Back in Phnom Penh

Friday, February 20, 2009
It is 7:00 a.m. and I am sitting in my hotel room in Phnom Penh. I decided that having internet in my room was important so I sought a room that would be affordable and comfortable. I am here attending the CamTESOL conference, a conference on the teaching of English in Cambodia. Today we will go on a field trip and the meetings will begin on Saturday morning. I am looking forward to it. Some folks that I met up in Hanoi will also be attending. I am very excited to learn about teaching methods and ideas here in Southeast Asia, as well as networking with fellow educators.

On Tuesday, I went to visit Phnom Tamao Rescue Center and Zoo. This is an incredible place! Animals that have been confiscated from illegal animal trade or other situations have been given large enclosures to be wild and mostly free. There were some elephants, a couple of tigers, some gibbons, various birds, and more than 100 bears! The bear center is incredible! They have at least 5 large enclosures and an education center that is really done nicely. They have several sun bears, and a nursery with a few sun bear cubs. They were adorable!

Another Planet

February 9, 2009
I began this entry thinking that I was going to write about our visit to District 7, under the same title: Another Planet. But then I got to thinking about it, and there are several moments when I feel like I'm on another planet. It is fun to watch myself in these situations and see what my reactions are. One day I may laugh, the next I may get upset. Most of the time I just go with it and smile.

Every day is like an adventure here. I don't know why I don't see the world that way at home..it seems easier to release control when I am not at home, in the U.S. I tend to think of the moments of discomfort and stress as moments for growing. "O.K. You are upset. That's fine. What can you learn from this?" Again, I am not so good at doing this at home...

Some of our "other-worldly" adventures have included:

The Com Chay: 'Com chay' means vegetarian restaurant. Vegetarianism is not rare in Asia, but it is unusual. Our friends call us "not normal". Around Hanoi or HCMC you can find vegetarian restaurants. They are interesting. The cooks, who are truly masters, take tofu and manipulate it into shapes with flavors and textures that so closely resemble meat, I frequently have to ask, "is this vegetarian?" The menus at restaurants like these list the items like you'd see them on a regular menu: Bun Bo Hue, a famous noodle dish from Hue, in central Vietnam, is one such example. The dish arrives and it looks just like meat. When I taste it I am freaked out a little bit. When our omnivorous friends eat it, they KNOW it is not meat.

We ordered "vegetable beer" there, assuming that it would be beer made of vegetables. OK. When it arrived we learned that it was really "near beer". Maybe everything in a com chay is fake?

The Market: The markets are always my favorite! I love learning the language there-informal and quick, and how people buy things. Every market experience is an opportunity to learn. I typically try to ask how to say something (what is this called?). That never seems to work- a woman yesterday wouldn't listen to my question. She thought I was asking the price. I had to give her an explanation: "This is a banana, what is this?"

It is funny how the mind works. People get a bit nervous dealing with foreigners. They see us and categorize us as non-speakers, so they don't listen. People who work with us often have gotten used to our way of pronouncing things and saying them grammatically incorrect. They listen and gather what they can from what we are saying. At times like the one in the market, my reflection is: I need to start studying again so I can be understood. But then I think that it might not make a difference- even if I spoke the most perfect Vietnamese, they would not hear me, at first.

Development Zones: District 7: We took a city bus out to District 7 yesterday. The main roads are wide, divided highways with very little traffic. There are tall apartment buildings that look like they've been beamed to Vietnam from New York or any other city in the U.S. or Europe. There are wide sidewalks in front of cafes, and cars outnumber the motorbikes. That's not saying much since there is very little traffic on the roads. We were walking along and didn't feel like we were in Vietnam anymore.

It is disturbing: it is too quiet.
I am walking on the sidewalk and getting run over by motorbikes.
The roads are wide, and empty
The vehicles are not swervinig wildly out of their lanes.
There are big cars- SUVs, Mercedes, and Hummers
It is too quiet.

As we walk back out to the main road, a motorbike drives up on the sidewalk. As I get to the end of the walk, I notice that the transition from sidewalk to street is sharp, vertical..the driver still managed to get his bike up onto the sidewalk. I smile. I am still in Vietnam.

These 2 photos are of the wide, empty streets of District 7, in the southern part of HCMC. Most of Vietnam doesn't look like this.

Conservation Work

February 2, 2009
Coming back into the city, I rode with some friends who work with Free the Bears. They, and Wildlife at Risk (WAR), frequently get reports of animals that have been confiscated and need a place to live. They also get reports of places that keep animals illegally. For a couple of days I went with these guys to investigate these rumors.

I have mentioned previously the belief in Southeast Asia of the medicinal value of bear bile. Thousands of bears are kept in tiny cages and are milked for their bile. The law in Vietnam states that people may keep bears, but it is illegal to milk the bears. We spent some time visiting locations that are rumored to have bears and may be milking them.

We also got to visit the Cu Chi rescue center, a place where confiscated animals are taken and given a better living situation. Unfortunately, many of these animals are either unhealthy or have been near humans for too long. It would be unsafe, for them and for people, to release them back into the wild, meaning that they will spend their lives in cages. The hope is that they, like the bears in Cat Tien, can have a chance to spend some time in larger, more stimulating enclosures than the tiny metal cages they are usually kept in as pets or as "milking bears".

3 bears were out behind a gas station out of Cu Chi, heading towards Cambodia. They were big, and beautiful- gentle and friendly.

Crocodiles..tons of them, in three tanks right next to the bears. A restaurant next to the gas station serves croc.

