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Friday, June 12, 2009 2:31 PM
I just looked at my London pictures followed by the Vietnam ones. The order here is really important, because I was struck by how cosmopolitan London was in the pictures and when I opened the Vietnam folder, the first photo was of chickens and soil.
When I was in London, I kept thinking how the kids in Vietnam were oblivious to the sights and sounds I was experiencing, simply because they were born that few borders away from myself. Unless they break out of that poverty cycle, they will not have a chance to fly to London and see for themselves the highly-active, pulsating city that it is. It made me question. And because I needed time to do that, I couldn't really bond with the London group since my perspective was almost entirely polarized from theirs. They were there to spend money, to enjoy the English lifestyle, to eat McDonalds and chips. Not that I didn't do all those things, but contrasting the days when I was in Vietnam and when I was in England, the latter days seemed frivolously spent.
My days in London were largely solitary, with Kendra for company sometimes. But even the times where we stuck to each other, I was preoccupied with my own thoughts running through my head. I retreated into Vietnam memories, because I couldn't get used to the non-bonding, non-worksite, non-Vietnamese rice days, to say the least. I think it's the same, even now. There is a certain detachment that sets when I flip through London photos, but when I watched the Vietnam video (five minutes ago, to be exact), I rolled my eyes, smiled and laughed at all the right places. It's a very personal, under my skin thing.
I can list, right off my head, the very moments when I first talked to Dawn, when I first levelled soil with Gen and Melodie, when I dropped the bucket of soil because Tom said ridiculous things. I can see, clear as crystal, the facial expressions on Miss Tay and Mr Ong when they saw us dancing Chori Chori during the inauguration. I still remember thinking how much they looked like proud parents, and how proud we were to be able to dance our hearts out and how we didn't forget the lyrics for Chan Mali Chan afterwards.
I cannot, sadly, recall how the London tour guide looked like, how many hours we sat on the bus, the jokes Mr Marcus Chan might have cracked, what the London people and I talked about (although we didn't chat much to begin with), how many hours we walked that terrible exhausting trek.
I still love that time in London, and I would, with all my heart, go back again. But I would kill, to whisk myself (and the team) back to Bac Ha, where friendships began.
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