LSVN Day 12: Lao Cai, Bac Ha, Sapa

We woke up this morning pretty early to get off the train in Lao Cai. We had breakfast and immediately got on a van and headed to Bac Ha for their special Sunday market time. The ride was about two hours by van. The outdoor shops were pretty interesting. There were lots of handmade items. The meat market was pretty crazy. People were skinning and chopping pigs right in front of me. I was surprised that there were many European and Japanese tourist around. It was my first time seeing so many H'mong people in one place. After shopping we had lunch together. Diem and Derrick bought a little puppy for under $10USD. They bought it so that they could save it from being eaten and set it free. After lunch, we bused back to Lao Cai, but the bus broke down twice. So we were stuck in the humid sun on the side of a mountain. The Lao Cai area is high in the mountains at the border of China. There are rice terraces all over the mountain sides; that is the style of farming. After driving for hours, we arrived in Sapa and checked into the hotel.

Sapa is a beautiful place surrounded by high mountains in a sort of valley. I've never seen a mountain range so beautiful. The city was French influenced at the time of their rule, so all of the buildings were in French style. After getting our rooms, I went for a quick swim at the hotel pool because many of us had not showered in a day or two. We had dinner together and then Frere called in a meeting about going out that night. He told us to go out and experience the city for ourselves and that their wasn't a curfew for the night. He told us to try to iind some of the native H'mong people and take them out for fun and hang out with them. Frere wanted us to see how they live because Sapa is their native land, but the Vietnamese took it away.

I went out with Hai, Paul, Tim, and Louis that night and we just went around exploring the city. We went through the market areas and talked to some of the H'mong vendors. I tried on a full traditional H'mong outfit. We walked around some more looking for souvenirs like scarfs, bags, and satchels. We ran into the one H'mong girl, her name was Sa and she was 20 years old and was carrying a baby on her back. We asked her if she wanted to hangout with us and get some food to eat. She said yes and took us to a place off the streets where we had corn, eggs, and band bao.

We talked for awhile and she told us about herself and how she lives. She was married at the age of 17 and her husband is a farmer. She lives about a kilometer or two outside of Sapa and works as a vendor to tourists. Every mornign we wakes up at 10Am and walks to town by 11AM and works until about 11PM and then walks back home. As we chatted, an elder H'mong women came up to us and we had a sort of biblical moment. She was trying to sell us all sorts of items and kept bothering us to buy from her. When they saw that we were Catholic and that we go to church, the elder lady told us that she goes to church, too. She then pointed out that Sa did not go to church and questioned why we were eating with her because she wasn't Christian, and asked us why we wouldn't buy from her because she shared the same religious values as we did. We went on to tell the women that it didn't matter if Sa was Christian or not, we would still eat with her. In the end, we bought the elder women some eggs to eat and she left. After, Sa took us to a place that sold fresh fruit so we could get some to eat. We got to see a native instrument and dance that is used for courting. Sa asked us if we wanted to go smoke with her, but we declined. The H'mong people are highly addicted tobacco and marijuana. Smoking a pipe is part of their heritage and traditions in ceremony and they need it to live.

It was soon getting time for Sa to return home so we gave her a bag of fruit to take home. We took a group picture and exchanged good byes and good lucks. She gave each of us a friendship bracelet and we gave her a small pouch with some money tucked inside as gifts. We went back to the hotel lobby, sat down, and reflected a bit on our experience. After a bit, a few of us went out to a nearby bar and just chilled. We played cards and King's Cup until about midnight. When I got back to my room a storm started. Lighting lit up the skies. IT was a pretty scary scene, but a cool sight. Soon after the lightning storm, the power went out with a blackout and the whole city went pitch black. The lightning flashes lit up the whole city. I felt like I was in Luigi's mansion. I was pretty freaked out. Nghia, Anh Giang, Louis, and I went walking around the hotel with our flashlights trying to see if anyone else was still up. I ended up sleeping around 2AM.

LSVN Day 11: Hanoi

*Frere gave us a warning ahead of time that in the north, the government is a lot stricter. You can not say anything about HCM. Communism is strongest in the north where there is the most religious oppression.

Today was just a long big traveling day for us. We went to three cities in one day, with a final destination of Hanoi, the capitol of Vietnam, in the north. We woke up at 5AM in Ca Mau and flew back to Saigon. The airport security took away my DEET (insect repellant)! I pretty much knocked out the whole flight to Saigon and even on the flight to Hanoi. In Hanoi, the land is pretty much opposite from Ca Mau in every way. There is a lot of grass and fields everywhere. There are roads, cars, highways, and big city. The first thing we did when we landed was go eat lunch. After, we headed to the see the first National University of Vietnam, built in 1076. There we heard cultural music and saw monuments of famous people. Later, we passed by Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, where he is buried. After, we hurried to mass at the St. Joseph Cathedral of Hanoi. We prayed for the church because Frere told us that they were going through problems. The government was fighting to take the churches land. Up in the North, the government is a lot stricter. After mass, we went to dinner where we did riddles to keep ourselves entertained. After dinner, we headed to the train station heading north to Lao Cai. The train ride was pretty cool. Slept in a bunker with Mike, Nghia, and Hieu.

