For all of the important work that keeps us busy during the week, there are ample opportunities to have fun here in Vietnam. Below are just a few pictures and a handful of words to describe some of the adventures I have been having as of late!

PRETENDING to take a ride on a friend's motorbike! Traveling by motorbike has been one of my favorite aspects of this trip, but you won't see me riding around the streets of Danang anytime soon. The traffic is...harrowing, to put it mildly, but I have heard that the streets of Saigon are exponentially worse. Either way, I think I will stay a passenger for now.

A few weekends ago, we visited BaNa Hills, a hillside resort(well, to be honest, resort in progress) which is also the site of the longest and highest non-stop cable car in the world. The ride up took around 20-25 minutes, but the views were AMAZING both along the journey and at the top.

This past weekend, we went swimming at Elephant Waterfalls (note the elephant shaped rock in the bottom left corner). Although it is supposed to be the rainy season already, it has still been scorching here the past couple weeks so swimming was a nice, albeit unfortunately temporary, respite from the heat.

Karaoke with friends is a regular event here in Danang. I love to sing, and am even part of a singing group at my school in New Paltz, but the beauty of my Vietnamese friends' voices puts any and all of my vocal emissions to shame.

Too much Shopping to be done in Hoi An, but no complaints here. I got a winter jacket tailored so I will have something to wear on my first confrontation with the cold back at home (I am sad that I have no use for a wool jacket during my stay here because mine is so beautifully made!)

At night, Hoi An, a neighboring town popular with tourists, is lit up by lanterns. Combined with the ancient architecture of the once popular seaport, it is truly a beautiful place to be at night time.

In front of Hoi An's Japanese Covered Bridge with friends.

Imagine storefront after storefront just like this one, brimming with lanterns of all shapes, colors, and sizes. Really magical!

The night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, some friends and I took a boat ride along the river in Hoi An. This short trip was perhaps one of the most fun, yet simultaneously terrifying, experiences I have had so far on this trip, as none of my friends know how to swim well and at times, I was confident our boat was in grave danger of sinking!
A crowd gathered in Hoi An to watch a dragon dance during the Mid-Autumn festival. Traffic came to a complete stop and I could have sworn that night that I saw every person there ever was in the world.

Rob, another student on the program, and I were talking the other day about how, frequently, when people discuss ways in which they have helped others, their rhetoric comes pre-filtered through a kind of "holier than thou" logic bolstered by a "Save the Children" mentality. Unfortunately, this kind of talk dominates the popular discourse on social action and I think, ultimately, might discourage people from getting involved in work that will truly contribute to sustainable betterment of our world. For one, nascent volunteers must grapple with the fear that they are pre-destined to be perpetually outranked in the perverse points system that seems to have developed around the concept of helping others (I am reminded here of an Ani DiFranco song where she sings "What kind of scale compares the weight of two beauties?". Limiting ourselves by pitting incomparable attempts to better the lives of others against each other and ranking their impact, we are deprived of the big picture, where every action to improve the lives of others, be it small or large/local or global/immediate or long lasting, matters simply because it happened in the first place and not for its social significance nor for the rewards or recognition it might bring to the individual or group providing aid). In addition, this logic implies that some people know better than others what defines a "good" quality of life and I am not in the business of telling people what to do (or, I'm trying not to be. Bossiness is a hard quality to shake!)

