Off to work in the morning





Yup, if there’s anything I’m consistent at, it’s being inconsistent when writing. Oh well, guess its just part of my charm. This whole Vietnam thing is still trucking along. I can’t believe it’s only been 6 days since the last time I wrote. So much has happened. Backing wayyyy up… Women’s Day was great. The VNO did a big huge dinner for all everyone and they did a little thing to honor the women. Both the VNO and American leadership gave each of us a bouquet of flowers and gave a little speech about their appreciation of us. I can’t even tell you how unworldly the whole thing was. I kept wondering if the first women in the military ever imagined that a scene like this would ever take place. I’m the only single female here, so Mr. Bing made a big old toast to how he hopes and believes that I will find love this year and of course everyone echoed his sentiment. Then Mr. Bing decided that since the anthropologist and I are both "alone" that we should get married. Oddly enough that has set a whole weird chain of events into motion. Once I figure out what all that is, I’ll try to write it down.

All moved in


My humble abode - mine is the tent in the back

Going to town on the 9th was nice but required too much travel time for such limited relaxation time. Obviously I managed to get to the internet café which was interesting since the boy had finally manned up and admitted that he’s back with his ex… sounds familiar doesn’t it?? Whatever, that whole thing was stupid and I hope that’s the last I ever write about that. On a completely different subject about going to town, we went to get pampered and when I walked into the "nail salon" I had my first chance to see myself in an actual mirror in a while. I can’t even believe how dark my skin is. I didn’t even look like myself. I rarely even wear sunblock out there anymore if that gives you any idea of what an amazing transformation my pasty self has made.

The next big event was a couple of days ago. One of my favorite workers, Ka, was watching me wallop (yes that is a technical procedure) a corroded grenade when he got all excited and started pointing toward the school and making the international gesture for explosion. Ironically, Ka is mute so I actually find him to be one of the easiest Vietnamese to communicate with. Anyway, we managed to communicate enough for me to understand that there was a bomb at the school as big as his arm and as wide as a dinner plate. You know that got me all twitterpated. So the Captain, team sergeant, Ka and I took off for the school. It was one of those moments when you think ahead to the inevitable mishap report and how stupid everyone is going to think you were. Ka was walking at the speed of light through overgrown fields which of course is the worst idea ever in Vietnam. But eventually we made it to the UXO and sure enough, there was a 105mm projectile sitting in a freshly plowed field next to the only school for fifty miles. Yes, the whole scene was very NAVSCOLEOD style. I nearly expected to see Sgt Ray or Sgt Martin jump up out of the rice paddy to start heckling me. At this point, no big deal… the UXO isn’t dangerous and I want to move it out of the field so the people can keep working their field. Then the politics step in… the Captain tells me that I absolutely cannot move it and then suddenly we have an international incident on our hands. The American side flips out because we left the site to examine a UXO that wasn’t a direct threat to us and then the VNO side flips out because the worker came to me instead of them. The whole scenario was ridiculous. The VNO wanted to fire Ka, his mother, and his sister for their egregious mistake. Of course I’m all fired up because there’s still a stupid HE projectile in a field that I could have quickly fixed if people weren’t stupid. Then the anthropologist got all pissed off because he wasn’t really in the loop on all this and somehow he thinks it has some important bearing to this site – which it doesn’t… it’s pretty clear that a war took place here so yeah, there’s crap everywhere. At the end of all this drama the round is still in the field next to the school. The anthropologist is all pissed off about us leaving him out of the loop so now he wants to go map it with his specially calibrated GPS – I’m hoping it will provide me with the perfect opportunity to huck the stupid thing out of the way of these people’s lives.

Fast forward to the next day… this site is very high profile for lots of reasons that I won’t get into now, so a delegation of very high ranking Vietnamese and Americans came out to visit. They couldn’t be bothered with the mind-numbing car and boat ride combo, so they managed to get a humongous helicopter to bring them out here. That morning I tried to explain to my workers what was going to happen in my very broken Vietnamese. I basically said "nuouh mai bai" (small airplane) and pointed to the landing zone accompanied by chopper noises and ridiculous hand gestures. Unfortunately I haven’t learned how to say that a bunch of rich, fat, pale, old men from both of our countries will be flying in to distract us from our work for a few hours. I don’t think they really understood what was about to happen, but one of my workers, Wong, got the gist. I’m pretty sure he spotted that helicopter when it was about 10 miles out. It was just a little tiny speck but there was no getting something like that past him. Some of the Americans tried to get their workers to keep screening but it was really hopeless. Everything just stopped. It was so easy to get caught up in the magic. I can’t imagine how amazing something like a helicopter looks to these guys. In truly dramatic fashion it made an approach to the LZ, hovered for a moment and then flew over our work area to get a better approach. Then it landed in the field right next to where we were all working. It was like watching the space shuttle land.

Of course work continues here. The area that we’re searching just keeps on expanding. I would say that this is like looking for a needle in a haystack, but I think the truth is really more accurate… we’re looking for a 40 year old molar in a fallow rice paddy the size of several football fields. Mystery people keep showing up to declare that they buried him in a different spot – it’s getting a bit frustrating. The heat is becoming especially intense as well. I’ve stopped sleeping in my tent because it’s just too hot. I have the greatest hammock on earth (because it has mosquito netting attached to it) and that is where I sleep now. It’s actually quite divine to be out under the stars in the quiet of the delta.

Sunrise - the blue building in the distance is the local school


Sunset over a vietnamese burial

OK, that’s a lot of catching up for one night (and the heat from my laptop is just a bit much) but that nearly gets me back on track. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll hit dog tags with my metal detector (keep your fingers crossed for us!)