Wednesday, June 29, 2005

PASSPORT TO RESCUE #

MATT TROYER POSTING HERE...A SUMMARY OF OUR FIRST FEW DAYS SHOOTING "PASSPORT TO RESCUE"...   ARRIVAL DAY, FRIDAY JUNE 17, 2005--HO CHI MINH CITY: Arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).  Customs was a breeze.  This place is...unreal.  I can't begin to do it justice.  It's enough to say that Talbott's blog prepared me only a tiny bit for the...energy (insanity?) coursing through this city.  There are, apparently, no road rules save one:  don't get yourself hit.  The motorbikes number in the thousands--like a shriner parade on steroids, they just keep coming--some on the wrong side of the street, some dancing around taxis, regular bicycles, cyclos (bike taxis), motorcycle-taxis and of course pedestrians.  Everyone is beeping.  No one wears a helmet--kids are perched on their parent's lap as the motorbikes and scooters dodge around one another, six abreast.    The sidewalk restaurant we tried featured grilled pork--open air dining, and warm beer served in a glass of ice.  Street vendors constantly approach you throughout your meal.  One reaching for the piece of fruit I was peeling to show me how to do it correctly.  "Thanks, I got it, buddy."   The room is nice.  We are staying in a guest house--someone's home--on a busy street, 1/2 block from where Matt and Bee live.  I have a room that faces the back and is less noisy.  We are paying $10US/night for airconditioned room   I'm a millionaire now.  The dollar is currently valued at 15,800 Vietnamese dong (insert own "dong" joke here).  I cashed in $100US for $1.58million dong.  (Six beers cost us 15,000 dong--$1US--so the food/drink money goes far, too)   We start shooting tomorrow--our appointment at the hospital is at 7am and we'll hang out and hope to get a few good ambulance runs.  It will be an adventure watching the ambulance navigate the anarchy of the streets.   I hit the wall about an hour ago.  It's 9pm here, and I'm off to bed.   It's brutally hot and humid here, and the smell of the city is hard to escape--a sweet cloying garbagey smell.    But the people are friendly.  Our innkeeper--a woman in her sixties who speaks Vietnamese and French--no English--sat us down and showed Jeff and I three(!) photo albums of family pictures.  We were able to deduce that she has a daughter and grandchild in Texas.  We think.    That's all for now.    More later from this adventure!   G'night...and Good Morning.   ------------------------------------------------------------------------   PASSPORT TO RESCUE: DAY ONE... The surreal gets surrealer....   Left the comfortable air conditioned room at 630am this morning.  Found Talbott and Boucher squatting on impossibly tiny stools with an impossibly tiny table between them.  Eating (what else?) noodle soup and iced coffee.   I jump on the back of Talbott's motorcycle, Jeff jumps on the back of a motorcyle taxi, and away we go...   The doctors are amazing at this hospital.  One day a week they do a 24 hour shift with the ambulance crew.  I was so busy preparing myself for the culture and temperature shock here, that I sort of forgot we were going to be doing ambulance runs.  The taxis are large minivans--old Mercedes and Toyota Previa type snub-nose vans.  The doctor, two nurses, and the ambulance driver make up the team.  To this team we've added Jeff, Matt, myself, and the Government Interpreter/Censor--a 26 year old chap named, as close as I can tell, "Yoom."   We're cramped in the van.  Especially on the way back when we add a patient, and one or two family members.   Our first run out was an exercise in navigating traffic.  The thousands of motorbikes don't so much pull over for the ambulance, but race ahead of it.  The wailing siren does little more than make the motorbike drivers look over their shoulders, and then gun their engines.  The bicylcists are the only ones who swerve slightly.  Any cars in the vicinity race behind us and use us as a wedge to plow through traffic.  When we arrive at our first call, we are told the woman has been stuffed into a taxi and sped away to the hospital.  Siren off.  Head back to base.   Our second call was also a woman who was having trouble breathing.  Luu Ti Ba is 86 years old.  We transported her to the closest hospital (not the one we're working out of) and were shut down by the hospital guards from filming on their grounds.  We still managed to get shots of the red flag with a bright yellow star waving from the main parking area.   On the way back to base we got another call--a 76 year old man with heart pains.   His home was in the back, through and behind a music CD shop.  We followed the ambulance crew into the home.  The patriarch of the family was prone on the floor.  It took me several moments before I realized he was dead.   The crew began working immediately.  CPR and they inserted a tube down his throat and "bagged" him.  The EKG machine they hooked him up to began beeping--they'd brought him back.  His family hovered around--no one questioning our presence--after all we'd come in with the ambulance crew.  A small girl hugged her stuffed animal--the grandmother of the family (his wife) rocking herself back and forth in a chair.  The daughter giving comfort to her mother.   Then they lost him.  And got him back.  And lost him again.   He did not make it.    It was a sobering reminder of what we were doing here--that lives hang in the balance of these workers--who have to shrug it off as part of the job, and return to the next run with their heads in the right place.    Harder for us to do....   Back for lunch--   Noodle soup.   A few more runs....good footage.    Dinner:  noodle soup.   I may turn into a noodle soup. One night run and called it quits. I'll type more later.  We are back at it tomorrow.  7am.   After breakfast.   I may eat a granola bar....   --------------------------------------------------------------------   DAY TWO... I've made an error.  The internet cafe has a sliding door in front.  It was closed.  This I assumed meant it was air conditioned inside.  It is not.  Perhaps it's to keep the sound outside to a minimum?  It's hot outside.  It's hotter in here.  My FINGERS are sweating.  Slipping off the keyboard.  My eyes are sweating.  My sweat is sweating.   