Mud puddles on the bad bus
Oct 28, 2010 Uncategorized
ietnamese will take care of you, if you smile and wave.
I held onto my ukulele, and my backpack sat tight and heavy on my back as Sophia raced through afternoon motor bike traffic to the cities northern bus station. First we went to the central station, and realized we had 20 more minutes to ride in order to catch the right bus. “are you scared”, she said muffled through her helmet and we whizzed through traffic going the wrong way down a one way street. We jumped onto the sidewalk to make a short cut, just in time to catch a green light on the next street over. “are you scared” i replied. “im scared if you’re scared, otherwise i’m ok”. In Vietnam, there is no need to be scared, unless you see a Vietnamese person feel scared. The Vietnamese are perhaps the most fiercely fearless people I have ever encountered. They just keep going, even if it means wading through 4 feet of water with a stalled motor bike, piling 5 people on a motor bike to get across town, or driving a city bus through mud thick back roads at 11pm. I just barely caught the bus to Duc Linh, accidentally leaving my water behind on my friends motor bike basket. As I looked out the window, i tried not cry. I felt vulnerable without water. I kept remembering the words of my friend in my head “be sure to bring water, because you will need it”. It was supposed to be a three hour bus ride, but in Vietnam you can estimate three hours to easily convert to 4 or 6. I sat wedged next two four people in the very back corner of the “bad bus”. I was sweating profusely, from running through the bus station to buy my ticket, and jumping on the tiny bus with my hikers backpack and blatant foreigner appearance. I sat quietly in the back, pretending not to be freaked out, trying to forget my thirst and praying that I would make it to Duc Linh. There are two buses to Duc Linh, or so I had heard. One is called the “good bus” and one is called the “bad Bus”.
Apparently I got on the “bad bus”. I guess they call it the bad bus because its vintage is close to 1960, the air conditioner doesn’t work, and the shocks are hardly functioning when you hit the muddy potholes. I stared out the window and prayed. i wasn’t feeling very outgoing or clowny, but i knew that eventually i would have to make friends on the bus. i was after all crammed aside them like a sardine fish in a tin can.
after 2 hours of silence, i pulled an apple out of my pocket and offered it to the woman next to me. this was my offering for friendship, my disguised cry for help. she took the apple. i pulled out my notebook, where i have written basic Vietnamese language. i showed her my efforts to learn Vietnamese, immediately she got very excited, and like many Vietnamese i have met, eagerly began to help me with my pronunciation. i used my dictionary to spell “drinking water”, immediately the woman began asking every person on the bus for water, and a bottle was handed back to me. moments later, the entire back of the bus engaged me in conversation. “where are you from”, “ how old are you”, “what is your name”? Finally, the question i had been waiting for “where are you going?” This question came from a young man sitting in front of me. he wrote his question down on a piece of paper. maybe he was too shy to speak. I showed him the address i had been given by the Duc Linh Organization. He didn’t recogize it, infact no one on the bus recognized the address, and they told me that the way it was written didn’t make sense. i began to feel nervous as the sun lowered, and the bus hobbled further and further into the dusty back country roads of south-central Vietnam. I knew I was safe though, my new friends on the bus passed my paper around, trying their best to figure out where i needed to go. Finally, a phone call to the organization, and a handing of the phone to the bus driver took care of my problem, the driver showed me a thumbs up to let me know he knew where i was going. saved by the cell phone, and my new friends on the bus. local buses have a bad reputation for being “scary” for foreigners. this may be true, only if you keep to yourself, and try very hard not to make friends with the locals. the best ticket to make a friend with a Vietnamese person, try to speak Vietnamese, ask them to teach you basic words, and i promise that person will watch your back, they might even hold your hand to help you across the street just to make sure you make it home safely.
The monsoon rains clean my soul
Oct 23, 2010 Uncategorized
So much to say, so little time to write it all down.
The magic continues to unfold. My second week in Vietnam, and I feel though I have experienced life times of love, friendship, food and adventure. Today I went to the swanky coffee shop on the corner, near my hotel in “foreigner town” . I caught the closest hotel I could find last night, because I had a busy day ahead of me in Ho Chi Minh City. After the dynamic week of clowning with Humanitarian International and Geshundheit!, my dear new American friends and trip leaders Fungus and Skete (long time friends and clown staff of Geshundheit! and dear teachers of the how to maintain the spirit of love) left with five other clowns who visited Vietnam for the one week session of clowning and caring in the City.
We had a dynamic and eye opening experience here in Ho Chi Minh. From the anarchy chaos of the motor-bike traffic, monsoon rains at night, kaereoke songs floating across the air on weekends, the occasional lost bus driver on back roads making circles, the unexpected moments when our clowns showed at a hospital expecting to sit by bedsides and to our surprise a DJ was set up and a stage cleared for us so that we marionettes to jazzy disco music for the cheering lobby spectators. When we tried to sneak off “stage” to find hospital beds, we were herded back into the crowd. Here I took the opportunity to encourage near by children to perform acrobatics and break dancing (this took the pressure off of me). In those moments of forced slap stick theater, it was obvious that our mission for bedside clowning had been lost in translation between the organizers and the hospital administration. Or perhaps it was more convenient for the hospital staff to keep us contained in a cage of disco music, where we could be watched and where we would not see the actual hospital conditions.
