trick-or-treat

I went back to the UN today. Just kidding! It was another lunchtime seminar. This one was on male sexual networks in Hanoi. If one can draw see networks of sexual partners in a given area, then one can better understand how to disseminate information about HIV prevention and self-protection. It's really amazing that this research is happening.

In the United States in the early 80s when the first cases of AIDS were recognized in gay communities in San Francisco, there was this toxic belief that AIDs was killing "all the right people." At that time, the epidemic was localized to gay men, African-Americans and Haitian immigrants. I remember hearing Cleve Jones (gay rights and AIDS awareness activist) speak at UNC saying that this phrase was even on bumper stickers in San Francisco. Not only are there a host of issues with this statement, not the least of which is the fact that the targeted populations are, in fact, people and deserve to be treated as such, but also the ignorance rears its ugly head in believing that the epidemic was going to stay in those populations. The thing is, injecting drug users also have sex. Men who have sex with men can also have sex with women. People of different races have sex with each other. Do you see the trend here? We've come a long way, but I'm just saying that sometimes we need to get real and be honest about what's happening so that we can dialogue about how to best solve problems.

Because today is actually Halloween, we did some Halloween-related activities with the kids in English class. We explained costumes and trick-or-treating as well as pumpkin carving. Because we didn't have pumpkins to carve, we ended up drawing monsters instead. It's still artsy, but doesn't involve knives. Each person would go up and draw one part of the monster. They were hilarious! The kids would laugh hysterically as each new part of the monster was added. Kim's mother, who visited this past week, had brought candy to Hanoi from the States, so we brought the candy to kids. There were Snickers, Kit Kats, M&Ms, and Reeses Cups. Kim went outside the room, we lined the kids up, and got the kids to knock on the door, say "trick-or-treat," and then do something scary before they could get their candy. They did an amazing job and certainly earned their candy!

The funniest part of this was that none of them like the Reeses Cups, solidifying the fact that these children are not from the States. Not a single one of them liked the peanut butter cups. This boggles my mind. Maeve, Kim and I decided that this was because there isn't actually peanut butter here. For a country with so many peanuts, there is almost no peanut butter, unless it is imported, and what is from here is really oily and not pleasant. It was still a crazy realization that they didn't like the peanut butter cups.

you're paralyzed cuz this is thriller

Yesterday, a number of us took a bus to a residential area of Hanoi to prepare and eat lunch with Huyen's family. Her house had hardwood floors. Is is culturally inappropriate to lay down and caress someone's floor? Too late. We all gathered on the kitchen floor, cutting vegetables and mixing things. We made fried spring rolls, vegetable stir fry, fresh spring rolls and some assorted fresh vegetables. We sat on the floor of her living room and ate to our hearts' content. She has the sweetest family. They took such good care of us and made us feel completely at home. Then I got really sleepy and took a nap upon returning to school.

This morning, I got up early with Kim and Maeve to go to the Hanoi zoo with the kids in our English class. We walked around looking at the different animals, but there wasn't a whole lot of animal diversity. So many of the cages held the same animals whether they were deer, tigers, or macaques. There most definitely were civet cats, though (shout-out to Mom!). We eventually made our way to a gazebo. We sang some of the songs we learned in class and played some games. The big winner was Simon Says. One of the boys was laughing hysterically at every turn  of Simon Says. The Vietnamese people at the zoo that day would stop and watch us at the gazebo. It was our turn to be the animals on display. The zoo was followed by a restaurant for lunch where we got bun cha and nem. Nem is the word for the fried spring rolls, and these ones had seafood in them.

We had a Halloween party for our roommates to celebrate one of our favorite holidays with them the way that they celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival with us. Due to my limited costume resources, I decided that I had jeans and a hoodie and could easily pull off Justin Beiber. I then decided that since we were going to do Thriller, I would be the zombie Justin Beiber. I back-combed all my hair to make it stick out like crazy, put on some heavy eye-liner for the dead effect and got Maeve to draw a scar on my face. It was a successful costume. There were a lot of other really great costumes as well. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures, but Maeve did, so they will get disseminated at some point. At the party, we ate ice cream, had a costume contest, drew on pomellos (since we weren't able to carve pumpkins), danced to both Thriller and The Time Warp and watched Bettlejuice to finish it all off.