LSVN Day 10: Ca Mau

Today was a long day because we did service for most of it. We split up into groups today and separated into different projects in different places. Nette, Hai, Diem and Derrick, Kim, Mary, Long, and Tuyen were in my group. We took a truck that led to a boat along the river. Then we took the boat down the river to a local village. Our job was to take apart a home so that a better one could be built. The area that we were in was very wet & muddy. The houses have water flodding all along the ground about up to your ankles. The story of the house hold is that a women and a man were living together and one day the man comes home drunk. He slips and falls into the river and swallows a lot of the dirty river water, gets sick and then dies. The women stayed by him the whole time and didn't know what to do about the house.

Anyway, when we got to the home, it wasn't much. The house was made of wooden sticks and straw and didn't have doors. Muddy water flows in and out of the house and floods the whole area daily. When we got there, the women was supposed to have already moved all of her belongings out of the house so that we could tear the house down. But she had nothing done and no where to move. The neighbors didn't want to have all her stuff in their homes, which were small already. The house's foundation was supposed to be done as well for us to take off the roof, but then again nothing was done. With nothing to do, we decided to get started on making the foundation of the new house for her.

We moved all of her things and began to dig up mud from the floor of her current house and pour it into the new one. We dug until we were about waist deep in water and mud. It was quite an experience. I can really appreciate carpets and indoor pluming and to be able to live where I live. Ca Mau's village side is very, very dirty. People don't throw away trash in designated areas because there isn't anyone to pick it up. Trash is everywhere. Off the sides of the roads, mud, and river.

The river symbolizes how the people live. It is their food supply, means of transportation, out house, place to bathe and wash clothes. The river is their life. And the trash reflects how they live. I got a first hand experience of how the people live. We were among the first foreigners they had ever seen. Unfortunately, we couldn't finish our project because we could only use the dirt and mud from the old house and we couldn't take all of it or else they wouldn't have a place to sleep. So the with huge pile of mud left over, Hai and I had little mud wrestling fight. I was so dirty that I had to wash off in the river. I wasn't allowed back on the boat until I cleaned off in the dirty river.

When I got back to the hotel, I was completely soaked. After I took an incredibly long, hot shower, I knocked out and took a nap before going to church again. We did some more reflection and then had dinner. That night I jammed with Hai for awhile.

LSVN Day 9: Ca Mau

This morning we woke up at 3:30AM to check out and head to the airport to fly down to Ca Mau (which is the very bottom of Vietnam). Ca Mau is the wettest part of Vietnam with much rain and many rivers, streams, and rice fields. It is a very wet area with the most mosquitos in the country. When we arrived, we unloaded all our stuff at a hotel and then headed out to a small speed boat. The river is used as a means of transportation more than land is. Most people live along the river and have boats. We took a two hour ride to the very bottom tip of Vietnam, at the Pacific Ocean. There are these trees that drop seeds down into the ground and they naturally grow and absorb water from the ground. This causes the land to naturally extend further unto the ocean. Frere says that if we come back to the tip years from now, we would be able to walk across the ocean to Thailand.

It rains constantly in Ca Mau. We had lunch with a small village church. The government is still very strict in rural areas, so having an official church is illegal, so they have a secret unofficial church that is shared in a home. The people showed us much hospitality. They cooked for us a huge feast, which they normally couldn't afford. We were the first foreigners they had ever met. After lunch, we headed out to do some service. We arrived at this village to help build a house. Houses there are very poor and dirty. Mud is everywhere and trash is all along the river and around the houses. The homes were basically shacks made of rusted metal sheets or straw and wooden sticks or poles for framing. Our job was to nail together the wooden poles to make a frame. When it got dark, we hopped back onto the boat, went back to the hotel and prepared for mass. We reflected for a bit and had dinner. There are mosquitos everywhere!

LSVN Day 8: Saigon

Today was the first day of service. We started the day by attending a funeral for a Frere (brother) who passed away three days earlier. The brother was supposed to be joining us on our tour. Three days earlier, he was in Cambodia trying to save a girl who was drowning in the ocean as a wave was pulling her out. He swam to get her and bring her back to shore. The girl survived, but he passed away in the process. He was only 28 years old. Hieu told me that he was a very chill and fun guy. The funeral hit me pretty hard and I didn't even know the guy.

Afterwards, we went to visit some sick children at an institute called Trung Tam Mai Hoa. They were terminally ill with HIV/AIDS. We gave them toys and snacks and then sang folk songs with them. It was great to see the kids smiling. When we left, we took a ride towards the city, to spend time with and take out some students from a school. We were to take them out to buy clothes and supplies or whatever they needed and then take them out for dinner. Frere only gave us about $20 and we didn't go to the cheap flea markets, we went to the expensive mall instead, so the money didn't last long. We ended up going into our own pocket money, but that was all right. Most of the kids wanted to buy things for the rest of their family. We spent about four hours with them in the mall just hanging out with them. Some of us went out to eat again when we got back to the hotel.