-^-for posterity-^-

2006-01-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

I am still alive. I am still alive.

2005-01-31T04:18:00.000-07:00

i love to sing hymns. i was raised sitting on wooden pews next to my mother and father with a blue book in my hands as a group of people stood together singing in beautiful harmony. the singing wasn't always beautiful, but the tradition made up for any human inadequacy.

i never knew what love meant. i knew the love of my parents, the love of my community and the love of my brother, but i never thought i would understand what love actually meant. love between two people from separate families seemed illusive. it seemed like one of those lofty ideals we so freely preach without really feeling it at our core. (one example i would draw from is our uninhibited use of the word 'freedom' without ever taking into consideration what the word actually means.)

then it happened to me. i fell in love. i fell in love a long time ago and the reason i hadn't talked about it earlier on this website is because, well, i like to be anonymous with what i see and try to make postings as acceptable to a broad audience as possible. this is different. this is me. the following groupings of words are the feelings that are plowing through my person.

her name is rachel lee swartzendruber. for those of us that do not personally know us, it may come as a shock that we are engaged to be married. for those of us who know us personally, i believe little shock is in order.

i have spent the last month with rachel traveling around vietnam. the month before i was busy. those are the reasons i have not written.

we began our journey soon after her plane landed. we traveled down to the mekong delta by bus to attend a wedding in the town where i was working. the wedding was beautiful and we spent our time together looking at the university, the town and exploring the markets and countryside. that was about one week into her stay here.

i proposed to her on top of an observation tower in the middle of a wetland preserve that is off limits to the public at large. i proposed to her by reading a poem i had written about how much she meant to me. i told her how natural i felt when i was with her. i told her how much i need her. i told her how i could think of no one else that i would rather have in my life. i have never met anyone that is so similar to me. i have never spent time with anyone whose differences so nicely compliment my own. she smiled at me with her eyes and her mouth and told me that she would marry me. we stood on top of that tower and felt the cool breeze blow against us. it was perfect.

i guess love is something that happens when two people feel truly honored enough to be sharing the same space. we are honored by each others presence.

the next week of our trip was spent in saigon where we jumped from coffee shop to coffee shop talking and laughing and making wedding plans. we talked about our families; we dreamt about the future, we talked about our fears and what kind of parents we would be. we both, as my grandfather would say, come from good stock.

the last week of our trip was a bit more adventurous. we mounted a motorcycle and strapped a giant, 20$ piece of luggage on the back and drove 5 hours up the coast of vietnam in order to find the beach. the bag was red. it was the red of those tomatoes that one can find in western grocery stores that look as if they have been pressed in God's own genetic mould. it was a flashy bag. the bag made driving all that more difficult but we took our time racing north and eventually found ourselves at the beach. rachel sat behind me and read to me over the roar of traffic. she read from a racy john grisham novel, one that plays on our fantasies and fears. we sat on the beach for one week talking about the same things we talked about in saigon.

i said goodbye to her this morning at 4:30. i stood outside the airport and watched through the giant windows as she lugged her bags onto the security scanner. i stood there in a tan shirt. something welled up inside of me and pushed its way through my eyes. something burned inside of me and i was unable to control it. i could have been a feeling of loss but i don't think so. i felt alone standing there, like i was locked in a cage and there was no way out as the only thing i truly believed in, the only thing in my life that i was solidly sure about, was walking away. i couldn't see as i stood there watching her walk towards the ticket counter. i had to walk away through a sea of people. i cried the whole way home.

today was a sullen day. i drove from ho chi minh city to long xuyen on a motorcycle through hellish traffic. i had a lot of time to think on that drive. i thought about my future, grad school, the book, my work in vietnam, and life back in america. i drove and felt numb. the motorcycle would scream to attention, it would burst out with roars of furry, fear and frustration but i felt none of it. it felt strange to be alone; sure the motorcycle handled better with one person, but that only served as a constant reminder that i was traveling back to a cool, quiet room.

that's where i was the last month. i'm sitting in my room still covered in dirt with the dog lying at my feet.

i sang hymns with rachel. we exhausted our supply of new songs a few days into our trip but kept singing the ones we knew over and over again. we both were raised on those wooden pews. i love to sing to rachel and she claims to enjoy it.

my eyes well up as i stare at a dull blue screen in a dark room. i am alone.

