There's Nothing Here to Run From

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Around the time I was born, American troops pulled out of Vietnam. After loosing a war that was never officially a war, our military came home heavy-hearted with images in their mind's eye that are too treacherous for many of them to talk about even today. The Vietnamese were left to fix their broken hearts, broken families, and broken country. "They're gonna hate us" was our thought as we prepared to enter Vietnam. Visions of waiters spitting in our pho, taxi drivers taking us the "long way" to our destination, and getting the evil eye from strangers on the street were all in our thoughts as we mentally prepared to enter Vietnam.
We found all of these worries to be completely unfounded.
The Vietnamese people were absolutely warm and welcoming in every place that we went, starting in Ho Chi Min City (formerly “Saigon"), where Griff and I sat our worn bums on two overly-polished silver chairs at the front of a small restaurant. The waiter was thrilled to have us as customers and let us know how ecstatic he was by "invading" our ever-so-American personal space, getting in our faces and breathing out a friendly "Welcome! So good to have you! Can I get you anything?" We couldn't help but smile back at his enthusiasm so ignoring the spittle on our faces, we ordered a few drinks right away. We later indulged in some delicious food and the next day ended up right back in the same two super-shiny, sparkling silver chairs. Our waiter was magnetic and had successfully pulled us back.
In Ho Chi Min, we were to meet up with my dad and Rebecca again after traveling as a twosome for a while. We met each other, strategized a plan of action for the next week and set off on our Vietnamese adventure…
Griff and I spent a day touring the city, taking in the Reunification Palace as well as the War museum. The museum turned out to be a pretty emotional experience with photos and documents taken during the Vietnam war. The carnage shown in black and white was sickening to say the least, and we were reminded again about the reality of war, its victims and its sheer terror. How often we have looked at our T.V. screens with reports of war, and shaken our heads in sadness, "What a shame. Too bad." But being inside of Vietnam, understanding the Vietnamese people more, and realizing how many of them were killed, tortured, and damaged, gave us a better understanding of what really is at risk during wartime. We found ourselves holding back sobs and brimming over with tears as we gained a view of this war through the words and lenses of the people who were right there amidst it all. Children born with mutated bodies from Agent Orange chemicals; A soldier standing in a field with a decapitated head hanging from his hand and an almost un-human look in his eyes; Men too young to really be called “men” huddled together in a ditch during a monsoon, fierce and terrified; villagers screaming as they run from their huts…war has many, many victims. Griff and I sat outside of the museum sipping bubbly club soda, feeling so close to the pain of war and yet so very far removed from it all.
After a couple of days in the city, we headed into the MeKong delta area, which proved to be an altogether exotically wonderful journey. We glanced out our car window in wonder as teenage young ladies fluttered past us on their bicycles in their heavenly school uniforms, colored a crisp, pure white. As they held the back of their knee-length silk shirt up out of the way of their bike's spokey tires, they appeared as angels with their wings flowing in the breeze. We drove past fields flooded with water where tiny Vietnamese women worked away in the rice fields, knee-deep in earthy water- their pointed hats perched daintily on top of their heads and their smiles beaming from underneath the hat's angular shadow. We boated through houses crunched between each other and the delta's rivers. People bathe, work, travel, and thrive by the familiar waters. Boys with sudsy bodies looked up from their river bath, and catching our eye began to break dance for us intermittent with boyish bursts of laughter and cheering. Women doting on their children on the decks of their live-aboard boats, prompted their children to wave at us while across the banks old men hollered questions about us to our boat driver in Vietnamese while raising a hand and a toothy grin as a welcome gift. The smiles continued for as far as we floated.
As we maneuvered through the muddy waters of the MeKong Delta, we couldn't help but think of the soldiers caught up on either side of the Vietnam War; how terrifying of a terrain this would be to fight in and how it appeared to be of a geography that is bound to make every soldier and civilian present, a mass of nerves and paranoia...is a war like this ever possible to "win"?
All we saw now was a peaceful people content to live life in their mysterious land of jungle and water.
Our days in the delta were filled with all things aquatic seen from boats of all shapes and sizes. We bumped through crowded river ways in a boat powered by oars and navigated by a squatting wrinkled man on the wooden bow, then transferred to other boats (these powered by gasoline motors with a propeller protruding from them). It was during one of these particular nautical episodes that landed us at our one night "home stay", where we would sup with the locals and sleep on stilts! We dropped our packs in a small room made of thatch, and took a walk around the island. As we prodded along the muddy pathways that curved through the village, children literally dropped their toys to run towards us and say, "hello" over and over again. Parents called authoritatively for their kids to come and see us, and as they came running they sang a song of "hello! hello! hello! hello! hello!" with hand motions of rigorous waving to accompany their tune. A downpour caught us off guard and ill-prepared which prompted a village woman to invite us inside to escape the cold. We waited out the storm, politely refusing the murky-brown water she offered us as a refreshment, oohhhed and aahhhed over the photos her and her husband held of their grown children, and eventually continued on. We crossed a "monkey bridge" (a long stick crossing the water) with much teetering and tottering and had to stop to allow a school girl across, who tackled the task without as much as a sway in her step. We were once again invited into a house to relax and were offered a shot of the local's drink of choice....snake wine. The drink was stored in a huge glass jar crammed full of serpents- how could we refuse? (Dad made himself scarce as the shot glass was passed around, not being the most adventurous when it comes to foreign food, give him an All-American PB&J any day!) A little old man poured us long shots of the sinewy slop of serpents and we tipped our heads back, expecting the worst...surprisingly it tasted like Cinnamon Schnapps! Dad was pretty grossed out by the whole thing. Needless to say that while Griff, Reb, and I slurped on snails later that same evening for dinner at our host's house, Dad politely declined.
The southern tip of Vietnam was everything and more that we had anticipated. The Vietnamese people taught us yet another lesson. Their recovery from such a time of destruction and loss was almost incomprehensible to us. The heartfelt welcomes they extended to Griff and I cannot be second-guessed; they truly have moved on and are thriving. What a beautiful thing to be; forgiving.
Am I that beautiful? Can I see each human as an individual, a person separate from the sins of their fathers or their government? Ah! To be more like the Vietnamese; to learn from my people's past and not wallow in it.
Us Americans have advanced so far in so many ways, yet is it this progress, which has moved us so far away from what really matters to human kind?
Love. Faith. Forgiveness.
Have we come so “far” that we’ve only learned to love those who we feel like loving, have faith only in the things we love, and forgive those whom we decide to have faith in? It just seems like these attributes should be much farther reaching than this. Is it possible to love an enemy? Have faith in a stranger? Forgive a terrorist? These are things I do not challenge myself with very often, but the Vietnamese people have got me thinking about it, they have got me learning from their examp
Griff and my journey together is nearing its end, and every time I think about boarding the plane that will land in my home country I feel sad.-I'm not sure that I am ready. I don't want these lessons to end. We have come to embrace so many new people, ideas, mindsets. I fear that once I return home, I will fall into old habits- I am mostly afraid of working too hard on things that don't ultimately matter and caring too little for things that do.
I'm not sure how to end this one...this adventure and this journal entry. I know I have so much more to tell, so many more stories that you will never know, which are hidden away in the corners of my mind and my heart. Although I have essentially taken you along with me for this year, I beseach you to take a journey of your own as well...create your own secret stories. Maybe it's not traveling around the world, but life is yours to squeeze every drop of beauty from, create your own persuit .
Take a chance.
Do something you have dreamed of.
Start over.
Muster up the courage to get there.
Stop making excuses.
Whatever you need to do, make it happen.
Life and the world we don't know, is scary, but its also pretty darned beautiful.