The funny thing is that we had been learning/practicing Thriller for about a week. We started off hiding in bushes and behind cars around the courtyard. When Burcu ran out screaming, we all zombie walked in to zombie attack her and then got into position to begin the dance. The beginning of the dance was fantastic. We lost it a bit towards the end, but recovered fully. It gets really fast at this one part, and it's hard to keep up. Someone did film our performance, so, if you are lucky, it just might get uploaded at some later date. The only sad part is that I don't think any of our roommates had ever seen or heard Thriller. They all seemed rather confused when we finished dancing.

Regardless, a great time was had by all. We had so much fun learning and performing Thriller, the ice cream was amazing and who can pass up the opportunity for some Halloween movie-watching?

happy diwali!

October 26th, we celebrated Diwali! Diwali is the Indian festival of lights. I don't fully understand the history behind it, but is is a celebration of the triumph of light over darkness. The day began with an Indian film, Jodhaa Akbar. It told the story of the romance between the Mogul emperor and his Hindu bride, a match made in order to unify the empire. It was a fabulous movie! So well-done and with so many rich colors and wonderful music. I suggest you watch it if you can find it!

The movie was followed by dinner at an Indian restaurant in Hanoi. I didn't know that I wanted Indian food so badly until I was eating it. I ate with my fingers to mirror Divya, who sat right across from me. Dinner ended with so many Indian sweets like jilebis and carrot halva. So scrumptious! We got back to school and erupted into a sparkler/dance party. I learned some bangra (a type of Indian dance) moves and just generally broke it down to some great beats. A fantastic time was had by all! I already knew that I would go to India at least once in my lifetime because of how much family history I have there, but I've now decided that I will be in India for at least one Diwali during my life.

Maeve and I spent the morning today walking to the Old Quarter in hopes of going to a museum. It was raining but not very hard, and we were determined to get out for a bit. It keeps happening that the beautiful days are ones when we have oodles of work to do and the gross days are the ones when we actually have free time. By the time we got to a place we wanted to get some lunch, the rain was torrential and we had given up any desire to be outside. We happily caught a taxi, which was warm and dry, back to school.

We got together to watch Inside Job, a documentary about the financial crisis in the States. It was obviously made by someone with very sure intentions, but there are irrefutable facts presented as well that back up almost point made in the movie. It takes a critical look at Wall Street and every Presidential administration back to Reagan. It was fascinating and depressing and a call for change. It's a good watch as well, though I suggest you watch Jodhaa Akbar first.

We went for an end-of-term karaoke party with some of the faculty and staff at the school who have helped us so much. The two classes taught by the Vietnamese professors have finished, so that's why it's end-of-term even though we have 6 or 7 weeks left in the program. It was great fun to sing along to some of our favorites (still no You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling) with some of our favorite people at school!

morning party

There are few things in this life that I like less than getting woken up and being kept from sleep. I always wake us disoriented and uncoordinated. You can ask anyone, I just shouldn't be messed with until I have been awake for at least ten minutes, and it's preferable that I've eaten something. So, here's the story of my morning:

The way the school is set up, there is one courtyard around which all the buildings sit. My dorm room has a window and a door facing that courtyard, neither of which are sealed in any way, shape or form (I've watched a rat run right under the balcony door), and our walls are paper thin and echo-y anyway.

There was some kind of ceremony yesterday that we were told was graduation. Graduation only lasts one day right? That's what I thought, but apparently, that is not the case. This pounding bass began shaking my room at 7:10 am (I didn't have class until 9am). The bass was followed by some impossibly loud announcer, what I can only imagine was a form of karaoke (much wailing involved), and then a song on repeat as the names were read. I had so many fantasies of getting up, becoming Godzilla and just going on a rampage in the courtyard. I had some serious, early-morning rage, which only compounded with my disoriented, uncoordinated wake-up state.