2005-01-05T21:33:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning at 4:00 in the morning, mounted my motorcycle and began driving. I drove and drove and drove. I was heading for Ho Chi Minh city, a mere 6 hours sitting on a small machine wearing sandals and being assaulted by all sorts of bugs.

Driving in the early morning on a small motorcycle is a challenge, especially without street lamps. I conquered about 2 hours of the road when my phone rang. I frantically pulled to the side of the road and pulled my helmet and mask off. I sat next to a protestant church under construction and said, ?hello??

Ah, it was Rachel on the other end. She said that there were problems with her flight and that she would not be able to make it until tomorrow. I was standing on a dusty path on the side of the road before most people were up hearing that some mechanic in Denver decided that this plane should not be in the air. Really quite incredible.

Hey, in the scheme of it all, things are mostly coming up roses.

2004-12-31T20:59:00.000-07:00

happy new year.

here is a happy new year message i received on my phone last night: "HAPPY NEW YEAR! BUSY IN WORK! FUNNY IN LIFE! LUCKY IN GAME! CRAZY IN LOVE! STRONGLY IN BED AND MONEY IN POCKET! NEVER SAD, ALWAYS FUN!"

i wish the same to all of you.

2004-12-29T23:51:00.000-07:00

christmas in long xuyen was, well, lackluster.

eric and i sat around all day and did very little. i worked on some of my projects, even though it was saturday and even though it was christmas. i guess the worst part of the holiday was that my email inbox dried up almost completely.

the world is preparing for the lunar new year celebration. the flower market is being built back up again along the bank of the river. people are finishing up with their work before the holidays arrive, as things tend to get busy before there is a break. pepsi, and this i find fascinating, decided to ditch their trademark blue boxes in favor of red boxes that look quite like coca-cola boxes. we all know that red is quite a lucky color over the holidays.

in one week, rachel lee swartzendruber will come out to visit me. we will spend time in ho chi minh city and then down in the delta. it promises to be a wonderful time and i am excited beyond anything i could possibly describe. before she comes, however, i am obliged to finish writing my book. i am now sitting at my computer from sunrise to well into the evening trying to translate the vietnamese sections into english. my fingers hurt from typing. my eyes hurt from straining. this is the reason that i have not been writing anything of substance.

blessings to all this holiday season and have a wonderful new year.

2004-12-21T04:31:00.000-07:00

IV Tet

One day that is extremely important for Vietnamese people is the Lunar New Year. Most Americans would recognize the Vietnamese word for the holiday, ‘Tet’, because of the famous uprising throughout the South in 1968.

There, however, is quite a difference from the way I understood ‘Tet’ before I came to Vietnam and how I understood the word after words. In American I didn’t understand the customs of this very important holiday. My first ‘Tet’ experience happened at the beginning of 2003 which I had been in Vietnam for about four months and before I had many friends. At school, one person told me that during ‘Tet’ everyone stays at home.

Americans who visit Vietnam always notice how packed the streets are and possibly can’t imagine a day when everyone is at home. Maybe my friend meant to say, ‘Many people stay at home.’ I guessed wrong.

The first day of Tet, 2003, the year of the Goat, I woke up early. At about 8 o’clock in the morning I went out to try to find something to eat but was greeted with a surprise. Vietnamese flags were posted all over the sides of the roads but no one was there. It even appeared like the myriad dogs that usually passed back and forth searching for food had even found homes. No people, no animals but a plethora of flags. I was hungry but I didn’t know what to do, surprised by the absence of people and traffic.

It’s hard to imagine the Vietnamese streets as silent as they are during the Lunar New year celebrations. I had to pedal my bicycle quite far just to find a place to eat. My first ‘Tet’ experience was seeing that empty road and no food.