I mention all of this because I want to make a conscious effort, in both my real life and my writing, to be neither this self praising type of person nor a volunteer with ulterior motives. Transparency it is then! To be perfectly honest , the need I feel to reach out to others stems from a rather selfish standpoint. I do not like the way that I feel when I see other people suffering. If I was ever in peril, I would want someone to reach out to my family and me, and when I try to shed of myself and imagine what it would be like if I was someone else, for example a child affected by Agent Orange, I am not satisfied at all with what that reality, with the facilities and care available at present for these individuals, would entail. This might not be the answer that the people who congratulate me for my "selflessness" want to hear, but I think it is the most honest answer I can muster. Thus, I declare a moratorium on undeserved kudos such as "you are out there saving the world!" because I am not trying to. Instead, I prefer to think that I am merely one of MANY trying to burst out of our isolated bubbles of self to forge meaningful connections with other human beings so that maybe we all can learn from each other how to save ourselves. In the end, we are all fumbling through life together, and whether we choose to recognize the power that can be derived from this interconnectedness or not, I myself would rather embrace the ample company we have been blessed with as members of this strange race than wake up one morning only to realize that I am old and lonely!

I think that the weekly home visits we make to families with children suffering from severe disabilities, some caused by exposure to dioxin (also known as "Agent Orange"), are perhaps the most important, if not the most difficult, work that we do here because it challenges notions of human-ness that we have been taught and conditioned to accept. If someone looks different, acts different, or perceives reality differently than I do, are we truly similar to each other on a fundamental level? The answer I have come to time and time again is a resounding YES, an answer I have garnered from both the actions and words of the children themselves (when they are able to speak) and from the unconditional love and support given by their parents. While I wish that we could spend more time with each family, I am glad to have the opportunity to gain at least a little insight into how people manage to cope with difficult situations. Although life for these families often proves to be an unrelenting struggle, with every home visit we go on,I encounter individuals, people who will most likely never receive public recognition for the sacrifices they have made, who continue to persevere.

(As soon as I can, I will try to start posting pictures of the families and children we meet on our Agent Orange home visits. I find that, so often, I am too consumed by asking questions to remember to take out my camera! However, as my mom and her co-worker, Dan Derby, were here earlier this week, I should be able to get some good pictures from the two of them!While part of me feels a little odd about the way that pictures of these children, some of which may be fairly shocking, will look sandwiched between images of all of the good food I am eating and wonderful friends I am making, I think that it is imperative that all of my readers SEE every aspect of life as it truly is in Vietnam.)

PROMISE to write more soon, as this week has been unduly hectic with the Mid-Autumn festivites followed by a (too) brief visit from my mom and her co-worker, Dan Derby. For now, enjoy this video of the coolest lion dance that I have ever seen (It might be hard to tell but this dance was performed on stilt-like platforms set up in the middle of one of the city's streets. Talk about causing a traffic jam!)

"Chance and chance alone has a message for us. Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us."--Milan Kundera,The Unbearable Lightness of Being

In the midst of the tornado that is my life in Vietnam, I have found that it is really difficult, after long days of classes and various forms of helping others, to express completely my thoughts on the volunteer work that we are doing here in Danang. Thus, apologies in advance if blog entries of this nature seem fragmented or incomprehensive;I think that I am learning by experience that such is the nature of service oriented work--for all that you think you know, or that you think will work to help others attain their goals, you are most likely misguided although well intentioned, perpetually unprepared after time spent meticulously planning. At the end of each day, it is impossible to gauge whether or not it was a good one or bad one in terms of the quality or the impact of the work that was done. As a means of staying sane and motivated while volunteering, I have found the yin yang theory, an aspect of Eastern philosophy we learned about in our culture class, to be very helpful in recognizing distinctions of this nature (good/bad, right/wrong, success/failure) as fluid and interdependent categories. For example, when the lesson we chose for our English class happened to be a bust,I found the informal conversations I had with students after class to be extremely gratifying and overall, a much more effective means of teaching the skills they REALLY wanted to know, such as proper pronunciation and the contextual meanings of certain words. After class, I realized that this amazing teaching/learning experience could not have happened without having the preceding disaster class to compare it to. While I think that Kate BV (Before Vietnam, am I allowed to make titles of distinction like this for myself? Because I am going to, whether or not it is acceptable) would have over-analyzed and lamented over every aspect of the class that was not perfectly executed, Kate IV (In Vietnam, if you have not caught on...) is satisfied and proud of any victories, be they small and/or partial, that come her way. I recently read a great article and I think that the author, Courtney Martin, states exactly what I am learning about service better than I ever could: "We must accept that we will fail and try anyway, try to fail always more exquisitely, more honestly, more effectively. We must wake up in the morning naively believing in the power of our own dreams and the potential of our own gifts, and go to bed exhausted and determined to do it all over again -- with maybe just a bit of a different tactic, a little less ego, a little more help."

