Jo Vs. Wild

Leaving the Year of the Jordan

I didn't want to wake up.

I was serenly nested in my hammock on the porch of our bungalow. I had rigged a mosquito net, strung from my laundry line over the balcony. There was a moisture-filled raincloud over the river, masking the Yellowstone-on-jungle-steroids mountains of Muong Ngoi, Laos.

PERFECT sleeping-in weather.

Except I couldn't.

A nagging feeling pulled at my stomach, exacerbated by the rooster chorus populating the Lao Village. Today was a passage into the unknown: my twenty-fourth birthday.

It wasn't an age I ever imagined being. I can recall telling Jenny Meyers at age eight that turning sixteen would most likely be the year I became a fairy princess astronaut. I know that I was stoked to have a driver's license issued without the death stamp of "UNDER 21 UNTIL..."

When I was ten, my parents threw a Harris bash not soon forgotten: Complete with rented clown costumes, a neighborhood parade and hippie socialist gift exchange (in which all children had to participate, even if it was THEIR birthday and they wanted the presents ALL TO THEMSELVES). Yes, the circus at 1001 S. 2nd street inspired me to wish that time would pause that day in the fourth grade.

But twenty-four? After so many birthdays, I'd never envisioned this one as a transcendent milestone. Not that this is news to anyone, but to reiterate: I have no job, no man, nothing but a passport, a dingy tennis ball (which is technically only half mine) and the dirtiest toes known to mankind.

This thought depressed me for a minute as I watched the sun rise over the Nam Ou River. A water buffalo belonging to the owner of our bungalow was shaking his mane free of mucked-up river crud, clanging his bell at me in mockery. "Welcome to the world of wrinkly old things," he sneered.

"At least I'm not chained to the fence," I stuck my tongue out at Mr. Buffalo.

Gina and I had been in the north of Laos for three days. The day before, we had taken a songthaew (long-tailed wooden boat) up the Nam Ou to a remote village lacking cars, motorcycles or telephones. We enjoyed the luxury of electricity from 6-9:30ish pm. This was the draw of Muong Ngoi: Not only was I getting a feel for rural, hilltribe Laos, but I got to play outside in the mountains ALL DAY LONG and gleefully camp in my hammock everynight.

I was euphoric about spending my birthday in such a place until it actually happened.

I glanced at my geriatric buffalo buddy and wished he could transport me to a magical facebook portal where I could check in with my past life and feel self-indulgently loved. Or Skype with my Daddy. Or call my Aunt LeAnne and listen to her recount the moments of my first day on earth (one of my favorite birthday occurences).

Inside our bamboo-stilted hut, Gina slept soundly: this was good. She had been so sick the previous day. "Soooooo," I thought to myself. With the only soul I knew recovering from Riverwateritis, I prepared to jazz up March 21st the Jordan Knight way.

As I returned from a cup of Laos coffee (thankfully a little more considerate on the intestines than Vietnamese brew), I found an awesome birhtday surprise: GINA! Up, dressed, and smiling.

We decided to hike up PaBoom, the largest mountain in the village. The summit is too steep to pass, it's mostly rock climbing, and in the States they might have suggested technical equipment. In fact, it was such that foreigners were not permitted up without a guide.

That's when birthday magic transpired.

Chumphorn, a 26-year-old Muong Ngoi native had been working as a trekking guide for the last seven years. His english was functionable, so we gleaned insight at every turn (the ones where we weren't hanging on to a cliff ledge to prevent falling to our deaths in the river below). He was saving money to get married and start a life in the village. Those darn water buffalo cost upwards of 2,000 USD and he needed one (and a hut and stuff) before he could take a bride. His friend Paul from California had figured out a way to help on the romantic side, at least: Chumphorn possessed a used guitar and an American repertoire - "You know 'Hotel California', yes?"