Day two is a Sunday.   Sunday.  Most Vietnamese work 6-day work weeks.  Sunday is their day off.  Very slow at the hospital from 8am - 230pm.  Nary a call.  Then we go on a run.  An eight year old boy is weak and hasn't eaten.  We're off.  Only the second person we've had that's under 70.   We arrive, sirens blaring, the team of one doctor and two nurses descend on the house and the boy and his family.  Along with a government interpreter and three Americans holding expensive looking cameras.   Turns out the boy is faking.  His parents would not let him go outside and play with his friends earlier, so he would not talk to them and would not eat.  I guess you'd say they then "called his bluff" and phoned for help.  Interesting footage and cute story--might be one for the "keeper" file...   The doctors make a good living here.  By Vietnamese standards.  But many of you reading this will make more this year than the doctor will make in his life-time.  He is paid $110US/month.  The nurses make somewhere around the same amount depending on seniority.   Yesterday afternoon we figure that splitting up the three of us can serve to cover better ground.  We begin sending shooters in twos and alone depending on what the early word is on the call--sometimes we're only able to get an age--some times nothing.  If it's an elderly person we tend to send one shooter as we've already got good coverage of a couple older people.  If it's a younger person we send Jeff (the pro) and the best camera.  It pays off big time later that night.   Talbott heads off on a call which ends up having a common ending--the person was thrown in a taxi and ferried away to hospital before our ambulance arrives.  Meanwhile Jeff and I ride along with an interesting one.  Our interpreter tells us "we have a Nigerian with influenza at a hotel."    Off we go.  Night time ambulance driving is even more exciting than day time.  And even more insane.  The streets are clogged with motorbikes and cars and more motorbikes.  Zipping and zooming every which way.    Sunday night is the "day-off night" and seems to have impossibly doubled the amount of people on the road.  Talbott calls Jeff at one point and says he's back at home base.  We have JUST narrowly avoided smashing into the side of a bus--and I mean narrowly.  Tires squealing, back end sliding.  I hear Jeff's end of the conversation, yelled into the cell phone over the wail of the ambulance siren.  "Matt!"  he yells.  "Yes.  We're on one!  What?  Yes!  We're on our way to see a Nigerian with a cold!"   Hanging on with one hand and trying to shoot video out the front windshield with the other, I crack up.  The surreal gets surrealer....   And we are suddenly in the ritzy part of town.   Up to this point, I didn't know there was a ritzy part of town, but suddenly we are in front of a grand hotel--a doorman (!) opens the ambulance's side door, and ushers our crew of medics and Jeff and me into the lobby--which opens up to gold grandeur and marble columns.  The medical team strides up to the gigantic front desk--as if they're checking in.  The front desk clerks point to a uniformed bellman who hustles us through the lobby and into the many-mirrored elevator.    We are inside the Hotel Rex.  I don't know enough history, but this is a hotel where the top U.S. Brass stayed during the war, and a landmark Saigon spot.   We follow the bellman and the medical team to the third floor.  The door is opened by an extremely tall black man in a flowing African robe.  He ushers in the medics and waves pointedly to us--"No Cameras!"  We are left in the hallway.   When we get the debriefing on the way back to the hospital, we learn that the Nigerian ambassador to France is visiting on holiday and was having flu-like symptons.  They gave him some medicine.   While we're gone, Talbott gets another call--this time a motorcycle accident.  Two boys were racing and knocked over two innocents on their bikes.  A man's leg is broken.  The footage of our team working on him is gruesome.  And probably perfect.    What a strange adventure.   Coming back to the hotel last night.  Weary.  Sweaty.  Jet lagged.  And exhausted.    I have a visitor in my bathroom.   On the floor.   The world's largest.   Cockroach.   Maybe ever.   Thank God Jeff is brave.  He comes across the hall.  We shoot the roach with our video cameras.  And smash it with a flipflop.    I sleep with my light on.   For breakfast:  noodle soup.     http://www.rexhotelvietnam.com/   -----------------------------------------------------------------   DAYS 3 - 5.   DAY 3 is more of the same.  Arrive in medical team's little waiting area.  Wait.   Wait for calls to come in.    Wait a lot.   Wait some more.   We've mastered the "splitting up" technique, and have even gotten to the point of asking the age of the patient before heading out.  We have so much footage of older patients, that if the call is for someone over 50, we'll send Talbott or myself (rookie shooters with cameras 2 and 3) and save Jeff (camera 1) for someone younger.  It pays off again.  JB finds himself on a motorcycle accident call for an 11 year old girl.  The poor thing fell off her parent's motorbike while reaching for her hat that had blown off.  She banged her head on the pavement and was suffering from concussion/closed head injury symptons.    Our crew went out to transfer her from one hospital less equipped to handle her case, to another...   Motorcycles and scooters are the predominant form of transportation here in Ho Chi Minh City.  There are somewhere near 2 MILLION scooters and motorcycles in this one city, but there is no helmet law (heat?).  It is so far removed from our stringent U.S. laws regarding child safety seats, etc.  It is entirely common to find a family of five or more perched on one motorbike.  Dad drives with an infant or small child perched in front of him peeking over the handlebars.  The older children sit behind him, and the Mama rides in back.  And the universal-ness of moving vehicles leading to sleepy babies holds true even here.  Often you'll see a Mom driving a bike with one hand, and holding a sleeping child on her lap with the other hand!  How these children sleep amidst the noise and rumble of thousands of motorcycles and scooters jockeying throughout the streets is beyond me.  