Dear Viet Nam,
Viet Nam, you were one of the countries I was most excited for on this route, and you did not disappoint! I thoroughly enjoyed the people that we encountered, the work we got to do, the sites we got to see, and the food we got to eat. Pho Real …get it… the food was pretty tasty! The language was super hard to understand, but I supposed I could have figured out a few phrases if I had been here for more than a month! Your scenery is surreal. From other teams I saw images of your beautiful beaches, and the city is full of great architecture. You have a unique look to you, as I peer out the front of the bus to see a street speckled with gumdrops – or literally THOUSANDS of helmeted motorcyclists.
I learned to rest in your country. It may not have been you who taught it to me, since you seem to never sleep – or maybe that was part of the lesson. However, I was forced to rest, and I will always remember from month 3, Viet Nam, the lesson of rest.
We saw opposite ends of the wealth spectrum. From the richest of the richest, government official’s children who weekend in Paris, to the poorest of the poor who sleep through school because they are selling bracelets to tourists at night to support themselves. We loved both classes of kids equally, we taught them all the same things – art, english, life skills, to play nice, to have compassion, to show grace. We learned their names, we got to know them, we pr@yed for them daily. It was hard to say goodbye to them on our last day, but we know they are in a great program that will feed them, love on them, and guide them well.
Want to know another thing I learned about myself here? I don’t remember a lot of what I learned in school – especially history. As we learned more about this country, I realized I had no idea what the dates of the Vietnam war were, why we went to war with them, or even who won the war. I asked an American I met here who said he fought in the war why we went to war, and he started talking about how the war is the reason this city has an airport… that wasn’t helpful. We emailed our families from home and got a few answers, but not enough to understand it. We saw the tunnels where Vietnamese people lived, underground, for YEARS. They cooked underground, they birthed babies underground, they came up to work in the rice fields and fight the war. We saw traps that were made to catch American soldiers, we heard about agent orange and saw photos of deformations from the chemicals. We saw planes and tanks and the old president’s palace marked where bombs fell on it. To this day I still don’t know the dates of the war, but I think I understand why we were in the war and I think we kind of lost.
So Viet Nam, thank you for not disappointing, thank you for showing me the importance of history, rest, and compassion. Thank you for some yummy food, great memories, and for grab bikes.
Thank you, Viet Nam
-M