The 2004 celebrations, the year of the Monkey, were quite different. At that time I had made friends with many people and many of those people invited me over to their house to eat with their families. I was really excited to experience ‘Tet’ with a family because I had heard so much about this day but didn’t at all understand it.

The last day of the 2003 lunar year was a very special day for me. I ate with my friend’s family and was given a new Vietnamese name. I am now named H? Minh Trí and I truly felt like a member of the family. I felt lucky to have two families: one in America and one in Vietnam. They even considered me their son.

That night we sat down and ate a delicious meal. My friend told me that if I wished my new parents good health, happiness and the like I would experience another Vietnamese custom. I walked up to them and wished that everything went their way in the year of the Monkey. After that, I was given a red envelope with lucky money in it. I was quite content with my new family. They allowed me to experience ‘Tet’ not like a foreigner who was staying and leaving but as a true member of the family.

After we had eaten the year of the Monkey was almost upon us. We went and prayed to the family’s ancestors at the alter of the house and then went to the local pagoda to wish all of our friends and neighbors a happy new year.

Following my experiences of the Lunar New year, I believe that society as a whole implodes and everyone spends time with their most important relationship. The first day is for only the most important people in your life, your parents. You have to wish them health and happiness because they gave you life, you have to give thanks to your ancestors because; ‘To drink the water is to remember the source’.

However, before everything implodes, everyone has to wish all of their friends a happy new year. It’s almost like people are saying, ‘I’m about to go home for about three or four days and we won’t have a chance to meet. Have a good ‘Tet’.’

After we prayed at the pagoda and wished our friends happiness, I went home and slept the first night of the New Year. ‘Tet’ doesn’t really begin until the first day of the Lunar New year. The last day of the last year is the day that everyone will wish everyone else health and happiness before they spend time with their family and other people very important to their lives.

The first day of the New Year is a day for the family and also one custom I really enjoy called ‘Ng??i xông ??t’. This phrase is used to describe the first person to enter your home who isn’t a member of your family after the New Year begins. Depending on their social status or personal life, the following year will be lucky or it will be bad. In America we don’t have a concept like this and I was quite afraid to be the first person to enter the house of a stranger. That’s one of the reasons that my friend’s family gave me a new name, so I could eat with them and I wouldn’t be considered to be breaking any of the rules.

I spoke with a bunch of people and always ask them if they really believe in that custom. Most say that only a few people in the family follow that custom but it really isn’t everyone.

The first day of ‘Tet’ I didn’t know what to do but I also didn’t want to go out and visit friends because I didn’t want to be the first stranger to enter the house after the new year arrived if that family had wanted someone else to come.

Before I experienced ‘Tet’, I had asked my friend this question, ‘If everyone is at home, what do they end up doing?’ My friend said that most of the time is spent eating together. It was hard to imagine spending a whole day simply at home without going out at all.

I woke up a little late and ate with my new family. We sat around and ate a wonderful meal and talked about life, desires and the future. One full day of doing nothing except talking about life with people who are the closest to you in your life is very special because our modern lives are so busy and they rarely afford us an opportunity like that. If there wasn’t the ‘Ng??i xông ??t’ rule and if people didn’t spend so much time at home, the ‘Tet’ holiday just wouldn’t be the same. We need to talk in order to understand each other better.

The second day of the Lunar New year is when every family goes and visits the ancestral homeland. We went and spoke to other members of the family who were also making the trip.

In America we don’t have anything that is similar to the Lunar New year in Vietnam. We have Christmas and that day is very important for many Americans but not for everyone. Christmas is also a day for family but it isn’t as important, or doesn’t last as long as the Lunar New year. Also, if you want to spend time with friends on Christmas after your family as been together, it isn’t really a problem.

Thanksgiving is also an important day for many families because it isn’t necessarily religious. Most Americans spend time together over Thanksgiving but it still isn’t the same as the Lunar New year. Thanksgiving is only one day and there are not the 10 days to travel around and meet people as there are in the Lunar New year celebrations of Vietnam.