The rest of the day went much better. We spent the afternoon at the offices of FHI 360- Vietnam. I'll be spending more time in this office later in the semester as my interviewee for the oral project is the Country Director for FHI 360 here in Vietnam. We got the chance to see a different side of the HIV epidemic: the NGO response. We heard about their funding, projects, and strategies for the future. It was a fascinating day!

If you want to learn more about FHI 360 and what they do, check out their website:

http://www.fhi.org/en/CountryProfiles/Vietnam/index.htm

weekend at a glance

I haven't written that last few days because my poor fingers were just so tired of clacking away on the keyboard. That's what happens when you are in the midst of writing your fourth paper in a matter of weeks anticipating the fifth the next week. Thankfully, I was able to get away for a short time on Saturday. Where I went is actually still a mystery to me.

A handful of us got up and caught a number of buses out to the Perfume Pagoda. The Perfume Pagoda, as I now know, is not a single pagoda but in fact a complex of pagodas. I'm not sure exactly where it is, but I know that it isn't in Hanoi and that it took us three buses and four hours to get there. The bus rides were so wonderful. It was the first time in a while that I had time to do nothing. I didn't worry about what I was going to come back to, I just sat, enjoying the scenery out the window. So many rice fields. The other thing I noticed was that everyone dries their harvested rice in the streets or in driveways. It all gets laid out and raked over and over until it is fully dried out and is then put into large bags in anticipation of the next step of processing.

On one bus, a group of school kids got on to ride it home. One of them was a major flirt. If I had to guess, I would have said that he was nine. With a little bit of English and a little bit of Vietnamese, we discovered his name and that he is twelve. We continued to flirt and make faces at each other until he got off the bus. 

When we did make it to the right place, we jumped off the bus and found a boat to leisurely row us down the river until we got to a small pagoda. It was absolutely beautiful. The pagoda was surrounded but so much green and so many trees. The backdrop was all mountains. This picture shows only the welcoming structure. It was impossible to get a picture of the full building because of all the trees.

We saw a floor where it looked like various herbs and spices were laid out to dry. These may be used for teas, medicines, cooking or medicine. I actually have no idea what they were specifically for. 

There was a set of stairs that led up the small mountain right behind the pagoda. We climbed them to get a better view of the city and of the mountains around the pagoda. Though the stairs were incredibly steep at times, we managed to get to the top of this little trail, where we met a family. The dad may have been speaking Russian, but I think they were all Vietnamese. Regardless, they were a fun crowd and we chatted in broken Vietnamese all the way back down the stairs. 

We got back to Hanoi by another series of buses, and a good time was had by all.

Yesterday was spent writing a paper on vector control strategies to limit Dengue Fever infections. Glad that's over.

eating lots of pizza

We are in the midst of another bout of papers, aka nobody likes to write papers. I haven't been writing as often as my life has been largely consumed by boring, daily work.

Yesterday, I went to the UN. Psych! But really, I did sit in a conference style room with a headset on so that I could hear the translated version of what the speaker was saying. It was kinda like the UN in that regard. What I actually attended was a lunchtime seminar comparing the cost effectiveness of methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) versus the 06 centers. I was also given pizza, fruit and coffee at this seminar which always makes me happy and is most likely better than the food they get at the UN. Drug users caught by law enforcement in Vietnam can be sent to the 06 Centers for forced detoxification and to work. There are a host of human rights issues associated with these centers and their forced labor practices. The presentation clearly showed that MMT incurs about a third of the cost per person as the 06 Center, not to mention the fact that 06 Centers have about a 15% success rate of people staying sober upon release. At the end of the presentation, the speaker, who was the first we had heard on the more government side of things, concluded by saying that Vietnam needed to maintain the 06 Centers but put all new money into MMT. It seems evident that he called for the maintenance of current 06 Centers because that is the government's opinion. One of the listeners brought up the point that, if 06 Centers are not cost effective, one had to question the government's motives for keeping them around (cheap labor source?) and what could be done by citizens to enact change. The speaker really didn't answer this question.

