Water Snakes

I should go back and add captions to my slide show, but I don’t want to. Remember the two slithery pictures: one of snakes and one of eels (plus a crab one)? That was at the rollerskating restaurant. I asked our Vietnamese tour guide if it was okay to take off the lid of the cages so I could get a better picture, which he did. Then I asked what kinds of snakes those were. He didn’t know their English names, but one translated to “water snake.” Molly: they’re called “water snakes” because they live in the water and they’re snakes. I don’t know why else.

I’ve learned from one source (so it must be true) that the Vietnamese are very superstitious. Almost all boats of any size have eyes in the front, as you can see in one picture. I asked a guy from the Mekong Delta why. He said that boats are so essential to people who live on the river that they are like part of the family. However, one can’t have a family member that doesn’t have eyes, so the boat’s owner provides them. Also, many years ago there were crocodiles and other pesky, biting things in the waters. The theory was that the eyes scared away these menaces.

At lunch on the second day of the trip, I walked up to a young Vietnamese woman with whom I’d taken a painful, jarring journey down four-foot-wide dirts roads in the back of a tuc-tuc. She’d taken a picture of me and one of her friends that came out great. “I should get your e-mail address,” I suggested. She looked confused. “You know, so you can send me pictures and I’ll send you mine.” She took a step back. Wrong person.

Language errors have always amused me. Usually I’m the one making them, and my Vietnamese pronunciation sends people (including me) into fits of glee. Meanwhile, I had to contain my mirth when the supervisor here told me at dinner that one dish contained “fresh-picked pork.”

At a small inlet in the jungle by the river was a bee farm, or whatever you call them, where they gave us fruit, sang some beautiful and sad traditional songs from the Delta, and gave us a flyer on why we should buy their royal jelly:

“To beautiful, use before going to bed. Overcame having few children and sterile ability. Anaphrodisia. It is helped to get old.”

Decided I didn’t need help.

The fruit here is incredible and I’ve been consuming the meats and juices of some I’ve never heard of: rambutan (I think they’re really lychees; PT: aren’t you proud?), dragon fruit, papaya, starfruit, mango, soursop, guava, teeny bananas, jackfruit, passionfruit, sapodillas and mangosteens.

By the time I leave here, I will have had to move to new hotels seven bloody times. It really sucks. In an hour I’m going back to the Saigon [Ho Chi Minh City] airport and flying to Hanoi for a conference tomorrow. Then back to HCMC for two more nights, and then I head home. I just met with my boss early this morning (he arrived last night) and discussed all that had transpired as well as what he wants me to work on when I return. He’s a great guy. Initially he said I needed to be back at work on the morning after I returned to the US, which was scaring me, because jetlag when you’re this far from home is intense. But he just told me I didn’t have to go back till Thursday. Great news. We reviewed all the lesson plan notes, student lists, handouts and stuff that I had accumulated, along with info I’d solicited from the students about what they want to cover next. They’re gonna love him.

Speaking of they (or “thou,” as we said at SIT: the student), I would like to tell you about my students here. They are full of laughter and spirit, are educated and bright, most are motivated, and all are warm-hearted. Really an exceptional thing to experience. They never let me off easy, though: they’re not wimps. They gave me tons of challenges, but never just for the sake of challenging.

I must admit I was relieved to be finishing my last day of class yesterday, because I have been working so long and so hard without stopping that I’m flaring out. That said, I was said to say farewell. Yesterday I did a few closing activities, the last of which was to play The Parting Glass by The Dubliners. (Reminder to anyone with the power to put me in the ground—I want this refrain on my massive, towering tombstone: Goodnight, and joy be with you all.) I told them that this was my farewell message to them.

Right afterwards, when I announced class was over, there were whoops of delight and shouts of “Party!” At first I felt a little irked, until I realized they’d meant it. They’d planned a little party for me. They gave me a beautiful scarf and a card that they’ll all signed. They knew I was going to Hanoi so they sang me a Vietnamese song about Hanoi. They knew I love traditional music so they sang me a folk song from the south (here). Thousands of pictures were taken. Each student gave their camera to another student and stood next to me for several snapshots. Then the next student. Then another. Then the first again. One filmed me while unbeknownst to me while I disgusting slurped at some food. At one point I was flanked by four students, and the other twelve, in firing squad fashion, were snapping pix. This happens a lot in intensive language classes, but I’d never seen anything quite like it. Then I started packing up to go. Noooo, not yet. The food’s not here! They’d pooled their money to buy us each a fruit-yogurt-crushed ice drink. I know I’m not supposed to have ice and some of those fruits with skins, but what could I do.

I’m fond of a number of the students, and have a particular soft spot for Tuí¢n (whose name, I just discovered online, means “smart”). He’s about 24 and totally adorable and, yes, smart. He had been designated as my assistant, responsible for copying things for me, fixing the projector whenever it broke, getting me lunch, and a million other things. In Vietnam, woman thwap a guy upside the head to rebuke them. I saw it in jest many times. Don’t know if it happens in earnest. So whenever Tuí¢n was “out of line” I walked over to him and slapped him on the side of the head. I got to like corporal punishment. Tuí¢n’s hairstyle is sort of swept up into a knife-edge from front to back, like a mountain range with foothills. He joked that if we grabbed him by his legs and turned him upside-down, we could sweep the room.

Gotta catch the plane. Here’s a picture of some of my Ss yesterday (for some reason, the guys including Tuí¢n weren’t there).

When I get back to the US I’ll try to post the audio of the folksongs. Now I’m Hanoi-bound.

But I long to be homeward-bound. I miss my baby so badly it hurts. I had a video chat with her this morning and I don’t think she remembers me much if at all. The director of the program here made her one present and is making another. Everyone in Saigon knows about Emmy.