But they do.   I go on a solo call in the morning on Monday.  It is for an elderly patient--a man who I'm later told is 84 years old, but he is like a living skeleton.  When I first see him I assume he's in his 90s.  We drive in the ambulance with his wife and son.  Upon arriving back at the hospital, they wheel the man in, and his wife, comes out, and with tears in her eyes, thanks me.  I'm caught off guard.  Thanks me?   It appears that because we show up with the medical staff, the family members assume we are part of the team.  No one questions three white guys with cameras because we show up with the white coats and docs.  It is so unlike America in that regard.  In fact, the only place our cameras have been turned away is in the Hotel Rex at the Nigerian Ambassador's room.   On Day 4, Tuesday, Jeff gets up early and goes with Matt's fiancee Bee to the funeral of the man who died on Saturday.  It is a traditional Buddhist funeral, and I'm now regretting that I didn't go with them.  But it started so early (they left at 530am) that I opted for sleep over funeral.  But apparently he got some amazing footage.  They celebrate the life of the individual here.  But with some wonderfully quirky traditions, including burning fake money to send along with the spirit--there are parade bands and costumes.  Shop owners on the same street burn incense the morning of the funeral to ward away bad luck. (and maybe roaches?)   Tuesday night.   And we eat cobra.   Oh my.   It starts out as an expedition with one of our ambulance drivers.  His name is "Hom" which means "brave" or "hero."  And he is.  He's our best driver.  Super aggresive, and showy and flashy at the same time.  Shifting gears with a flourish, pointing at other cars as if to say, "hold it, buddy!  right there!"  His instincts are ridiculously tuned.  But he's also the sweetest guy--big broad smile and although he doesn't speak a lick of English, his communication skills are universal.   We meet him at the hotel gate and head off to the restaurant.  The first item we order is perhaps the most important:  beer.  The second item is perhaps the most disturbing:  fertilized duck egg.   Once again.  That's:   Fertilized.   Duck.   Egg.   Before we got there, I pictured a hard boiled egg with the teeniest tiniest little bitty already-formed duck embryo.  The shot we've prepared is: me to camera saying, "the tradition is you eat one egg if your luck is bad, and two if your luck is good--now I don't know how my luck is, but my stomach tells me I'll eat just one..."   So the eggs arrive.  A bunch of them.  "Hom" has brought along his 18 year old twin daughters "Chisne" and "Non" to help.  They are sweet kids who tell me that drinking beer is unhealthy.  They then order Cokes.  And duck embryos.   Camera's rolling.  Chisne shows me how to tap the top of the egg with my spoon.  Cracks open, and I start peeling pieces away to expose the inside.    "You must drink!" Chisne says.  Oh boy.   The egg is hot in my hand, so I know it's a least partially boiled.  I put the egg to my lips...and knock it back, drinking the liquid from inside the egg.  There is very little, and it tastes like...egg.  To my relief.   Then we peel more away.  I see a comforting sight:  The yellow of the egg!  Just like any old hard boiled egg anywhere.  I'm thinking now: "no problem!  I can eat a yolk."   And that's when I see the beak.  And the eyes.  And the head.  And this is not a teensy tiny little bitty duck embyo, friends.  This is a freakin baby duck.  One step away from adding feathers.  In my egg.    This is a nightmare.   Keep this in mind:  I wouldn't eat broccoli when I was a kid.  Hell, when I was a kid, the only green things I ever ate were peas--and they had to be canned, not frozen.  I wouldn't eat tomatoes, or mushrooms, or really anything unless it had "peanut butter and jelly" in the title.  I was a finicky kid.  Now granted, I've broadened my pallete since then--even eating sushi now.  But, folks, let me tell you, a baby duck in an egg is a whole different deal.   I can't bring myself to pull the trigger on the duck itself yet.  Chisne tells me to eat the yolk first.  I wiggle it out of the egg with a tiny spoon, and with my beer in one hand and yolk in the other, down it.    Not bad.  Tastes like a yolk.   And then--Chisne says words that are magical.  "No that's dirt, don't eat the dirt."  I'm confused at first, but then realize that she's talking about the ducky duck itself.  I don't have to eat the duck!  I just have to eat the stuff around it.  This is really, really good news.   Our translator--the 26 year old "Yoom" who has fast become our pal, does not, however, subscribe to this "dirt" notion.  And eats the whole thing.  Including the ducky duck.  This requires ordering another beer for me.   Next up on the menu?  Eel.   No sweat.  Hell this is even cooked eel.  Fried in fact.  Bring it on.  They do.  We eat it.   And then.  The main course.  Snake.   When they bring it to the table I must confess I was a little confused.  I thought we'd see it like the eel was--maybe fried?  Maybe deep fried?  Maybe HEAVILY battered and deep fried?   But nope.  This cobra comes out boiled.  Or steamed.  (One of the two.)    WITH THE SKIN ON.   So you take a rice cup, add some stringy fried banana pieces and leafy greens.  A little sauce.  Top it off with a nice piece of cobra meat--skin intact.  And pop that honey in your mouth.  Yum yum, pass the salt!  For the curious:  snake is chewy.  Extremely chewy.  Like eating snake gum. It tastes nothing like chicken.    But it gets even better.  Because they bring to the table in a wee tiny Hennessy bottle that's seen better days: "snake wine."   Snake wine is rice wine (sort of like Japanase Sake--and damn strong).  Mixed with...   ...the blood of the snake they've just killed for our dinner.  Nothing like a little blood and wine.   It's a dark red color that smells of rubbing alcohol.  As the emcee and host of this travel extravaganza, I get the dubious honor of trying this first. Again with a beer in one hand and the snake blood/wine in the other hand, I take a sip.  Hmm.  Do-able.  The alcohol overpowers the blood thank goodness.  