Last friday, the American clown group left for home, and I remained here in Ho Chi Minh City, gudied by my new Vietnamese friends whose care and guidance extended into a motherly spiritual guidance. My first day alone in the city, I cried. My journal entry reads “Day one Melt Down”. I felt sad to loose the group as I packed my bag to prepare for moving into a new hotel. Suddenly I had to make many choices on my own. No set schedule, no bus driver to guide me every day, no group of english speaking americans to tell me what is next. Seemingly, II was being stripped of my hemogeonized padded room in a unfamiliar City of over 8 million people. I questioned what I had set myself up for. For a moment, fear passed through my body. Fear that was coupled with sub-concious emotional burnout from the intensive days of clowning the week before. However, I decided to face this fear. The fear of the unknown. The fear of losing confidence in my “false sense” of security. Participating in social work as a caring clown has taught me so much about this fear, the fear of getting close. This fear not only involves getting close to other people. It is also the fear of closeness to oneself and ones intuition.
My first night in the hotel, I took my ukulele down to the lobby to perform for the matriarch family members of “Lili” the friendly hotel manager. They clapped and laughed and in exchange for my songs, gave me lesson in counting in ten in Vietnamese. Lili always sings after 6pm”, said one of the backpackers who’d been at the hotel for two nights. After meeting Lili’s relatives, It was clear that her enthusiam for song and dance was genetic.
One of the cultural aspects that I admire the most in Vietnamese Culture is the family unit remains very close and connected. Most commonly, all family members including children and elders remain living together until death or marriage. One day after resting in a hotel in the city, I took a bus to Muine Beach, a small town just outside of Phan Thiet. The actual town where I stay was called “Hampton”. The REAL Muine where most locals lived, was situated about 12 Kilometers down the road from Hampton on a little fishing port. For the sake of tourist attraction, Hampton is reffered to as “Muine”. Aside from a few whose houses are situated in the tourist district, many locals only come to the fake “muine” to work at a restaurant, a resort, a toursit company, or to sell fruits or souvenir. According to a motor-bike driver “Thanh” whom I spoke with during a monsoon rain storm at a book store, locals are often forbidden by resorts to swim on the beaches or sometimes lcoals are forbidden to mingle at the bars with tourists. “They are the people of this place. They live here. This is their home. And they are not allowed”, said Thahn with a compassionate distressed tone in his voice. As the rain poured down and the power cut off, rain filled the streets and quickly formed a lake. The ocean waves crashed heavily, sounding much like dump truck pouring gravel.
Thahn and I sat in the dark on small plastic chairs underneath a slightly leaky tin roof. At first I felt concerned that we would be washed away by a huge wave created by the fierce storm. None of the Vietnamese looked concerned, so I contained my nervous reaction and sat down to listen as my new friend Thahn told stories about the life of a local in the Muine area. Thahn explained that many people work long hours every day for very little pay, at resorts whom charge tourists up to 200$ a night for stay, workers can make as little at 50$ dollars per MONTH for a full time job at the same resort. Meanwhile, tourist often leave no tip for waiters because it is “not custom in Vietnam” for tipping. My advice to travelers; Leave a tip and gain some good Karma while have to opportunity, what are you going to with that extra 25 cents anyway? Due to the drastic dollar difference between US$ and Dong, Tourists practically treat Vietnamese Dong like Monopoly game money. 5,000 of Dong is close to 6 cents in US dollars. So, many tourists take home a 100,000 dollar bill for a wall hanging souvenir, mean-while many Vietnamese workers only make 100,000 for 10-12 hours of work. Yet another way that I am blown away by the class differences that stretch across the world.
Though I too am somewhat of a tourist, I try my best to distinguish myself from the typical tourist by smiling and waving to locals, making eye contact, at the very least, making an effort to acknowledge their humanity as they persistently attempt to sell me something on the street. This acknowledgement or humanity, is something that I feel many socially privileged people feel little obligation to do. So with this observation, my new practice is to be friendly whenever possible. I can’t promise that I always accomplish this friendly disposition in my moments of neurotic self-indulgence. Sometimes I too turn away from pan handlers on the street, for my own convenience and self “protection”.
I have to go now, today I catch a bus to Duc Linh, to work for one week in a small town. If you appreciate what you hear from my blog, please write me at ashdevinebooking@gmail.com, and make a donation through on the first page of my website. I am requesting donations for aid in my transportation, food and lodging, as I continue two more weeks of volunteer clowning and music therapy in hospitals, orphanges and shelters for handicapped in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. More Later. Blessings.
day one and two in vietnam 2010
Oct 10, 2010 Uncategorized
leaving san franscisco, i left all fear and expectation behind. welcome to a journey to the unknown, and enjoy yourself as you practice your ZEN. Smile, you are headed to Asia.
i was delighted to received a korean meal on first flight, the flight was 13 hours, the longest flight i’d ever embarked upon. i sat next to a woman who was a retired olympic skiier, she took good care of me. i did thai chi with some korean men in the aisle, you have to get up and move on a 13 hour flight. we jogged in place for a moment or two, and shared exercise routines.