You may be reading this thinking "Thank goodness we don't have forced detoxification and labor camps in the U.S." To that, I counter "Is our system really that much better?" Excessive amounts of money go into the incarceration of those found in possession of or using drugs in the U.S. Incarcerated individuals are unable to support their families financially while in prison and will most likely never get a job after that. How much more cost effective and reasonable would it be to reallocate funds into MMT in the U.S.? An interesting thought to ponder.

Danielle turned 22 today. The day of celebration began at midnight when some of our roommates surprised her with freshly made che and corn cakes as well as flowers. The corn cakes were like thick crepes with pieces of corn mixed inside of them. This che was made from corn starch, corn and coconut milk (apparently, it can take many different forms). The corn starch is used to make this thick liquid, soupy base in which the corn is suspended and coconut milk is mixed. There was plenty to go around, and all enjoyed the small party!

Today was mostly spent paper writing. By the time evening came around, there were more birthday festivities. At Danielle's request, we went to Pizza Hut. Unbeknownst to Danielle, we brought in vanilla, chocolate raspberry ice cream cake. Needless to say, it was a wonderful dinner. Dinner was followed by yet another trip to the National Cinema Center to revel in the glory of Taylor Lautner. Yes, we watched Abduction again, as if it weren't bad enough the first time. To be perfectly honest, I laughed just as much this go round if not more due to the anticipation of ridiculous moments. It was a great event.

Co Yen is one of the women who works an administrative position here at the Hanoi School of Public Health. She is the one who organized us to teach teach the English class, of which her some is one of the students. Maeve went to pick up cards that Hung had made us in school. They are beautifully decorated inside and out wishing us "Happy Woman Day." I did not know this before, but I was told today that Women Day is an international holiday. Regardless of this day's holiday status, the cards are absolutely adorable. The card also has a beautiful folded paper flower cluster in its center. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a tear or two in my eye corners. Needless to say, I will treasure this.

I would like to end this blog post with a shout-out to the McGarry Family. You kept Maeve and me in fits of laughter this morning as we discussed your loyal readership over coffee. I'm so glad you are enjoying it!

el dorado

Yesterday, we went to the food equivalent of El Dorado. For Minh's mom's birthday, his family took us to this giant, buffet restaurant. There was too much food to even recall. I usually avoid buffets because I will eat myself sick, but this was on a whole other level. There was sushii, Singapore chicken, spring rolls, so many fresh and cooked vegetables, various noodle dishes, and an entire table of desserts. The coolest dessert I ate was called cloud soup. It was basil seeds with birds nest. The birds' nest is apparently made from the birds' spit and can be boiled down and eaten. It tasted like honey.

After lunch, we needed to walk for a bit because we were all so full, so we walked around West Lake enjoying the cooler weather and the beautiful scenery. There were lotus fields on either side of the road as we walked. It's the end of the growth season, so the leaves were all brown and ready to be cut, but I can only imagine how beautiful they must have been all in bloom.

There is always fishing to be done no matter what lake it is, but this is West Lake.

In the absence of the State Fair, we went to get fried bananas in the Old Quarter. There was so much oil that it dripped down to our elbows and all over our faces. They were so delicious.

After the bananas, we got a couple bottles of wine and took them to the edge of the lake to sit and talk. It was such a wonderful evening filled with great people, great conversations, and some cool weather. There are so many lamp lights in all the trees and lights all around the edge of the lake. It was so pretty!

Today, I got up at the ungodly hour of 5:00 am. Maeve and I went with Ngan's parents to Kim Son, her father's hometown. It is a two-hour drive away from Hanoi. It was such a good day. Kim Son is much more rural than Hanoi, so it was quiet and the air was clean and there were large, open fields of rice. We went to visit the temple that Ngan's grandparents are keepers of. It was a lovely building surrounded with all kinds of fruit trees and bushes. Her grandfather led us in prayer with a bell and chants. It was beautiful. Then they fed us a whole ton of fruit. There were literally rice fields forever surrounding the temple.

