A December to Remember

More Chistmas at the Orphanage
The kids got spoiled this holiday season with two huge Christmas celebrations. The first, described previously, was put on by a few Australian expats, and the second was put on by parents and teachers at the British International School (BIS). On the evening of Tuesday the 14th, teachers, parents, & a few of their kids came to Thien Phuoc to decorate, sing some carols, serve cake, and give gifts to the kids. Julia, a BIS parent who visits the orphanage every week, took pictures of every kid at Thien Phuoc and matched the pictures to their names. She then gave each Year 1 BIS student the name & picture of someone they would prepare a gift for. The kids were elated when they received festively wrapped boxes filled with sweets, toys, and an assortment of other small items. Furthermore, on their respective presents, there was a picture of them & a BIS student back-to-back within a popsicle stick star frame. It was fun to be at the orphanage in the evening, which I never am, and see the kids' faces light up with excitement for each element of the party.

Vietnam Hat Tournament
For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a "hat" tournament, the idea is that everyone who wants to play puts their names in a hat, and then teams are picked at random. However, it's a little different in practice. For the 7th Annual Vietnam Hat, online registration included a questionnaire to be filled out by each participant in which level of experience, speed, and whether or not one wanted to captain a team were requested. I didn't remember checking the box to offer to be a captain, but I ended up being assigned to lead the orange team. There were about 200 participants, up about 80 from the past few years, so there were 10 teams of just under 20 players.

I met up with some of my teammates from Angelina's Orphans, the team I played with at Manila Spirits based out of Cambodia, Friday evening for dinner followed by the registration party at "Le Pub." I took a taxi from District 1 back to my house, which took about 45 minutes, slept for a solid 4.5 hours, then got on the bus by 6am to head back downtown in order to catch the 7am shuttle bus to the fields. My team went 3-1 on Saturday, and I was thrilled to see how quickly our team developed a flow and cohesion in the course of one day. We had a couple speedy kids from Singapore, a super quick, elite mixed club handler from NYC who was traveling through SE Asia, and David Jensen, a tall, athletic living legend in Asian ultimate who dominates the air.

The theme for Saturday's party was "Beauty and the Beast," and after putting off my costume shopping all week, I was left looking pretty lame when I showed up costume-less. The guys out of Phnom Penh dressed in drag, although I'm not sure if they were exactly beauties. There were a few animal costumes as well, and at the end of the night, I finally found some tinsel that I had been searching all over for in order to make a lion mane. The highlights of the party were the fashion show and the eating contest in which the contestants had to eat three unusual- yet authentic- Vietnamese items: dog meat, durian (sau rieng), and a boiled duck egg in which the embryo is almost fully developed (hot vit lon). It was gross, but all three guys were at the fields in the morning, ready to play. I ended up staying in a hotel that night, so I was able to cut out those extra two hours of travel time.

After a first round bye and a Bella Donna warm-up routine, including dynamic stretching and the box drill, the orange team came out firing. Both our quarters and semis games were super intense, filled with sick plays and a high level of athleticism. We came out on top in both and then had a two hour bye to prepare for the finals against the brown team. They were led by a guy who plays for the top beach team in the Philippines and an awesome girl from Singapore. Both the guys and girls on my team had some amazing lay-out D's, ridiculous skies, and clutch end-zone catches. I believe the final score was 13-11, with the orange team emerging victorious. It was a dogfight until the end and was apparently at a higher level of intensity than any previous VN Hat finals. I had such a blast both playing with and getting to know the people on my team; winning the whole thing and receiving champion jerseys was the icing on the cake.

Southern Vietnam & Cambodia
I came home from the fields Sunday at about 8pm, did laundry, packed, and headed back to District 1 early Monday morning to meet Ellen and her brother, Mike, to depart for our holiday. We took all sorts of transportation the first couple days of our journey; first we took a coach bus from HCMC to My Tho, then took a wooden boat to Vinh Long, followed by a 15-passenger van to Chau Duc, a speed boat ride into Phnom Penh, Cambodia, another coach bus ride up to Siem Reap, and a few motorbike rides in-between.