The rest of the day went like this: I accidentally sat on a snake. In peak JoAnne form, while standing absolutely still at the bottom of PaBoom, my exhausted muscles gave way into the tributary where I proceeded to unknowingly pick up a leech that I later pulled out the Bear Grylls way while Gina ran for table salt. Serendipitously, friends from our previous travels showed up at the village. Alex and Julia, a Seattle couple we had gone out with in Luang Prabang, Steff from Canada, Nathan the Aussie who had ridden with me on a bus from Vang Vieng. We all ate curreid pumpkin under candlelight, and had a makeshift cake (double stuffed oreos). I was serenaded in English AND Swedish (the Swedish birthday song giver was a woman my mother's age who drunkenly and dutifully told me to check my email soon, because surely my parents were thinking of me). Alex and Chumphorn built a fire on the beach - a terrific celebration with Lao friends and Weterners alike, a miraculous gathering of the younger crowd dwelling in Muong Ngoi. We drank Beerlao and Lao-Lao (village rice whiskey) and the Jo-Lao (Gina's very own concoction done up the "American" way: jungle juice in waterbottles).

Chumphorn and his friends played Thai and Lao pop music, and induldged me in Richard Marx's "Right Here Waiting for You".

The birthday flashbacks returned. I was 22 and there was a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, a boy with a guitar and his own rendition of the dorkiest love song on the planet. I thought he walked on water. In the weeks surrounding that birthday, I had dreamed that he'd plan a master escape and let me play Peter to his Jesus, as the template for post-graduation Lutheran singles stigmafies.

In retrospect, though I've not yet again felt my heart so vulnerably glue-sticked to my sleeve or my emotions flying full mast in the monsoon affectionately termed 'falling in love', I knew it wasn't end all or be all and that a life of whimpering "I fear, so someone else, something else...lead me, 'cause I can't do it myself" would be an injustice.

I'm so thankful I was forced to decide that I could walk on water. Alone. And still float.

It's the same power ballad, but a different key; a different hemisphere. Same cheesy lyrics but a different, insane, glorious story of self-actualization and Divine truth, forgiveness and growth: mine.

Cheaper than Garage Sale Undies

Gina and I have made happy inhabitants of Laos, a mountainous country with plenty of cave-exploration, pre-Angkorian structures, a neato French influence and tons of learning. Yes! I am constantly doing that self-introspective thing that makes me and everyone else who hates the rapidity of my parentheticals absolutely nuts. Alas, it was such a long entry about body image, that I figured everyone could just go see "The Vagina Monologues" instead and probably be better off.

So here's a different sort of treasure for you:

Gina and I are the cheapest travelers on the planet. Her fastidiousness concerning money has saved my wallet...kind of. The following is a list of dirt cheap things we've done.
*Note: This entry may not be suitable for the faint of heart, germophobic, or easily nauseated.

• When Gina was wounded on Ko Tao, they gave her a giant gauze bandage...instead of buying more gauze, Gina would save it, wash it out...then use it again after re-treating the wound. This became a problem when it was noticeably bloody (ew), so, we cut up a sock, courtesy of Cathay Pacific.
• Once, we cleaned our feet with moist toilettes meant to be put on your head. A bus freebie.
• Between the two of us, we use one bar of soap. This bar is for hair, bodies and clothes. It is sacred, and finding the next natural bar of soap is a bargaining and pricing adventure.
• We buy yoghurt at the gas station or minimart for breakfast whenever we can, even if the savings is only in the 10 cent margin.
• We will walk 2 miles to buy 6 liters of water at a savings of sixty cents.
• We will use an airplane freebie toothbrush for two weeks to extend the longevity of our good ones.
• In the absence of a spatula, bread crusts will get the peanut butter from the bottom of the jar.
• Plain, cheap crackers and apples are the new hangover food (Gone are the days of West 4th Falafel, sadly).
• Excitement is finding a can of coca-cola light for under US 60 cents.
• We will find a wooded clearing and make the other stand guard if it means not paying to use squats.
• We take the bus over any sort of terrain, even if that means 7 hours to go 100 kilometers over a mountain range. And on that bus, if JoAnne gets stuck in the back between a man with an M22 weapon (I had a good, long time to inspect it, each time the barrel struck my knee in the tumult of the twists and turns) AND a small child, throwing up out the window, it's okay...because she's saved $2.
• We will take shared taxis for 3 hour rides with 6 other passengers. That's right: a small sedan with 5 in the back, 3 in the front.
• We bought a sarong in Thailand (in absence of a beach towel) but it's hard to share...so we contemplated cutting it in half.

