Virtual-Doug

Old Folks Halloween

You won’t find any kids in costumes next Tuesday – not where we live.  Home is in a retirement park – an exclusive place for people over 55.  Unless a kid is visiting Grandma and Grandpa (or even Great Grandma and Great Grandpa), you won’t see any mini-ghosts, hobos, princesses, or clowns in the streets of our neighborhood.

Of course, that doesn’t mean our neighbors don’t get swept into the spirit of the holiday – they decorate their houses.  This large inflatable ghost, tomb stone and pumpkin greets folks as they drive by.  (The wind has deflated it twice that I know of.)

The lady of this house is in poor health, but she still likes to brighten the neighborhood.  She just can’t muster the energy to handle large objects, so a few simple decorations are in order.  Personally, I like the black cat.

A little yard work is in order at this home.  The place was recently bought by new owners who promptly did a lot of renovations.  I was amazed they had the time to put out holiday decorations.  Notice the nicely attired skeleton standing next to the front door.

Maybe Caspar the Friendly Ghost is actually a visiting grandchild.  This house is nice because it is at a t-bone intersection and drivers can see the house from a distance.

Hey – it’s a wild and crazy life we lead here in Retirement Acres.

Việt Nam Needs You

I’m not sure I know why, but I’ve had quite a few inquiries from various people thinking about going to Việt Nam.  I’m not talking about tourists – I’m talking about people who have a deeper interest in the country, and want to do something productive there, or who want to get off the beaten tourist track and see the “real Việt Nam.”  For that reason, I have four different non-government organizations (NGOs) I have personally dealt with, have full faith and confidence in, and am proud to recommend if you want to go to Việt Nam.  All of these groups work in Central Việt Nam.

Think About the Children is the newest organization on this list.  Founder Tom Murray is a veteran whom I had the privilege to meet on his very first trip back to Việt Nam.  Like The Mystery Guest Blogger and I, he fell in love with the people and the country.  During my teaching time in Huê, one of my most enjoyable times was working with Tom to link up his students from the College of Charleston with six Vietnamese students of ours.  I was tickled to see two of my students on the History page of the TBTC web site helping to carry food into an orphanage in Huê.  Tom takes things personally.  During the recent typhoon in Huê, he heard that one of the Vietnamese students’ families had lost the roof of their house.  (Vi is pictured on the right end)  That put the energetic Tom to work.  In short order, he raised the $1,000 needed to replace the roof and had it wired to her.  Think About the Children also works with the Blue Dragon Foundation  to help kids who are trafficked and sent to the big cities to sell postcards to tourists – and kept in virtual slavery.  If you want to see Việt Nam – the real Việt Nam, and you want to see it with a vet, Tom is your man.  I will send you his email if you request it.

MEDRIX.  Not all NGOs in Việt Nam are run by vets.  Bob and La Relle Catherman have an incredibly deep love of Việt Nam – especially in and around the Huê area.  La Relle is the medical person who works with the hospitals in the area.  She put the MGB to work last spring teaching English medical terminology to the physicians of Huê.  She also does a lot of work with health education.  Last spring, she supervised a group of American student nurses doing the public service portion of their degree program as they worked in the hospitals around Huê and in the A Lưới area (what vets remember as the A Shau Valley). Bob is “The Water Man.”  He has developed an inexpensive system to produce safe water and works with the College of Science and the People’s Committee of the province to install systems in schools. If you are a medical type or a technical type, MEDRIX needs you.  And you won’t find two finer people to work with the Bob and La Relle.

Vets With a Mission  is a group we can not only recommend – but have actually worked with.  Our first return to Việt Nam was in the summer of 2002, and we did it with this outstanding group headed by Chuck and Joette Ward.  A major part of their work is to reconcile the people of Việt Nam and the United States, as well as American vets to their experiences.  They do medical trips as well as trips working in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity.  If you are a vet, we can think of no better group to return with than VWAM - - because you will have the camaraderie of being with other vets.  They’ve been doing this a long time – since 1988 when Việt Nam was just beginning to open up.