When we arrived in My Tho, we didn't have a plan other than wanting to take a boat towards the Cambodian border. After leaving a travel company's desk in which the prices were a bit high, we encountered a woman on a motorbike with a foreign woman on the back. The Vietnamese woman asked us where we wanted to go, and it coincided with the other woman and her friend's interests. With a bit of negotiating we arranged for her and a couple other guys to take the five of us down the river in her boat. It was a long but relaxing ride, and for a while we hooked on to a bigger boat and just cruised down the river. For lunch, we stopped on an island in the Mekong region and made our own spring rolls with rice paper, noodles, fish, and some greens. It was awesome, and we ended up having it for dinner as well. The woman also arranged a home-stay for us to sleep at that night. It was basically a house with a bunch of beds, a couple bathrooms, and a big porch. It was cool to stay in a village and see how those people live.

In the morning, we took a similar boat to catch motorbike taxis (xe om) then a mini bus/van for the six hour drive to Chau Duc, where we explored for the day and spent the night. It was a cute little riverside town with Vietnamese character but way less hectic than HCMC. Ellen and Mike rented motorbikes to drive around the city, and I rode on the back of Ellen's. It was far more enjoyable driving on streets that aren't completely packed with motorbikes, and we had a great view of the sunset atop a hill. We hopped on a speed boat with about 20 other people Wednesday morning and reached the capital city of Cambodia about five hours later. There were a few similarities between Phnom Penh and HCMC, but PP has far fewer people and instead of taxis, they have tuk-tuks; essentially motorbike-drawn carriages. Furthermore, Cambodia is almost entirely Buddhist, so there are tons of pagodas and monks strolling the streets in their orange robes.

The first meal we had in Phnom Penh was falafel at a little restaurant run by a Jordanian guy. We went to the home of Craig, a guy who I played with in Manila and who played in the Vietnam Hat, his wife, and his adorable 3 and a half and 5-month-old boys for dinner. Maria and Wally, a couple based out of Beijing but originally from Russia and New Jersey respectively, who played at the tournament as well, joined us, too. We met up with the rest of the PP frisbee crew at a bar and enjoyed the live music and some Angkor Beer. Ellen, Mike, and I stayed at Greg, Karin, and their four-year-old Anna's that night, and Rachel and Stephen's the following night.

Thursday morning was pretty depressing; we visited the a killing field and torture prison used by the Khmer Rouge from 1975-1979. The killing field was eerie in that there are teeth, bones, and clothes that are still surfacing. They excavated hundreds of skeletons and identified ages and genders based on the skulls in which they organized in a big monument. It reminded me of the concentration camps and killing fields I saw in Poland, and the story isn't all that different. The Khmer Rouge wanted to be in control, so they killed doctors, teachers, and basically the entire educated class and their children so that their power couldn't be challenged. However, Vietnam intervened in 1979 and put an end to the killings. Tuol Sleng/S-21, high school-turned-torture-prison was further jarring. Although the Khmer Rouge weren't as meticulous as the Nazis with their records, the photographs, tools, and bed frames left are enough evidence to show the terror that was inflicted upon the prisoners. I won't go into the brutalities committed; it's enough to say that there was barbed wire covering the windows because trying to commit suicide by jumping out of the building was preferable to staying.

After an intense morning, we visited the stunning Royal Palace of the king of Cambodia in the afternoon. The king is more of a figurehead in the constitutional monarchy of the Kingdom of Cambodia, which the country is technically called. He doesn't have 13 wives, though, like the king of Swaziland. The intricate details of the buildings were incredible, and the setting sun shone beautifully on the gold covered roofs. We intended to go to the famous Silver Pagoda, but there was a miscommunication with the tuk-tuk driver and ended up going to a random pagoda instead. Nevertheless, it was pretty cool.

We departed for Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat and other ancient temples, after enjoying a wonderful breakfast at a bistro along the river Friday morning. Craig had given us a bunch of advice about when and where to go to certain temples for the most enjoyable experience. As suggested, we took a tuk-tuk (pun intended) to one of the temples only a half hour or so after we checked into the "No Problem Villa." We met up with Maria and Wally again, and the five of us hurriedly hiked up the hill and stairs of the temple before watching the sun set. The temple was packed with tourists, and there must have been millions of pictures taken in total. Although it was pretty, the sunrise we witnessed the following morning was unmatched in beauty because it came up behind the temple as opposed to just out in front of it.