Even though we are so cheap, our funds are dwindling...so...there has been a major change in itinerary. Gina and I are going to Australia for the month of April. There we will stay with Gillum family friends: John and Diana, and hopefully run into some under the table work.

(More cheap fun with Champ in a park in Hanoi- a couple taking their wedding photos thought this was great, so we are now part of someone's memories of the happiest day of their lives. In our tevas and one-bar-of-soap grungy glory.)

Love to all,

J

Best of February

Best Meal: Streetside Pho in Cau Dhoc, Vietnam (Pho = beef broth with fesh bean sprouts, mint leaves, scallions, chili-peanut dipping sauce for your 'stix, pipping hot flanks of beef and fettucine-sized Asian noodles)

Close second: The COFFEE in 'nam. I refer to it fondly as 'cocaine syrup'.








Best live music: The Vietnamese Disco band on top of ritzy HCMC hotel "The Caravelle" that, replete with synth drum pads, successfully covered the Gypsy Kings' "Bamboleo". Accents and all.







Best canned music: the "Macarena", the unoffically national anthem of Cambodia, all along the beach bars of Sihanoukville.







Best purchase: 4 dresses of Korean and Vietnamese high 60's fashion at a thrift store in HCMC complete with eager to please shopgirl who kept launching more vintage fun into our curtained-off "dressing room" (electrical breaker wall) and yelling "SOOOOO nice for you!" Made me miss my thrift shopping days with Grandma Bev.







Best runs: Outguessing motorbikes to and from Independence Monument in Phnom Penh, Joining the Hash House Harriers in Phnom Penh, along the river in Kampot.







Best Gina quote: "Dude. You're a BUS." While incredulously staring down a tour bus driver obviously contemplating running her over.







Best exercise: "Aerobics" in the park with 150 Vietnamese women in HCMC (wondering how it could potentially be offensive for females to wear spaghetti-strapped tank tops yet perfectly acceptable for droves of them to pelvic-pump for 3 minutes straight at the end of a rudimentary calethetics-like workout).

My aerobics friend Mai, who spends half of her year in Minneapolis!

Best complement (Uhhh, I think): "You not soooo fat. But if you get more so fat, you come back and I make new for you, ok?" - Phuom, my tailor in Ho An, Vietnam while measuring me for a...you guessed it...dress!





Best idea: Because of the constant reliance on the horn of any bus, motorbike or car while anyone and everyone drives in SEA, Gina and I have decided in turn, to scream in long bullhorn spurts as we cross streets. So they know we're crossing. This may or may not have been inspired after a round of late morning cocaine syrup.

Just call me Ann Geddes: The fruit market in Cau Dhoc

Ho Chi Minh City

And I'm proud to be an American?

My favorite juxtaposition about myself: I love a good frat party but would rather choke on a mentos, attempt to give myself the Heimlich, fail repetitively and permanently disable my vocal chords than saddle up with an ignorant meathead bound for Corporate Middle America.

After a minibus ride to Ho Chi Minh City via sardine tin backseat-age, Gina and I had befriended a Canadian unafraid of voicing his all-around Northern superiority and two good ol' Coloradans (the first Americans we'd come across in a long while) straight from the University. Read: A couple mega-church attending boys with hair gel and snowboarding tales that astoundingly made the word 'awesome' a noun, verb AND adjective. We'll call them Opie (one looked remarkably like Ron Howard) and Cory Matthews.