The Lunar New year celebrations are extremely important for the people of Vietnam. While everyone has their separate lives on a normal day, when ‘Tet’ rolls around each family comes together and celebrates themselves. It’s just as if society implodes and everyone spends time with their most important relatives on the same day. The Lunar New year begins at the beginning of the month and stretches until the end of January. After spending time with your family, you move out and meet other families until all of Vietnam is reunited through familial ties and normal life can begin again.

2004-12-17T02:40:00.001-07:00

the holiday season is fast approaching and life here continues to plod along. there is no magic in the air, no consumerism and no family.

when i was young, the holidays were always such a wonderful time. there was so much anticipation surrounding christmas eve and christmas day. i used to sit on the counter of my home with my mother and bake cookies and any other goodie that would fatten us up for a long hard winter of sitting in heated homes.

we used to make fred's spread. it was basically ketchup with pepper. you would eat it with cream cheese on a triscut. what were we thinking?

so, this year, our plans are pretty simple. everyone here is leaving for home except for eric and i. a lot has happened since i was not able to post. we now have a total of 9 foreigners living here (and one more on the way). the newest member is mr. r. eric burdette. he is a fellow bluffton grad and is my mcc colleague. he's a wonderful person and we get along very well. we will stay here for christmas with the dog. we will have rice for christmas and will sit around at night and talk about how wonderful things were when we were children. we will live in the past for those few hours.

thanksgiving was wonderful this year. the foreigners that just arrived were fairly dedicated and organized an entire thanksgiving with stuffing and all. quite an accomplishment when you think about living in a place with no ovens.

vietnam is still wonderful. the view out my window has changed little. the trees have grown and the fish pond across the way has lost some of its water due to the dry season. other than that, we still have little children running about and screaming at the top of their lungs every morning at about 630 and the roads are still crowded with traffic. life is beautiful, but i live in a future world when i will return home to those i truly love.

2004-12-17T02:40:00.000-07:00

2004-12-16T01:41:00.000-07:00

yes, that is a mullet.

ho-ho-jota.
me and jota getting ready for the holidays.

2004-12-16T01:17:00.000-07:00

hello all.

it has been ages since i have last posted and that is because my blog was hijacked for a bit. i would log in and was routed to another page.

life here is quite normal. the semester has ended and we are all waiting for the final exams to be administered. i have been spending all of my days finishing the book. the vietnamese section is almost finished and we will attempt to finish the english section before january.

this holiday season will be quiet. this is the fourth time in the past five years that i will not be home for christmas and that pains me. i will spend the holiday at home with the dog and eric, the new mcc vol.

eric came the other day and it's wonderful to have another familiar face here. he's getting adjusted and will do brilliant work.

well, i will post tomorrow about life in long xuyen once again. this involuntary hiatus has ended and the blogging must continue.

i hope everyone is well.

2004-11-27T05:37:00.000-07:00

it has been a while since i last posted about the hurricane.

after my last post i went outside with the dog to run. a storm front was visible to the south east. normally weather patterns move from the west to the east but this weather pattern was moving very quickly from the east to the west. it looked to be a ways off so we mounted the motorcycle (the dog sits between my legs with his paws on the handlebars) and were off to our normal patch of road to go running.

by the time we reached the road, a black cloud approached from the east. it was moving at an incredible rate of speed and the wind was ferocious. the road is lined with giant stands of grass, about 8 feet high, and they were all plastered down to the ground under the force of the wind.

it began to rain as we ran. it rained and howled and the dog was miserable and confused. the wind would pelt us in one direction and would blow at our backs as we ran in the other. it was incredible. the sky darkened and i was running with my dog in a tropical storm or whatever you would like to call it.

we didn’t run for as long as we normally run and we quickly returned to the motorcycle and drove home in the rain. the dog was shaking because he was cold and i was just trying to drive straight.

the storm has since passed and we were just exposed to the northern most edge. i’ve heard that provinces to the south of us suffered from some damage. i should be glad to be living in an giang. one of my colleagues at work noted that, ‘an giang is the perfect place to live. storms always end up hurting everyone else, not us.’

