Xin "Ciao," Saigon

In Vietnamese, Hello sounds like the words "Sin- Chow", which I remember from the Italian word for hello, "ciao." I made it to Ho Chi Minh City! It is oppressively humid and sweltering hot, but a very exciting city! 6 of the student-athletes and I got a chance to explore the zoo and botanic gardens (highlights = yawning hippos and dancing elephants) while dodging the millions of motorbikers on the streets who follow no traffic pattern or lane lines and stop for nobody. SonBinh's advice was actually correct: Don't look, just cross. They will (hopefully) go around you!

Hungry Hungry Hippo

Saigon Traffic

We made a great first impression on each other at our first meal, attempting to eat Pho, a national treat consisting of rice noodles and meat and vegetables in broth, which is by far the least flattering and delicate meal to eat, especially with chopsticks! I think we will still get along though, everyone is very nice.

By far the most sobering part of the day was our visit to the  Vietnamese-American war museum. We saw a prison camp used by Americans and French military to torture and detain prisoners of war, including the "tiger cages" of barbed wire that tightly contained 2-7 people in a very small space uncomfortably in the sun. Too many terrifying things were described for me to share them all. Think of the movie "Road to Paradise" but worse and with the US as bad gúys. Then the exhibit where you see how communist countries around the world protested the U.S. aggression into Vietnam. And possibly most horrifying was the floor devoted to Agent Orange and Napalm use by the US military. The exhibit pictured the brutal use of these chemical weapons on citizens and children, and also documented the continuing effects of this warfare, showing pictures of dramatically deformed children and citizens who never even lived during the war, but drink the contaminated water or were born to parents exposed to large amounts of Agent Orange . It's one thing to read about these injustices inflicted by my countrymen, but ít is a completely different experience to read about it as an American visiting Vietnam. Especially after we saw a man with no lower body walking on his hands in the street today. The six of us remarked on how guilty we felt walking out of the museum. Heavy stuff.

Some second generation victims of agent orange

On a positive note, we are off to Hau Giang (pronounced "how yahng" or "how zhang" depending on your region) to prepare to start teaching and coaching, and hopefully having a positive impact!