For Now

"For reasons I cannot explain there's some part of me wants to see Graceland."
- Paul Simon, "Graceland"

"And even if we are occupied with most important things, if we attain to honour or fall into great misfortune - still let us remember how good it was once here, when we were all together, united by a good and kind feeling which made us, ... better perhaps than we are."
- Fyodor Dostoevsky

Susie and I stood, both sweating from the late afternoon weather of the Mekong Delta, in our classroom, looking out over the benches filled with students. The boys sat on the right side - huddled closely together - trying to come to a consensus on what the answer might be. The girls sat on the right side - more spread out, with some sitting in their seats and others using the seats as footrests and the desktops as seats - leaning forward with anticipation. It was their turn. The girls already were assured victory. Susie and I had decided that this would be the last word and the girls were winning 4 to 1 as it was.

My blue shirt was smeared with a mixture of dirt and multi-colored chalk. My forehead shone with sweat, and my stubble (which the girls had played with, in curious horror earlier) was patchy and needed shaving. Susie took the little piece of broken white chalk and began to draw a splotchy line - broken six times with a hyphen in the middle. It looked like this,

_ _ _ _ - _ _ _

It was our last day of class. Three weeks of housebuilding and teaching in the Mekong Delta were coming to a close in a game of hangman with our children.
**Our kids are really good at hangman. Susie and I often wondered if they cheated somehow, given how quickly they were able to fill in the blanks successfully.
So without delaying any longer, Susie, in a brilliant stroke of inspiration, gave the hint for the word we had chosen.

"It's something you have to say, but don't want to."

The girls - after a quick meeting - broke up and began to chant "G! G! G!"

G_ _ _ - _ _ _

I had never looked very carefully at a map of Ireland before in my life until I came to Saigon. It just seemed like a little green blob dropped off the coast of England. No form. No shape. Just a place.

But when you look carefully at Ireland on a map, you will see that it resembles a barking dog sitting on its "bum" with its legs pointed out towards the United States. It's a pretty cute dog if you let your imagination shape it a little bit.

"I'm from the Dog's Bum of Ireland," Michael had explained to us.

We had met Michael after a small group dinner at a Nepalese Restaurant on Le Thanh Ton. Wanting an after dinner drink, we had walked down the street and passed by Sheridan's Irish House - an Irish pub we had read about in our guidebooks. So, figuring that Irish food was just as "ethnic" as Nepalese food, we ducked into the bar.

Sheridan's is a cramped, short-roofed space. Pictures, ranging from maps of Ireland (looking like a dog) to family shields to a picture of Ho Chi Minh in a sailor's hat, cover every inch of the walls. The space is dark and the wood-paneled booths only add to the gloomy (and yet warm) atmosphere. The bar itself sits at the very back of the room, and you have to duck your head under the headboard to ask the bartender for a drink. To the right of the bar, the big-bearded owner (also named Michael) half-sits on a stool with his left hand on one knee and his right hand shifting between his pint and the computer mouse that controls the music. The computer screen shines in his glasses.

Cramming ourselves into a small booth, we had hardly ordered our drinks, when a man, sitting at a booth by himself, leaned across the room, and in an Irish accent offered to trade booths. Overcome with his generosity (and Irish accent), we told him that we'd rather just join him.

And so it was that we came to meet Michael of the Dogs Bum of Ireland.

Sitting with a pint of Foster's and reading a travel magazine, Michael was dressed in a pink dress shirt, khaki pants, and brown loafers - the last detail was something I didn't notice until I had accidentally kicked the empty box of beer out from under his feet.

"I actually might need that. Otherwise, my feet barely touch the ground," he spoke shyly.

Overjoyed at having found a new friend, we began to ask Michael about himself. He was a salesman for an aqua tab corporation based out of Ireland; however, his job had him traveling all around the world for a good portion of the year. He had a wife and three daughters.