Before coming to Vietnam, I was very apprehensive about how I would act as a volunteer, as I have no experience working with the elderly or with children with disabilities.I was also worried about how I would interact with the women at the Loving House and the children affected by Agent Orange without knowing their language. Although I try my hardest to be a very loving and caring person regardless of the challenges with which I am faced, I know that remaining patient and compassionate can be difficult when there is a significant language barrier that complicates(okay,let's be realistic, completely impedes) traditional forms of communication. However,as soon as we arrived at the Loving House for the first time, I knew that I had nothing to worry about or to be afraid of. The atmosphere of the place is very peaceful and made me think a lot about the eldercare facilities that I have visited back at home, most of which are filled with men and women just sitting around waiting to die. It really inspired me to know that the residents of the Loving House must work to support themselves; having a feeling of purpose in society is always important for reinforcing one’s self esteem, regardless of age (it was also comforting to know that the elderly would not be abandoned or forgotten when they could no longer work). Respect for older generations is an aspect of Vietnamese culture that really appeals to me and strikes me as very different from the way in which we treat our elders in the United States. We tend in America to treat the elderly as if they are children rather than as adults who have many more years of experience and wisdom than their caretakers. When I was painting one woman’s nails at the Loving House, she changed her mind about the color of nail polish she wanted about three or four times and did not hesitate to reprimand me when she thought I was doing a bad job. Her forthrightness reminded me that although I was doing her the service of painting her nails, my job was to do the task just as meticulously as she would have done for herself if she could. I hope that when I am older, someone will be around to humor my wishes and desires just as I found myself doing for this particular woman!

At the Agent Orange group home, the challenges faced by the children are much more shocking and readily apparent than the private troubles of the elderly men and women at the Loving House. However, despite the wide range of physical deformities and mental disabilities of the children, they greet us warmly each time we visit with big hugs and even bigger smiles. One of my favorite things I have noticed about Vietnamese culture is the willingness of the people to accept things as they are while also trying their hardest to make the best of the situation at hand.I have noticed this tendency time and again in both the way in which the children at the Agent Orange home act,for the most part, just like average kids, as well as more generally in the way in which the Vietnamese people are so friendly to Americans despite the relative historical proximity of brutal conflict between the two countries. While life might not always be perfect, the Vietnamese seem to always know how to emphasize the good parts instead of focusing all of their energy and attention on the more difficult or painful aspects of existence.

Below are some photos I took this past week at the Agent Orange group home. Each time we visit, we prepare some type of easy activity for the kids, such as games or simple arts and crafts. This past week, we helped them make and decorate paper lanterns in preparation for the party we are hosting at the group home next week in celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival. In the future, I hope to take more pictures of our activities at the Agent Orange home. However, it must be recognized that this is an extremely difficult task, considering that every time I take out my camera, gaggles of children want either to be photographed or to take photos themselves!

This girl was new to the AO group home and was hesitant about getting involved in the activity. After we started working on her lantern together, she got really into the project and started interacting with the other children for the first time.

An Artist Hard at Work!

Lanterns!

I thought my Dad might find this interesting...who knew the Prime Minister of Ireland came to the Agent Orange group home in Danang!

I hope this picture gives you some idea of the level of chaos at the AO group home...

musing.

