Please Don't Laugh, but.....................

A few weeks ago, I went home early. I was feeling extremely tired. We were planning on leaving the next day after teaching to travel to Dalat and Bao Loc. It is a 9hr trip by bus. I went home to get plenty of rest so I would be fresh and ready for the exciting day. I went to bed around 6:30pm. I was fast asleep when I heard this noise in my ear like a crying bug, please don't ask me what a crying bug sounds like, it's not something I ever want to hear again. I shot up and looked at my pillow like maybe a mouse was under it.....but as I looked, the noise was still in ear............I stood up and could hear it lodging, going deeper.....making noise.........I started pulling on my ear........still noise..........I was banging on my head as if I had water in my ears............still movement.....I felt my breathing getting faster, I stopped for a second and asked myself if I was dreaming. After pinching myself and biting my tongue I had to face the facts, I had something crawling in my ear...........I knew Felix had a lot of work to do before heading to Dalat so I really didn't want to bother him. After 30 minutes of freaking out, I finally sent him a text message........."Felicks......please don't laugh, but I have a parasite in my ear.........."
He called me right away, "Ka-tee-mon, what is happening?!?" he shouts into the phone with his strong Indian accent. "I don't know what it is, but something is in my ear and it's not happy, I'm freaking out!" I tried to say with out crying. He assured me he was coming right away. I went downstairs to wait for him. The family I am staying with don't speak any English, they were watching TV. I wanted so desperately to have someone help me but how do you explain that a bug is in your ear without using words??? So I casually played with the 3yr old granddaughter while trying to remain calm and not start pounding on the left side of my head to force the creature out. I don't want them to think I am strange, but on the inside, I AM FREAKING OUT!
Felicks showed up within 10 minutes which of course seemed like an eternity. He ran into the house, I wasn't sure if I was going with him to his house or what the plan of attack was. He asked the owners if they had a "torch" which turned out to be another name for a flashlight, thank God. We ran upstairs to my room. Oh great, I have a priest in my room. People are so proper here, having a priest in your room at 9pm is a little questionable. At this point though, I really didn't care. I sat in a chair, he ran downstairs and asked them for warm salt water. The bug was still moving around, sounding like it was crying. He poured the warm salt water into my ear, but of course it was just spilling on me. He said in such an innocent way, " I'm sorry Mon, but you have to put your head on my lap" and he sat on my bed, putting my pillow on his lap. Now really, if the owners walked by my room NOW, with my head on his lap................OMG, it was a comic act...........I know it is to help me, but how do you explain this position with out using words??! I got up from the chair and locked the door just in case. I gave him tweezers to try to grab it while I held the torch. The tweezers are needle sharp. He was trying, but it was uncomfortable and he couldn't see anything. This wasn't working. All the while, he is saying I have a soccer match going on in my ear. We went downstairs and asked the owners if we could borrow the torch, he tried to explain the best way he could speaking broken Vietnamese. I could see the woman was concerned but had a look like this is common here.
Felicks said he was taking me to a place that cleans ears. I really didn't understand what he was saying, but agreed to go. This is where the story gets better. Here in this area of Vietnam, there are a lot of beauty salons. They are not like the salons we are use to. The room is small, the chairs are old and it is usually dirty. So during the day, they will cut your hair, give you a shave, clean your ears etc. During the night, when you drive by, the women are wearing seductive outfits, sitting in the chairs facing traffic with their legs open and a pillow covering their money makers.
We leave my house on the motorbike. His house is to the left, but we turned right. He pulled into a salon.......I didn't want to get off the bike. I wasn't sure if he was asking them for tweezers or for advice. When we walked in, they must have been wondering what it is we wanted, a tall black Indian and a white American walk into a massage parlor late one night................sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. A woman stood up wearing a sexy red top and short shorts made of silk. A man and another woman came out of the back room. I could tell he was in charge. He was dressed like a business man and she was wearing something Madonna may have liked from the early 90's. Felicks is asking them if they could look in my ears. They looked confused as if asking why does she want her ears cleaned now? They were saying no, the salon down the road will clean my ears. I couldn't wait to get out of there. These salons are wide open, close to the road, motor bikes driving by constantly, I was concerned for Felicks' reputation as a priest, what are the parishioners going to think if they see us standing there?? We stand out as it is so people are constantly looking at us. We leave there to go to the other one, the whole time I am saying I don't want to go into the salon, but also felt desperate. We entered the other salon, the woman was wearing something black and revealing. A