Gimme Shelter

Gimme Shelter

Truth be told, Lori and I were kinda freaked out as the plan for our volunteer mission was laid out in greater detail. Unlike India, we were not going to be part of a group of volunteers – we were the group of volunteers. An hour outside of Saigon in a small village, we were deposited at our guest house after spending an hour and a half in a crash course in Vietnamese. Their language is quite sing-song with each upward and downward tones changing the meaning of each word. Our accompanying tour guide whose job it was to get us comfortably set up was named Quon; which was pronounced Won. But based on the tone, When saying “Won” I could be calling him by his actual name, or referring to him as kingdom or trousers or lake.
Quon, or Lake as I was apparently calling him, was required to make certain that we settled in OK. We visited the animal reserve and were introduced to Mr. Lan, head of the Wildlife Animal Rescue, or WAR as it was known. Apparently I have now served in the Vietnam WAR. Do I qualify for military pension? Mr. Lan, we were reassured by Kingdom, spoke a very good English. ‘Very good’, translated from Vietnamese to English evidently means ‘barely passable’. Lori and I were able to piece together enough words between the two of us to get a fundamental understanding of what was in store for us. We would be cleaning cages, preparing food and feeding the beasts. We didn’t discuss the subject aloud, but there was a palpable tension that could best be translated as ‘What the fuck did we just get ourselves into?’
The guest house is situated next to the Reserve. It is a comfortable home built in Buddhist style with an indoor/outdoor temple and a small kitchen and a bathroom with cold and cold running water. Fortunately our room is air conditioned and the comfort level is fine. Internet access is non-existent in the guest house which will make posting this somewhat of a challenge, So if none of you are reading this, that is the reason why.
So Trousers stayed the night down the road at a seedy rent-by-the-hour type place and was back in our guest house this morning having done without a good night’s sleep. Mosquito netting is apparently a must here. It hangs over or beds and creates a pretty translucent hue (not Hué) as one looks out through it. Poor Won had Non. The bugs, the whores, the heat, the drunks and the parade of motorcycles left our unfortunate tour guide feeling less than fully rested. Lori and I had slept relatively well for our first night in a new place. If you discount, the barking dog, crowing roosters and howling gibbons, the surroundings had an air of deep tranquility.
Fortunately the national drink of this place is coffee, and plenty of it. At some other date and time I will go into the details of it. Most likely following a fresh cup which will allow me to type at about 600 wpm.
We begged Quon to stay the ten days we were slated to be here.He had taken us through the market, looked after our settling in, explained our upcoming functions at the Reserve and was the only person within 100 kilometers that spoke both Vietnamese and English. He declined politely – something about having to get back to work in Saigon, but he stayed the morning and ensured that we integrated properly into our jobs. Mr. Lam was there to greet us and we were in business by 8:00. My first assignment involved a squeegee, a shovel and a large plastic bag. I cannot honestly answer the question about bears shitting in the woods, but I’m here to state incontrovertibly that they do shit in their cages. A lot. Lori was handed a rake and was sent to clean up cages, paths and wherever leaves landed on the 20 or so acres that made up the Reserve. We were still uneasy about the whole gig – I think the worst realization was that we’d be stuck talking exclusively to each other for the next 10 days – a daunting task in itself. So I made like Dr. Dolittle, and talked to the animals. I’ve never been hugely into animals – although I’ve always been a fan of ‘House of the Rising Sun. The livestock at the reserve were instantly endearing, most of them. The cobra not so much, ditto for the monitor lizard. There were these really adorable smallish bears called Sun Bears and Moon Bears. They are regularly captured by despicable individuals who keep them strapped down on a board in a tiny cage with a catheter permanently jabbed into their gall bladders. You see, Moon Bear bile is apparently either a wonderful cure all or sexual performance enhancer. So these poor animals can be victimized by lowlife illegal merchants and can spend 15-20 years strapped down excreting bile into a bag for export. We were pleased to see 8 of these creatures in a controlled environment, eating tonnes of fruit and veggies and enjoying their lives, even if it did mean cleaning up their shit. But it seems that I do a lot of that at home too, just not so literally. There are monkeys, gibbons, otters, turtles, owls, and a bunch of other critters that we ended up hanging out with and developing instant relationships with. By lunch time, Lori and I were both back on track and happy with our 2010 mercy mission.
We worked with the local staff sweeping, feeding, raking and generally looking after the well-being of all these creatures. The staff spoke a few words of English; I’d picked up a couple of rudimentary Vietnamese expressions, so everything was moving along great.
In the middle of the afternoon session, we were instructed by the two youngish guys we were working with to hop onto this motor cycle that had a cart attached behind it. Lori, bring the more experienced and braver of the two of us (she being a bit of a motorcycle chick in an earlier life, but I digress – ask her if you want details), hopped on behind the driver and I straddled the edge of the cart along with the other worker. We drove several kilometers on back roads and through parts of the country that the average tourist will never get to see. We ended up turning off the pavement onto a dirt path that wound its way through the flat countryside. There were rice paddies, we say water buffalo, there were locals farming and gathering up crops. We saw rubber trees on mini plantations. It was absolutely magical. I kept thinking of all the scenes of US helicopters landing in places like these with 19 year old kids from Oklahoma and Tennessee jumping out, M-16’s brandished. Looking around, I realized that those kids had no chance – there was minimal natural cover – add the heat and mosquitoes, throw in a lack of local knowledge and absolutely no support from the citizens. Big mistake. What was not evident in The Deerhunter, Apocalypse Now, etc. was the serenity of the locale. Our excursion led us to the banks of the Saigon River, a slow moving waterway that was tranquil, beautiful and serene. There were water plants growing on the shore which the guys pulled out and threw into the cart to be transplanted back onto the reserve. It was suggested that I take a swim in the river, I quasi-reluctantly agreed to wade me way in. Two steps into the bank, I was bogged down to the top of my thighs in muck. I extracted myself with difficulty and tried to imagine pulling myself out of the morass with live ammo coming at me, wearing full military uniform and trying to keep my rifle dry. Another military side note of which there will be many in this blog – the M-16 was a hugely inappropriate weapon. It was purchased as part of an inside deal and was notorious for jamming and failing. Things like humidity and mud rendered the weapon virtually useless. Add treasonous greed as another large contributor to the 50,000 or so Americans kids killed for no reason.
By the end of te day, Lori and I turned to each other, amazement in our eyes, reflecting on the things we had done and looking forward to what was going to be coming over the next while. Being here was no mistake – it just took a day or so to reframe and get the focus set right.