The facilities at the Cu Chi rescue center. It's small but well-kept and good for the animals. Some animals will stay here while others, like the bears, will only stay until they can be taken to another center.

There are 6 otters at the Cu Chi center. Isn't he cute?

Some Photos of Tet

Mid-January, 2009
In mid-January I spent a few days in Hanoi. I attended an English Language teaching conference sponsored by the British Council. The conference was great fun and a fantastic way to get my brain back into teaching, as well as meet other people interested in teaching. I got to meander through the streets of the old quarter around Hoan Kiem Lake and see some of the preparations for Tet.

This temple is next to Hoan Kiem Lake. Usually the gates are closed, but one afternoon I walked by and the temple had just received a new coat of paint and it was open! These two photos are of the temple.



As part of the preparations for Tet, people clean their houses-like spring cleaning for us in the U.S. Buildings get a new coat of paint, old junk is discarded or sold, and tons of flowers are bought to make the house beautiful for all of the visitors. I understand this to represent the cleansing of the old year to welcome good luck for the new year. On the flight up to Hanoi, I read about a junk market that begins a week before Tet. On the morning of January 18th I headed through the streets of the old quarter and found the impromptu market and all of the shops along the street selling decorations for Tet. This is a family's "junk" laid out on the street to sell- cleaning for Tet and a way to make some money. Like Christmas for us, Tet can be very expensive and quite a strain on some families.

This shop is stocked with Tet decorations. Red and gold are the colors that represent good luck.

Getting ready for Tet

January 15, 2009
Happy New Year! Although January 1st is a big new year celebration for many, the most celebrated holiday here in Vietnam is Tet, or the lunar new year. The date changes from year to year, because a lunar month is 30 days long...times 12 months...equals 360 days instead of the 366 days of the calendar we follow in the United States. Actually, people in both Vietnam and China follow BOTH calendars, which makes it very interesting and fun!

This summer, in our Vietnamese class, we read about Tet and how people in Vietnam prepare for and celebrate Tet. Now that I am here in the midst of the chaos and excitement, I am reminded of what we read and it's very fun! I remember reading that people clean and paint their houses...It's true! Many buildings have a fresh coat of paint and everywhere I look, especially in Cat Tien where I notice the changes a bit more, people ARE cleaning! Bunches of leaves and other plant matter are being burned, even in and around the cities...leaving a gray haze and the worrisome smell of fire.

We also read that people buy flowers. This is really cool: all over town there are little shops that sell seasonal things. For the mid-autumn festival we saw lots of moon-cakes and red boxes (red and gold or yellow signify good fortune-women used to wear red wedding dresses before the influence of the west and white wedding dresses became so popular...white is the color of mourning here-people wear white for a funeral). Right now all the little seasonal shops are selling cakes in red boxes, and tons of beautiful flowers: pink, yellow, and red. Remember the cleaning I just mentioned? Well, many people are riding around selling feather-dusters on long bamboo sticks and lots of other cleaning supplies. The ebb and flow of life is so fascinating and new!

People also buy new clothes. Can you guess what else we've seen? Lots of shops selling clothing! Along the highway between Ho Chi Minh City and Cat Tien there are lots more tents set up selling clothes. I wonder how many people are driving on their motorbikes and suddenly decide, "I need to buy a new shirt RIGHT NOW!" and pull off to get one?

Something else very interesting...we met up with a few scholars in the city last week. Jonathan and I were sitting down at an outdoor cafe. I looked at the shop next store and noticed a man ripping the leaves off of a tree. At first I thought maybe he was taking off the dead leaves, but he wasn't. He was ripping ALL the leaves off! I couldn't figure it out. Once he finished with that tree, he moved to another one and did the same thing! Another young man brought out a bonsai tree and did the same thing to it...When we got back to Cat Tien people were taking the leaves off of the trees on BOTH sides of the road! I stopped to ask:

What are you doing?
Taking the leaves off of the trees.
Why?
To get ready for Tet.
Why?
Flowers will grow.
Oh.

I felt like the 2-year old who has just learned the power of the question "why?"

Still a bit confused, I asked someone else the next day. Mr. Chinh said that flowers would grow...and he was right! On the tree outside our room, where once bunches of luscious green leaves once grew, little tiny yellow flowers are coming in! Hmm.

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".

Boxing Day

December 26, 2008

Happy Boxing Day! Our day with friends was loads of fun! We began with a trip to the zoo! Jonathan and I had visited the zoo with my parents back in August, but it was so hot and humid, that we only got to see a part of it. It was cooler and overcast and we saw so much more! It was a Friday and tons of student groups were there as well. Here is one group imitating their teacher or guide.


There are a couple of primate islands. One with silvered langurs, and this one, with 3 gibbons! The female is the orangish one. She has 2 younger ones with her. A family was sitting across from the island throwing fruit to the gibbons. It was amazing how coordinated they were! From a couple of meters they could spot a small piece of fruit and catch it!


This animal, called a Gaur, lives in Cat Tien National Park! This is a favorite here in Vietnam. Many people have done research on the population in Cat Tien. He looks like a big cow with white socks!






At the elephant exhibit visitors can buy sugar cane and feed it to the elephants. It is fun having the elephants so close! It is also a bit frightening knowing that it wouldn't take much for them to get out of their enclosure, across the moat, and into the park!








This is a Sambar deer. They also live in Cat Tien. If you come to do night-spotting you will probably see them on the grassland. I think we also startle them as we walk in the forest.