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.