I love peanuts!

Really I do, as evidence from my halloween costume this year. I decided to pay homage to Charlie Brown. A two dollar yellow shirt. Some black tape. My costume was complete!

Anyways here are some comics I found relevant to me today. and they're just cute.


In Vietnam, it rains alot.


Sometimes, I feel like this.


In Vietnam, they talk about your weight alot.


And in Vietnam, people are referred to the number they were born. In the south if you were first born you are Sister #2, if you are second, you are Sister #3 and so on.

Juggling balance literally and figuratively.

Walking Tight roping to a scholarship recipients home.

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

"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.

Dissipated, families are rarely held together. Sometimes, the fabric is stretched so thin it snaps. I see it snap. I see it broken. I see it ripped to shreds unable to repair itself with a simple needle and thread. Like their homes, their lives are barely supported. I know that as an outsider, my 20-30 minute presence for some makes little to no difference.  I can do little to "fix" whatever problems their households hold. Helplessness is in front of me and I wonder, if I had said this or done this, could I have prevented her from being dropped out? Could I have worded my sentences better?

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."


---


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.

The process of nước ép chanh dây (passion fruit juice)

My second favorite fruit now, right next to mangosteens.

The wind rises on its own accordance.

And the water sits to its own content. With a subtle urgency, waves of green seep over the mekong so quietly that when the kites fly over hopelessness ceases to exist.

I've been away from home for 16 months now. These past few weeks have been a milestone of events from conducting my first training, teaching english at the shelter, and finally, conducting scholarship home visits on my own (with someone helping me write) to talk about the risks and dangers of human trafficking with parents. When I have to become dependent on someone I become really hesitant with decisions and doing things on my own. I have learned that I need to stand my own ground and face my own fears. It is the only way I can overcome them.

I knew I had to stay longer. To overcome my fears and insecurities all of which I harbor at an unhealthy rate. I'm learning not to hide things, to be emotional because it's human, to share with others and to be more present. I haven't completely accomplished this, but I've made a commitment to work on it. I also have great friends (Patricia & My-Kim) who just arrived and are accompanying me on this journey, bringing a HUGE sense of movement and color to my experience and projects.

They collapse, and she falls.

And sometimes somewhere in the middle of long stalks of spiteful weeds and tilted cement we find something that we thought we had lost. Floating along the lines of questions and confusion, she finds herself in a place familiar. Familiar because when she stands there time lets her know that he will not wait for her, a feeling ever so similar to a halted beat. Because suddenly a peculiar realization surfaces, one that is mixed with a dizzy cloud of the past and fictional memories. It is painful. The seeded fruits wilt to its side while the toes of children remain shoeless, unprotected and unsafe.

Then the wind decides to whisper so she dreams. The pathway seems to narrow itself, slicing the wind as it tries to escape. The walled windows gray from the miserable air of contempt and regret seem to stand upon itself in order to find what little light the surroundings had left. The smiles that remain in the small town are but of the echoes of children, too naive to realize that they soon will be unable to find that place of ease that currently filled them.

I delighted in the fact that he watched over souls.

The graves keeper kept quiet and followed. The musty sun was trying telling me that he once witnessed my 12 year old mother drive a car through the rice paddy fields with kids in the backseat. He hoped that she would not fall in. And while he was trying to talk to her, he now felt a distance.  He continued to follow. It was a type of distance two childhood friends feel when they move away from each other and see each other. Voices familiar become watered. I think the dirt roads were also trying to tell me something, but I couldn't quiet hear clearly. Our wheels barely noticed, having gone through on nice flat cemented roads. Hidden underneath, the bumpy road whispered to me, that my dad once ran through it not knowing the events the future held. The road did not know he would not see my dad for more than 30 years.

And as he crept closer, my attention was finally caught. Distracted by the sun and the dirt roads, I had not noticed that he was there. I read the "Noi Quy" (rules) of the cemetery. The words foreign. A man of calm, he wore a washed out one piece uniform precariously holding a cigarette in his mouth. Maybe so the ghosts can identify him. I had found myself in a cemetery to the left of Ba Temple in Chau Doc, a very famous Buddhist temple with devout followers who during a certain time of year make their way there, hundreds and thousands of people go to Chua Ba every year pouring our their struggles, hopes, and dreams. She listens. He follows. The sun and road tire.

We enter the cemetery after we convince our mom that she should find her grandmother's grave. Having made it here after hours and miles of travel with a plane, bus, and car I told her your grandmother is going to be angry if you don't see her as we were just outside the gates. My mother did not remember the sun. He was foreign to her. It was a small cemetery, consisting of Chinese people. Like her connection to the sun, she could not remember where the grave of her grandmother was. We looked and looked, and I stood there rather helpless since I could not read Chinese, I decided that the sun, dirt, and graves keeper could keep me company.