2004-11-24T02:48:00.000-07:00

i walked outside of the guesthouse to head off to a meeting one afternoon when a dog walked up to me. he was a black dog (cho muc in vietnamese meaning ‘ink dog’ or ‘squid dog’) and he walked as if his back and his front were connected not with bone but with skin, tendons and a digestive tract.

he walked up to me and his tail began to wag. it was a long tail, about half as long as my new, semi-handicapped dog friend, and it seemed to control the direction his back half headed in. as he approached me, he didn’t seem to be quite like any of the other dogs i have seen roaming around these parts. most dogs that roam the busy roads and pathways around these parts are gnarled and wise. this dog was clean and young and wore a handsome, red collar.

he came right up to me and smelled my feet, something no random dog would do, and began to nibble on my pants. i, being a person who is not easily amused by puppies or babies or flowers, was rather annoyed. i was about to walk away when a person walked around the corner and explained to me that this was, in fact, his dog.

it turns out the dog is named ‘jonathan’. i have a coal black dog that can not properly walk named after me. this is the third dog that has been named after me since i have arrived in vietnam.

i was then told the story of how jonathan first learned how to walk. evidently, this poor dog was not able to walk for the first few months of his life and would, ‘swim,’ around the house on his belly. there was some concern that jonathan would never be able to walk and people had given up hope. one vet decided the reason jonathan was not walking was because he was inside and he simply needed to feel the dirt between his toes to get up and get going. he was taken outside where he continued to swim around on his belly in the mud.

then, as if through the divine intervention of some heavenly figure and the mud, the dog stood up and began to bound around. jonathan was healed. jonathan could walk.

a common question asked of me around these parts is, ‘how do you feel?’ it’s a direct translation of a vietnamese phrase which i would more correctly translate as, ‘what do you think about…?’ if i was to be asked what do i think about having a semi-handicapped dog named after me, i would not know how to respond. the macabre nature of the situation causes me to tilt my head a bit to the right and grin.

2004-11-24T02:41:00.000-07:00

i was teaching in the library today when i picked up the paper. there was a graph in the bottom right corner of a hurricane heading in this direction. there was the ‘projected path’ of said storm and it seemed to cross about 60 km south of my home town at 6:00 this evening.

i stopped and looked at the picture for a while and went back to check my vietnamese. yes, everything was correct, there was a hurricane heading this direction. i went over to some staff and asked if this was correct. they shrugged and said it might be. i have talked to people about this all day. people seem quite collected about the whole event, though, on the weather map there was a giant swirl of clouds heading towards the mekong delta. the cloud mass was about the size of the mekong itself.

some people told me stories of a giant storm in 2000, or an even bigger one in 1997. some people say it could be that big.

other people don’t seem to be bothered at all by the news and continue with their lives. it is currently 4:45 and the cloud is peaceful, though there is quite a wind churning up. this may amount to nothing but i have never experienced a hurricane before.

2004-11-19T01:07:00.000-07:00

tomorrow is teacher's day in vietnam and everything is becoming festive. the past few days people have been hauling giant lights and speakers onto campus for the celebration tomorrow morning. everything is exciting now.

people are walking around the offices with bouquets of flowers. the women of the office are all wearing the flowing ao dai dresses that are made of reams and reams of shiny cloth that flow around the ankles befuddling the mind.

tomorrow we, as teachers, will sit in the middle of our main courtyard and will listen to teachers. the students will surround us on small, plastic chairs. we will then be given flowers and pictures will be taken. last year i was interviewed on television and was too nervous to make much sense. this year, if the occurrence is repeated, i will be much more prepared.

tomorrow is a celebration of teachers and teaching. i would like to thank all of my teachers, those who have allowed me to further my understanding of the world by positing questions that make me actually think for myself.