And it's NOT like drinking a scab. Thank more goodness. We pass the shot glass around the table--everyone takes sips.  When it gets to our brave ambulance driver, he tosses back a full shot of the stuff.  So we then take turns around the table doing this.   Where am I?    The surreal.  Gets surrealer.   We've had a couple of days since then.  And this may be hard to believe, but there are more stories.  More outrageous than that one.  Stories that include filming in the farmer's market this morning which is something like a cholera festival--I am not kidding when I tell you that underneath the table which housed some of the most beautiful vegetables I've ever seen--giant leafy greens, gorgeous tomatoes, shiny red and yellow peppers--was a giant dead rat.  And no one batted an eye.  They knew it was there--but they did not care.  Things like going into the part of town that is heavily populated by folks from the north.  Folks who have a taste for things far worse than snake.  Folks who eat man's best friend.  Food stands with dog displayed.  The hardest thing we've had to look at here.    Surreal?  It doesn't get much more surreal.   Three more days here.   Oh, and if you were wondering:  the noodle soup this morning?    Boring.   Boring and deliciously excellent.     Home soon... Posted by Matt Troyer on 6/29/05; 1:56:55 AM from the BAWP dept. Discuss

Saturday, May 21, 2005

The Second Fall #

Saigon is falling again. We are fleeing. Its 8:00am and the crowds are swelling, bursting , exploding around the Re-unification Palace, the Presidents Palace. Take your pick. Which name would yould you like to remember? Do you sell noodles or city blocks? Were you important then or now? Its 90 degrees plus something already. One zillion percent humidity. We weave in out of pandimonium. We just want out. We want out bad. At 11:30 the palace will fall again, at the same time it did thirty years ago to the day, to the minute to the second. I'm sorry we are missing this but we are fleeing and desperate. The re-inactment will feature the same  boys from thirty years ago. Boys gone to middle age and beyond, hair turned to salt and pepper or in retreat. Bellys swelled on thirty years of the exess of victory. Last night a massive fireworks display sounded eerily like distant shells, a low bassy concusive whomp. I don't think the obvious parallel to the real fall of Saigon was any accident. for the last month the city has been building to this day, the powers that be chomping at the bit with the concieted swagger of victors. Red flags are everywhere. The other day I witnessed 3 police officers standing disapprovingly outside a business as the owner sheepishly put up his missing flag. I wonder what that little transgression of patriotism cost him. Ho Chi Minh and his warm fatherly smile is on every corner with the date 30-4-75. Now all this pomp and circumstance is good and well for the victors who consider this an Independence day from foriegn opression. But this is, or once was, Saigon, and chests thrown out with the pride of victory tell only half the story. A large percentage of this population are maids who used to be teachers, noodle stall workers who used to be doctors, Cyclo drivers who used to be generals. And so, as we make our escape, it does feel like a fall again, a stange mix of victory and defeat leave the air somewhat sour and discordinate. I look at the older faces and wonder what dark caves of memory lie behind their eyes. Eventually we make our way to the outskirts of town. The bus traffic is unbelievable, coming and going. Whats really remarkable is not the ammount of buses , but the contents inside. They look like those crazy how many people can you fit in a phone booth competitions, heads poking out of every window trying to find some air. We can relate as our heads poke foreward, get us out. We are Two Americans, Tim and I, Jake, an Australian and Johnny, a Scot. We drive two Russian Minks, A Bonus, my bike and a Suzuki, Jakes. A breakdown nightmare of foriegners, foriegn parts and inconsitent origin. Eventually  factories become rice fields, the bus traffic dwindles and we are free. We stop for sugar cane juice on ice, giddy in our escape. Jake tells a story of a man he met in India. This man lifted large stones with his penis for about a buck a lift. The sympathetic pain is hilarious, the juice of freedom sweet. We ride ahead. Five days of no work and the endless possiblitlities a map and the will to go streatch out before us. Jake motions me over and comments on how incredibly good the road is. Not more than a minute later it turns to dirt and crater sized potholoes. We giggle about things better left unsaid and the turn of fortune they can bring when voiced. The road only stays bad for a few kilometres and four hours later flatland turns to gentle hills. The earth becomes a rich red. Concrete homes become raised wooden planked huts and the people turn one shade darker towards chocolate. We are getting closer to Loc Ninh and the Cambodian border. In Loc ninh we stop for a late lunch. Its about 230. We all remark what a quaint little lovely town it seems. Some things are better left unsaid. We have a huge feast and fat and happy, we contemplate settling in for the night. The Ho Chi Minh trail looks to run about 150K until it intersects with a major highway. Thats about three or four hours on paved road, but we have no idea on the condition of the road. Its 330. We elect to go on reasoning that if worse comes to worse we can always pay someone to crash on their floor. At the head of the trail there is an empty guard station, a raised gate and a sign that reads FRONTIER AREA, in English. We begin to head north and from the map we know that the Cambodian border lies about 10k to our left. Small dirt roads lead out of jungle and rubber plantations, a smugglers paradise. We are searching for Bu Dop, the first town on our map which may or may not have a hotel. At about 5.00, Tim and I have stopped in Bu Dop to wait for Johhny and Jake. As usual, the eyes of the locals have turned to view the crazy white guys on bikes. Unlike in other towns however, no one approaches us, they keep their distance with suspicious eyes. Tim and I shrug this off and wait. My phone rings and its Johnny telling us