"Live on, survive, for the earth gives forth wonders. It may swallow your heart, but the wonders keep on coming. You stand before them bareheaded, shriven. What is expected of you is attention."--Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet

I cannot imagine life without reading,just as I cannot imagine life without travel. In many ways, I see the two acts as intimately linked aspects of my life, as travel always provides ample time for reading and reading acts as a form of escape when departure from physical, geographical or emotional confines is not a viable option. However, what never ceases to amaze me is how I can always locate some tidbit of wisdom related to my current situation in any book I am reading, regardless of its subject matter. I think from time to time I will post some quotes from my book du jour that I feel relate to this amazing, challenging, awe inspiring, and exhausting adventure I am on!

Oh, the subtle ironies of life. As I sat down earlier to write my first blog post specifically dedicated to my love of food, in particular Vietnamese cuisine, I had the misfortune to discover that a colony of red ants had taken up residence inside of my MacBook. I had never before heard of such an infestation, but some web surfing later, lo and behold, I learned that it is not that uncommon of a phenomena in tropical climates; the ants are attracted to the warmth generated by the computer's hard drive or maybe also by the long forgotten crumbs that have managed (How could this be? Me? Eating in front of my computer? Never!) to find their way underneath the glossy (well, once glossy) white keys of my beloved Mac. Hours later than intended and fingers slightly sore from a few hours of using tweezers to unearth the ungodly amount of flotsam and jetsam that has accumulated under my keyboard over the past three years, I am FINALLY ready to tackle my original goal of talking about food, with added vigor partially in the hopes that my ferocious key pounding will keep the ants at bay for good! (As a side note, while cleaning, I had the sudden revelation that, on some level, all of this microscopic junk is part of the in progress story of my college years. Among other things, I found a few false eyelashes and copious amounts of glitter in my excavations. As my refuse up until this point could lead one to believe that I have spent the "best years of my life" moonlighting as some sort of exotic dancer, I am glad that I can now add ant carcasses to my ever diversifying portfolio of personal excrement.)

The question I have received most often in the past two weeks from curious friends and family members is "How is the food in Vietnam?". Frequently, this question comes right at the start of the conversation, even before common formalities such as "Hello" or "How are you?" are exchanged. While this abrupt inquisition could speak volumes about the true interests of my folks, both blood and otherwise acquired, I am all too pleased to indulge their probing as this is where my enthusiasm in both travel and every day life lies. Names, faces, places and the like will always escape me, but I will rarely ever forget a good meal and have been known to obsess over the intricacies of particular ingredients. This tendency to put great thought into what I put into myself has not wavered even as I made the choice to give up eating meat about three months ago. It is a common misconception that people who choose not to eat meat are completely satisfied with one measly plate of limp and bland looking vegetables; for most people, the term "vegetarian" seems to be synonymous with "one who does not like or need sustenance". However, I stand to challenge this stereotype by proving that it is possible to maintain a vegetarian diet and still eat some of the best food on earth. (Again, I digress. Truthfully, at present, I am more of a pescetarian, which is against my general principle of not eating animals, but I am willing to suspend some of my beliefs in the interest of not withering away while I am here. Also, maybe because the seafood is so fresh here, truly meaning it when I channel my inner Long Island girl and say it is "like,REALLY fresh". For dinner the other night, I ate a fish that Lieu, one of our cooks, caught in the small lake outside of our house. Mind you, I see people pissing in this lake almost daily, but the fish was still really good.)

My favorite aspect of Vietnamese cuisine is its respect for all of the tastes and textures and how they interact with each other. Sweet and salty is a common flavor combination and I find that having the two tastes together is far more enjoyable than eating several separate mono-tasting snacks because one is continually surprised by the fluccuation in seasoning. The popcorn at the movie theater here is more sweet than it is salty, and I find that this reversal of Western expectations for movie time food fare made both my popcorn and my drink last for almost the entire duration of the movie, an inconceivable feat on familiar soil.

