We Thought You Were Old!

I kind of forgot that the students here would "know" me when Calah and I arrived. I'm not sure how I forgot it, I remembered that I knew all about them from their applications and many inquiry emails. And I was the one who had sent them their "congratulations, you get to attend SOP" emails, and many, many others after that with vitally imporant information. So it makes sense that the name "Alicia Temple" to them had many specific connations. When Max introduced us at breakfast our first morning I was greeted by exclamations of "oh, we thought you'd be old!" But it didn't stop at that first introduction, every conversation I had with anyone for the first two days included them laughing and telling me that since Max is older (60's) they just assumed that "Alicia Temple", who was friends with Max and works for him, must be older as well. It seemed like it took them a little bit to adjust to this new Alicia.


But adjust they have and being here with SOP has so far been fantastic. The students here come from all over and its really fun to see them interacting and finding ways to communicate despite some English limitations. It helps that we are here for the week of Festival preparation: there are no classes happening this week, just cleaning and preparing for Saturday's big event. Calah and I find ways to help when we can, which has included aquiring a new skill as, if I do say so myself, expert palm branch weavers and also helping to move massive amounts of palm tree debris to a pile at one end of the land, and then the next day moving it to another location. I don't know if it is the fact that we are guests or that they assume we are just wimpy Americans, but everyone kept apologizing to us for the fact that we had to do manual labor. My favorite was when one of the man apologetically exclamed, "but what will your mothers say when they hear that their daughters were put to work!" Fortunately, I think both of our mothers would approve. It's been nice to not be sitting in an office and out actually doing something!


When we aren't being used as the labor imported from Hanoi (which we have also been called) we find ourselves just chatting with different people, trying to learn a little bit about them and their stories, listening jealously to the things they have gotten a chance to learn about and experience over the last 3 months. Or just relaxing on this beautiful campus, enjoying being away from the city, not minding being woken up by birds. The few times that I have sat down to read (sidenote: before coming I found a Nawal el-Saadawi book in the MCC office that I brought along. Who would've guessed that I'd find a book by Egyption feminist author in the limited office library in Vietnam?! Its a great little treat!) I have got out my iPod with the intention of listening to it and then thought twice. I have gotten so accustomed to using it to drown out the noise whenever I pause for any amount of time in Hanoi but here, it just isn't necessary. Being out of the city and in a new context entirely is simply wonderful.

Just a little longer

I'm off in the morning for India! I do not know whose life I'm living these days, but I think I like it.

I had the best of intentions to write another post before leaving, particularly with the Lauren visit update. But it just isn't going to happen. In part because I spent this weekend sleeping and resting and didn't feel like thinking too hard about anything. Also because I realized Lauren has most of the really good pictures...when I get back I promise I'll catch up! Sorry to keep everyone in suspense. I know that without this blog your week just isn't the same, you probably feel a bit lost even. But you'll just have to wait a little bit longer.... :)

life as a volunteer is rough.

While a volcano erupting in Iceland might have made a lot of people's lives across the world a lot more complicated, it gave me me almost 2 whole extra days with Laur! But then the inevitable happened. The downside to having a friend visit is that at some point you must say goodbye. I hate goodbyes. And they are made that much more challenging when you have friends that are just so wonderful.

I realized that I don't have my camera here with me today. Expect a follow-up blog detailing more about the incredible time Lauren and I had in Vietnam.

Lauren left last night and my life is now resuming back to something that resembles normal. Catching up on work to make up for the week that I just took off (technically I think it only counts as 3 days because I worked some half days and a little outside of the office, but lets be honest, no work got done...). Spending time with my host family. Sleeping. You know, normal life things.

But "normal" will only be here for a few days because on Monday I leave for India. Have I mentioned that I'm going to India?! Yeah, I am. Calah and I are heading over to the Visthar Campus near Bangalore to attend the Festival of JustPeace, a celebration hosted by the School of Peace. It's going to be hot; as in literally, probably over 100 degrees. But Calah and I are both stoked! India!

A week spent with one of my closest and dearest friends followed by a week "working" in India. Yeah, the life of a volunteer is rough.

Exciting Things.

This weekend I had one of the most exciting experiences I have had in a long time. I did laundry and used a dryer. Oh my gosh. You should have seen the joy in brought me. I sat and properly folded each article of clothing, making little exclamations of joy as I realized the wonderful effects that modern technology can have. Not only were my clothes pleasantly warm afterwards, but they had that dryer smell. The real reason for the dryer was to return my clothes back to down to a semi-normal size. Many of my tank tops stretch when you wear them, and then hang drying only makes it worse; I felt like everything I had was at least 2 sizes too big! While they didn't all return to being completely normal, they are much closer. Getting dressed in the mornings is now a much more joyful occasion.

In other exciting news, Lauren arrives TODAY. AHHHHHHH!!!! Haha, ok, so maybe this is a little more exciting that using a dryer :) She arrives this afternoon and tomorrow we are off to Ha Long Bay. I cannot wait to show her my life here and to simply be with her!! Just to give you a peek at the wonderful girl who is currently on a plane flying to me, here is a picture from every year we have been friends:

2005: Randomly Assigned Roommates

2006: The names Lauren and Ali become more like a phrase
and a singular name than two seperate people...

2007: PA's. Good thing we had each other this year.

2008: Living off Campus. Loving Life.

2009: Still Loving Life. Graduating. Moving Away.