2004-11-17T02:22:00.001-07:00

when the day is long, one must take a break and drink something cold and sweet. when i get tired and a bit run down, i step outside with my normal group of friends. we walk out of the school gates and into our newest hole-in-the wall coffee shop.

it’s a very small coffee shop filled with tiny plastic chairs that one would find in a kindergarten class. some of the chairs are quite old and have broken. this does not discourage their use and an enterprising person can be found to drill little holes in the broken pieces and string them together tightly with wire.

i have been drinking glasses of strawberry juice of late. for some reason it is refreshing, though terribly sweet. if i don’t have strawberry juice i’ll have coffee.

i was sitting in my little coffee shop, it doesn’t have a name you see, and watching a soccer game on television. the screen was a good 15 feet away from me so i couldn’t quite make out what was going on, but i watched never the less. all of the sudden, the vietnamese announcer uttered the word ‘betis’. real betis.

i lived in seville, spain for one year. in seville, there are two soccer teams and an intense rivalry. one team is simply called ‘seville’ and the other ‘real betis’. i lived with an old lady and she always used to tell me that ‘betis is more seville than seville is!’ it was all confusing to me, but i enjoyed watching people. we used to go to games.

i moved closer to the television to watch and, sure enough, it was real betis playing at home in seville. i couldn’t help but break out into a wry grin as i watched the familiar green and white jerseys dart around the field as i sat in this small coffee shop without a name in the mekong delta. it all seemed to be odd, yet entirely familiar.

2004-11-17T02:22:00.000-07:00

2004-11-09T02:29:00.000-07:00

the dry season has returned and it returns very subtly. at the beginning and end of the rainy season the sky opens up sporadically. at one point in the day the clouds will begin and one will be able to pick out a large, black, ominous looking beast hovering on the horizon. that cloud will make its way over our humble city and it will drench us for about 15 minutes. that is the beginning and end of the rainy season.

the middle is different. that cloud will cover the whole horizon and the storm will last for days.

i declare the rainy season to be over because it hasn't rained in a couple of days. normally it rains just about now, the end of the work day. the sky will grey and the lights on the motorcycles will all turn on. it's eerie how silent it feels with no more rain. i look on the rain with some nostalgia, some longing. now there will be the dust and the heat of the dry season. the dust will come in roaming gangs pulled by the wind in brown waves across the street. i will shower and it will pour off of me clog the drain.

no more flooded fields, no more rain, no more of that feeling, the same feeling you get in a horrible blizzard, of being trapped in a building because of a natural occurrence. no more of that excitement that builds up in your stomach as you stand at the front door to the university with other teachers talking about when the storm will end and whether or not we should just head out into the downpour. now there is only dull, clear skies.

2004-11-08T07:51:00.000-07:00

i spend my days explaining what happened in america a little less than a week ago. people are very curious why things turned out the way they did.

people ask me questions about what the american population is like, what they want. i, at this point, do not necessarily know how to respond.

one of the first criticisms of americans that i heard upon coming here was that we were an aggressive race, that we needed a leader who would be strong and would make war. i confronted this stereotype and talked about the hundreds of americans i knew who did not want to make war, who also knew peace. this eventually seemed to pass. now, i don't know what to say. i'm at a loss and wander back and forth in front of a classroom that doesn't seem to understand what my constant pacing means.

i continue and plod on. i have been away from america four of the last seven years and i may have simply lost touch with what the people of my country feel and think. i may have lost touch with what people want in a leader, what people need. i may not be able to see that a leader who hubristically invades and speaks of no failure may be what people back home want. i may not realize that a leader that claims to have no moral failing, though some may be evident, is truly what is right for my homeland.

is it also right for the world? does that matter?

am i wrong in seeing this as parallel to what happened in the mid 60's?

2004-11-02T00:45:00.000-07:00

if you read this before you vote today, and you happen to think wistfully of me while you're in that voting booth, please remember that a vote for the man whose last name begins with the letter 'k' and ends with the letter 'y' would actually make my life a whole lot easier.

it's selfish of me to say this.

i know both of them are flawed but that's not the point. it's all about perception. it's all about perception.

it's all about perception.

it's
all
about
perception.