couple other women come out from the back wearing similar outfits, I could feel their eyes checking us out. Again, I hope you can envision this, Felicks is a very tall, black man from southern India and I am a white American, we are the only ones of our kind in this large neighborhood so we stand out! The funniest part of this whole thing is that the women were prepared to "please" us in so many ways and yet when they realized I had a bug in my ear, they recoiled and looked at me like I was dirty.............uuhhhh, hello........whose really the dirty one here???! haha I'm sure if I asked them for something sexual, they would have performed very well, but heaven forbid, I need you to check my ear and you think that is gross?? So funny! We left there and went back to Felicks house, Tuan held the flashlight and Felicks tried to retrieve the criminal that trespassed into my ear. Tung came in and told us that we have to go to the hospital. By this time, I was ready to go. My imagination was getting the best of me. I have watched too many episodes of, "Life in the ER" on the Lifetime channel. I'm picturing a large caterpillar laying eggs and then traveling to my brain to eat and rest. Now I know my brother is going to say something fresh like the caterpillar will starve in there so HAHA Carl, very funny. We get on the motor bike and speed to the hospital. When I say speed, it is way scarier than you can imagine. We are sharing the road with hundreds of motor bikes, trucks, dump trucks, tractor trailers and bicycles. Tung is in front, leading the way, we are following, weaving through traffic like we are on fire, I am crying, sounding like a siren on an ambulance, holding on for dear life to the back of the bike. After spending time in the hospital, I made them promise me that if I am in an accident, please, throw me on the next plane heading for the USA. The hospitals in this area are so different from ours. Ours are clean, organized, sterile, beds with privacy etc. Here, you get seen sooner if you tip the nurse, the beds are dirty, holes and stains on the sheets, people are laying in the open room with about 30 beds without screens. Quite a few people were there with injuries from crashing on the motorbikes. One man had a broken leg, he still had his pants on, blood everywhere, they had wrapped 2 white sticks that were full of dirt and looked like they have been used many times before to brace his leg. Another man was vomiting in a bed down from an elderly woman that had her top lifted up and suction devices from the 60's to measure her heart rate. I felt like I was on a scene of MASH. After 20 minutes of waiting, they called my name and took us to another wing in the hospital. Every room we walked by had 5 or more people laying in dirty beds, room after room, it was actually frightening for me. We walked up a few flights to a hallway with rooms full of people. There were chairs against the wall for us to wait. After 15 minutes and only a nurse walking back and forth, a young woman from a room started running down the hallway screaming, "Bac si! Bac si! Doctor, Doctor!" She was very distressed. Tung said he heard her say that blood was coming from the eyes of the patient in the room. The nurse came out and walked slowly to the room. Then she walked back, standing in the hallway as if this happens all the time. There was a lot of crying and panic and yet no one was there to help, just a nurse that was too interested in her fingernails than the patient. A doctor came down the hallway in flip flops, an old hospital jacket that use to be white and was obviously too big for him. He dragged his feet getting to the room, in his hand was a wooden tongue depressor and one of those lighted-ear-magnifier-thingys.....like my use of technical terms??.....he was in the room for less than two minutes, came out and started walking down the hallway to leave. Thank God we had Tung with us to speak Vietnamese. He ran down the hallway, said a few words then waved us down to a room. I sat down in a chair. The room was from the 60's, dirty sinks, old pictures on the wall, drawers that don't close all the way. He grabbed the same ear thingy, not clean, and started to put it towards my ear.............I noticed the light was not clean, had a reddish tint to it, oh man, oh man, is that blood?? I cringed as he put it in my ear, yes, I let him put it in my ear. He looked and looked, pulling on my ear and pushing it further, heading to China, actually, I am close to China, heading to USA! He couldn't find anything. I was relieved and a little nervous, what if it moved too deep and couldn't be seen?? The noise had actually subsided. I was just happy that he took that thingy out of my ear and with out wiping it, threw it back into a drawer full of dirty instruments, pens and pencils. I couldn't wait to get out of there. I think what happened is that when Felicks poured the salt water in my ear, it was coming out when I was on the motor bike, I kept wiping my ear. It probably came out then. Either way, it is out and I have not had any problems since. I wear ear plugs to bed now. I have had ants on my mat that I sleep on, one night I woke up with hundreds of them! (I will admit, I cried, I was so tired and hot and sweaty and now I had all the ants.) I don't have any food in my room so not sure why they were there. One of the Sisters said that having ants in your ear is common here. If it happens again, plug your ear for a minute and the ant will want to come out.....as she calmly puts a finger in each ear to show me how..............gooooooood advice

A Passing.........