Peace Trees International  If you want to see more of “The Real Việt Nam”, take a citizen diplomacy trip to Việt Nam with them.  My connection is through Mike Fey, a veteran and a dentist who makes frequent trips.  Peace Trees works in Quảng Tri Province, the site of the old DMZ and still one of the poorest provinces in the country.  Peace Trees does educational work, as well as environmental restoration and de-mining.  Yes, Quảng Tri is full of unexploded ordnance, and people are hurt to this day when a farmer’s plow hits an old artillery shell.

These are all excellent groups you can travel to Việt Nam with and do some good while you’re there.  Obviously, there are lots of other groups, but not all would be suitable as a means to travel to Việt Nam.  Việt Nam has hundreds of NGOs working throughout the country.  One such agency is the Blue Dragon Foundation, run by Australian Mike Brosowski in Hà Nội .  I never met Mike in person, but as a fellow expat blogger, we swapped many an email.  Blue Dragon Foundation and Think About the Children have begun cooperative programs in dealing with the problem of child trafficking in the rural areas around Huê.

But - - if you travel to Hà Nội , you are commanded to eat at KOTO (Know One Teach One), another Australian NGO that provides training in the restaurant and hospitality industry to street kids.  If you eat at KOTO, you will enjoy one of the best meals you’ve ever eaten, and you will have helped another kid learn both an employable skill and self-respect.  Their fund raiser is a Brit, and I’ve swapped many an email with him as he is the author of Our Man in Hanoi.

Travel to Việt Nam if you can – any of the above groups will serve you well.  Can’t go but would like to be involved?  Blue Dragon and KOTO would love your help.

And if you travel to Huê, then you must visit the unofficial hub of NGO activity there.  Go by my friend Cu's Mandarin Cafe for a bite to eat - and meet the other NGO workers in Central Việt Nam.  Tell him Doug sent you.

Bureaucracies Are

A year ago at this time, I was in the process of becoming the legal owner and rider of a motorbike in Việt Nam.  Becoming legal meant days on end of trying to navigate the bureaucracy.  I didn’t write about the problems at that time because I didn’t want to offend my hosts, and some of my friends were apologetic about the hassles.  I guess they assumed bureaucracies are an exclusive feature of Việt Nam.  In retrospect, I realize many of the difficulties I faced were simply because foreigners seldom (if ever) bother with things like driver’s licenses in Việt Nam.  The dealership where I bought my motorbike had never registered a new machine to a foreigner – and most certainly, the driver’s license people had never had a non-Vietnamese speaker try to get a license.  (By the way – they translated my Texas license and decided I didn’t need to take the Vietnamese written test.)

I recently experienced a good example of American bureaucracy.  The Mystery Guest Blogger and I shipped a crate a belongings back from Huê.  We had tea cups, coffee drippers, ao dai, books – all kinds of “stuff.”  We knew the shipper in Huê, and our crate left his office a few days before we left.

We got back home and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I was to find out that I needed to email the shipping company here in the US.  Of course, I had no more way of knowing I was supposed to do that than I knew the right place to get my driver’s license physical exam in Huê.  Once I sent them a check (in Los Angeles), I was told I would soon here from the warehouse in Houston.

Yeah - - right!

By this time, it was September – three months after shipping.  I got in touch with the warehouse in Houston – after navigating their touch tone phone system from hell – and finally talked to a very nice lady who was very helpful.  She told me how to get there, and to bring $40.  She even told me that the email I’d received from Los Angeles requesting my “broker’s information” was nothing to worry about.  (I have no idea what a broker does.)  Off I went to Houston in my oldish Subaru station wagon.

No problem – thanx to Google Maps, I found the warehouse - - arriving exactly at noon and the beginning of lunch hour.  So, I cooled my heels for an hour.