If you ever go to Angkor Wat, wake up early to see the sunrise, and take the following advice from Craig. We did, and we had the best seats in the house.

"Get to the park at about 4:45am. It technically opens at 5am, but they'll probably let you in anyways, knowing you know how to see the sunrise in the best way there is. When you get through the outer walls of the temple and close to the reflection pond, a guy will offer you coffee or tea, and you take him up on that offer because when you do, he'll bring you chairs (in our case, it was just a tarp) to sit on along with your drinks. He will set you up on the edge of the pond where the temple reflects best in the pond. (As we sat here from about 5-6:30, other tourists poured in behind us, inching in every which way to find a good position to watch from.) After the sun rises, the guy will offer you breakfast, too, and you take him up on that offer as well. When you're enjoying your breakfast, all the other tourists will be walking through the temple. After you finish eating, many of those tourists will have left and the temple will be far less crowded for you to enjoy."

The detailed engravings on all the temples we explored was absolutely astonishing and we had a blast doing yoga poses as well as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider impressions for the camera. We saw a couple temples on Saturday and a few today, and although our afternoons in Siem Reap haven't been all that eventful, it's been worth it to get to the temples early and beat the other tourists. The Khmer (Cambodian) food incorporates a lot of curry and is super good. The people in Phnom Penh were extremely friendly, but the locals in Siem Reap are extremely pushy with their goods that they're trying to sell. Furthermore, they seem pretty bitter towards tourists in general. I suppose it's somewhat understandable; there are a bunch of mid-range and high-class hotels and restaurants where there used to be modest homes and unpaved roads up until about a decade ago. Mike did a little research on the Angelina Jolie movie that was filmed here in 2000 and said that they had to build all new roads and bridges just to get their equipment in. Only then did the rush of tourists start flooding the city. I really like the Cambodian culture, though, and it's been incredible walking through 1000-year old Buddhist and Hindu temples the past few days.

Tomorrow, I'll get on a bus at 5:30am to head to Pakse, Laos. I don't have a set plan, but there are a few places I'd like to see in Southern Laos before heading back to HCMC for New Year's. Mike and Ellen are heading to Thailand to meet up with other friends, so it'll be my first time traveling completely by myself. Not to worry, though, because Laos is supposedly one of the friendliest, safest, and laid back countries there is.

*I'm in the process of uploading more pictures onto facebook...

What I read this week:
-Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

-"What We're Not Looking After: Our Eyes"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/health/21brody.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=health

-"Teaching a Safer Way to Tackle"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/sports/football/26tackling.html?pagewanted=1&ref=sports

Excitement at Thien Phuoc

Although there's no real snow here and the temperature is still hovering around 90 degrees (F), Christmas season is definitely here. There are super elaborate decorations all around Saigon and tons of lights that illuminate the city at night. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a menorah to light Hanukah candles with, so I celebrated with the Herzl Camp Youtube broadcasts of candle lighting each night (morning for me). In lieu of the holiday season, the Australian ladies threw a Christmas party at the orphanage on Wednesday morning. It was complete with face painting, balloons, ice cream cones, Santa suits for the kids, Christmas trees, and a special lunch made by the cooks at Thien Phuoc.

As if the party wasn't enough, we loaded about 20 of the kids into vans after lunch and headed to the British International School (BIS) where the Year 1 and Year 2 kids put on a Christmas performance for us and the rest of the school. The BIS kids were adorable as each class had their own themed costume and corresponding song such as "I'm a lion because I roar" and "Never smile at a crocodile." There was even one class' own rendition of "What's in the box?" that rivaled the Ozo song by the same title from the summer. Although it took a lot of man power to get all the kids in and out of the vans and school, seeing their excitement throughout the performance made it all worth it. It seemed to be a good, eye-opening experience for the BIS students as well. One girl kept asking "What happened?" as we carried the kids from the orphanage up the stairs and into wheelchairs. In addition, I felt like I was in England for the duration of the little field trips because most of the kids and all of the teachers and administrators had British accents (of course)!


