Hay There

Goodbye and Good evening, Vietnam

maranathahay — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 06:35:00 GMT

August 31st, 2009

This place is breathtaking. Craggy rocks covered in green jut out of jet blue waters. Today we swam in salt water that was so warm, it was like a bathtub. Throughout the day, we hiked through a cave, kayaked, and ate a lot of seafood. It was a perfect day to lay out in the sun and rejuvenate.

But that was hours ago-at the moment, it’s 9:15 PM and I’m waiting for my flight to Los Angeles, by way of Narita, Japan. I don’t like thinking that my Vietnamese adventure is over, but it is.

Chalk up another pro for the filmmaker lifestyle. When you’re an editor, you do get to relive the experience over, and over, and over, and over....yet another reason to take a risk and become what I’ve always wanted to be. An employed, home-owning, documentary filmmaker, with health insurance.

If Trent can do it, maybe I can too?

Crash and Burn

maranathahay — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 06:22:00 GMT

August 30th, 2009

Today we leave for Bao La and my mentorship behind as we press on to our luxury boat “Jewel of the Bay”. Trent won’t be joining us because his ticket says he needs to go home. I’ve learned a lot about Australians and Australian pop culture on this trip. I’ll probably buy an Augie March CD as soon as I get home and I’ll also watch clips of Trent’s show, “The Chaser’s War on Everything” on Youtube. I still can’t believe the Australian government gives everyone hats and sunscreen each year. That’s so cool for a government to do.  
Perhaps most important of all, this trip has given me the courage to give a career of documentary film making a shot. It’s scary and chances are I’ll crash and burn, but what the hell.

I’m finished with my story, except for one interview with a doctor at The Peace Village, a center for children affected by Agent Orange. That can be done tomorrow though. For now, we’re headed toward relaxation, water, and toilets that can flush.

Agent Orange

maranathahay — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 06:19:00 GMT

August 29th, 2009

We’re leaving the clinic tomorrow for a pleasure cruise on Halong Bay, so I need to find my story today.

I started out by following various families go through the clinic experience. Trent thought the story would be more powerful if it was based on an individual that went through the clinic experience. The idea was to follow them from start to finish.

Not knowing who was going to go and the ailment that needed attention made it a little like the lottery. I followed two different families to their homes, interviewed them, only to find out that they had really bad colds. Not exactly TV material.

For the second time, I arrived at the clinic with my second family.

“Hey, can we just see why these other people are here?” I asked my interpreter. We began asking random people why they came to the clinic. There were lots of colds. That bug was really going around.

Finally we came across a young man and a woman that looked really tired. They were sitting on the floor, against a sheet of metal siding that was being used as a wall for the general store next door.

My interpreter asked the young lady a few questions and then looked surprised as she answered. He repeated something she said, which she confirmed.

“So, what are they here for?” I asked.

“They’re blind,” he said quietly. “They’re brother and sister, both affected by Agent Orange.”

Agent Orange. I’d been hoping to get a story related to Agent Orange, but became discouraged after I’d been told its residues were only present along the old border between The North and The South.
Agent Orange is the chemical that the United States sprayed over the jungles of Vietnam, in order to root out the Northern Vietnamese in hiding. What the US didn’t know, was that after the Vietnam War, the poisonous chemical would infiltrate the water, soil, and eventually the bloodstream of hundreds of thousands of innocent Vietnamese, causing generations of genetic mutation.

This was my story. It was interesting, something I cared about, and my subject was right in front of me. I wasn’t going to let these siblings out of my site. So I didn’t.

In other news, I drove a moped/motorcycle in Vietnam today. It was only for five minutes, but still. I drove it.

Trent rented the motorcycle in order to grab a few beauty shots of the area. He thought it would be better than walking from place to place and he was absolutely right.

Don't let the bed bugs Bite

maranathahay — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 06:17:00 GMT

August 28th, 2009

So, about that bad karma. Today I’ve been up since 3:00 and it wasn’t due to the usual suspects. (Those being roosters, cicadas, and people using the bathroom.)

At three I woke up because I heard the crinkling of candy wrappers underneath my long-sleeved thermal shirt. Candy wrappers!