A young woman of 76 died yesterday, Anna Maria. She is the wife of the landlord and a mother of 10. I went to visit her a few times to sit with her. She was suffering from stomach cancer. Every time I went, her daughters would be there, sitting with her, fanning her. She had a beautiful smile. I would sit with her and hold her hand, I would close my eyes and picture love coming from God, through me, to her. She spoke very softly to me. There was always someone there to translate. They live only a few doors from us. The landlord was actually at our house discussing the rent when some of the family members came running to the house to beg him to come home, his wife was passing.
Later the same evening, we went to their home. There were tables set up outside with water bottles on them. A sound system was set up in the yard. A large banner with Anna Maria's picture and information was hanging. We walked up the steps to the open room. Inside, Anna was laying on a low bed. She was dressed in traditional Vietnamese clothes and a white linen was covering her face. I could see she had lipstick on. Roses of all colors surrounded her. She had on blue slippers with silver rhinestones on them. At the head of the bed was a table covered with white linen. A large cross with Jesus was on there with a bowl of sand holding lots of incense sticks. Hanging from the tall ceiling was a large purple cloth with Jesus standing with open arms and Vietnamese writing. The cloth was large enough to separate the two rooms. Being a mother of 10, she had plenty of grandchildren running around. We entered the room, stood around the bed, shoulder to shoulder with everyone present. Thien, one of the young men staying here, started the prayer. We sang a few songs then sat down on mats and repeated the rosary, all in Vietnamese. The husband would wipe his tired eyes every once in awhile. The process lasted almost an hour. I was touched by how the family must have bathed her, dressed her, did her hair and makeup. Once she became sick and up to her death, her family never left her side. The following day, we were to go back to bless the coffin and two days later, she will have a Mass and head to her hometown of Voom Tau for her burial.
We went to their house the next day. Anna was surrounded by so many friends and family. Felicks started the blessing using a wireless microphone they had provided. There was a man there video taping with a camera large enough for a TV station. Being a foreigner and affiliated with The Servants of Charity, they brought me to the front both days. I was touched. While Felicks finished the blessing, a woman, the local kindergarten teacher, started passing out linens that were tied with a satin bow to the family members. The men and women put on the linen pants and shirts. I'm assuming those were the direct relatives of Anna. The grandchildren tied white bands around their heads. The women put on the white linen bonnets. Once the blessing was finished, two men dressed in white suits with heavy embroidery walked in and at the same time, a band full of horns started playing loudly a sad, sad melody. The family started wailing, crying out and pounding their chests. I found myself walking away to stand on the lawn. I wanted to respect them and give them space to say their final goodbyes. Felicks, the boys and myself stayed for a few minutes sitting at one of the tables drinking water.
On our way home, we walked quietly. Thien stopped at a market shop so I waited for him, watching the rest walk back to the house. He is the main chef here so he was purchasing fresh vegetables. While walking back, we were talking and giggling, he has a great giggle, sounds like a girl. A young girl stopped us and gave us a beautiful large fish that her mother just cleaned.
And that is what makes the world go round. Living here in poverty, you see the important choices in life much more clearly. I see infants growing fast, young children run up to me and jump into my arms, neighbors smile and wave now, business owners want to give freely, etc. And during all this, we have birth and death. Life goes on. We feel joy, happiness, content, free, compassion, empathy mixed in with anxiety, sorrow, and sadness. Our basket was empty this morning, we woke with sadness and then, here we are, eating fresh fish that was given to us, sharing the thoughts about the day and plan for tomorrow.
Sleep in peace and hug the ones you love.

Happy Birthday Kyle!

On April 7th, 1990, I gave birth to my first son, Kyle. He was 8lbs, 7oz. To hold a newborn is an amazing experience in itself, and to hold your first is unforgettable. Tears of joy replaced the tears of pain. My life has never been the same. Kyle was very blond, tall and lanky as a child. The loudest one on the playground or basketball court. Always listening to music and singing. Even though he suffered with asthma, ear infections, pneumonia most of the first 5 years of his life, he was always happy, loving, giving. He has overcome many obstacles. Graduating high school with high honors was one of the proudest days of mine and I think of his. Attending UCONN has been challenging and rewarding for him. Kyle is the type of son that can have an honest conversation with an elderly person as well as a child. He is comical by nature.  He brought joy into our lives instantly....and still does.



                               [Kyle Fortin's Birthday] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6L0wUAYf3A




      [Students Happy Birthday] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZkc8PKoEqs