We went to see the old stone church in Kim Son. It's Sunday, so there was a mass going on. We tried not to be disruptive but got a few pictures none-the-less.

We stopped at one the house of one of Ngan's family members on the way back from the church. Every house that we went to had a reception area where we were welcomed into the house and given water or tea. It made me feel so comfortable to begin every new meeting with sitting down together over tea. At this particular house, many of Ngan's cousins were running around outside. They were fascinated by Maeve's camera and began posing every few seconds. Immediately after each picture was taken, they would run over to the camera to see the final product. They were so adorable!

Ngan;s family made us the most delicious lunch, which we ate while sitting on the floor. Everyone was in the same room, but the men sat in one circle on one side of the room and the women sat on the other side. The two circles were bridged by Ngan's grandmother. They gave us some alcohol to try, but it was so strong that I could only manage what I would say was a "wuss sip." That was some serious moonshine. For lunch, there was fish stuffed with what seemed to be liver, a vegetable soup, shrimp, greens with liver, and boiled chicken. To top it all off, there was watermelon and satsumas!

The afternoon was finished off with a delightful nap. We then drove back to Hanoi with more fruit and food than I would have thought possible. Come to think of it, this was a lot like a DeHart get-together: people just kept showing up; there was more food than we could eat; every time we slowed down, someone put more food in front of us; we left bags of food. Yep. Exactly like a DeHart get-together.

learned 'em good

This morning's lecture was about harm reduction policies and implementation in Vietnam. This lecture was specific to HIV/AIDS prevention. I don't know if I've talked about this before, so I'll keep it brief. Harm reduction is anything that takes a risky behavior and makes it less dangerous. Pretty self-explanatory, right? This could be getting motorbike drivers to wear helmets or providing clean needles to intravenous drug users or using methadone to replace the demand for intravenous drugs. It's very important to reiterate that studies have shown that providing clean needles does not lead to higher rates of drug use. The same is true of condom distribution and methadone clinics, each in their own turn. Something else we talked about is pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). One example of PrEP is shown in the use of antiretrovirals (ARVs) to prevent transmission in sero-discordant couples. A sero-discordant couple is one in which one partner is HIV positive and the other is HIV negative. If you get them both on ARVs, transmission is much less likely to occur. PrEP is also used for pregnant women who are HIV positive to prevent transmission to their babies. Fascinating stuff. Feel free to e-mail me if you have questions or want some more info.

I got back from class this morning, ate an egg and cucumber sandwich with chili sauce (a deliciously fantastic staple here), and promptly fell asleep. Usually, when I nap, I come in and out of sleep and how long I end up in bed is completely dependent on how stubborn I am in refusing to get up. Today, I fell asleep and did not move once in the following three hours. I don't remember being that tired, but I guess I was. It was a wonderful nap.

I went to teach English today with Maeve and Alison. Due to the insanity of rush-hour traffic right around 5:15pm (when we usually leave to teach), what should be a 15 to 20 minute drive takes us at least an hour and we end up late to class (which begins at 6:00pm). Today, we left at 5:00pm to make sure that we would get there because the parents committee promised a pizza dinner. Of course then we got there super early, but today's weather was amazing, so there were no complaints to waiting outside, watching this small park area of parents and children. I will never see anything more beautiful in this world than a parent delighting in his or her child.

As promised, we sat down to a delicious pizza dinner with the kids. It ended in cookies and cake. Could this have been more perfect. I doubt it. We had a fantastic day learning about animals. These were some of the more wilderness animals like snake, lion, chimp, parrot, giraffe and elephant, to name a few. I really went for the gold teaching concepts like amphibian for the frog and marsupial for the kangaroo. The kids are geniuses. When we got to the elephant, I told my kids that Mom had grown up in Africa and seen lots of elephants and that there is an elephant tusk in my house (taken not by poachers but from a sick elephant that needed to be put down). They were blown away and super interested in Mom's story. I explained how Grandpa was a bác sῖ (doctor) and Grandma was an y tá (nurse) in the Congo (they helped me practice my Vietnamese here). It was so great for us to learn and share stories together! 

the anticipation of babies

Today was an adventure at the Hanoi OB/GYN Hospital. Let's just say, there were a lot of pregnant women there. We started out touring the place. We find ourselves in an odd situation when touring facilities like this. I don't know if there are different customs of privacy here than I am used to or if we get special treatment as students, but we always end up seeing more than I would have thought we would be able to.