that Jake has a flat a few Ks back. We backtrack and settle into a lovely roadside stall under a wise old Banyon tree. We sip more sugarcane juice and enjoy the big shadows of early evening light. Johnny arrives and tells us Jake will be along shortly. Bu Dop didn't look to promising for hotels but we are in road trip mode and settle into easy conversation. Jake arrives and we all saddle up. As we do, a man arrives who I don't pay much notice to. He asks us where we are going in Vietnamese and I answer back in Vietnamese something that roughly translated would mean "Go play, Bu Dop". As soon as the last word leaves my mouth I notice two things. His pants, which are cop green, and his demeaner, which is pissed. He's wearing a civilian shirt, but his pants are definetly cop green and he is angry. I edge my bike forward onto the road, the first guy is screaming in Vietnamese as two more guys with cop green pants arrive. This is not good. He grabs Jake's keys out of his bike. This is worse. We have previously agreed that in cases of brushes with the law, we speak no Vietnamese. Although I have unknowingly already broken this rule, looks between us say stick to our game plan. I get off my bike and in the most subservient manner I can I nod and point to Bu Dop saying, " go bu Dop, sleep, sleep", laying my head in my hands. This appears to work and he hands Jake back his keys. We slowly drive off and regroup 100 yards down the road with " what the hell was that?" all around. A second later they are on us again, surrounding us on 3 motorbikes. We push forward, figuring they are just going to escort us through town. They ride one in front, two behind. The guy in front pulls into what looks to be a police station. Uh-Oh... We slow down as the guys in back pull in as well. They begin waving us in. We stop and stare at them feigning confusion. They continue to wave and the first guys mood has worsened, his face twisted as he shouts. "Lets get out of here", we say punching it.  Now we really are fleeing. We are hoping that on this national holiday one too many glasses of rice wine may have been imbibbed and they will simply be too lazy to follow. Two minutes later we are not so lucky. Cop number one is on the back of a motorbike as it pulls in front of us and he is wildly gesticulating for us to pull over. As exiting as a high-speed chase along the Ho Chi Minh Trail sounds, especially in what is now fading daylight, we oblige. The first guy now looks like his head is going to pop off. He is clearly the big shot in this tiny corner of the world and we have embarrassed him in front of his men. He shoves Jake forward, climbs on the back of his bike and points back toward the police station. Jake's suspension bottoms out. The guy is too fat. Jake forgets himself and says, "mop que, mop que", meaning too fat, too fat, in Vietnamese. I say "Jaaake" with hard upward inflection meaning both, don't speak Vietnamese, and don't pour alcohol on the fire. Jake hears this , but is trying to surpress a giggle as we all are. The guy is way too fat and Jake's bike isn't going anywhere with this tub of government goo on the back. The tub of goo recognizes this as well and instructs his lighter partner to drive Jake and his bike back to the station. We are clearly beaten. The police station is an old, one room French colonial with chipped yellow paint and green window shutters. Inside a huge picture of Uncle Ho looms over a small desk. There is a wooden bench seat along the back wall where we are instructed to sit. Fatty is clearly still pissed but now he has us where he wants us and he is pacing around the room, chest out and chin up. Central casting would have a hell of a time coming up with a better canidate to play provincial vietnamese border cop # 1. His pregnant belly sags over green cop pants. A silk polo frames a gaudy gold chain. A low hairline almost negates his forehead suggesting some sort of evolutionary skip. He stinks of rice whiskey. We sit four broken figures on the bench and whisper, "We're sorta #$%$^%$#^%$ ed aren't we," amongst ourselves. Goo boy grabs some sort of official commie procedure book, flipping through the pages as he studies us. He keeps asking us where we are going in Vietnamese which we pretend not to understand. All the while more of his boys keep arriving. The room has no fan. Finally a matronly woman of about fifty arrives. In halting, painfully slow and overly formal English she introduces herself. Her eyes dart from us to the chief. She is scared. Scared her English isn't good enough, but more disturbingly, scared of fatty low brow who brought us in. She says, "My leader would like to control your passports." Yes, she actually says, " my leader". My passport is outside in my bag strapped to my bike as well as about 200 dollors worth of Vietnamese Dong and 200 worth of emergency American notes. Through the window I see about five guys starting to go through our bags. I tell her I need my bag and the leader in all his wisdom grants me permission to fetch it. The money is still there and we all surrender our passports. By now there are about a dozen cops, henchmen or something assembled in the room, the air feral and suffocating. The " Leader" studies our passports slamming each one down when done and staring at us  as if evidence of spying, murder and crimes against the state lay within. Soon everyone in the room is going through our passports. They toss them around and take out our entry papers. In a third world foriegn country, your passport feels like a vital private organ. I feel like a teenage girl unwillingly being felt up by some sick pedifial. Our interpreter keeps starting every indistinguisable English sentence with my leader this and my leader that. I'm not sure which I hate worse; her pathetic subservience  of the leader or the sad smile she keeps giving us. A smile which we feel oblidged to return, not out of politeness, but out of fear which is the same place her smile comes from. It is dark now and the best we can make out from our interpreter and our own pathetic Vietnamese is that it makes no sense why 4 foriegners would want to come to this part of Vietnam. I want to point out that my map clearly says tourist map on it and Bu dop is on said map in big