Mr.  Desert ducked down to stick his head into the Jeep, where, under precariously piled sleeping bags and backpacks, we were crammed.

“Everyone ready?” he asked, his bright blue eyes gleaming. “Adventure starts now.”

“Those are the best words in the English language,” said Joe.

Really, adventure began when we hugged our families goodbye that long-ago day in August, but this month really kicked it into overdrive. We barely had time to be sad when we said farewell to the Dragons’ India semester program kids in the beginning of the month, what with major weddings in both my and Andrew’s families, and preparations to be made for our upcoming trip to Rajasthan.

Our service placements have kept us busy this month. I’ve started going more frequently to the Guria’s center for children in the red light district in addition to doing office work, and will also soon begin teaching English Communication classes at a polytechnic school for women.  Joe is currently working on an online fundraising campaign, as well as the press releases for World Literacy of Canada’s (WLC) celebration of International Women’s Day in early March.  When he is not in the office, Joe continues to work at one of WLC’s afterschool programs where he teaches English.  Lizzie is still enjoying her work at the Kiran Center for differently abled youths.  She has learned how to make paper bags from her friends in Art & Design, who are working on a substantial order from abroad, and she is happy that many of her students are gaining confidence in their English skills.  They are looking forward to starting a novel with her in class this month, which will hopefully help them use what they’ve learned and encourage them to attend class more regularly. Chhaya, working at the Nirman school, managed to write, proctor, and grade her students’ final exams while dealing with bad computer connections, nonresponsive printers, Karate teachers who showed up on the wrong days, and the general mayhem of a classroom. She never wants to give tests ever again (at least until the end of next term).  This month Andrew has been working on a new renovation on an on-site school for Bal Ashram, an orphanage for boys.  In excess of 20 trucks have entered the ashram grounds to dump dirt in large mounds to be dispersed by Andrew and members of the Ashram staff.  He has become close with the other 16-18 year olds who he works with, and they often act as additional Hindi teachers. 

When our friends back in the states were heading home from their colleges for winter break, we went on our own Bridge Year India winter vacation, and headed south (east) to Rajasthan.

The first leg of our journey was spent in Jodhpur, where we visited the massive Mehrangarh Fort, built over five hundred years ago.  This fort, we would later decide, was everyone’s favorite of all the forts we visited on the trip.  From its colorful Phool Mahal (flower palace), which had been dedicated entirely to dancing girls and revelry, to the mirrored walls of the Sheesh Mahal,  the fort offered us a priceless view of what life was like in 15^th century India.

Our next stop was Jaisalmer, where we were offered more leather than most people see in their lifetimes.  Shouts of “real camel leather!” attracted some and deterred others in our group.  In the end, we came away from the markets with shoes, bags, wallets, and a hat that could have come straight out of Indiana Jones.  It was in Jaisalmer too where we met Mr. Desert, so-named because he had won the Jaisalmer Mr. Desert Competition four times in a row twenty years ago. His classic moustache and general all-around desert-y demeanor made him so successful, in fact, that they made him a judge, gave him the title Mr. Desert Emeritus, and banned him from competing in future competitions.  He now runs camel desert safaris, which he says he loves with all his heart.  We spent three days with him in the desert, futilely urging our camels (three of which were, ironically, named Rocket) to move faster than a leisurely stroll. At twilight, we’d climb the nearest sand dune and, sitting together, silently watch the sun sink into the horizon.

In Jaipur, the last stop of our seven-day trip, we visited city palace, where the history buffs among us were particularly enthralled by a large collection of knives, guns, and swords used in the 1700s. Genevieve, Chhaya, Lizzie, and I left the boys to go look for another fort while we visited the annual Jaipur Jewelry Show. The gems that surrounded us – seaweed strands of emerald and malachite, delicate sapphires, rich rubies and tiger eye – were at once highly beautiful and way out of my price range.

Near the end of our second month of full-time service, we celebrated Christmas and Hannukah with a major holiday party for all our Banarsi friends. We’d like to send a shout-out to Lizzie’s and Chhaya’s family for sending us the many holiday decorations which set the mood for our festive meal, especially the life-size plastic stick-on Christmas tree for our wall. It was so good that those of us who Skyped with our families in front of it were asked, “Is that real?”

