Sai Gon, June 11, 2001

I haven’t had a chance to expand on my trip to Buon Me Thuot, and yet, much has happened since then. I’ve been feeling under the weather ever since the trip, and it caught up to me by the end of the week. Friday night I went to bed (after reading some Harry Potter, Book IV), and woke up about 14 hours later at 2 in the afternoon on Saturday. Talk about tired! I then spent the rest of the day working on menus for Di 10’s restaurants, and despite my cold, rode on a motorbike out to the city in the middle of a rainstorm in the evening. I met up with Thanh (who had a CAR) at Dong Du Cafe and showed him how to play Gin Rummy, one of the only card games I know (and I can’t even remember all the rules really), and we played till we had to pick up Di 10 at a wedding she was attending.

Sunday morning I went with Di 10, her friend Mr. Hoang, and Trinh Murphy. Trinh is a distant relation with Di 10, has lived in Paris and NY, and is settled in Williamsburg, VA with her husband Joe, a U.S. Diplomat. They are wonderful companions and it was such a relief to have a normal conversation with some Americans over the last week. I so enjoyed their company. Anyway, as Joe was not feeling well, he did not join us. The rest of us went to visit a home beyond the city that is taken care of by a man we call Thai (meaning “teacher”).

Thai’s home is built from scraps that he collects, and in it lives elderly women, and young children, most of whom are physically disabled, mentally retarded, or otherwise handicapped. Some of the children go to school. All are far below normal height and weight for their ages. All are loved and respected in this humble home.

There are about a dozen women in their 70s and 80s, and around 20 children. Older children care for younger children. Abler women feed the more disabled, abler children feed the more disabled. All are taught to be so very polite and kind to strangers. I took pictures, which I’d like to share when I get them from Trinh. If you could see what I saw, I don’t think you could ever go back to wasting the way we waste, and you would have total appreciation for what you have. It is incomprehensible to waste food, toys and clothes the way we do in the States. I’m guessing, but about ten US dollars could feed this family of over 30 for a week, $30 could send one of the children to school for a year. It's so easy not to think about this kind of poverty (even while in Vietnam!) when we're not facing it with our own eyes.

These kids sleep on the cement floors, black ants, bugs and mosquitoes biting them incessantly. Scrap food, of which ingredients are sometimes picked up from the piles of discarded and dirty legumes in the Sai Gon markets, cooked into hot meals and responsibility to each other are the core of their existence. One child was left mentally retarded from the ants that had attacked him when he was found abandoned and tied to a tree. The pain they have gone through is inconceivable yet they are able to find such joy in amusement from an object as simple as a rubber band.

I have to stop writing…
Mom, dad, my cold is wearing off. I’m okay and will be glad to be home in July.
H.