What I'm Reading:
-"What Works in the Classroom? Ask the Students"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/education/11education.html?hp

-"Study Finds Setbacks in Women's Health"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/health/research/09women.html?scp=1&sq=women%27s%20health&st=cse

-And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails
by Wayne Curtis

Manila Spirits

Manila Spirits
Lien and I departed for Manila, Philippines late last Wednesday night and arrived early Thursday morning. The brother of a Filipino guy that plays ultimate in HCMC picked us up from the airport and let us chill at his office for the morning. Since we didn't get a good night's sleep, we made use of his inviting leather couch. We caught the shuttle bus to Clark in the afternoon, which was a coach bus provided by the tournament. It was fun talking to others heading to the tournament, and I met a guy who graduated in the mid-90's from Wisconsin. Once we arrived in Clark about two hours later, we settled in to our villa then met up with the Hong Kong delegation at a pub on base. The tournament, including accommodations, was located at the Clark Air Base where the military and their families lived until as recently as 1991. It was awesome for a tournament because everyone stayed in beautiful villas that were actually homes before being converted into a resort. Furthermore, there was a casino, restaurants, and the fields, of course, all gated in this American suburbia-like bubble community in the middle of the Philippines. It was like "Pleasantville" or "Leave it to Beaver." As a result of most of my mixed team being over 45, everyone spread out between a few villas and had their own bed, which was a luxury. If it was a college team, we probably would have packed everyone into a single villa and utilized all the floor space.

Friday was the women's division and open (men's) division of the tournament in which Lien and I played with an amazing group of women based in Hong Kong. Most of them teach English there and only one of them was actually born and raised in Hong Kong. The others were from the States, Canada, Australia, and Italy. The Australian girl played professional netball previously and now plays, coaches, and teaches PE in Hong Kong. We won our pool-play games 11-0 and 11-2, but the semis and finals games against a Filipino and Singaporean team respectively were neck and neck until the end. We pulled off both wins and claimed the title of Women's Division Champs at the end of the day.

The registration party Friday night was a blast because all the mixed teams had arrived and we received our player packs, which included a jersey, a cleat bag, and some promo stuff. In addition, there were hired face painters at the party. It was fun meeting my mixed team based out of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, celebrating the day's win with the Hong Kong women, and meeting new people from the Philippines (pictured), who were all super friendly.

Saturday was pretty overcast which made for perfect weather to play in. Our team was called "Angelina's Orphans" because Angelina Jolie adopted kids from Cambodia. As a result she's become a national celebrity there and Cambodians just adore her. My teammates do incredible work there and in Manila including but not limited to running an organization that teaches kids about landmines through soccer, doing engineering-centered research for a PhD, and developing cyclone shelters that can withstand the typhoons that ravage the Philippines periodically. Not only are they incredibly selfless, but they were also a ton of fun to play with and spend the weekend with overall. The experience of our team won out over the speed of the young Filipino teams we played for an overall 5-2 record for Saturday and Sunday. We were ecstatic about getting a trophy for being the C-Pool Runners Up (we lost in the C-pool finals). To clarify, there were four pools of eight teams in all, so we finished at 18th place out of 32. Similar to the Hong Kong team, there was no one actually born an raised in Cambodia on Angelina's Orphans. Nevertheless, it was an incredible mix of people originally from the States, the Philippines, Germany, and India. Although the tournament was not unlike those I've played in in the US in many respects, the cultural diversity was a unique experience in itself. I feel so privileged to have been a part of a tournament like this where the level of "spirit of the game" and camaraderie was so high. It gives me hope that programs like Ultimate Peace and other peace-building through sport initiatives could have a profound and positive affect on the next generation because, according to Nelson Mandela, "Sport has the power to change the world, it has the power to inspire, it has the power to unite people."