With every passing holiday, times when one might normally feel lonely and sad to be so far from our families, it has become clear that our group has truly become a family.  I feel lucky to be a part of a group like ours. Whether we’re trying to deal with a distracted boss or a difficult-to-explain English principle, I’m always impressed with how supportive I’ve found the other India participants. And when we want to relax after a tough week of work, you can always find someone up for an adventure, whether there is a temple you want to explore, or a new alleyway in Godowlia that needs to be charted. One Saturday, for example, we wandered the area of the city where the Muslim weavers work, learning about their ancient art of weaving, dyeing, embroidery, and block printing. The next morning, after spending a late morning with our families, we got together a soccer ball, some picnic blankets, cups, a teapot left over from Andrew’s chai walla Halloween costume, and took a boat across to the other side of the Ganga for a tea party on the beach. 

On New Year’s Eve, standing on our rooftop and watching fireworks from all over the city, leaning our heads back to catch the blue moon’s lunar eclipse, I felt blessed to be sharing the moment with such a group of people.  New Year ’s Day, we left for Agra, and caught the Taj Mahal at sunrise.  This huge monument to love was breathtaking, and had an otherworldly quality. Walking toward it felt like walking toward Mount Olympus. We had to bundle up, though – Under Armour and warm woolen socks beneath saris, North Faces and crocheted hats over kurtas – because the weather has changed significantly recently.

You always hear about Indian summers  – and for good reason. A few months ago, we could barely move from how hot it was, and breakfast conversations were mostly traded horror stories of the electricity’s going out in the middle of the night and our feeling like we were slowly melting to death under a stagnant fan. But here’s something we certainly weren’t prepared for: Winter is cold. I can’t tell you how cold, because, as Virendra-ji said when I asked him the word for temperature, “You don’t need that word. No one will ever know the temperature. If you ask the temperature, they will say ‘tunda.’” Cold.  It is certainly cold.

It’s a cold that has our cook reduced to a shivering ball on the floor, hugging her knees under her shawl, rocking back and forth, and saying to no one in particular, “Tundaaaaaa.”

It’s a cold that has us questioning whether we really didn’t have room for that winter coat that was “recommended, but not required” on our packing list.

It’s a cold that has me wearing a shawl, a wool hat, wool socks, fingerless gloves, inside my sleeping bag as I type this update.

It’s a cold that was none of us had anticipated – but really, on this adventure of ours, the most exciting things are the totally unexpected.

The cargo Boat driver that when he put on the Military Uniform

The lower deck of the Cargo boat, if you look hard you can see a pig in a blanket, no joke

Them off-loading rice from the Cargo boat onto the ox-cart on the side of the river somewhere.

My cousin and I at the Cham Minority village rocking the double peace signs

The high water marks for each year on the stilts of their house in the Cham village.

Some Neighbors rowing by

My 3 year-old nephew in the grocery boat that stopped by our hosue

My dad and I and my nephew at the feast the first night

My house with my sister on the porch

My mom and I chilling at the coffee stall on the beach the last day before i headed off to Saigon.

So I know this has been delayed, a lot but here it is.  

My Dragons Adventure part II:

So after leaving you all at the airport Jake, our tuk-tuk driver for the past few days, took me down town to grab a share taxi to a city like an hour away.  This taxi ride was unlike any other I had done yet on the trip. I was in a small sedan car with no one who spoke English.  For the past 3 months I cannot think of a time when I had been traveling to a new destination with no one else. As I drove down the banks of the Mekong, the river that I had become so familiar with, I felt increasingly more lonely as I missed the support and conversations of 13 other Americans and one Canadian whom I grew so close to and who have transformed me into a different person than the one who landed in Kunming, China 93 days ago. 

After traveling in South East Asia and down the Mekong I thought I knew what the landscape was like and was not expecting much anything different as I continued my journey alone from Cambodia to the Vietnam Delta.  I was wrong! Within 30 min of us driving away from Phnom Penh the landscape completely changed to something that I had never seen before, FLAT.  Now not the flat like the great plain of the US flat or like the flat we saw driving in southern Laos but more of like an ocean, the horizon, not a single foot of elevation.  Rice paddy after paddy all flooded completely flat all the way to the curve of the earth. 