I thought that it was all a little strange-especially since I don’t eat candy and didn’t eat any candy the night before. Did Trent eat a buttload of candy? Leah? How did it get down my shirt?

I rolled over on my back. Crinkle, Crinkle. Weird. I touched one of the wrappers underneath my white shirt. It moved.

I ripped off my shirt as fast as I could to reveal four large, one-inch-in-diameter beetles, scuttling around my skin.

The did not leave willingly-they had to be picked off one-by-one and one was systematically killed for souvenir purposes. I decided not to wake up Trent or Leah. If they were infested with beetles, ignorance was bliss, and if they weren’t, it would be annoying to be woken this early.

Sleep for me however, was a lost cause. I grabbed Trent’s copy of the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinback and began reading. I was four chapters in by the time the sun began casting light on the steaming jungle that surrounded us. The beetle that I thought I killed was gone. All evidence of the night before, destroyed.

In addition to assisting with the construction of a new latrine and kindergarten foundation, we saw more than five hundred people at the traveling clinic. Some cases were quite serious- locals were showing signs of cancer and the early intervention could have saved their lives. Others just needed some help with pain management. Although most of this work is temporary, it’s good to know that we’re helping in a small way. The group is a pleasure to be around and moral is high.

I need to find a story. Now.

Death Trek

maranathahay — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:13:00 GMT

August 27th, 2009

We folks, we all lived through the hike of death and although heat stroke claimed one of us, she was in good hands. This is after all, a medical trek.

The hike began quite steep as we descended into the Mai Chau Valley, trekking through tropical rainforest, using the local paths and passing through cornfields and terraced rice paddies. The difference in temperature was incredible-at least ten degrees warmer than the highlands. The local villagers were going about their own daily grind: tilling the fields in the heat, carrying things in cloth sacks from A to B, and herding water buffalo.

It was so hot, that time began to mean nothing to me. Sometimes Trent was in front of me, sometimes he was behind me. Sometimes he was talking about Australian bands, and sometimes he was telling me how to make a living as a filmmaker.

There was rain and steam, and then I woke up from my sweaty walking coma to find myself in Bao La.

I was underneath a house on stilts now and someone was offering me a suspicious looking coconut flavored ice-cream on a popsicle stick.

“I should not be eating this,” I thought. But my body was saying yes and there was no one to stop me. “I will pay for this later....”

The good news was that my bad karma did not cash in at this point in the trip. The bad news was that it was much too hot to sleep inside the houses on stilts. So Trent, Leah and I decided to cover ourselves in bug spray and sleep underneath the house, outside of the mosquito nets, on a wooden bed-plank, next to a fan that a very nice White Thai man plugged in right next to us.

Bride Stealing-What you do when you really want a Bargain

maranathahay — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 06:09:00 GMT

August 26th, 2009

So last night I thought I found my story.
Tuong, our tour guide was giving us a history of Hang Kia, and he mentioned that they still practice bride stealing.

“How awesome would it be to find someone who is about ready to steal their bride and then film them doing it?” said Trent.

Yes, it would be awesome, but very, very difficult to pull it off during the twelve hours that we had left in the village. Eventually we settled for past tense and began asking around for people who had already stolen their brides. Tuong said that there was a woman in the high mountains who had been stolen against her will but no one else. I suggested that our hostess might have some smutty information. Indeed she did. She was a stolen bride herself.

But sadly enough, this bride stealing thing isn’t like the Vietnam version of King Kong at all. It’s actually just a way to get around the dowry price or to elope if your parents aren’t supportive. The girls almost always want to get stolen. I guess it makes sense.

Basically, you get a couple of your most thug-like friends and ambush your lady in the woods. Then you tie her up and take her to your house. After that, you send some of your friends to drop the news to her parents, who give the a-okay now that her female modesty has been tainted. During all of this, the girl works on a wedding dress in captivity for a couple of months. Once it’s done, then they can have the wedding.

It’s just a way to get around the parents. Some things transcend language and culture barriers.

I think I’m still going to keep my eyes open for another story. In a few minutes, we’ll be starting a seven-hour hike to Bao La, home of the White Thai People.

You know what would make a good story-if we all recorded the amount we sweated and then compared and contrasted that amount in relation to individual body mass. The amount would be shocking, but the winner would not be. I think the winner would be *Shawn.