I finally met the nice lady whom I’d met on the phone – and the first thing she asked me is if I had been to Customs yet. 

“No.”

U. S. Customs was about a ½  hour drive away, near the airport.  I swallowed my heart when the Customs Inspector noted that my paperwork indicated the crate was shipped to the Mystery Guest Blogger - - - and he wanted to see her letter authorizing me to pick it up for her.

Oh hell – that would mean a six hour drive back to south Texas, followed by another six hour drive back to Houston with a letter nobody told me I’d need.

But, just like some of the kind officials in Việt Nam, he proposed a workable solution.  He called the MGB on my phone.  He could ask the right questions on the phone, and then allow me to have the crate clear Customs.  Phew!  Thanx!

After the traffic-clogged drive back to the warehouse, I had to wait my turn behind all the burly truck drivers who were there to pick up real loads.  Finally, my name was called.  The exchange of $40, and my crate was released.

Well – almost.  The stamp from Customs wasn’t quite right, so they had to call over to get that straightened out.

Now I could get my crate, right?

Sure enough, the fork lift carried it over to my car.  The driver looked puzzled and asked “Is this what you’re going to carry the crate outta here with?” 

“Sure, once I break open the crate and put the stuff in my car.”

Uh uh.  You can’t bust open the crate here.  That’s not allowed.  You shoulda brought a pickup truck”

I stifled making a smart-ass remark about not knowing to bring a pick up because nobody bothered to tell me, then I just looked at him like the poor dumb idiot I really am.  He took pity and said: “I ain’t supposed to do this, coz if my boss sees you doing it, I’ll get fired.”  He lowered the crate, and I went to work.

I’m halfway through packing the car when the supervisor of forklifts comes over, wants to see my paperwork – and tells me I ain’t supposed to be uncrating things in the parking lot.  He was a bit gruffer than Forklift Operator #1, but finally he too succumbed to the “dumb look.”

I finished, stacked the wood as nicely as I could, then drove like hell to get out of the yard before somebody else found some other regulation I’d broken.

Bureaucracies are.

Driving Across Texas

I went to lunch with an old friend the other day.  The fact that I had to drive for two hours to see him didn’t deter me – I enjoyed the alone time.

As always, be sure to click on the picture to see a larger version.

Driving across south Texas is easy.  There are no mountain curves.  There are no bad roads.  I can drive at 70 miles per hour (113 kilometers an hour) and watch the flat lands whiz by.  The scenery is rather boring – its flat and featureless. Of course,  if you have never seen a cow before, it might be interesting.

But, I always try to see a good photograph.  I am slowly building a collection of photos of houses of worship – not just the big cathedrals, mosques, and synagogues, but rather the whole gamut of places – from the ones where we “average” people worship, to the fanciest. 

In rural south Texas, on the edge of a mobile home park populated by Mexican farm workers, I found this little church.  Most white Americans presume Mexicans are Catholic Christians, but in this case, the little building is a house of worship for evangelical Christians.  One of the things I found very interesting was a small poster about “Our Missionary.”  This little gathering of believers in a very poor area support a woman in Ecuador.

In contrast, I found this very large church building in the city of Corpus Christi.  It takes up a whole city block, has a school, extra rooms called “parlors” attached to the main worship building and lots of carefully tended lawns and plants.  Actually, all the buildings cover an area larger than a block because there is a meeting hall for social events across the street from the main building.  The sign seen in the photo gives directions to the various buildings and functions.  I also noticed a neatly painted sign saying “Skateboards Not Allowed”, but I saw no reference to missionaries.

But the drive home wasn’t as boring as usual.  If the landscape was dull, Mother Nature made up for it with this sky.  Sights like this must be one of the reasons why people go to a place of worship – to thank God for something this beautiful.

Oh yeah - thanx for the lunch, Jeff.