Fried food is also really popular here, but it never seems to dominate the table; if one aspect of the meal is super oily, then there is sure to be a more neutral dish, like rice paper or just plain ol' rice, to balance things out. Vegetables, especially spinach and other assorted leafy greens, are other common bases for more tasteful foods. Fruit seems more common than a rich dessert to finish off a meal, but this is not to say that delicious sweet treats do no exist. In fact, in this respect, I definitely notice a great French influence--the flaky and ubiquitous baguettes and fantastically frosted cakes that can be found in the many bakeries across Danang remain as scrumptious relics of a bygone era.

At this juncture, I will let my pictures do the rest of the talking for me, as all of this thinking about food and ant slaughtering has made me rather sleepy. There are still so many things I want to write about my time here, especially the volunteer work we have been doing, but I find that there are hardly enough hours in the day to both have adventures and then to later document them. Thus, rest assured that there are many more exciting stories and personal anecdotes to come--their arrival merely depends on my ability to stop eating and start writing!

Cakes!

Clams!

Frog Legs (Blech, one bite and I am not a fan)
Fried Squid
The noodles on the left are a specialty of the town of Hoi An. It is said that their unique deliciousness results from the special well water used in the manufacturing process.

Mixed fruit drinks come in all different flavors, including avacado (it's good, I swear!)
Homemade Ice Cream(I got the Caramel flavor)

Even Ancestors get in on all of the fresh produce. The pink alien looking fruit in the foreground is dragonfruit, yum!

SUPER sweet corn soup served cold for a dessert. Too sweet even for me!


The usual scene of post-meal desimation (Do not let those spoons mislead you! All eating here is done by chopstick, but Hến xúc bánh đa, or little baby clams so small you eat them with the shell on, must be scooped up to be eaten on top of rice crackers.)

This past weekend, I had the good fortune to visit not only one mountain but TWO mountains in the course of one day. It was an afternoon abounding with arduous climbing and ample sweating but ultimately was well worth the trouble and tired legs! First stop was the Marble Mountains. Although legend states that the five mountains in the small range represent each of the five worldly elements(four you say? seems that in Asia, wood trumps wind with an added offering of metal),the only sense of water I felt while climbing Thuy Son, H20's namesake peak, was the dampness of my own perspiration. However, the several caves located along the climb allowed time for cooling off as well as marveling at the many Buddha statues of all shapes and sizes that are nestled in the mountain's nooks and crevices. Over the years, the Marble Mountains have been occupied for a multitude of purposes, ranging from religious usage dating back to the ancient Champa kingdom to more recently harboring factions of the Vietnamese army during periods of the Vietnam/American War.


I learned that you can tell which guard lion is a female by checking for its baby cub!



The View from the Top


Supposed to be luckier now...we'll see!

Every temple is watched over by one happy guard and one evil/angry one!





After taking a short rest, it was off to Monkey Mountain! Although there wasn't much to see in terms of monuments, the views of the city were phenomenal and the ride up itself was amazing, as were the cookies we ate at the top. On the way back into Danang, we stopped at this tree that the locals say is 1,000 years old; I am willing to bet it is much older, as its roots have already grown to the point that they look like tree trunks themselves!

On top of Monkey Mountain
Those things that look like tree trunks are actually the tree ROOTS of just one tree!

The Ride back to Danang

At New Paltz, I have grown used to the way that the semester seems to slither into itself, like someone trying to put on his or her sticky, wrinkled jeans after a night of heavy drinking. In my experience, I have found that professors are always easiest on students in the beginning weeks of school; I can only guess that they too feel intoxicated by the thick clouds of cigarette smoke that hover permanently over the benches in front of the academic buildings and the warm embraces of friends who have been apart for far too long. While I tend to think of the month of August as akin to a Sunday night, a bittersweet culmination and last ditch celebration of previous languid months spent lounging poolside, I acknowledge that early September for US college students is much more an extension of Summer than it is a taste for the academic rigors that lay ahead.In talking to my sister, Jo, who has just started her freshman year at SUNY Binghamton, my beliefs have been reconfirmed—the beginning of classes is a time for confusion, for messing up and most importantly, for testing the waters.