So Jake had a friend of a friend who lived in a town an hour away from Phnom Penh (the name of which escapes me).  He, a moto driver, met me at the bus station when I arrived holding a sign that said “Cris.”  I hopped on the back of the moto, smiling and looking over my shoulder the same time to make sure “the councilor” was not looking.  I had no clue what was going on as he whisked me away onto a ferry to cross the Mekong to get to the other side, but what was new, I had no clue about anything that was going on.  So I was happy to see him pull down a small dirt ally to a group of traditional wooden cargo boats that was pulled up on the side of the shore.  We figured things out, me calling Jake back in PP to help translate the boat driver, and a little negotiating and attempted Khumer that I remembered from Mara’s language lessons.  So I was on a cargo boat, hopefully to the Vietnam boarder although that was not clear, with about 100 bags of rice, 500 gallons of fuel, one pig, one chicken, a water pump, and about 15 locals all of who where accompanying their cargo down on the boat until we would pull over at a random beach where a wooden ox cart would be waiting there for them.  I would help them unload 10 bags of rice here 10 bags there, doing a tightrope dance on the wooden plank over the water trying not to fall in while carrying 75 lbs of rice on your hip.  After 5 hours of sitting quietly and doing nothing on the boat back with the boat drive and his friends it looked as if we had unloaded all the cargo except for a few red sacks that I was sitting on and everyone was getting off.  I had to make sure that he was actually going to bring me to the boarder and for a little extra money ($3) that was arranged, he tried to tell me to get off a few times along the way.  As the sun was setting the driver, a 22 year-old guy, and a bunch of his friends told me to get up and started to dig through the red sacks I was sitting on.  He eventually found what he was looking for…  police military uniforms.  Him and his friends put them on as I took a deep and long breath wondering what the hell was going on.  Luckily it was just all in good fun and after a few laughs they took them off and hid them.  A few more miles down the river we stopped at a police post on the side of the river and gave them the goods, a few uniforms short but whose counting…

As the sun was setting, at around 6 pm, we arrived at the Kn’man Sammor boarder crossing.  I went to the immigration officer who told me that the Vietnam side of the boarder was closed so I would not be able to cross tonight and would have to wait until morning.  Since there were no guesthouses in the town he set me up with one of his friends to stay with.  No big deal, just another dragons home stay, I walked into a strangers house like it was natural, took a shower, ate with them and sat and watched really loud Cambodian pop songs over a sound system that I think is bigger than the ones they have had at some concerts I have been to.  After a good nights sleep and a great Cambodian breakfast I bid my farewell to the hospitable Kampuchea and proceeded to stamp my passport one more time as I crossed the boarder on foot into Vietnam.

So once officially in Vietnam I started looking for another Cargo Boat to take me down further.  The cards were not on my side, I had a no ace no face hand, It was just not happening.  At the port authority trying to figure this out, they called over a guy named Tung who would be my Boy for the next 4 days.  He worked for the Saigon Tourist Company and was on his way to Chou Doc, a bigger Mekong River town, where he said I had a better chance of getting transport.  So I hoped in his car and we talked about everything for the 2 hour ride to Chou Doc while passing over different parts of the Mekong that were now the Vietnam Delta on ferries.  I told him what I was trying to do and he suggested that while I was in Chou Doc why not go see the Floating Fishing Village and the Cham Minority village while I was there.  He was traveling there to set up some tours for a big tour group of Germans that were coming though the next day.  So when we arrived he brought me out to a really nice Buddhist vegetarian lunch, as he is a strict Buddhist. Then we sat down on the Pier and had some nice fruit juice with some of his friends while he called one of his friends, a boat driver, to take me around on a tour of the Villages.  So after a few minutes of talking with her he turns around and says, “So she said that you can stay in her house for the next few days.” 

I did not even know what to say. I had been talking to Tung about homestays and how I wanted to do one perhaps in the Minority village and my plan was to go and try and to arrange one when I went to visit, but it just happened, that easy. I mean it was even illegal for them to house me without governments permission but they were going to do it anyways. I was so excited! All I could think of was “this is SO dragons.”  It just all worked out so perfectly.  As the Alchemist says, beginners luck.  So my cousin ended up picking me up and took me for a tour of the fishing village where they have huge cages full of fish underneath their house and then to the Cham Minority village, a Muslim group in the delta known for their beautiful hand woven silk textiles. 

