Our trip to Vietnam has meant many different things to each participant. The interesting sights and activities have challenged us physically and mentally, occasionally linguistically and gastronomically, but most of all emotionally. My seeing each person react to these emotional obstacles has been almost as enlightening and heart-wrenching as the people we have helped during these two weeks.
Some participants, like our leader, Gia Hoa, have deep roots here in Vietnam. Some are shocked by the mirror images of their own lives here in a land so impoverished and foreign. Many children smile with eyes twinkling mischief. Business owners still drive hard bargains. But other participants have had to overcome the harsh contrasts we have seen. The children at the orphanage who will not smile-not for all the presents in our bags. Or the business "owners" who are 11-year-olds selling postcards or old men pedaling cyclos. Or the contrast of our group eating every night when those we work with may not.
I find that I cannot express my thoughts on this trip with an essay, with statements ending in periods. This trip has had no such stability for me, no logical organization and no conclusive resolves. So, instead of an essay, to express my thoughts on this trip I am turning to poetry. Poetry is the only way I can share the mixture of emotions I have felt throughout this trip. Undoubtedly my impressions will change over time; however, this is my beginning.
December 21st, 2000
Her arms round out the air
above her belly, bubbling up
with the baby, babies that
Before, long, long before.
Six, her fingers up, she tells me
though words are currency of no value
between us.
Between us a blank, an emptiness,
I know not and, not knowing,
can smile in understanding
the simplicity of six.
But she, this woman, this mother,
has eyes that surface tears.
Pulling two fingers together, and back,
and off, perhaps, if she could,
her head dropping back now, looking to heaven,
hand palm up to her forehead, eyes close.
I understand.
Two are dead.
Two more, she, this woman, this mother,
washes from her.
Her body, her stomach bearing downward
fingers like rainwater clearing
the collected life away.
I understand.
Two are lost.
Of the last two, she, this woman, this mother
shrugs.
She now knows not and not knowing
if they know
She is lost and dead to them.
Christmas Day
The One Who Wouldnt
Amongst the children
she stood out
with eyes as wide as heaven.
Smaller than most
but still not undersized.
No older than five,
a shock of black hair
and a frown as solid
as the bricks on which she stood.
Her hands gripping
a plastic car, a paper crane,
a piece of candy.
What more did she want?
What more could we give her?
All the others laughed and played
but this one wouldnt.
Christmas Day
How do you say please
in Vietnamese?
The banana trees
in the mountain breeze.
How do you say these
in Vietnamese?
How to open a banana
becomes important
from the end attached
to the bunch
or the end
free-form hanging in the air.
It becomes political
pregnant with seeds
of implication.
Nothing else matters.
December 27th
A little boy named Kun
Today no lucky
Selling paintings
at the hotel.
Past eleven-thirty
Hello beautiful lady
so bad but to see
him to wonder if
fifty thousand dong
it is, after all, good
My father paint this
where one learns integrity
boot straps and all that.
The cash appears
For you, it cheap
fractions of cents count
ok, ok, ok, ok
not begging, but still
I will remember you always
what should I do
You buy it, I go home
I don't know.