2004-10-31T07:29:00.000-07:00

i take the dog for runs now. he’s been feeling a bit pent up and needs to get out and about.

first there was the problem of finding a place to run. people are simply everywhere and we didn’t think we could actually find a place where he could run without being constantly bothered by other dogs and children. eventually we found the perfect solution. we are going to be building on 40 hectares of land just about one half of a mile from the university and the roads have already been paved. there is one giant boulevard that stretches for at least one half of a mile. it is surrounded by tall grass and nothing else. they have even installed lights to let us run at night.

the second problem is actually getting there. jota, the dog, is about two and a half feet long at this point at least one foot tall. he is thick, not fat, but heavy. he would have to ride on my motorcycle and that is simply a problem when there is only one person.

we solved this by training him to sit on the gas tank. he sits just in front of my legs with his little paws on the handle-bars. we have had only one run in and that was when a dog actually started to chase us and jota decided he would bark at him and he turned and almost fell off but i caught him and sped away. we normally arrive in good spirits. he is a little anxious on the way out, but normally he doesn’t do anything stupid.

we leave the bike and begin running. i try to walk at first but he has just too much energy and pulls me until i begin to run. he then spends the next five minutes pulling me along. it’s actually quite awkward to run while someone is pulling on your right hand. for me, running symmetrically always felt a little better than trying not to be pulled sideways.

after those first five minutes are over, he tires out. he spends the next 10 or 15 minutes running beside me.

after those relatively bland minutes are over, he tires out completely. he spends the next five minutes or so running behind me trying to slow me down. at the end of my runs i always do sprints and he is always dead last. i have to cheer him on the whole time and he just doesn't see the point after all the running we had done up to that point.

at the end of the run he is plum tuckered out. he walks over to the motorcycle and puts his two front paws up on the seat; this is my signal to pick him up because he wants to go home. he sits quietly for the ride home.

at home he walks in circles around the room apparently lost. he drinks only a bit of water and smiles. i never thought it was possible to see a dog smile but he simply sits down on the cool tiles, looks at me and smiles. he does this until he is too tired and then sleeps.

he loves to run and, while it’s a debacle, it’s also a lot of fun to see him get some exercise.

2004-10-27T02:05:00.000-06:00

the soil is fertile. it is possibly the most fertile soil i have ever experienced. things grow in this earth like time speeds up exponentially. things grow here and you can see them if you squint and turn your head sideways.

outside of the guesthouse there used to be rows of palm trees that were freshly planted. when we arrived, they were only about as high as our chest and they have since grown mightily. their growth, however, has been steadily surpassed by the large trees that now tower of them and reach the roof of the two story building.

to watch a tree grow two stories high in one year is quite amazing. every once in a while the gardeners make their way to the guesthouse and clean out all of the undergrowth, the fines and weeds and what not. they clear a space about the size of my driveway, fairly modest, in a couple of days, pile all of the growth up on the sidewalk and have a nice fire. they cleaned out the trees the other day. they cleaned out the ones they didn't want to make room for the other growth.

there are now four giant trees that are spread randomly around the guesthouse that grow up to the roof. from their branches one can pick a certain kind of fruit that is about the diameter of my thumb which tastes a bit fruity but has the texture of a cherry tomato. if you can pick fruit from your balcony you are truly living somewhere wonderful.

the palm trees continue to grow, though some have been removed to make more space, but these giant trees have taken a life of their own. i wonder how large they will grow, when they will take over the guesthouse and we will live in neat little tree huts at the top of the city's canopy sipping coconuts and eating these tiny berries that grow by the bushel.