It was very interesting, all of the houses were right next to the river on stilts and on most the houses they have marked the high water point on one of the stilts from each year.  It is sad to say the least.  Every year since 2001 the water level has dropped 6 inches to a foot.  The only thing I was thinking at that time was CHINA….  So yea.

So my cousin after dressing up in ridiculous garments and taking pictures he let me drive back to my moms house where he dropped me off.   My Sister was there along with her two young boys, one who was like 3 years old and the other about 1 year old.  They were sleeping in the hammocks so I just chilled with my sister.  Oh yea did I mention the house was in a floating village!!!  So the house is 16 paces long and 5 paces wide.  They have 2 hammocks in the main room, obviously with a TV and a large sound system.  The porch looks over the neighborhood, the sun setting right behind the row of floating boat/houses across from us and the Lao star right above the main channel off the boat to the left.  They have one bed, Bamboo mat of course, that they sleep on.  Behind the bedroom was their closet/ storage room where I would sleep they would put down a bamboo mat and a pillow and a blanket and hang a bug net for me there.  Behind that was the kitchen and bathroom off to the right.  Kitchen was one cabinet and one propane stove.  There was an opening off the back of the kitchen where we would shower from the river and do dishes and wash clothes.  The bathroom was just a hole in the river… (LNT???) 

So yea all afternoon I just chilled with my sister and my 3 year old nephew who was so cool.  We would just chill he would jump all over me and we would feed each other and he would come and just sit on my lap.  He loved the sticky rice basket that he would always throw on his head.  So the sunset and my mom and dad came home who are both boat drivers in the town showing tourists around the floating villages.  No one in my family spoke any English.  So Dinner stated cooking and I did some laundry and helping wash and pick some vegetables that they brought home. When dinner was being served Tung showed up on a boat to come and eat with us and make sure that I was ok and having a good time. 

They cooked a FEAST. Literally.  I think the only time I had more food was that one night in Kunming when all the boys went out.  2 huge fried garlic and butter fish with 2 kinds of tofu, and rice and noodles and a bunch of different leaves with rice paper (it was make your own spring roll) with peanut sauce.  And if that was not enough after that they brought out Mekong squid that we would pop into a boiling broth right in front of us and cook it there. Of course lots of beer was served and my uncles came over (you know the uncles…) and it was amazing!! Eating out on the porch of the house under the stars in the middle of Mekong… I could not get over it. AMAZING!! So I went to bed and the next morning I got up and my Brothers (2 of them) took me out to the market for Vietnamese noodle breakfast of Pho.  I came back to the pier and had some coffee with my family.  They had to give all of the Germans rides around so I went into the Market and bought some presents for my family and went to go see some sights, Including a mountain(more of a hill)  that was the only one for miles and from the top you could see the boarder of Vietnam and Cambodia and the entire delta. 

So I negotiated with a moto driver to take me up AND DOWN for half of what they normally do.  But when we got to the top he started screaming at me in Vietnamese  and I had no clue what was going on/ but kinda did, until some one came over and helped me out.  He  wanted the money just to go up and double to go down. So of course the 50 cents did not really matter to me but it was the principle so I paid him 3/4^th of what I was going to and walked down.  Everyone I tell the story to does not get why I did not just pay him the 50 cents more… but you guys get it.

So I went back to the pier and once again went back to the house at like 2 pm and chilled with my sister and nephew.  By this time Tung went back to Ho Chi Min but he was constantly calling me and my family to make sure that they were helping me get a bus back to Ho Chi Min the next day in order to catch my flight. 

That night after the grocery boat came by I paddled out with our boat to go explore the village.  As I am wandering by one boat I see my uncle from the night before and of course all the 7 guys he is sitting with start yelling at me and waving me over.  So I dock at that house where I sit with them and eat some food and drink a bit.  A 22 year old girl lived in the house who had PERFECT English despite only studying for 2 years who sat with us and helped translate and talked with us.  I rowed back to my house and we had a nice family dinner before an intense session of Karaoke.

Nick you would love this language, you would be fluent in like 3 hours.  It is all written in roman characters with 6 different tones and accent marks on all the words.  So doing Karaoke was fun, we were all bent over laughing at me trying to pronounce the words with all the tones.