"It's pathetic," he shook his head, "I always find myself back in my hotel room just watching these videos." As he told us this, he pulled out his cell phone and turned on a video, showing his three little blonde and red haired daughters running around a small, fenced-in backyard with his wife (with a shy smile) avoiding the camera's eye.

"I miss them a lot."

The night continued on. We talked about politics, his business, college (and why we should all be accountants...), and religion. We laughed, and as the spirit(s) began to move us, we proposed a toast.

"Cheers to...," we began, but Michael cut us off.

"No, in Ireland, we say "Slainte". It means "to good health."

"Then slainte!" We replied as our glasses moved to each others.

At the end of the night as we stood in front of Sheridan's, I shook Michael's hand.

"If I ever find myself in the Dog's Bum, I'll be sure to look you up."

"Good luck to you, my friend. You'll go far," he replied with a smile.

And as I turned to walk away, I began to feel a sharp pang in my heart that I had never felt before. It was a feeling that I have felt increasingly on this trip. It was the feeling of knowing that I would never see Michael again. Even if I did ever find myself in the Dog's Bum of Ireland, what were the chances that I would actually see Michael even then?

He had gotten us through that night and helped me understand that the best way to cope with homesickness was to tell some other homesick soul about what home is.

As I turned the corner, I thought about Ireland and how, thanks to Michael, a spot on a blob had become a bum on a dog and even more importantly, a home of a friend (however short the friendship may have been). I felt myself - as I entered the gates and passed under the trees by our guest house - half whispering the words, "Slainte, Michael."

"O! O! O!" The girls started to scream. The boys looked panic-stricken, and I began to feel a distant pang in my heart. I tried to start taking the faces of the children and the details of the room. Susie walked to the chalkboard and drew two circles over two of the lines. The girls exploded with applause.

Goo_ - _ _ _

I first understood just how little English the manager of our hotel in the Mekong Delta spoke, when I got sick. I must have eaten some bad meat or something, because just about the only food I was able to keep inside myself (besides rice, which was just out of the question at this point) was bread.

We had gotten by just fine for the first week and a half. My main interaction with him had come either in passing (when a nod would suffice), in buying a bottle of water from the behind the front desk (when a few fingers to show "how much" were all that was needed), or in ordering breakfast in the morning when I would simply say "Pho" (to which he would repeat, nod, and bring the noodly beef soup).

But pho was simply not going to work at this moment. I was already a bit suspicious of the meat as the doer of the damage of my stomach, so I couldn't just say "pho". I needed bread - which, I think, is "banh mi" in Vietnamese.

I came into the kitchen around noon and found him walking barefoot to one of the cabinets. He looked at me with his customary smile.

I smiled back.

"Uhm...banh mi?"

His smile widened.

I tried to gesture my eating a loaf of "banh mi".

His smile grew wider and his head began to slowly shift from left to right to left to right.

He didn't understand. I didn't panic. I had come prepared. I took out my notebook and a pen and began to draw a loaf of bread (which, given his reaction, must have looked like a mixture between a cat eyeball and a football). I tried a sliced loaf of bread. He began to understand. I wrote "b-a-n-h-m-i" on the paper. We were getting somewhere. He nodded. Waving me outside, around the corner, and finally to the room of one of the Vietnamese roommates who was also sick that day. The roommate looked around wearily.

"He says that he doesn't know what you want."

I sighed. "Just a loaf of bread."

So as I sat in my room a few minutes later, the man knocked on my door with a piece of French bread in a green plastic bag. Then, with a sly grin, took his right arm out from behind his back to reveal another loaf of sweet bread he had obviously gone out to buy from the market. And, oh, it was delicious.

I was truly thankful to him for not only this one instance, but his general hospitality towards our group. He always smiled and would laugh whenever I (through a translator) would ask for another carton of yogurt to settle my stomach.

But when it was time to leave, I fell at a loss for words again. I had just loaded all my bags into the bus and wanted to go make sure that I hadn't left anything in my room. As I passed back to my room, I passed him and stopped. I nodded. He nodded. And then we shook hands. Smiled once more. And left.