*Name has been changed, but the problem is real.

A Vietnamese Wake-up Call

maranathahay — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 06:01:00 GMT

August 25th, 2009
My wake up call was early this morning-the original plan was to leave the hotel, (and it’s lovely porcelain toilets) at eight. But my ride thought that it may be more prudent to leave earlier therefore bypassing the Hanoi AM commute.

“You, me, six,” he said.

“You, me, six, morning?”

“Yes,” he said.

However, the early morning wake-up call was not needed. What the guide book doesn’t tell you is that Vietnam wakes up early, and alarms are completely unnecessary. I swear, every man woman and child in this country owns a chicken.

It’s ten-thirty now and we’re jeeping up mountain roads that are kind of like switchbacks. The mountains here are covered in dense forest and blanketed in mist. The air is hot and wet-almost as if the air I’m breathing in is exactly the same as the kind I’m breathing out. It looks like we’re headed to the top of the mountains, but I have no idea for sure and now that I think of it, no real way to ask.

We finally reach a small peach orchard at 11:00. We’re at the mountain town of Hang Kia, home of the H’mong minority people. We park the jeep and I finally meet Tuong, my official tour guide. He welcomes me in English and then hands me an extra, extra large, navy blue polo shirt to wear.

“So you don’t get lost,” he says with a laugh.

He’s laughing, because I’m bright red. My skin used to be a pale and sickly white, now it’s a pulsing scarlet, resembling an intersection stoplight.

We walk five minutes to the clinic. The medical team has been working since daybreak and has seen over one hundred patients so far.

A girl my age with five visible tattoos is stopping locals at the clinic gate. “Hi, I’m the line Nazi, Leah,” she says.

She has a tough job. People are climbing over each other to get inside the clinic. I’d heard that some of these people had never received a health examination by a doctor in their lifetimes-I just wasn’t expecting there to be so many.

Across the grounds, I could see someone with a too-large-for-pleasure camera. That must be Trent.

Turns out, Trent was nice and helpful and wanted to iron out a plan for what I’d be doing.

My mission in Vietnam would be to:
Find a story
Capture said story on film
Listen to and respect various Australian bands

Sounded good to me.

Life and times of the rich and famous

maranathahay — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 05:58:00 GMT

August 24th, 2009

So...if you were to drive to Boston International Airport on any random day and were to buy a plane ticket to Vietnam, (for that same day) it would cost you about $4,100. I felt like a total balla at the American Airlines check in counter. This must be what it’s like to be Donald Trump.

When I arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam, it was twenty-five hours later. The group I was going to be traveling with had already left the airport and gone ahead to the H’mong village. Scanning the crowd I saw someone holding a Buffalo Tours sign. My ride.

He knew a little bit of English-not enough to tell me how long it would take to get where we were going, but enough to say that I was the person he was waiting for. About an hour later, we arrived at the Galaxy Hotel in downtown Hanoi. We would have made better time had it not been for the countless motorcycles cutting in front of us.

Tomorrow I will meet the medical trekkers and Trent, the documentary filmmaker I’m supposed to be following. I’m nervous-I hope he’s not mean. But I’m also tired and I’ve been up...let’s see...going on forty hours now.

Planes, Trains, and Teeth

maranathahay — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 05:39:00 GMT

August 23rd, 2009

It’s 4:30 AM Eastern Standard Time. I’m in Boston and four hours ago, I was cleaning up the remains of my best friend’s wedding. Theoretically, I should be headed toward Vietnam in two hours, but I still don’t have a ticket purchased in my name. I wonder how much it costs to buy a ticket on the day of the flight? If all goes as planned, I’ll meet my boyfriend Elia outside of the Los Angeles American Airlines baggage claim during my two hour layover. He’s supposed to bring me my camera, tripod, and a lamb gyro platter from a Greek deli in Hollywood. Not sure how I’m going to get to Los Angeles either. There was a storm in Boston last night and word on the street is that flights are overbooked by forty people.

I will get to Vietnam. I will. Even if I have to drag myself the entire way by my teeth.

Gallery: Before Trip

maranathahay — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:34:00 GMT