bold letters. I say nothing. I am starting to become fairly certain that the hard wooden plank under my butt will be my bed tonight. I glance around at my friends. Their faces are filthy with eight hours of road, long ashen and drawn. There are puddles of sweat on the floor. We are scared. Im trying to reason with myself that the worst that will happen is that we will have to spend the night here, pay some sort of fine or something, but we will get out. We will, won't we?... My pep talk to myself isn't working. The current fact is that we are prisoners here completly at the mercy of this fat evolutionarily challenged leader. My heart wants to jump out of my chest. Our translater rambles incoherently on, "My leader this, my leader that". she says. The leader wants to control our bags. I slid my money into my pocket. Jake makes a huge dumbshow out of the search, overly explaining each item, "One pair of sandals, brown, one toothbrush, yellow, intended to keep ones teeth clean." I am unable to muster the same sarcasm as they search my bag. The leader intensly studies my copy of Dom Delillio's, Underworld. He is searching for secret code or maybe he is interested in contempary suburban American angst. His men are gathered around reading over his shoulder. The book is upside down. Then he gets to my journal and hands it to the interpreter. The potential here is very bad. I'm sure there are things, which taken out of context, could sound pretty bad. Jake recognizes this too and draws the leader away showing him his Vietnamese phrase book. It works and they lose interest in my potential manifesto on overthrowing the government. Meanwhile the whole town has gathered around outside. They peer in the windows at the caged monkeys. We keep whispering amoung ourselves on how we just wanna get the #$%$#$&$ out of there. Finally we muster up the courage to aks our interpreter when we can leave. She talks with the leader and replies that as soon as they get all our information we can go.......tomorrow morning. this is not the news we wanted. She goes on about anytime we leave Ho Chi Minh city we need the permission of the leader of whatever province we are in. We reply that we have travelled many places in Vietnam and have never had to do this. She says, "Oh yes", smiling, "You always must check in with the leader." Jake begins to say, " but we have visited many places...." We all just stare at him and he says, "Of course, your right, we must always check with the leader." By now our leaders mood has shifted from chest thumping dictator, to kind genial conqueror. He sits legs crossed and sucks through his teeth before he speaks, the big man, in control. We are exausted. We keep going on about what a lovely little town this is, how beautiful Vietnam and its people are and thats why we find ourselves in Bu Dop ruled by this kind wise leader. Its working. Our leader asks Jake if he wants to Marry his daughter. We have suddenly gone from potential spys to potential sons in law. He asks me if my father fought in the war. I reply no, and he giggles and nods his head. I want to stick a screwdriver in his eye. We all just want out, anywhere but here, back to Saigon the same place we were fleeing this morning, hell, we'll drive back to Ha Noi if asked. Anywhere but here! We keep asking how much the fine is, figuring this is really what it comes down to but we get no answer. After an eternity and more ridiculous questions 730 rolls around and our interpreter suddenly announces that she has good news. "My leader has decided you may go tonight." "Now," we reply about ready to leap through the ceiling. "No, my leader says you may go at 900pm". Jake starts to say, "Why not now?", Tim cuts him off saying" Great! 900 is great".  We all chime in on how wonderful the random hour of our release is. She says you must go back to Loc Ninh, check in with the leader there, stay in a hotel and return to Ho Chi Minh in the morning. "Fantastic!" we reply, go back to Loc Ninh over dark jungle roads!!, awesome!! Return to Ho Chi Minh?, Great!! Cut off a limb and leave it with our leader as a gift to remember us buy, hell yes!! Whatever it takes to get out of this inferno of a police station. We wait and wait and wait watching the seconds on the clock crawl and waiting for the inevitible nickel to drop on how much our fine is. The fine never comes. The leader pats me on the back as we leave saying, "See you again", in English. I smile back and say, "Not a chance in hell", knowing he doesn't understand. Four of the longest hour of my life have passed as we roll out of Bu Dop. I make a nasty comment about wishing we could call in a nepalm strike, half in jest, but in the blackest part of my heart I want revenge and there is some real intent in my comment. It would at least, momentarily, give me pleasure to watch jets streak over the horizon and our prison become a ball of flames. I am ashamed of myself as I relish the thought of watching our leaders flesh drip off his body. The dark makes for slow driving. The sky a sea of stars, Orion and his belt the only constellation I ever recognize. The lack of street lights and surrounding jungle strain our eyes as we scan the road for potholes or any inconsistency.We keep having to stop and clear our eyes of dead bugs. We are free and any short of spill at this moment would spell disaster. We want to stop to comiserate and swap perspective , but figure we should get some distance between us and our leader. After an hour, despite the fact that we are still on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the need to replay our recent incarceration overtakes us and we stop for a beer. It is cold and delicious. The valve has popped off the last four hours of stress and we gush in manic conversation broken by releaved hysterical laughter. We call a friend in Ho Chi Minh and relay the tale. At exactly the same time I say, "Yeah and I was afraid they were going to find something about wanting to kill Vietnamese people in my journal." Jake yells, "Look behind you mate!". I turn and theres a cop standing over me. We all stand and say, we were just going, drop a hundred thousand on the table which pays for the beer three times over and move towards our bikes. In perfect English he asks