We saw a delivery room where there were a handful of women at various stages of labor and delivery surrounded by a host of nurses. We saw rooms full of women and what were most likely their mothers or next of kin looking after newborns. This hospital has a lot of trouble with overcrowding. There is this "envelop culture" operating in the hospital where, for a small fee, one will get better service or a private room. However, this is only possible for those of the upper class,as I'm sure you can infer.

The next thing we saw was an operating room. I have seen surgery happen on TV so many times, but this was the first time I had actually been there watching a surgery happen. The woman had experienced an ectopic pregnancy. If you don't know what that is, it's where, for some reason, the fertilized egg doesn't make it to the uterus. It is incredibly painful for the mother and the embryo must be removed as soon as possible. There was even a picture on the screen from the tiny camera that the surgeons were using to operate with. IT WAS SO AMAZING TO WATCH.

We also walked by the antenatal care wing and the family planning/abortion wing. After all this, we got the chance to talk with one of the doctors about the policies and inner workings of the hospital. It was a super informative and interesting day. Here are all the things it made me think about:

1. I want to be an OB/GYN (this will most likely not happen).
2. I want to fall in love, marry, and then start a family with the most wonderful man (hopefully, this will happen).
3. When and if I am with child and in labor, I will be in my own room.

Another interesting tid-bit: 50% of the births that happen at this hospital are by c-section. There are a few reasons for this. The first is that parents want to be able to choose an auspicious day for the birth of their child. The other reason involves money. With surgery, there are more instances in which the doctor can receive envelop payments from the patient.

un-cultured

Remember that game I was telling you about that I played with traffic? Here is one example of a time when I was playing that game:
Maeve and I were walking back from a run at the pretty lake down the road. We were walking on the sidewalk where PEDESTRIANS are meant to be. There is a man on a motorbike riding towards me. We make eye contact, and I assume that he will break to one side because I am the pedestrian meant to be on the sidewalk. I was wrong. He drove right at me and did not stop until his front wheel was between my legs. It was one of those moments where I went through the metal checklist and decided that what he was doing was both illegal and unsafe. I hope the death glare and exasperated "REALLY?!" that I gave him really taught him a lesson about safe driving.

Today was a wonderful day. It started out with a very short lecture on tobacco use which I followed with several hours in my bed watching The Music Man. I knew it was time to revisit this classic from my childhood because I began singing Gary, Indiana to myself yesterday as I was walking down the street. In case you were wondering, the movie was every bit as funny and wonderful as I remember it being.

For lunch, I had the best beef fried rice I've ever had in my life. The beef was in big chunks and didn't have gobs of fat attached to it. The fried rice came with a bowl of pho soup broth and a plate of cucumbers that were slightly, sweetly pickled. It was honestly just so delicious. I followed that with another pomegranate. I just can't get enough.

Tonight was characterized by a familiar pass-time I like to call "going to the movies." This would seem to be a fairly typical event without much cultural significance. However, it is not. There was so respect for the line system. I can remember being in kindergarten and having the teacher tell us all about the importance of lining up, a lesson that I was taught yearly until I got to high school. As a camp counselor, I revisited these times as my kids would fight over who got what position in line. Let me just say, that regardless of where you are in the line, it is important to maintain that standing and respect the positions of those on either side of you in the line. This was not the case at the National Cinema Center. The line was not respected. It was like that scene at the beginning of It's a Wonderful Life where everyone charges the bank to reclaim their money, only there was no need for urgency here.