i was glad that i answered “rice” when the flight attendant asked “chicken or rice?”. The meal came with seaweed soup, hot rice, pickles, mushrooms and mung bean sprouts. air plane food from my wildest fantacy.!
the hotel we are staying at is immaculate and fancy compared to the 30$ a night places i grew up with in the southeast. in the morning we enjoy a breakfast of my dreams. we have a 5 course meal for breakfast, with choices of fruit bar with amazing tropical fruits, a vegetable bar, various vietnamese dishes, a beautiful young man making fresh noodle soup with basil leaves and fried eggs on the side, and then there is the vietnamese coffee which is amazingly chocolately and fresh. i could go on for days about the food really. i don’t miss bread , AT ALL. mung beans can replace bread any day. many of us find that the first page of our journal is reserved just for our food description of the day. fresh fruits and vegetables, always. yesterday at the hospital we were treated to lunch by the staff, even the hospital food was amazing and seemingly gourmet, poached fish baked inside of a crispy philo, tied at the top with a leek leaf, with roasted peppers on the side and a fruit plate of atleast 5 different varieties of colorful tropical fruits. we are treated like royalty by our hosts. they always give us more than we can eat, and impress us with beautiful food arrangements. the gratitude is piled high in our hearts as we taste these gifts
today is our second clowning day. we are going to two or three orphanages, one of which is a home for children with deformities and various disabilities. we are excited to visit this place in contrast to yesterdays experiemce where we spent several hours in a very elite high class hospital, where patients were no where to be found, and we mostly clowned for staff and chipper waiting room bystanders. we rode the elevator looking for people “in beds”, and the hospital mananger kept herding us towards lobbies and porches (there for keeping us away from the areas where people in serious condition were staying). as clowns we generally try to find the people who are the most isolated, the people who are suffering the most, and we go to them. yesterday afternoon we though we were on our way to a “homeless shelter”. after an hour drive through the bustling motercycle filled streets, we ended up on a narrow dirt road nestled in a back street alley. i removed my shoes at the door, and we walked in to find ourselves at a childrens school for poor children whose parents work too much to care for them every day of the week. we walked in, and to our surprise the room was set up like an auditorium, as if we were there to do a “performance” or educational program. in this awkward moment, we stood for about one minute looking surprised and feeling at a loss of what to do (normally we do very improvised one on one clowning, not in the staged performance style). i jumped in and began teaching the kids songs and doing a program similar to the nursing homes… sing along songs, and small english lessons. thanks drama degree, you are getting more and more useful every day. especially in those “what now” moments. the quote of the day is “do something…….anything” . the kids sit ten or twelve to a bench, packed into the classroom like sardines. smiling and anticipating our every move. i searched through my index of creativity, i wanted to give them something special. so, we practiced saying “i love you”. we repeated “i love you” over and over, and soon the chant became an instant song. soon, we were led across the street to the “baby” room. 1 and two year olds sitting around looking adorable and lovable. one child held his head in his brothers lap and screamed “momma momma”. the women caring for the babies were lovely and all smiles.
third gig, on the second day: another school with children ranging from ages 1-15. all eyes were on me, once again. as it seemed that we were expected to “teach” or “perform” something for the kids. i felt like a pre-school english teacher. eyes , and the voices in my head said ” ok ash, you have to do something”. lets get in a circle i said. this was our third gig of the day, i was happy to sit down, cross leged with the kids. more english lessons, songs and clowning lessons. we moved around the circle practicing our clown faces, expressions and gibberish language. we did some warm up movements with sound and shaking it all out. we learn “itsy bitsy spider”, and practiced pronouncing the words, one phrase at a time. at one point i looked at the translator and said…..”help”? hoping that she would have some ideas about exercises to do. she just looked at me and smiled….. ok……i said, lets sing the ABCs. the kids knew this song and so did the teacher, however half way through the song i noticed the alphabet becoming jumbled into a different order…… EFGOLPKRSVTWXZ. I liked this version. I appreciated the variation.
Badlands – By Maggie Clifford
Oct 6, 2010 Uncategorized
The first Week of the Educational Clown Tour:
Sept 15th/ 16th
Yesterday we woke in the Badlands – pyramids of ancient rock appeared in the darkness when we arrived. Like beats on the bass drum, headlights revealed formations out of moonlit silence. Ash and I meditated by moonlight, and worked our warrior bodies to prepare to leave before daybreak. Wind whipped through the tent, across the almost tree less landscape, the grass sung us to sleep.
Woke as the red sun lit the still starry, stilly dark, now moonless sky.
We packed bags in the morning darkness, headed for Wyoning. Went up 10,000 feet after discouraging words format he ladies in the grocery store. Good thing we didn’t listen to them. Sun surprised us at the top of the mountain – raided the visitor center, married for 60 years, Robert and Betty told us about Big Horn National Park. We drove some, sunned naked on rocks, went up, up, up to the Medicine Wheel, and slept at the Western Motel in Lovell, Wyoming.
Up next…Yellowstone!!