2004-10-24T07:17:00.000-06:00

and, for all of you who are interested, my prediction for how the election will turn out can be found HERE

2004-10-23T08:24:00.000-06:00

today i was privileged enough to travel with a group of friends to a wetland preserve. this actual piece of land was like no other i have encountered in vietnam. it was pristine and there were no people.

this land preservation began in 1978 and is still not generally open to the public. they will begin to turn this in to some sort of an eco-tourist spot in the near future and i was fully impressed.

the day began early as we loaded into a van for the hour and 20 minute ride into the countryside. it is currently the flooding season which means that all of the fields to the left and right of the roads are completely inundated by water. the road is built about one meter above ground level and it feels like you’re driving on a giant bridge surrounded by small island houses. people move around on small boats. dogs stay inside. birds fly from tree to tree.

the ubiquitous canals that streak across the mekong all become invisible. one can only guess at their position as large boats follow a distinct pattern. the line separating the shores and the fields is impossible to distinguish.

we arrived at our nature preserve after driving for five minutes over a one lane dirt road built quite high above the water. we drove over two thin bridges, one of which had a sign that said no cars, and eventually stopped at the wetland preserve’s head office.

we soon piled into small boats propelled by large engines and were off through the flooded fields.

i have never seen water so clear in all of vietnam. the normal color for water traveling up and down the river is a dull brown but this water glistened. it was clear but silver. it was like crystal mercury. it lapped at the sides of the boat and you could see all the way down to the bottom, to the beginnings of the moss and lily pads that danced on the surface. it felt less like we were floating on water and more like we were floating on air.

after a bit of a trek the driver of the boat cut the engine and pulled for his oar. he paddled for a bit and lead us through a narrow cluster of trees. we finally turned a corner and saw what we had come to see. the trees sagged under the weight of thousands of giant, black beings. they hung upside-down and looked like black flower buds. as we came closer, they began to rustle. wings moved and bodies twitched. finally, one took to the air.

we had come to the edge of their home and stopped. we looked up at the sky as the trees erupted in activity. these black and brown bats were swooping all around us. they were gigantic. these were not your stereotypical bats that zip around caves but these were lumbering, flying foxes. they flew above our heads and we could see the sunlight through their translucent wings. their arms grew into those wings and the movement they used to propel themselves was disturbingly human. it looked like a crippled old man with rubber wings trying to stay afloat. they took giant swats at the sky.

we estimated that the wingspan of the bats was about three feet long. the sky was black with them as, according to the park ranger, there were about 1,500 of them all around. they all circled, counterclockwise. it was honestly one of the strangest things i have ever seen. sitting on a boat above perfectly hypnotic water and watching giant bats, looking all the mammal they should, flap above us as a hitchcock-like hurricane.

the rest of the day was spent traveling around the preserve and admiring all of the nature, the pure beauty. we left for home and slept in the van. it was a beautiful day. nature has a way of making me feel just like an animal, both good and bad.

2004-10-22T03:27:00.000-06:00

i was thinking about my former self. i mean, i was thinking about the person that i was about a year ago. for some reason i was remembering a time when i went on a trip and i spoke vietnamese to some people and it was bad but alright. i realized that, if i had met myself today back then, something that's obviously impossible for a number of reasons (i would recognize myself for one!), i would have been frustrated to meet me. i would not have liked to meet someone who knew more about the language or the culture. i don't know why, but it bothered me. i would have been angry at my future self simply they were more successful.

i wonder that it'll be like to look back at myself right now a few years from now. will it be the same? will i realize that this self would be jealous of my future self? what does that say about me? does it mean i'm a trite little man that's so insecure with himself he doesn't quite know what to do? what does that really say about me?

today is just like most other days and i must apologize for not writing much and when i do write it doesn't tend to focus on vietnam. writing this book has removed some of the energy i used to rely on. applying to grad schools has done the same. it seems like everything has just piled up on me once again. i thought last semester would be the last time things really piled up on me but that was not the case. i can only hope that this is not habitual and is only a result of my circumstance.

blessings to you all. i still burn incense and pray for peace and promise to work for righteousness. i don't know if that'll ever stop.

2004-10-22T02:50:00.000-06:00