At this point they knew. The kids had to be cheating. We hadn't even taught them the alphabet, and yet they knew perfectly well how to spell this word! The girls were clapping, one girl was standing and screaming on top of one of the desks. It was chaos in the room as the boys tried to out-scream them and drown out the girls' chanting, and yet the girl's voice in the back shot over them all, so loud and so clear.


"D! D! D!"

Susie tried to act like they were wrong, walking slowly towards the gallows that stood empty on the chalk board. Unfortunately, she could only act for so long. The girls began to scream with horror, the boys with joy, until suddenly Susie turned to fill in the "D" above the next blank line.

Good - _ _ _

When we first met Eric, he was doing an Irish jig around the cramped common area between the tables at Sheridan's. We watched him as he would be talking with someone at the bar - seeming quite normal and subdued - until suddenly he would spring forth and with a triumphant "HA-HA!" begin to jig - his feet overcome with the spirit of the lord of the dance.

So it came with mixed emotions, when the jigger, himself, sat down at our table. Not feeling particularly outgoing, we cordially asked his name and he introduced himself as Eric, and then promptly launched off into a spiel about how young people have no soul if they can't dance to the Celtic music that was being played.

He continued to drink and continued to get funnier - throwing in random quips about the decay of society and, on our second meeting, even created a short Dr. Seuss-ish rhyme about the "St-fu".

"Just imagine what the St-fu... can do... for you..." he mused with a baritone growl.

On top of his quips and details of his life in Virginia (that's where he's from), he would drop his head from time to time, his chin hitting his chest. We would think we had lost him until we would notice his head slowly bobbing, and then his feet tapping, and then his body springing fully to life to send him jigging about the room.

On our last night with Eric, he came into Sheridan's with less enthusiasm. He had just dropped off his son with his ex-wife. The conversation was subdued. He began to preach.

"...You guys have so much potential. Just don't mess up like I did. I'm happy for you guys...."

We quietly thanked him and tried to smile.

A bagpipe began to play vigorously in the background. Eric sat, staring off into space for a moment. We eyed each other and watched as his head began to slowly bob. We began to smile, and suddenly - as he always did - he leapt from his chair with a mighty "HA-HA!" and began to jig through the tables.

So not knowing what else to do, we stood up and began to jig (or something like that...) about Sheridan's with him.

Eric was not perfect, but he infused an energy into us every time we encountered him. He made us laugh, shared lessons he had learned from his own life, and had even shown us what kind of soul it took to dance to Celtic music.

I didn't notice the moment he left, but I left shortly afterwards, as I caught him getting into a taxi to go home. It was our last night in Saigon before going to the Mekong Delta, and I began to feel that same pang that I had felt with Michael, our hotel manager, and the kids.

I didn't know what to say, and yet I knew that "Good-bye" in this situation would not do. It was more than "Good-bye". It was "have a good life". It was "we've enjoyed knowing you". It was "you're a better guy than you give yourself credit for." It was "good luck to you." And yet, what I finally heard myself say, as we shook hands and hugged, were only two words that somehow captured everything I needed to say.

"Thank you."

If they had been real, the gallows on the chalk board would have been completely empty. There would have been no crowd to see the hanging as there would be no man to hang. The noose would have swung whenever the wind decided to blow. The children were not going to let the innocent chalk man be hung. They knew exactly what the word was, and yet they were painfully drawing it out.

"B! B! B!"

Susie filled in the next letter.

Good-b _ _

Like I said, it's a feeling I've never had before. They're just two one syllable words. Easy enough, right? I've said it before. I've said it to my mom when I go to run an errand. I've said it on the phone to friends I was on my way to see. I've said it to friends going off to college. And I've said it to girlfriends at the end of a phone conversation at night. Even in situations as painful as saying good-bye to my parents before this trip or college, I didn't get the same feeling I got in saying good-bye to the people I've met here.