The movie we went to see is called Abduction. Maybe you've heard of it, maybe you haven't. To be completely honest, we didn't go for film quality, we went for Taylor Lautner. Having recently watched the Twilight movies together, we felt the need to see Taylor in a setting where he actually gets the girl and is in a position to lose his shirt many times. It was not a good movie, but it was worth every Vietnamese dong I spent to get it.

here comes the sun

Today was sunny for the first time in four or five days. I lost count. It was that dreary. Let me just say, it did wonders for morale considering that these papers aren't writing themselves. I took a trip to that goddess of tofu again today, and it was wonderful to sit outside for lunch because the day was so beautiful, not rainy at all.

This morning's lecture was on Agent Orange, which persists in the environment in both the fields and plants as well as food chains, and its lasting effects. The production of Agent Orange was done so rapidly in order to proceed with Operation Ranch Hand that proper precautions were not taken. Usually, pesticides and herbicides are heated in production to lessen or eliminate the dioxin present. In short, dioxin is really, really bad. It is a fat-soluble compound, meaning that it will stay in the food chain until it naturally degrades over time (which is a long time) and it can be passed from mother to child through breast milk. Dioxin actually alters the genetics of a cell, which is why it causes so many birth defects and cancers. When the mechanisms that drive the actions of a cell are altered, that cell can either multiply without stopping (cancer) or stop producing proteins (could cause deformations or absence of a limb for example) among various other possible issues. The most effective way of getting rid of dioxin in the environment is thermal shocking. With incredibly intense heat, the dioxin will degrade in the soil. Unfortunately, this method is incredibly expensive. All that can be done for now is to educate the people about how to eat more safely to limit dioxin intake and other positive health behaviors.

Now that I have some knowledge of the actual traffic laws in this nation. I like to point out all the things that people are doing on the road that are illegal or unsafe. It's a little something I do to entertain myself.

1. Driving on the sidewalk (illegal and unsafe)
2. Talking or Texting on a cell phone while driving a motorbike or car (illegal and unsafe)
3. Wearing insubstantial helmets (unsafe)
4. Driving your motorbike into me while I am walking on the sidewalk because you were too impatient to wait on the road (unsafe for you because you will incur my wrath)
5. Not stopping at a traffic light (illegal and unsafe)
6. Crossing the center line to pass someone (illegal and unsafe)

Really gives you confidence to walk around, right?

I've come to the conclusion that God is giving me a lesson in surrender this semester. Being so far from anything familiar, I cannot maintain independence to the degree that I usually do. I rely on my roommate to help me buy foods that won't destroy my stomach and get around the city because I don't know how to read menus or direct taxis. I cannot always know what is happening in the lives of my friends back home. I removed myself from them, for a time, and am now unable to be there to mitigate what is hurting them or rejoice in what is good. My main fear here is that, without me there to take care of it all, I don't know who is. Now, this is a silly notion as they are all taking care of each other, and, on top of that, God has got my back, here. That's the whole point of surrender: I don't have to concern myself with who is taking care of me or my friends at home. It's all taken care of.

rainventures

Yesterday at lunch, I got lunch with some people at this street vendor right outside of our school. This lady is a miracle worker when it comes to tofu. She fries tofu and spring rolls which she pairs with bun (rice noodles), a plate of fresh greens (mint mostly) and nuc mum (fish sauce) or soy sauce. This grouping with its many dipping potentials is a cacophony of deliciousness. As we were sitting enjoying that most crispy of tofu plates, a woman with pomegranates walked by, so Maeve and I each bought one. I brought mine back to my room and sat on my bed enjoying the juicy pods and their crunchy seeds. It was a most simple thing that made me extremely happy. Here is a picture of my street pom:

We watched Good Morning Vietnam yesterday afternoon as part of our discussion sections about the war and U.S.-Vietnam relations to date. I think I had watched it before, but I didn't remember parts of it. I was laughing hysterically at some parts as Robin Williams has that effect on me. Though it wasn't fully a true story, it is impressive in that it portrays a little of both sides. Worth a watch if you haven't seen it yet.

This morning's class didn't happen oddly enough because no one showed up to teach it. Our schedule is a mess and a half, but I definitely thought we had class this morning. Instead, I curled up with my nook and read for a few hours. It felt wonderful. 