where we are going. We say Loc Ninh and mount up. He says we should go and we eagerly oblige. As we ride away we figure either our leader called ahead, or more likely, someone in town went to the cops and said something about four white guys on bikes. We arrive back in Loc Ninh  at 1130. Every hotel we try shuts the door in our faces. We ask people on the street where to stay and they point towards Ho Chi Minh. We are not wanted in the friendly little town of Loc Ninh. Was this our leaders doing or is this area just off limits to white guys? We stop to gas up and meet, of all things, an American Vietnamese girl with huge fake boobs.Her name is Cheyenne. She is visiting her family in Loc Ninh. We relay our story and she escorts us back another hour and a half to some dusty litle town with one hotel. She wakes the owner and finally, at 1am, we have a place to sleep I sleep fitfully. My body can't stop pumping adrenline through my viens. I keep thinking back to our one room prison. I imagine the history of horror this border town jail must have seen.The builing had certainly stood for at least 40 years. That would be enough time to contain Vietnamese caught after being on the run from the fall of Saigon. Our fear of a fine and a night in jail seems trivial to the terror they must have felt, truly fleeing , truly caught. Then a darker thought still. During Pol Pot's reign of madness, the Khemer Rouge regularly raided Vietnamese border towns. My mind can't stop itself from images of that room, torture, rape, execution. The next morning, I feel as if I've just gone seven rounds with Tyson. We reconvene for breakfast and a look at the map. The four giddy birds we were the day before have been replaced by fat chickens with clipped wings. The talk of backroads, dirt paths and sleeping on floors belongs to four naive strangers. We limp out of town around 11 saying very little exept what is necessary. Soon we are climbing through lush jungle again. The cooking primordial green soup of thick vegetation provides cool air and a fresh perspective. The smiling and waving farmers and children on the side of the road distance us from Bu Dop with its suspicious looks and fat tyrannical leader. We settle into a hotel around six, our spirit of adventure renewed. The next four days are filled with lovely views of sweeping valleys and friendly warm faces. The running joke for the rest of the trip is, of course, "Should we check in with the leader?"       Posted by Matt on 5/21/05; 5:26:44 AM from the BAWP dept. Discuss

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

shellfish #

I am a selfish bastard. If a Vietnamese person said this they would sound like they were the illegitimate offspring of a creature with claws that lives in the sea. I mean the proper pronunciation because I don't want to be cooked alive in a pot and served with drawn butter. Case in point: I love to receive e-mail, not spam that tells me how to enlarge my manhood, but e-mail from friends and family. I'm like an eight year old on Christmas morning after I click my in-box and wait for the server to show me my presents. I am the same pouty eight year old when my inbox is empty and I didn't receive my G.I. Joe doll with kung fu grip. One would think this would make me do unto others,.... it doesn't. The fact is I hate writing e-mail. I cannot tell you how many times I hit the reply button and jump ship after five minutes of staring at a blank screen or a screen that says, Name and "whats up? or great to hear from you". I bail out because most times my life seems pretty unremarkable and I don't know what to say. "Whats up, I had eggs for breakfast "or "Great to hear from you, I've got a mosquito bite on my butt, boy mosquito bites itch like hell don't they?"So I send nothing. This is very selfish because I would love to hear about your eggs or the bite on your butt. This may sound like an apology cloaked in a blog or a blog cloaked in an apology or perhaps by now you are choosing the Vietnamese pronunciation and salivating as you imagine the water boiling, rubber bands around my claws, the butter melting in a saucepan. So, before you get out the shell cracker and white wine, I am sorry for being an e-mail tard. I miss you dearly and in fact do have a large swollen mosquito bite on my rear end, several in fact. Part of this apology comes from my slow response after the Indian Ocean Tsunami to tell everyone I'm ok. We felt absolutely nothing here. I have sat under the warm sway of the coconut trees in both Phuket and Koh Pee Pee in Thailand. They both had screen saver views, fine white sand folding into emerald green. The kind of views to think of in times of rage when one is in desperate need of ones happy place. I can't come to terms with the images I see of these familiar places on the news now. Smashed and twisted. Paradise crushed and multiplied ten fold in Sri Lanka, India and Sumatra. The pictures don't jibe. 150,000 dead and counting. We spend so much time destroying ourselves these days that its eays to forget the unyielding force of mother nature. She giveth and taketh away. In what was really no more than a geological hiccup in terms of the earths history we have been reminded of how fragile we are. Posted by Matt on 1/11/05; 1:52:23 AM from the BAWP dept. Discuss (2 responses)

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Inside jokes and no longer lucky money #