2010: PHOTO TO COME :)

To-Go Cups and Weekends Away

I often think, "Man, this Vietnamese coffee is wonderful but I sure wish I could get one to go." "To-Go" is not a concept that has transferred to drinks here. Phỏ (I'm assuming you know phỏ, Vietnamese noodle soup) to-go in a bag, no problem! Cà phê nâu đá (iced milk coffee) or a wonderful sinh tố xòai (mango smoothie), not so much.

You will understand my surprise when this weekend, while I was playing in Huê and working in Quảng Ngãi I received things to-go not just one time, but TWICE. The first time was by accident, for various very-Vietnamese reasons the bus I was taking from Huê to meet my co-worker a few hours south was earlier than I had been told. So my hotel gave me my breakfast order to go, including a wonderful cup with my mixed fruit smoothie (not as good as mango, but I was attempting to branch out). Seriously, could it look any more Western?! Cup, lid, bendy straw. Pure Joy.

But it only gets better. The following morning Cô Bảy and I were on the couple hour drive to our project site. We stopped for breakfast with the intention of also enjoying coffee. I heard her ask for it when we first sat down, but it just never appeared. As we were nearing the end of our meal I heard her ask again. They assured her they did serve coffee, and then the server disappeared. Next thing I know, here they come with these little baggies and straws. Yep, that is correct. The picture you see to the right is Cô Bảy and I drinking iced milk coffee from a plastic bag. It made my day. That and the pig that was lost in the road a few minutes later which completely stopped traffic. The poor little guy was frantically running back and forth and did not know what to do. There was something about seeing a big truck at a stand still because of this little pink pig that just made me giggle. Maybe it was the fact that I was drinking coffee from a bag while watching a pig running down the national highway. For those of you who might be worried, don't fear: the pig made it ok. I saw it turn down an alley way, safely out of harms way.

I got distracted by my last post and forgot to mention my weekend in Huê and Quảng Ngãi. Both a weekend away and getting to work outside of the office, combined with the obvious joy that accompanied the to-go drinks made for a wonderful time. Here is a little glimpse of the working part...

MCC does some small disaster relief projects stemming from Typhoon Ketsana that happened in September. You may remember that I went in December to help evaluate a previous project and start this new one. Here is a picture from then:

This house belongs to a 40 something year old man who is a victim of Agent Orange. He is severely disabled and cannot move. He lives with his mother who takes care of him. She is a farmer and also runs a small convenience store out of their home.

This is their house now! It only took one month to build so they had it ready for Têt, Chinese New Year in February. When I asked a question about how long they had lived in their old house the man responded, "That was not called a house. It was only a place where we tried to hide from the storms. This is our house." Sometimes trips can be really heartbreaking because you see a lot of pain, but its good to know that at the end, well, of this project anyway, there is a something to celebrate.

Freedom.

A blog may be an odd place to share the following thought. But anyone who knows me well knows that I tend to make all things deeply personal and I am prone to over-sharing. So those of you who don't mind, read on:

There is something about the word freedom that gets me. No, not the patriotic “we're bringing freedom to Iraq” type. More the freedom to thrive, to care deeply about the world, to have a voice that can be heard, to love myself, to drive a xe may through the mountains of Vietnam type. The freeing to my soul kind.

I received an email from a dear friend this week sharing with me that he is gay. He and I went to university together at SPU, a place that, for all of the beautiful emphasis on community that I benefited from, is not inclusive of anyone who falls outside of the heterosexual norm. In our time there he accepted the rhetoric, to be gay is to not be Christian.* Because his faith matters to him, he continually made the difficult choice to suppress his questions and choose God. Then we graduated. It is amazing what just a few short months away from such a hostile environment can do for one's soul. Suddenly life does not look so constricted, one is able to see what it means to be abundantly free and to thrive. For my friend, that meant accepting within himself that which he had been socialized to fear. To embrace the path before him despite its unfamiliarity while remaining true to his belief in God. I could not be happier for him.

To be brutally honest, there is a lot about faith I do not know these days. I often question even the foundational assumptions that should define the rest. But I do believe that if there is a purpose to Christianity, it is this: to encourage people to live into the fullness of who they are. Here are a few words from my friend that are a bigger testament to who God could be than anything I have heard for a long time:

“I feel like there's talk a lot in Christian circles about journeying with God, and how that makes us into new people. But maybe the newness isn't different or foreign Maybe the newness comes from us being more ourselves than we were before, more like who we are already created to be. Being more okay with ourselves, and with who we are as people.”

You may be asking, why am I writing this. Well, because it is all I have to offer. I wish my friend's choice was made in a society that offers him abundant freedom, but it is not. The act of freeing his soul puts my friend at the heart of a theological and political controversy that is dehumanizing and hateful. People become defined by their sexuality and not their whole being. Regardless of my opinions, I am a part of these institutions. I am a citizen of a country that cannot tell the difference between fear and politics and a member of a church that chooses division more often than grace. My words do nothing to change these realities for my friend. But hopefully they are something, because from over here in Viet Nam, words are all I have to give.

And finally, because others are much more gifted with words than I am, a Rumi poem about freedom:

"Great lions can find peace in a cage

But we should only do that

as a last

resort.

So those bars I see that restrain your wings,

I guess you won't mind

if I pry them

open.”

*To be fair, I should add that this rhetoric did not come from the professors. Unfortunately, it was from the student body itself and the administration that this heartbreakingly hostile environment stemmed.