In Vietnam, it seems, as I have found true of most cultural habits here, that the opposite is the case. In all aspects of Vietnamese life, there is little allowance given for hesitation of any kind; in fact, if one is riding a motorbike, even a small degree of self doubt can lead to being surrounded by a curious crowd of spectators drawn like tourists to the banks of the subsequently flowing rivers of blood. If a task is to be completed, it must be tackled head on and the ultimate goal must not be obscured by mortal feelings of fear, pain (emotional or as I can attest, due to a numb rear end from riding for long periods of time on the back of a motorbike, physical) or squeamishness. In our classes, this means that we are thrown right into the midst of Vietnamese culture, history, politics, and language without having the opportunity to assert the assumed superiority of the American way of doing things. So far, it has been really refreshing to try on another culture in lieu of the one I am most familiar with, but this process does not come without its own complications and struggles.

On one hand, there are many aspects of the Vietnamese culture that I am completely enamored with. As I expressed in my last blog post, the people here are some of the kindest and most generous people I have ever met. As a self admitted shy person who often dons the guise of confidence, I have in just one short week been inspired to truly embody the respect I have for both myself and for others. Every day, my new friends here remind me of how much fun it can be to get to know people and I am starting to accept the idea that I might be a person that other people would want to get to know (I can see how funny it might sound that I had to come half way around the world to figure this out, but these kinds of self revelations are just another unexpected benefit of the study abroad experience!). Most of the socializing that is done here is based on emotional connections, which is a big departure from the type of hanging out that I am used to at school where I might go to party and not share a meaningful word with anyone. Yesterday, September 2^nd, was Independence Day and I was invited to spend the morning cooking an extravagant and delicious meal with friends. While I took a back seat when it came to preparing the food (note: never volunteer to help cook when your friends could be professional chefs! Or, do as I did and offer to make cookies…), I had a great time talking, laughing, and all around being silly.

Girls Cooking

Map, the fearless warrior, protecting herself from exploding oil!

Cookie duty

Meal Time!

Ridding myself of the tendency to prejudge the unfamiliar and uncomfortable has been instrumental in learning to accept the aspects of life here that I find more difficult to cope with. Earlier this week, Map brought me to the little zoo that is part of a small amusement park here in the city. In all of my life, I have never seen more miserable looking animals, cooped up in filthy cages where they pace back and forth waiting for any kind of stimulation or perhaps, as I deem the most humane option, for their deaths. Coupled with the stories I have heard from friends who have had their dogs stolen off of the street to be sold as dinner in local restaurants, it is really difficult for me to deal with this deplorable treatment of animals. However, while I would be quick to condemn these terrible practices at home, I know that while I am here, I have to bite my tongue. Saving the animals of Danang is not my battle to fight, or at least not yet, while I am still learning the nuances of a culture where historically, people have starved to death due to lack of access to sustenance. In fact, in suspending many of my normally strong convictions, I have enjoyed some of the best food I have eaten on this trip, like fried squid or this BIG fish( see picture below) that was quickly wolfed down by group effort. I will NOT, however, be developing a taste for chicken feet or fish eyes(ew, Map!)!

Sad monkeys...

in sad cages.

Doesn't look it, but this fish was SO good!

While we started our volunteer work earlier this week, visiting both the Loving House and the Agent Orange Group Home, I prefer to hold off on describing these activities until I become more familiar with their inner workings and my feelings regarding the work that will be done there. Tomorrow, we go to the Marble Mountains, a day trip that I am extremely excited for. Continue to send me your thoughts by comments and emails; I can't express enough how much all of the support I have been receiving from family and friends has shaped my desire to plunge headfirst and wholeheartedly into this unique experience!