Whining Just a Bit

It hasn't, by most standards, been a great day for SuzyQ in southern Viet Nam.

Awaking in a chipper mood to my cell phone's Asian ringtone at 5:30am, I swallowed my Malarone pill (ALWAYS TAKE WITH FOOD) and a quick gulp of water. Better eat soon, I thought.

45 minutes later our hosts have breakfast ready, and I'm feeling kinda funny. Concern #1.

Breakfast itself is undercooked eggs, sunny-side up, crusty bread, overly sweet yoghurt and instant coffee. Highly flavorful pho noodles and lightly cooked instant noodles are an option as well. Concern #2.

Biking to the worksite was no big thing, we chatted and evaded small dogs and children with that jerking, wobbling eagerness characteristic of unsteady beginners.

We were told at the worksite to strip the skin. What?

One of those work-orders that doesn't translate very well. Oooooohhhh, strip the bark off these sticks?! Oh, ha-ha-ha...yeah. Strip them. OK.

With either a machete or hatchet in hand, we bent over and began to shave long slices of bark from recently felled saplings. The workers had been correct in using the term "skin"--the saplings were unbearably humanlike. Under their rough bark was live, moist orange and red flesh. The knobs exactly resemble kneecaps. Whatever type they were, these trees look uncannily like fresh meat, and we were all sickened. Concern #3.

Concern #4 came when all the previous concerns amounted to a strange, heavy feeling in my stomach, zapping me of energy and leaving my hatchet in trembling, weakened fingers. A colossal sweat slid down my arms, back, throat, chest and legs (and trust me, I DO NOT full-out sweat, only glisten or maybe perspire). Definitely not good.

I basically dropped the hatchet and ran into the woods to share my breakfast with the jungle floor. Although the details are somewhat mystifying and interesting to me, I'll spare you everything but saying that it was a rare, sunflower yellow goo. I peered at it curiously and prompted added to it. Concern #5.

The Vietnamese foreman who noticed my upheavals was very worried and called over Kiley, even after I cheerfully explained to him that yes, I was sick (bi benh) but I'd be fine (duoc).

"You, girl, come help your weird friend who vomits in primary colors," he probably said.

It's a darned good thing Viet Nam isn't one of those cultures that believes it's bad luck to have women on a construction site. These guys were nice, inquiring cautiously into my welfare and comfort and pointing incessantly to the hammock nearby.

I felt so frustrated and worthless; here we are for a simple total of 15 weekdays to finish this home for a family of roughly 20 folks, and I have to be sick for 1/15 (possibly more) of those. I got up a few times and swung the hatchet, but they were wimpy swings.

A downpour started, and we moved inside the makeshift shelter the family has adopted while we build their home. After 2 minutes of sitting down on the family's bamboo-mat bed, I fell asleep. So did Kevin. And Pablo. And Phuong.

When the deluge stopped we trudged out of the shelter, slipping in a quicksand path of rich brown and black mud. The palm fronds were covered in slime and slid beneath our sandals, and the twisty roots everywhere weren't much help either.

Stepping across a single concrete beam "bridge", I suddenly went down. The mud beneath my sandals gave an operatic squelch, my left leg went straight down and my right inner thigh slammed into the bridge, bringing me shoulder-first into a mucky river. Thank God I am female, that's all I'm saying.

Stunned but smiling dazedly, I grabbed fistfuls of the muddy bank and shared some mud with Kevin's outstretched hand. "Did I really just fall off that bridge?" "Yep," said Kevin. Sympathetically, of course.

Lunch for me was a half bowl of white rice. Don't try it people, that isn't enough to keep a bird alive, but I didn't want one single grain more.

Anyhow, needless to go on with the physical misery of the day, but the nausea put me out of commission. Not sure which of the Concerns it was, but I retired back to the hotel and handed over my English lesson plans to co-teachers Tom and Hieu. The bike ride back over the bridge was exceptionally bumpy, and I dropped a shoe twice. Going back over the bridge to rescue it warranted some dirty looks from motorbike passengers. Back at the hotel I collapsed and slept for the rest of the afternoon up to dinner. Talk about feeling worthless.

We've all been getting sick here, though not illnesses of the same ilk. Poor Annalee's been diagnosed with a persistent flu, my roommate Tram's throw up more than she's eaten, Pablo and Kiley can hardly breathe through their sinuses, and Didi's got a perpetual headache. Something's up.

Thankfully, as I write this post I'm fully better now and have enjoyed a full day of skinning more tree limbs (to serve as beams for the roof of the house), returning to a more-than-rice diet, and teaching English. We've all got medicine and doctors close by, but sickness in tropical Viet Nam is no picnic. The food is mostly made with juices, sauces and oils that curdle any Western stomach that isn't feeling 100 percent, and the most elegant bathrooms here in rural Viet Nam are usually free of toilet paper, a lid, flushing capability, etc. Yeah. Makes you really think about those famed women who'd pop out babies in the midst of rice paddies.

Gotta be tough to get through 'Nam, that's what we're learning.