Bones, sinking like stones,
All that we fought for,
And homes, places we've grown,
All of us are done for.

And we live in a beautiful world,
Yeah we do, yeah we do,
We live in a beautiful world..

Oh, all that I know,
There's nothing here to run from,
'Cause here, everybody here's got somebody to lean on
-Lyrics from "Don't Panic" by Coldplay

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Photos

Two Little Maids From School Are We!
Griff and Dad give a holla to all Gilbert and Sullivan fans!

Hotel in the Sticks!
This was out home-stay on stilts

Snails and Spring Rolls
Kicking back at our homestay

Toys?
Who needs toys when you are skilled with a knife before you can even put together a complete sentence?

Boat Bath
A live-aboard family gets cleaned up for the day

You so big!
Griff just HAD to get his height and weight taken by a "measurement vendor" who pushed this thing around on the streets.

Comments

[Dan]

Love your photos...
When will I ever be able to write like you Amanda? You take me back.

[Jamy]

this quote is the best quote i have ever read about war
"War is not nice"-Barbara Bush

[Peter]

Challenging my world
Mandy and Griff, your travels and experiences have given me the opportunity to see how I need to challenge my own assumptions, my world view, and the way I spend my time. I pray that I will be able to go beyond seeing the need to change, and actually make some of the changes happen. Looking forward to your next adventure, ... and ours.

[Myrig]

So true
I've always thought that the World would be such a different place if somehow every Western kid could spend time living in foreign cultures for even just a few years. Both my son and daughter spent 10 years in Indonesia while growing up there in the 1980s. Not only did it expose them to the local culture and local kids, but also to the children of expatriates of other Nationalities. Brits, Germans, Dutch, Malyasian etc. Now in their late 20's I believe that they both posess a maturity which enables a deeper understanding of World situations, and a compassion for peoples around the World that the large majority of kids who grew up here in the US, and nowhere else, do not benefit from. We need that kind of "education" for everyone I think. Your article is refreshing to read.

[Susanna]

Oh my gosh! There's that picture that Julia loved of you Amanda!Thanks for cooking that lovely dinner again. I'll def. try to get the word out to my friends about what you and Griff are trying to do... muah~!