It's not a lack of feeling on my part for friends, family, and loved ones. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I miss y'all more than words and actions will ever be able to convey, but my good-byes to y'all (friends and family) always come with an assumed catch, that is, that the "good-bye" is just for now.

Of course, I hate spending time away from any of you, but when I've felt homesick this summer, my heart has been strengthened with the knowledge that I'll be seeing you all again soon, and that our absence from one another is, in fact, only for now.

That said, this pang in my heart that I get when I say good-bye to people I meet here comes, I believe, from the absence of that little catch, "for now."

I don't if I would be friends with Michael or Eric or our hotel manager if they lived in Mississippi (or if I would ever meet them at all!), but there's something sacred about the time we spent together - however brief it may have been.

In a sense, we were all moving - quite lost - along our own paths, and yet were able to come together and help one another (whether through stories of home or through laughter or through jigging about a cramped Irish pub in Saigon) through the darkness of night until the way became light again.

Who knows if we prevailed, but if nothing else, we struggled through it all, together.


The absence of a chalk man on the board meant our time was coming to an end. We were spelling out the end of our time together, and the children could not have been happier. I wished they would mess up, forget how to spell "Good-bye," just so I could have another week, another moment, to take it all in.

"Y! Y! Y!"

Susie filled in the second to last letter.

Good-by_

They hadn't forgotten...

I don't think I know this city, Saigon, very well. It's large and overwhelming, often not very welcoming. It's imposing and frightening. It's loud and confusing. It's dirty. It's chaotic. It smells bad in places, and whenever it rains here, life has to stop.

I went to the top of a building today and was able to look out over the city. There were low clouds in the sky and the city became hidden after stretching out for what seemed like miles. It's a huge place, I realized, and I will never fully know it.

As I drive back home on the back of motorbike at end of the night, I try to take in the city. As terrible and crazy and unwelcoming as it is, it is also beautiful.

Men pull their bikes along the edges of the street with dried fish hanging underneath fluorescent lights strung to their bicycles. Women squat around small griddles, making thin vanilla-sweet waffles. Xe-om drivers call out to you to take a ride and men and women fry increasingly-delicious-smelling foods in little street stands, while people, hunched over their steaming bowls of noodles, cram into tiny rooms around long tables, laughing and toasting one another.

The HTV building glows blue and violet and yellow and green at night. A building flashes the word "PERFECT" on top of its roof. Advertisements blind you with glowing-flashing lights and motorbikes constantly honk and take over even the sidewalks.

I ride on the back of the motorbike back home and try to take in what I can of the city. The city speaks,

"I'm changing, you know," she tells me, pointing to the BMW's and the KFC's and the flashing signs of big businesses.

"I know," I reply. "Though you're very nice the way you are."

"That's very nice of you to say that."

"I'm also leaving soon."

"Well, do try and remember me as I was. I might not be the same city the next time you return."

So I close my eyes, breath in the air blowing so quickly across my face and through my hair, and release my grip from the handles to let my hands feel as though I'm flying along through the streets of the city. We speed up Le Duan, and I open my eyes just in time to see the Prudential building emerge from behind another - glowing red and blue against the black night sky.

Susie and I begin to wave to the children as they begin to cry out "E! E! E!". The boys have been defeated and the girls erupt with celebration. We try to tell them how much we've enjoyed knowing and teaching them, but they are either ecstatic with victory or crushed with defeat. We stand by the door as the children begin to file out, each waving, and saying, with large smiles, "Good-bye!"

To which, it only seems fitting to reply ...

"Good-bye!"

So that's it for the blog. I've had a ball doing it, and I hope you (whoever has decided to keep up or just read from time to time) enjoyed it. I'm sorry for being a bit less productive there at the end, but spending time in a place for long enough forces you to look a bit harder for material to write about.

I'm leaving in exactly 36 hours and will be back home on Sunday. I absolutely can't wait to see you all.

So to you, Reader, I say "Good-bye"

....for now, at least :)