We arrive in HCMC and set out on the routine cheap hostel find. A backalley and a check for flea infestation later, we settle and agree to meet up later for a drink.

We drink, we eat, enjoying the chaos of the Vietnamese motorbike infatuation. We're on a second story balcony drinking cans of "333" (said: Ba ba ba) from a plastic bucket full of ice at the end of our table.

This doesn't sound high class, I'm sure, but in Vietnam is qualifies as a night on the town. A nation of habitual snackers, most meals can be consumed right off the street corner. In fact, the food is generally better while perched on a Fischer-Price colored and sized bench, taking care that motos don't storm over your tevas.

The boys give us the same formulaic itenerary we get from most backpacking men: In Cambodia, they paid ridiculous amounts of money to throw a grenade and shoot artilery at the nation's army training grounds. Off the coast of Thailand, they learned to SCUBA. They rode elephants. They ate a fried tarantula in Phnom Pehn. In every city they have their laundry done because they can't be bothered to do it themselves and while they wait for substitute Asian mommies to wash their tightie-whities, they take in the fabled Thai Ping-pong show. (This involves women who have discovered remarkable projectile powers in unmentionable places.) The boys revel in telling us as if we haven't met morons like themselves before this particular crossing.

It's only after several rounds (and terrible JoAnne jokes: What are we on now? 666? 999?) that we decide to hit the pavement. So far, a decent night with the 3 Amigos.

It's then that we find the Bia Hoi. The Vietnamese brew this lager in the same way they crank out kids and Nikes. Much like these overstocked items, this means you can sit on any number of street corners, drink a giant stein for the equilvalent of US 10 cents and the beer girls (outfitted in sponors costumes much like Steffi Graff) bring you peanuts and fruit all night...for free!

Happily, we cheers. But then Gina quotes Kanye and the smiles are over as we watch our plastic table instantaneously burn to wax. Our fellow Americans seem to think Mr. West is a black thug (what else do rappers know besides drugs and 'hos) who willfully killed his mother by funding her cosmetic surgery.

This leads to a convulted brawl that goes something like this:

Opie and Cory: Black Americans had to have voted for Bush so why the hell would Kayne say that our president hates black people?

Gina and JoAnne: Ever heard of the state of Florida? Faulty CHAD machines? A governor named Jeb? HURRICANE KATRINA?

Opie and Cory: Lies!
Gina and JoAnne: Racists!
Opie and Cory: Commies!
Gina and JoAnne: I'd rather be red than smelly like you!
*obviously, we were not throwing our best punches at this point, so I'll save ourselves the embarrasment of the rest of the name calling, but eventually, it is capped off by the following comment...

Canadian: You guys are messed up, eh?

So, lesson learned. Again. I really think we should change the cliche so that it's more like Marie Antoinette's cake: You can take the girl out of the middle America, and you can have most of middle American taken out of her, too.

Do not be mistaken: I love and adore lemonade, playing pool, bluegrass festivals, cut-off jean skirts, being overly polite and barbequed beef brisket. I hope to never stop attending graduation parties in people's garages and I would consider it tragedy if the clouds of dust that get stuck in your throat at the county fair were a phlegm issue now abandoned.

No, it's hardly the cool summer nights in the back of a friend's pickup or the Dairy Bar that gets me down. My real problem isn't even these boys we've just met. They are quite respectful, even when throwing down fourth grade insults (this is way Midwestern and should be a revered art-form, if you ask me). It's just that they represent a middle America that I love so much and still feel completely dismissed by. I feel like American can stunt your growth: My culture did the opposite of pushing me towards unique, quirky, world-conscious Christiane Amanpour-dom. Instead of crafting women with a sense of urgency, passion, drive and crealess khakis, middle America told me about the woman I "should" be.