The next morning we filled up with gas at the floating gas station and then went to the market again with my dad to get breakfast.  We then chilled with the whole family at the pier for like 3 hours drinking coffee and chilling.  Some one, I have no clue who it was, went with me and my mom to drop me off at the van to take me to Ho Chi Min.  My mom sent me on my way with bags upon bags of fruit.  The 7 hour ride was not bad at all, as there was the cutest old lady nest to me who would by me corn and help out of course she did not speak a word of English, but her acts of kindness is what really got me.  She drove in that point about South East Asia that we have always been thinking of throughout the trip.  Obviously a complete stranger, and foreigner who is on a local van to Saigon, no problem going out of her way to help me.  The difference in our two societies hit me hard right at that moment and I have been thinking about that lady so often since then.

I got to Ho Chi Min Bus station and she tried to get me on a local bus with her pass but that did not work so I said my fairwells to her and hoped on the back of a moto in the City of 8 Million people.  Way bigger than Kunming. I had no idea what I was in for. 

He told me that the guesthouse that I wanted to go to did not exist anymore but I made him take me there anyways.  I put on Oren’s goggles and held on as tight as I could as we flew through intersections with about 30 other motos crossing as well.  After running out of gas and burning my leg on the exhaust and getting lost I finally made it. 

It was a nice guest house and it was nice to unpack and repack my bag as I could not remember the last time I did that.  I called Tung and he said that he was coming over to take me out to dinner.  So I hoped on his moto and He flew me through the streets of Saigon.  I did not realize how big the city was until then.  HOLY LORD! It was no Prek Pdao…  He took me to a fancy place where I could sample all different types of Vietnamese food from all around the country. He brought me by his little apartment to show me it and then apologized for having to leave me so early because he had to get up at 4 am to bring a bunch of monks that were coming from India to a holy temple in central Vietnam the next morning and that was not even through the his company, just something he was doing on the side. So on the way back to the guesthouse he gave me a little tour of the city that was cut off short by what felt like 5 million motorcycles on the rode all with people waving Vietnamese flags and noise makers as Vietnam just won the South East Asian games final soccer match. So after an exhausting ride back trying to weave our way through all of these people we finally made it back where I said goodbye to Tung.  Of course he would not allow me to pay him anything or get him anything to say my thanks.  He said it was purely, “One Buddhist helping out another.”

So I got into bed and turned over.  It was awful there was no one else in this bed with me.  Ok well I will just go down the hall to one of our other 4 rooms where people are hanging out… oh wait. 

So that was hard, I did not even know what to do with my self being so lonely in a guesthouse. It was different in the homestays but now I was in a guesthouse with no one else in my bed.  Awkward.

So the next morning I went to the airport and they would not let me check in. Supposedly in order to fly to the Maldives I needed proof of me return flight, well my dad was meeting me there with an old school Paper ticket for my flight home so it was not even in the computer.  Welcome back to civilization Chris… I talked my way on to the flight after like an hour of trying to explain to them that I had a ticket and no I was not going to buy another one. 

So I am sorry this has been so delayed but this was my trip to Vietnam from the time I left all of you guys to the time I flew out.   It was an amazing time and complete beginners luck, I mean it was truly a Dragons experience as all the cards just seemed to be perfect, a 10 no trump hand.  But although I went alone, I wanted my dragons there!

So if any of you are in the delta region or if Dragons ever runs a trip there you guys HAVE to get in touch with Tung. He is so knowledgeable about Vietnam and the area and he would be the perfect in country guide. 

Hope all of you are well, I miss you all!!

I thought I had been adjusting back to American life fairly well.  A few days spent in Los Angeles had been an intensive reintroduction: the superficial commercialism, the hedonistic throes of USC frat parties, the highly-processed bovine revelry of an In-and-Out burger.  Yet, these aspects of our culture did not phase me- I was happy to be back and wasn't experiencing the difficulties of relating to friends and family.  That is, until I went to The Container Store with my sister.  As I glanced down the endless isles of glorified tupperware and plastic shelving, I felt a profound anger and disgust come over me.  Just so we have complete transperancy (a word my dragon's instructors were so fond of), I have never been fond of The Container Store.  Something about it just gives me the heebie-jeebies.  But after returning from Nepal and India, seeing the rows upon rows of absolutely nothing affected me deeply.  The product is merely stuff, which can store more stuff.  This small warehouse building stored, well, storage.  I thought back to my sparse room in Kathmandu, decorated with a Thangka and a bed, or my Gregory backpack (still waiting to be unpacked on my floor) which carried me through the deserts of the Tibetan plateau and the Annapurnas.  I ended up leaving the store and going to read in the protection of my car.