Reunion

As one gets older, one tends to look back.  Evidence of that is that many Americans like to go to reunions – gatherings of people you knew in the past.  The reunion might be of high school or college classmates.  In my case, I had a reunion last weekend with some of the men I served with during the war in Việt Nam.  Of course, this posting will be a bit strange for my Vietnamese friends.  They all know I was in the American Army, but I seldom write about it on this site.  Any regular reader knows of my love of the people and country of Việt Nam.  The reunion had nothing to do with Việt Nam per se, but rather with the war.

A poignant reminder of the cost of war was the “Empty Table.”  At our closing banquet, we set up a table, complete with dinner plate and chair, for those who died as soldiers doing their duty.  These 74 men from our company died before they got grey hair or became grandfathers.

I find it interesting that the man who organizes these reunions was drafted into the Army and eventually promoted to Sergeant.  There are many former and retired officers who attend the reunions, but we all take our “orders” from the draftee now.  I think that says something about the egalitarian nature of the American society.  And, we have fun with that.  Some of those former officers were “volunteered” to serve dessert to the men who served under them as enlisted men.  It was a great idea – and it came from the fertile mind of our organizer and his wife.  They put many long hours into these reunions.  Many.

But most of the time spent was in reminiscing – recalling the horrible things that happened, as well as the funny events.  A misconception of the Vietnam vet is that they “never talk about it.”  The reason they don’t talk about it is because nobody could understand it unless they too had been in combat.  It would be like accusing a mother of never talking with men about childbirth – men just wouldn’t be able to understand so why bother to discuss the topic with men.  But the reunion gave these former soldiers a chance to vent with other former soldiers who do understand – to recall the night they lost buddies in a mortar attack – to laugh over their own drunken antics while on R&R in Bangkok – to recall a bad helicopter assault – to remember guys who loved to walk point, carry the machinegun, or carry extra grenades – to recall how much we looked forward to mail from home – to remember heroes.  It was also a time for many of the wives to learn a little more about what makes their husbands tick.

I had the distinct honor of giving a presentation titled “Việt Nam:  A Country, Not a War.”  I was taken aback by the openness of the men.  Only one other person in attendance had been back to, but everyone enjoyed the pictures and comments about today’s Việt Nam.  It took an hour before I was able to finish answering all the questions.  Of course, I showed them a very very different Việt Nam from the one they saw a long time ago.

Back when I lived in Huê, I was often struck by the passion with which the people loved their country.  It was a healthy kind of love – one of pride and vision.  Our time at the reunion ended with everyone singing “Proud to be an American” as they held candles high.  These were men who had put their patriotism on the line – a passion the sheltered people they fought for will never understand.

As I stood there singing, I realized how much I love both my native America and my adopted Việt Nam – and so happy they are now at peace.

Typhoon in Huê

Our hearts stayed in our throats the past few days.  We watched the weather reports from Asia and learned a major typhoon decimated Manila in the Philippines, then took aim at Việt Nam.  It hit south of Huê in the larger city of Da Nang where there was wide spread damage and death.  We emailed our many friends  to see if they were okay, and heard back that Huê suffered a lot of downed trees and flooding.  That means our friend Cu’s Mandarin Café would be flooded as it is near the river.

I hope my friend and fellow blogger Tuan is not irritated, but here are two pictures he took after the storm.  The new Imperial Hotel can be seen past the dangling traffic light.  The other scene was taken in front of Tuan’s home – you can see the main street of Hùng Vương in the background, and the Cao Dai temple.  His home is not near the river, so it appears his neighborhood was spared major damage.  Another friend and blogger, Lam Anh,  posted that he was okay – and waxed a bit philosophical.

Another friend sent this picture of the Perfume River, taken from the "New Bridge" looking towards the old Trương Tiền bridge.  Notice the water is almost to the bottom of the bridge.  Thanx, Marc.

However – we also learned that  one of the Mystery Guest Blogger’s students and good friend lost the roof from her home.  The house was seen in the story I did on her grandmother’s funeral.  Our prayers go out to Vi and her family.

Half a world away, yet such a strong tug on our hearts.