Oreos and Wasabi Peas

December 30, 2008
6:00 a.m.-Jonathan's alarm goes off. I have already ignored mine that beeped at 5:40...too dark out..maybe I don't need to go to the market this morning.
6:05 a.m.- J gets out of bed and works his way to the kitchen to heat up water for some Nescafe. Rain taps lightly on the metal roof, making it sound much heavier than it really is.
6:30 a.m.-after sweeping the room and the front porch, I am sitting on the steps outside staring at the forest. I hear a crunching, grinding sound and look up to see 2 visitors rolling their suitcases toward reception and the boat that will take them across the river, away from this leg of their adventure and on to the next one.

I am tired. We have been in Vietnam for 4 months and 10 days. We have been in the field for 3 months and 15 days...but our longest stretch in the forest has been about 10 days. Maybe routines are overrated, but we definitely don't have one yet. I have seen many foreigners, but don't have the energy to chat. I think about the bears, our friends, traveling, research. My mind is like a pinball machine, but in slow motion-the caffeine hasn't kicked in yet.

I get up and continue sweeping. Outside our room is a covered patio with a big cement round table and benches. They weigh a ton so they are impossible to move. It is a shared space and everyone that stays in the rooms around us uses them. Sometimes they clean up after themselves, but usually there are spills and drink-rings, ashtrays full of spent butts, empty water bottles, orange peels...I find all sorts of things there.

I want to get back into an early morning routine, so I get the broom in one hand, my coffee in the other, and sweep the entire patio. When Berry was volunteering with Free the Bears she and I would run together at 6 a.m. I would wake up at 5:30, drink coffee and sweep, and then stretch a bit before our run. As I sweep a young man walks out of room E4, a towel tied around his waist. I smile and say hi, but inside I am thinking, "that's Berry's room."

Being a fixture within the park has its perks, but it is also very odd. We see the same people every day-park staff, reception, tour guides. We also see the influx of tourists, the volunteers for the bears or the gibbons, other researchers. Our life goes from being full of friends and social activities, to feeling isolated and alone. I don't think we are ever alone, but some days we definitely feel like hiding in our room, watching movies all day, eating oreos and wasabi peas.

As we walked to the forest this morning we talked about the strange feeling of engagement versus detachment that you must waver between. Being engaged in the research, detaching from the hunting and poaching, engaging in relationships with others, detaching from my opinions on how things are done, engaging in our friends' health, detaching from friends' health (our friend, a volunteer for Free the Bears, was in the hospital in HCMC. After a few days of blood tests, they determined that it wasn't Dengue fever or Malaria, but still don't know-he was taken to Bangkok...Needless to say we started taking our doxy meds again.)

In Vietnamese, there is a fun little phrase: Khong sau (pronounced home sow) . Literally, it means "no stars". Figuratively it means "NO PROBLEM!" It is one the best ways of coping with all the bizarreness and potential frustration: The beer is warm- khong sau; The bus was supposed to drop us off-khong sau; The spring rolls have meat in them-khong sau. My "khong sau" has been wavering lately..at times my patience is wavering. I need to find my "Khong sau".