She is a big women with a laugh like a barrel chested Russian sailor. Her flower print pjs are maxed out across her wide linebacker shoulders. When she smiles it starts in her eys and spreads downward across her lips. Contagious. I don't know how old she is. I would say she is exactly somewhere between the ages of 35 and 50. Exactly. She'll give you an iron fisted shoulder rub for 10,000 dong or you can buy some weed off her for I don't know how much. she walks up and down the two blocks of De Tam in Pham Ngu Lau, the backpacker district every night selling her two forms of relaxation. Every night the same two blocks. Every night the same two blocks. When she sees me her face lights up, not because I'm a pot head or I buy shoulder rubs, weed gives me the shakes and I have never  bought a backrub. She smiles because we share an inside joke born more than a year ago one late night. Her greeting begins with the smile and is immediatly followed by the joke. Its not a funny joke. Its not really a joke at all because it makes no sense. But, it always makes me smile because she finds it hilarious and her laugh is so hearty and genuine, from the deepest part of her fat belly. Like a Buddha statue whose come to life and sells weed and backrubs. This joke is put to song and goes something like this: "1,2,3 ( female anatomy) no hair (pause) long hair." See, I told you its a real rib buster. She holds her plump fingers up and counts along as she sings, that wide grin beaming off her face. I belt it back to her trying to do my best Sound Garden impression. This kills her. She doubles over mid cackle and says," shh, shh, shh, no, no no more, no more". She asks me how I am. I ask her how she is. I am usually fine. She is usually not good, "no business,"she says. But ,unlike all the other hard luck survivors in De Tam, she never asks me if I wanna buy or for money. Never. I am a one minute break from rubbing Euro-trash shoulders and selling weed to stoners. Linh " Lucky Mooney" is eleven now. Three years ago she sat on my lap at 3:00 am balling. An exausted child made to sell gum on the streets like something out of Oliver Twist. Her eyes which once held a glint of innocence have turned to sharp stone. Her face a permanant snarl. She doesn't sell gum anymore. She wears makeup and high-heels. She's eleven. She still asks me for money. I still don't give it to her. I offer noodles instead. She calls me cheap charley and says she wants money. It is not precedded by lucky anymore, just money. I shudder to think what has replaced the gum. I saw her yesterday on the back of a motorbike. She gave me the finger. All I have to offer are noodles, no time machine to take her back to innocence, no magic pill to replace a lost childhood Posted by Matt on 12/23/04; 7:24:04 AM from the BAWP dept. Discuss

Thursday, December 2, 2004

Belong #

I've named this one Bob. Bob sounds like someone who trys too hard, might answer too many questions in class or wear sunglasses in a nightclub. Bob overreves between gears and I just want to tell him to relax, you'll get there buddy. He only gets up to around 50k anyway, so whats your hurry Bob. You'll get there eventualy. Accept who you are and stop with the overcompensating pomp and circumstance. If ever a bike needed a name, he does. Bob has done splendidly thus far though, getting us the 220 k or so from Saigon in five hours. He hasn't blown up or caught on fire,....yet. We still have to get back home. Are ya up for it Bob? And here's the problem. I have just cancelled out the good luck in nameing Bob by lieing to my work and telling them that Bob blew up and thus I can't teach tonight and won't be home until tomorrow. Of course I was careful to have this conversation safely out of Bob's earshot, but I am caught in the middle of my own superstitious crossfire. Now I'm acting just like Bob, I'm trying too hard. I just walked out to where Bob is parked and checked his oil, saying good boy Bob one too many times. I hope he can't tell I'm worried about him because then he might try even harder and make my lie come true by indeed blowing up. When I was eight I faked a cough to stay home from school. I really played it up, hacking like a T.B. patient. I should have won an oscar for the performance. I did win a full day of lounging around in front of the tv, I Dream of Geenie, Bewitched, Gillagens Island, Get Smart, The Twilight Zone. A well deserved nap during the 2-5 Soap Opera void. Then awake again for Scoobie Doo at 5:00. The problem was that my coughing was real enough to really make me sick. I spent the rest of the week in bed with Bronchitis. I had caught a karma cold. I don't want Bob to catch a karma engine problem.  I don't feel bad about the reason for the lie, I just feel bad about lieing in general. Its a lie told a million times a day throughout the world. These are just the rules of the game. We accept the lie in life's little work contract. What I should have been able to say was the truth. I needed a break from Saigon. No, I had to have a break from Saigon. If I stayed in Saigon for one more minute, one more second the big boot of "progress" with its honking horns and choking pollution could have caved my chest in with its massive weight. Teaching with a sucking chest wound could be a bit of a problem. Thus, I came to Mui Ne to let the soft wind in the coconut trees work its magic. Its working nicely and the boot is no longer standing on my chest, but I feel that one more day may be the medicine I need and I therefore will not be at work tonight. This kind of truth is not a part of the game however, but wouldn't it be nice if it were. If those mornings when we awake life Kafka's Metamorphisis we could simply say, "I won't be at work today because I feel like a rather large, ill-tempered cockroach." I have been to Mui Ne about five times since my first visit. It still gives me serious de ja Vu. It makes the hair that is retreating from my head to my back stand on end. Its not an uncomfortable feeling, but a warm melancholy longing. It fills my heart when I inhale and stays with me when I exhale. I belong. Not just here, on this beach at this time, but  I belong in the world for all time. The past, present and future converge into a timeless whole that makes sense. It makes sense with its lack of logic and beautiful chaos. Tomorrow, if Bob cooperates, I will be back in Saigon. The last hour of the drive will be a hell of what "progress" does to a developing nation. Trucks belching black smoke, factories vomiting the same bile into the sky and the rivers as former rice farmers work long shifts in someone else's factory for pennies an hour. The horns, always the horns, truck drivers hopped up on speed to stay awake for 20 hour drives blasting away in my ears and running me off the road. I will curse under my breath, my blood pressure will rise and the boot will return to my chest. The cruelness and greed of human nature will once again leave me dumbfounded. But that's o.k. Today I'm in Mui Ne. Today it makes sense. Today, I belong  Posted by Matt on 12/2/04; 1:51:51 AM from the BAWP dept. Discuss