Saturday night was unlike any other tournament party I've been to. There was a Rasta cover band that played for a while before a DJ took over, a photo booth, circus games, and incredible costumes to go with the "circus" theme. Despite our soreness from playing the past day or two, dancing actually loosened our muscles and I was even less sore Sunday morning than the previous morning. One of the only other girls under 30 on our team was a year older than me, from Atlanta (Paideia High School), and played ultimate at Dartmouth. We figured out quickly that we had played against each other a few times in the past four years at various college tournaments although neither of us remembered each other specifically. Most of our team arrived at about 8:15 for our 8am game Sunday morning, yet we pulled of the win against a well-warmed up Filipino team.

After we finished our game, we headed over to watch the A-pool finals game. It was Black Flag, based out of Beijing but mostly comprised of American expats (one of whom graduated from Wisconsin in 2000 and played for the Hodags), versus the Boracay Dragons, the top beach ultimate team in the Philippines who only recently started playing in field tournaments as well. One guy on Boracay, Derek Ramsay, is apparently a model/actor/celebrity in the Philippines, which is potentially why the ultimate community is so big in the Philippines compared to other places in Asia. Unfortunately, he was taken off the field via ambulance because of an ankle-related injury. There seemed to be at least one player taken in an ambulance every round. The culprit may have been the rough, uneven fields or some other factor. A quasi-nutritionist on my team speculated that the Asian rice diet doesn't provide enough calcium or other nutrients that contribute to joint strength. Whatever it was, we were lucky to not have any injuries on Angelina's Orphans. Black Flag ended up winning the finals, but it was an intense game that showcased a high level of athleticism from both teams. It was great seeing a couple friends from Wisconsin/Minneapolis (pictured) who have been teaching English for the past year and a half in South Korea. Although I feel like I've been in Vietnam for a while, two-and-a-half months was nothing compared to all the expats I met that have been living in Southeast Asia for years. It was super interesting to hear about different experiences of those living and working in the region and how ours compared. The tournament was incredibly well-run and super fun, to say the least. I can't wait for the Vietnam Hat tournament in a couple weeks here in HCMC and the Bangkok Hat in February.

Monday in Manila
One of the guys on our team drove Lien and me back to Manila early Monday morning for some sight seeing before our 11pm flight back to Vietnam. First, we headed to Intramuros, an old, walled-city, and admired the district's architecture. It was cool to see how people were living there today side-by-side such areas as Fort Santiago, the 16th century Spanish defense fortress. Next, we headed to the pristine Rizal Park, named after the Philippine national hero, Jose Rizal, whose prison cell and execution site we had seen in Intramuros.

We spent the remainder of the day at Greenbelt Mall, which is one of the biggest malls in the world that is actually comprised of five malls. It was similar to the Mall of America except much of it was outdoors, including a beautiful food court where we had some authentic Filipino cuisine. Lien and I walked around, spent a few hours in a bookstore, and chilled at a Seattle's Best coffee shop. It was refreshing to see so many American restaurants and brands as well as be in a place where everyone speaks and understands English. While the dialects and ratio of Filipino-to-English spoken varies throughout the islands, the two are evenly intermixed in Manila. It was so cool to listen to people having conversations in which they switched back and forth between Filipino and English within each sentence. It reminded me of Cape Town in that everyone is bilingual and have beautiful accents when speaking English.

We finally headed to the airport where we met Rachel and Stephen, the couple on our team who run the landmine education-through-soccer organization in Phnom Penh. They were on our flight back to Vietnam because they were meeting one of their boys who was having open heart surgery in HCMC the following day. They did some fund raising as well as made a generous personal contribution to make it possible for this boy to have his defective bicuspid valve repaired. As said previously, my teammates do extraordinary work and are such an inspiration. While I didn't have a traditional Thanksgiving, I definitely reflected on all I have to be thankful for. While the American political scene, education system, and other aspects of society aren't necessarily in a great place right now, there are countless comforts and conveniences most Americans are privileged by that go under-appreciated.

Lastly, I thought I would get lonely living by myself, but luckily I've had plenty of geckos and cockroaches to keep me company so no need to worry :)

Also, I uploaded more pictures from the weekend on facebook.