So, you Coloradans, you 10-grade Advanced Composition teachers, you dream-squelching Cobber boyfriends: Please don't ask me to shut my eyes to the rest of the wrold. Don't tell me that it's even POSSIBLE to do a trip like this and count your best day in terms of gunsmoke. Don't hold me back, even when I overuse the semi-colon. Don't tell me that Nicholas Kristoff is never going to pick me to travel with him to Africa. (Which he didn't, but still...you could have at least been SUPPORTIVE for the sake of a good dream.) I want to drink and exchange ideas with anyone and everyone, but don't assume that you can strip off the beat-up v-neck I've been wearing for too many days in a row and find the same "I Heart Billy Graham" t-shirt you're wearing. Considering the large beer gut I now have going for me, it's just not going to fit anymore.

In the same breath, to my kindred spirits: Kirsten who said that Kristoff would be crazy not to take me and spent hours editing my essay, Mom and Dad who may have rolled their eyes but always followed it up with a hug, and countless other mid-Americans I love who ARE awesome (by it's proper definition): I am thankful that you pushed me towards the adventurous, the new, the creative. I wish you could be here too, sitting streetside drinking Bia Hoi, folding your legs protectively under your too-small plastic chair, just waiting until you make it to US $1 (and that happy, happy place facedown under said chair).

Here's to you.

Where at least I know I'm free...

War Remnants Museum, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam

I am wondering how many editions of 9th grade US History textbooks Houghton-Mifflin will publish before they include pictures of American GIS in 1968, proudly grasping tuffs of hair on the heads of decapitated Vietnamese children.

I am wondering how long we'll spend millions entertaining our children by allowing them to spar with bb guns and videogames, watching them either unemotionally shrug their way to an oblivion of violence or make livelihoods as mechanical engineers who design four-foot long bazookas, expressedly to be pointed at the heads of other humans.

I am wondering how a German citizen feels at the Holocaust Museum in DC.

I am wondering how the terms Imperialism/Communism/Terrorism are all, in essence, the same 'ism'.

I am wondering who the hell thought up Agent Orange.

I am wondering how I'd feel about all of this if I were born 40 years earlier.

I'm wondering how a US citizen could claim America the best country in the world and account for ruthless inhumanities in situations across southeast asia.

I'm wondering if these same Americans who would deem our country the best could recite the exerpt of the Declaration of Independence, displayed at the beginning of the war crimes section of the museum, clearly stating the Vietnamese distrust of such great words. It's palpably unmistakable as a statement of hypocrisy: Hey, America. We don't believe you when you claim that all are created equal and this "truth" is self-evident. Maybe self-directed, as it only applies to people born on a certain continent and with a certain skin color.

I'm wondering if my children, in 30 years, will backpack across the middle east, telling Afghani citizens that they are Canadian to avoid confrontation. Because by then, there will be museums showing awful things inflicted by a US military machine in the name of what? Democracy?To win a war on terror with an even more clever artilery of...terror?

On this point, I don't wonder, I know.

Those children of mine, smart and precocious, terribly attractive and wittily amusing (much like their mother) will ask me what I did to stop my government from engaging in these brutalities and then they'll ask me what they should be doing.

Run for Senate? Seemed like a good idea for self-confessed Vietnam war criminal, Bob Kerrey.

Change the military from the inside out? But their father and I have always told them not to stick their hands in on a lit stovetop.

Pull an "Up Yours, McNamara!" like Norman Morrison or Roger Laporte, who in 1965, protested the Vietnam war by setting themselves on fire? (Maybe the more dramatic option, just not really ...umm...effective) Decide to rally their colleges to close in protest?

Pray? To who? The oil gods, so we'd never run out? The Dow Jones Industrial Buddha, so that our finances would surpass China and we'd all be "secure"? Dick Cheney, so that he'd stop making up ridiculous crap about axises of evil and backing it up with the Office of Legal Council and Justice Department?

I don't wonder, I know:
I will have absolutely no idea what to tell them.