This past two weeks I have been making home visits of scholarship recipients in rural areas of Vietnam. Bearing a bit of discomfort of heat and dirty motels is nothing compared to the difficult lives of these young girls and their families. For those days I become intertwined with their experiences and thoughts. These areas are some of the most impoverished regions of Vietnam, close to the porous border, economic opportunities are limited helplessness seeps through dirt covered corners, and the nimble fabric of peoples lives are stretched and pulled. What remains is a sense of tenacity that is as cliche as this is, hard for me to describe in words. So here are theirs:
"Is America in a different country than Vietnam?" - a scholarship recipient
"My dream is to one day to set foot in America" - a scholarship recipient
"I want to go to college and become a police woman." - a scholarship recipient
"Guess what that tree is! Do you know what that tree is? (She points to the Jackfruit tree). - a scholarship recipient
"We live day by day" - a common thing said by families
"We make about 40,000 vnd to 50,000 vnd after a long days of labor in the rice fields" ($2 to $2.50) - a mother
"I really want my sister to go to school, I used to be in the scholarship program but I dropped out and now I have this baby, I don't want her to suffer like me" - an older sister of a scholarship recipient
"Their mom and dad passed away. I care for them all" - A single mother about her 6 orphaned nieces.
"My grades are at "poor" because I have to wake up at 2 or 3 am to go catch fish" - a scholarship recipient
"My husband makes 100,000 vnd, I bring in about 70,000 vnd because I'm weaker and can't do the things he does" - a mother
"My husband makes 100,000 vnd, I bring in about 70,000 vnd because I'm weaker and can't do the things he does" - a mother
"I dropped out of school because our family doesn't have enough money" - a sister of a scholarship recipient
"My son and daughter work far, they have enough to survive out there and don't send money home" - a mother
"If I have time, I'll go to the market and help people carry water for a thousand" (couple of cents) - a scholarship recipient
"I live really far, so it takes me one hour by bike to go to school" - a scholarship recipient
"She's broken don't you know? She's broken that's why she had to marry to make something of herself. There. Is that enough for you to understand?" - a grandma speaking of her granddaughter in our scholarship program who got pregnant at 16 and dropped out of school.
"There is no trafficking here. I just go to work and home. We don't see any of that here" - a mother who lives in porous border regions of Vietnam where human trafficking is rampant
"Whatever my kids want, I can't stop them." - a mother responding to my question whether anyone in their family wanted to marry a foreigner - brokered marriages are very common in rural areas.
"Yes, I heard about it through your organization and events at our school by your organization" - a mother after I asked her if she had heard of women and child trafficking.
One girl would not look me in the eye as I confronted her about dropping out of school. What will you do when you quit school? You're 15. You can't legally work yet. And even if you do find work you won't make that much money. Do you want to work in the rice paddies? Do you want to be a daily laborer like your mom and suffer? You know when you quit school it isn't great. You will have to work very very hard. You won't get to play with your friends. I know life is very hard for you but you have to see farther. It's not that everyone can get a scholarship like this.
My heart was breaking and I was trying with my broken Vietnamese so hard to have her understand. She wouldn't look at me in the eyes. I'm not sure what will happen to her.
Yet I know our miniscule home visits to over 400 girls in our programs is crucial to emphasizing the importance of their education to their future and prevention of trafficking. Some of them don't really understand the concept of our scholarship and why we are doing it. They also don't see what an education can do for them.
I visit empty homes. Homes where just the grandparents are there. Homes where no parents live. Empty not only because there isn't a physical sense, but because a sense of hopelessness has gotten hold of the family. Warmth and love has seeped into the crevices and escaped and what is left is uncomfortable stifling air of forgotten halted dreams. The feeling of crushed dreams clings to the walls, worn out and rusted, foundations peel and collapse. Crushed dreams and ruined hope is a horrible feeling.
Yet for some homes, as fragile their lives are they seem to move together with the seasons. The water floods, dries, yet always returns. The seeping lush green rice fields return to sweep over the mekong delta region into an ease that I cannot simply describe in symbols and words.
For some homes, their families know that the scholarship is an opportunity for their daughters to lead a different life and so they hold on ever so resiliently.
"We have nothing. I don't want my daughter to work like her parents, to be laborers for hire in limbo all the time. I want her to stay in school."
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Another volunteer and I were talking about our experiences being abroad and removing ourselves from our familiar surroundings. There is something so simple with being stripped down to basics, to learning basic things as learning how to speak and express your opinions. The process is slow and difficult yet you learn so much. Because you are stripped down to your basics, to be unfamiliar you are essentially forced to learn, meet challenges that weren't challenges before, and overcome them. I see the process of overcoming my fears clearly, not clouded by comfort and familiarity. I've been pushed in ways that I have never been pushed before and I continuously face them. Finally, I am overcoming them.
Over a year ago I had an email conversation with my friend Danielle about voice. It was sparked by one of my blog entries from my other blog. I think finding voice is a life long process. Something that is consistently taking shape with every new and old experience I have. With every new thing I learn about myself. With every thing that comes with life. Finding your voice is strongly linked with how much you love yourself. How much you think you are valued and worth. Yes, its contingent on how you feel and the interactions are are having and also the people that surround you. It is contingent on many things, but I've learned that I cannot let factors take over me and limit me. I gotta just try, I just gotta keep going. I have to not let things make me feel down for a long time. Frustrate me. If you want something done then do it. I have to be mindful to rest my mind. Our reality is what we make of it. I have to try not to get lost in my thoughts and insecurities as I always do. Gotta hold onto my voice which I've always had inside me.
I sorta of link finding my voice with learning a new language. A lot of it is confidence and believing in yourself. More simply said than done. Before I didn't know Vietnamese at all. I could only hear and absorb it. I could understand it but I never used it. Therefore I never knew how to use it and I didn't believe I could speak it so I didn't try. But as a result I was quiet of the times. I let things go because I couldn't express my opinions or thoughts. Things passed and I did not take the opportunity to do something about it. I let my limitations silenced myself.
But then I started to speak. Little by little. I spoke. I learned new words. I unlocked a language I always understood and began to use it. I absorbed the vocabulary. I tried to express my feelings. And now I am turning my thoughts and opinions into actions. This took me over a year to do this. I was patient. And something was telling me that I should stay in Vietnam longer, because I was just beginning to grasp the language, I was just begin to speak, beginning to wrap my finger around things yet I wasn't doing anything yet.
Now I'm starting to do things and this is such a tremendous step for me. To be able to take ownership of a space that felt so foreign to me. I'm always talking about the idea of ownership in different spaces from my current work to my activist circles in Berkeley. Taking ownership is to be able to feel the freedom and ability to do something in a particular space and framework that you are in. I of course could not have done this without the PALS wonderful staff members, volunteers and friends that I have met along the course of my time in Vietnam. I am still working it, but now I know my voice is there. By being stripped to the basics, voiceless, I was able to discover my voice. An experience I value so greatly.
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