"It's probably nothing," I thought to myself while sitting in a pew. A service was about to begin, and I had just reached my seat. Two girls on a different team had left because one wasn't feeling well. I sat there for a minute, but it was a feeling I couldn't shake. "They're fine, even though it's night, it's way too crowded," I thought. It was probably one too many egg sandwiches -Egg, Soy Sauce, a ground Beef, spicy sauce; I had two- and the diarrhea that had recently visited my otherwise pleasant experiences in the restrooms. Too much information? Not for a World Racer. "How are your BM's?" becomes a humorous ice breaker prior to tough conversations.
I stood. The feeling didn't want to go away. I was in a good place, I should feel good, despite feeling bad to my stomach. I whispered into the ear of a teammate, over the too-loud roar of Vietnamese "W" music and singing that surrounded us.
"I'm going to catch up with the girls, stomach isn't feeling so hot." I said.
So, probably only a minute or two after sitting down, I got back up and left. I'm sure most thought I was just ditching to ditch and had found a plausible excuse. I started jogging down the street, trying to catch up with the girls.
Thoughts of the night before last popped into my mind. We had just finished karaoking with the staff of the coffee shop that our team has basically claimed for the month. It was late, 11 p.m. and my team (minus Brandon) was walking down a street we've walked down a hundred times. We were in a good mood, it had been a fun night. The street was dark, and deserted. We started making jokes about it being a ghost town, and how it was the one time we'd ever experience a street in Vietnam quiet.
A call to our left surprised us. A man was walking toward us. I suppose if you wanted a more evocative verb, it would be that he was slinking toward us. We reacted almost immediately. The girls fell silent and sandwiched between Jake and I. Jake moved to the front, the girls behind him, walking more briskly than previously. I walked a little slower, pulling a Gerber knife from my pocket and holding it in my right hand. I made a point to look back at the man pointedly every now and then. We were walking faster than him, even my slower pace.
He was probably just slightly inebriated, saw Americans and wanted to say "Hello." Then again, it was 11 p.m., we had backpacks and iPhones in our hands, and there was no guarantee that was his only intention. We put distance between him and when we turned the corner, we felt better.
I was jogging down the streets, I had just left the service and was catching up to the girls. The bad feeling was still in my mind. I saw them up ahead, about a block and a half in front of me.
I saw the man on the Moto moving much slower than traffic, keeping pace with the two American girls walking back to their hotel at night. I jogged a little faster, and gained ground, eventually coming parallel with the man on the Moto. He turned and saw me and accelerated.
"Hey, what's up?" the girls said as I caught up to them.
"Ah, not feeling well, plus I didn't feel good about you all walking alone," I said a little breathlessly, sweat most likely evident upon my skin.
"Thanks," they said.
This month has been a fairly atypical one. We are not dealing in tangible evidence that what we're doing makes a difference, but we know it does. Our intention this month is merely planting seeds and cultivating relationships for future students who visit Vietnam. It can be frustrating to be a little more… covert than normal, but it's rewarding when you know that the relationships are strong, as they are at the coffee shop we frequent.
I've been slightly out of sorts recently. Jake recently had surgery to remove a mass from his kidney. He is currently recovering, and will spend a couple weeks at home while he does so. Pathology will offer more information in a week or two. Jeremy recently arrived in Costa Rica for a trip of similar nature, and will hopefully have great stories by the end of it.
We go back to Ho Chi Minh on Monday night or Tuesday morning, and we spend a couple days there before moving to Malaysia. It has been an incredible restful month, which means I have few pictures of Vietnam (sorry!) and only some interesting stories that I can share in a couple weeks.
As always, thank you for your prayers and support, I've passed the halfway point of this long journey.