He seemed to have dust on him. The kind of dust that won't wash off. His skin was dark and folded, the sun too familiar with him. He followed us into the cemetery without telling him who he was, but he immediately offered help in trying to find the grave. Modest, he revealed that he watched over the cemetery."I look over this place, I know that TeoChow people are on the left and Hanh people are on the left." After talking to him, we told him a family member's name and he knew which grave it was. It's this one and the other one way in the back. He knew all the graves. I was fascinated that this was his life. In fact a tad delighted that he was the constant presence among souls long gone, and that he spent most of his days with the souls of graves. Stories tucked underneath cement he would never hear. However, I would imagine that watching over the graves, one would piece together stories as relatives came in and out paying their regards. Moms, Children, Dads, Uncles and Aunts sparsely make up the identity of the soul he watched over.

We asked him to help our family take a picture with my great grandmother, but he advised that taking pictures in three was not a good idea, that it was bad. He was superstitious, naturally. We thanked him for watching over the cemetery. And as we left, our wheels driving over the dirt road, I couldn't help but think that another piece of the puzzle was given to him, as he tried to piece together the stories of souls.

Cục Gạch Quán is my favorite restaurant in Vietnam.

Really, this is my favorite restaurant in Vietnam. For English click here. I have been meaning to write about this place for a long time, but since I don't really write about food, time passed and I ate here another 3 times to test it out again. har har.

My aunt, who I refer to as Mommy, was extremely skeptical of a restaurant that I would recommend. Being the great cook and picky eater that she is, she gave me a hard time before I convinced her and the family to come along with me and trust me. 

"This place is probably for foreigners." 

"Okay, Kim and Rebecca can eat here first and then me and you [my uncle] can find another place later." 

"Just because this place looks nice does not mean the food is good" 

"This place is so empty"

And so with a series of ego hurting remarks I became sorta paranoid that my aunt would not like the restaurant therefore be grumpy the whole night. However, my aunt has been back three times since then. YES WIN!

Cục Gạch Quán literally translates to Stone Restaurant (Correct me if I'm wrong). The decor was what originally drawn me to it, owned and designed by a Vietnamese architect I had really wanted to go just because of the vintage music devices they had lying about the place but it was the food that had me coming back for more.

The atmosphere is warm and welcoming like your "grandmother's home." I was confused when I first walked in because it literally seemed like I just busted into someone's house.

Reservations are recommended for big groups, but I've been able to drop by with no problems every time. In order to go upstairs you have to cross this small river bond (see photo below.)

They serve traditional homey Vietnamese dishes to your liking. Like it fried? Then have it fried. Like it sautéed? They can do that too. Or would you rather just have it boiled? Then request it. The entire restaurant only has one vietnamese menu and one english menu. People usually just come in having already ordered what they wanted over the phone or just asking the waiter what's good. Each dish I've tried is pretty damn good. Though I don't have any of the photos here (since I gobbled down the food before I realized I forgot to take a picture) I'd recommend the fried soft tofu with fried lemon grass and their fried soft shell crab. YUM. Each dish is suppose to have a "homey grandmother" feel to it. Basically you come in and tell them what kind of soup, vegetable, and meat you'd like and how you would like it and there it is - you have a feast of a meal made just how you want it to be. 

Is that a stalk of morning glory (rau moung) used as a straw? YES!

Besides the awesome decor -outside the door it says "Office of the architect" in Vietnamese - It's all the small things in this restaurant that draw me back again and again. You can see the owner's ideas and thoughts really come to life from the building itself down to the utensils you use. Their vintage dish ware is from a long time ago, the glasses are purposely egg carton shaped, and the entire restaurant looks like someone's home. There are three areas of the restaurant: the front of the house (1st Floor), the attic, and the book room (2nd Floor). I prefer the attic, personally since the small door that enters that area makes it seem like your stepping into a whole other place. There is a bed that is turned into a table, and comfortable lounging chairs.

I'd recommend not coming on the weekend as it gets outrageously busy and crowded which is not the atmosphere that I first fell in love with. Service tends to be really overwhelmed at that point as well. I'd recommend a tad early around 5:30 pm, on a weekday. The restaurant is pretty much all yours.

Done. ăn ngon miệng nhe!

So enough of my nonsense talk. Just try it. Aw hell, if I had a date this would be the place I would take him. For folks coming by to Saigon I'll take you to this place if you'd like, as long as you don't give me a hard time like my aunt.


Address: 10 Dang Tat, District 1
Price range: 30,000 vnd to 200,000 vnd