I went to teach the children's English class again today. The lesson today was focused on food, and, for some reason, centered around every food that I have been desperately wanting: pizza, burgers, ice cream, salad and fries. It was a little hard to make it through without drooling everywhere. I then had one of my kids named Hung tell me that his favorite movie is New Moon of the Twilight Saga. I had to stifle the giggles that I really wanted to let out and turn them into a smile because I recently watched New Moon. All I can say is that there are better Twilight movies out there, and that's really saying something.

After English Class, Maeve and I went for a little walk and ended up at a fruit stand where more pomegranates were procured. After this, the rain really picked up. It's been raining for days... with no appearance of stopping... Anyway, I had no rain gear, so I decided to embrace the watery onslaught. I did dance on the sidewalk, and I did splash through the puddles. And, in case you are wondering, I did it all while singing Singin' in the Rain. It was a wonderful moment of me dancing around and Maeve laughing at me from under the protection of her umbrella.

Also, I am co-habitating with a mouse. I named him Randolph, but that does not mean he's welcome.

time to rest

Since returning from Hue, we have been non-stop, on-the-go. We had a field trip to Ha Nam province to observe their community based surveillance system for Avian Influenza. We were able to talk with some of the community health workers about their jobs, benefits, and some challenges that they face. The greatest challenge they have come up against is the fact that their are so many households to reach for monthly visits per worker, and they are unable to get to each household. We were taken on a tour of two different households: one belonged to a chicken farmer and the other to a duck farmer. We saw the chickens about three to a cage with more room than they would have had at an industrial chicken farm in the states but not much more. The chickens are kept for their eggs until they stop producing and then are sold to someone else for processing the meat. Apparently, the way you can tell if a bird has avian flu is not by any exterior body mark but by the excrement. The ducks were free to roam around in an enclosed yard/pond complex. The farmer fed them and closed them into a pen for the night, but they were largely left to their own devices.

We had presentations both Tuesday and today. The presentation Tuesday was for HIV/AIDS and involved reflecting on our previous field trip to Hai Duong. My group specifically was tasked with presenting information on the Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) portion of the Provincial AIDS Committee (PAC). That presentation was fairly straight forward. The one today was for Public Health History and was a whole lot more ambiguous. The assignment was to pick a topic in public health and compare and contrast that topic in Vietnam and the U.S. That certainly is broad. My group chose the topic of reproductive health education. In one night and the majority of today, we were able to compile and practice it sufficiently. I think it  went fairly well, but I don't really want to talk about it because I'm trying to distance myself and get some rest. If you are really interested, feel free to e-mail me.

Next Tuesday and Wednesday, we have papers due on both of those same topics, so they are re-representations of what we presented on, maybe with some added research. It has been and will be a busy week.

I am going to spend tonight reading and writing purely for pleasure purposes. It's gonna be great.

there's an app for that

Today was spent touring the city of Hue. We started this morning by going to one of the Pagodas. There were two guardians at each entry way. One guardian is for the good and one is for the bad. It is all about balancing the yin and yang. Maeve is standing with the good guard.

The Pagoda was followed by the tomb complex of Tu Duc, the last king in Hue. The whole complex was incredibly large. There was a tomb for the king, the queen and one of the king's adopted sons. One of the great points of contention in the king's life was that he was not able to have a child, so he adopted a few sons from one of his brothers. While he was alive, the king would often spend time at his tomb complex. No one knows exactly where in the complex he is buried. They kept it a secret so that no one could steal him or damage his grave. To this information, one of us replied, "I bet there's an app for that."

We stopped by a place where some women were making incense. I'd never seen this process before. The lady rolled this doughy, glue-like substance onto one of the sticks and then rolled that in some cinnamon. They smell was wonderful!

Lunch was wonderful and then we went to walk around the citadel. Large areas of it sustained major damage during the Tet Offensive, but there were still a great number of buildings still standing and plans to rebuild it in the future. 

This walkway was truly exquisite. It turn out that red and yellow are the royal colors, which explains why I've seen so much of them around Vietnam.