Later on that evening, my father and I were dropping the same sister off at the Baltimore airport. We kept hearing the sounds of cheering reverberating around the international terminal.  As my family was checking her bags, I wandered off to find the source of the ovation.  It was families and friends welcoming home solidiers returning from Iraq.  From a second floor balcony, I watched the small group break into applause and cheering as the buzz-cut soldiers emerged from the gate.  "America the beautiful" was blasting from a boombox nearby.  A cheesy moment perhaps, but I felt once again connected  to my country and home.  Recalling the torchlight Maoist protests on the streets of Kathmandu or the banda strikes, which are bringing the country to its knees, I appreciated the US - our relative stability and function.

So here I sit, part of me ready to hit the college party scene, part of me hoping to explore the US with its myriad parks and people during the rest of my gap year, most of me wishing I was back in Asia.  Like Dr. Strangelove, the German scientist of the cult classic movie, my loyalties are now more ambiguous, my goals more confused.  Yet, I also have a fresh perspective to work with, and an experience the lessons of which will have a lasting effect.  Like Dr. Strangelove, I must get used to a whole new world.

Amid the chaos of returning to the states and then returning home, my world in the past five days has been both completely normal and completely alien. 

For example:

I was walking around the grocery store, I wasn't even looking for anything, I was just tagging along with my mom and everything was pretty normal. When I got to the freezer section, with multiple aisles of bizarrely lit up frozen foods in clear glass cases, however, I started to cry. I'm not even sure exactly why.

I went to an Asian (specific I know) grocery store by my house, wandered around it, bought a sticky rice bamboo steamer and some of those crunchy coconut/sesame sweet crepe like things, and it turned out the family who worked there was a Chinese-Lao family, whose daughter had grown up in Thailand. I had thought that they were speaking Lao previously, but it sounded funny, (the Chinese accent I guess) so I didn't think much of it until the check out counter when after finding out that I had been in Lao and China they started asking me things in Lao and Chinese. As things like this normally happen, I could only think of how to say things in Khmer. Oops. During this whole process, another woman was walking into the store and the mother and daughter at the check out turn to her and are like "Oh, she's from Laos too". This poor woman looks slightly confused, but responded with "Sabaidee". My mind was whirling. When I got home I just wandered around it in a confused daze.

While talking on the phone with my boyfriend, I found out that Sam Moog's dad wrote his chemistry textbook.

I went to get my flu shot, and when I walked out of the doctor's little room, one of Stew's friends who had been living in Kunming was sitting there waiting to get his.

I went to go pick out a Christmas tree with my parents down the road from my house. In someways it was normal to my life back home; the same highschool was running the stand and the trees were set up in the same way. It was strange yet familiar to hear people say "Yes ma'am," "ain't," and "y'all" in normal conversation. In some ways, even though I was freezing cold, and the people working there were bundled up actively working with pine trees and chain saws, it felt the most like Cambodia out of any of my experiences back home. There were all ages present and there was both a sense of community and genuine care among everyone present. It reminded me strongly of the way our various homestay villages felt. 

I think one of the best things so far that's happened, however, is that I got a chance to talk to one of my close friends on the phone. He had called me as soon as I had gotten back but I hadn't called him back until last night because I was a little apprehensive about it. On the phone, he excitedly started telling me how he was doing and then he paused and said "What about you? How was your trip? I got so excited the other day thinking about you coming back because I knew you'd come back changed and I couldn't wait to figure out how". I was stunned. 

Those are just a few of the things that have been happening to me in the past five days, but they are a good reminder of 1) the emotional craziness of coming home and change 2) the world being an extremely small place  3) still having space and room to grow even further at home.

Miss you all and I hope your worlds are similarly joyful and crazy,

Mara