The flight attendant is closing the overhead bins and the crew chief is giving us the flight plan. The sun set hours ago over the east African plains, but I’m not particularly tired. I have my methods for combatting jet lag and right now it involves creative thought. But first, it’s time for lift-off.

Why they call it “delivery” I don’t know. You have a pizza delivered – it’s cheap, instant, and painless. Delivering a baby on the other hand, is anything but. A healthy Judah Emrys Bruerd was born 4pm June 4th, 2010 after 13 hours of labor culminating in a dramatic, but uneventful c-section. Araella’s birth was a c-section, and being the natural folks we are, we decided to do a VBAC. We gathered from the surprised expressions of the nurses that VBAC’s were a relatively foreign concept. But it was the blank looks laced with total confusion that made us realized that, at least around here, the concept of “natural birth”(i.e. no pain meds) was an idea utterly alien.

Tara was amazing, and went through all 13 hours without a drop of pain meds, right down to the final moments. Unfortunately, just before Judah began to crown, Tara started having intense sharp pain during and between contractions, which is one of the primary indicators of a uterine rupture (from the previous c-section). We waited a few contractions to see if the situation would change, and when it didn’t, she was rushed off to the operating room for an emergency c-section. Both Tara and the baby did fabulous, and in the end Tara showed no sign of rupture for which we are thankful. The best guess at this point was Judah’s shoulder was braced hard against Tara’s old incision from the inside which may have caused the pain (it’s always been sensitive).

Judah was born 10 days early and a fuzzy 6lbs 7oz and 20 inches long and sleeps and nurses like he was born to it. Tara, with her half-day abdominal work-out and invasive surgery, is happily accepting all forms of pain medications and is recovering well. We expect to be discharged (now we’re using military terms) in 48 to 72 hours. 3 times a day something laughably called “nutritional services” delivers jello, an orange *flavored* drink, and a watery concoction that tastes remarkably unlike soup (probably laced with MSG). Time for that “delivery” concept I mentioned earlier.

I’ve tossed in a few obligatory photos and may post a few more later on.

“The Butterfly” played by Barak Bruerd on an Overton Low D

As an Irish musician (a very flexible term when applied to myself), I have a certain affinity for flutes and whistles.  So it’s no small thing for me to have sold my Copeland Low D whistle on ebay.  Copeland whistles are the Cadillac of Irish whistles.  They are hand made from brass and are the only conical bore whistle made from actual tube (versus sheet metal wrapped around a mandrel and welded).  As opposed to cylindrical tube instruments, a tapered bore balances pitch across both the high and low octaves and allows for a more consistent tone.  The Copeland design innovates on many fronts, most notably drawing on the designs of organ pipes which have a wall around the windway to stabilize the tone.  When constructing a whistle there are over a hundred points which must be carefully balanced to achieve desired pitch, tone, responsiveness and other qualities.  Woodwind crafting is both a science and an art.

But I sold my Copeland and bought an Overton.  If Copelands are the Cadillac then Overtons are… well, actually I know nothing about cars so I really couldn’t make a very good association.  I suppose the Overton would be one of those cool vintage sports cars from the 50s that have a personality all their own; a few quirks and design flaws but that just contributes to the allure.  Not that there are any design flaws in an Overton – quite the opposite.  But the tone quality of the Overton has it’s own quirks and imperfections which lead to the captivating sound they produce.

While the Copeland is rich and pure and almost reedy due to the dense nature of brass and the smooth polished edges, the Overtons carry breathy over-tones and subtle harmonics, which create an ethereal quality that sings of foggy moors and woodland glades.  The Copeland whistles have an aesthetic that is unrivaled; the conical taper, rounded head joint, and brass patina make it an absolute work of art.  The Overton on the other hand is a brushed-aluminum tube with a square head joint that mirrors the raw utilitarian heritage of the clans of old.   The Copeland is a tribute to the achievements of science and modern instrument crafting while the Overton is the father of all low whistles.

Both rank at the top of any professional Irish musician’s instrument list.

So why did I get rid of my Copeland?  It’s really a matter of economics.  I loved the Copeland, but to a large degree the sound is too perfect.  Not that I don’t love perfect sound, but it sounds like a flute and I have flutes.  The Overton has a sound all it’s own that is mystical in all the imperfections that captivate the imagination and you simply cannot achieve that on a flute.  I would have kept the Copeland except that Copelands are expensive and I can own several keys in an Overton for the price of one Copeland.

I also have two complaints about the Copelands.  I’ve discovered two flaws in the conical bore instruments that are improved on by their more primative cylindrical sisters.  The first is a very weak low E – the second note from the bottom.  The physics of the bore force an extremely small hole which results in a choked sound compared to the root note or the third.  The second is that while the tapered bore allow for extreme resonance in the low register and rich tone in the mid-range, the taper constricts the airflow necessary for the high register which leads to a somewhat shrill quality to the notes leading up to the third octave.  For someone like me who appreciates the full range of notes that Irish fusion demands, that upper range is extremely critical.  Trad players may not find this range quite so useful, but it has found its way into the modern styles of players like Davy Spillane and Cormac Breatnach and I appreciate the versatility.

Someday when cash becomes available I may re-purchase a Copeland.  There’s a sterling silver model that is extremely mellow.  But for now I’ll be playing to the organic roots of Ireland.

There is, I suppose, a fine line between the edge and over the edge, and while some may no doubt question the sanity of many of my life choices, my continued existence upon this earth is proof that I have yet to cross that line. In my defense, I feel that I must point out that life has conspired to place me in hazardous conditions more often than the average adventurer, and while such experiences do in fact make superb story material, many were beyond my choosing.  I am sure there are countless times my mother wondered if I would survive this long, and so, in honor of achieving the ripe old age of 32, here are 32 of my best near-death experiences:  

1. Playing in my backyard in Sierra Leone and discovering two cobras that were also playing in the backyard.
2. Sprinting a record-breaking 1/4 mile down a dusty road at midnight with a pack of tribal bandits swinging axes and machetes close behind.
3. Surviving 8 white-knuckle hours in a Cambodian taxi on the back roads to Poipet only to discover that the driver had bribed the license bureau after failing his driving test.
4. Near heart failure in Sierra Leone when the wooden struts of the log bridge we were driving over collapsed from under the wheels of our truck (which provided a wonderful view of the 20 foot ravine below); fast-forward 12 years and an uncanny repeat of the incident in PNG which has instilled in me an intense dislike for log bridges.
5. Accidentally canoeing through a herd of hippos on a jungle river in west Africa.
6. Being hit by a train after falling asleep in a pick-up truck on the railroad tracks in central Ohio.
7. Waking up in the middle of the night to the sensation my sleep-bag-wrapped-body plummeting head first from the hammock which, nano-seconds before, had been securely fastened 15 feet up in the branches of a rather large oak tree.
8. Tied for 5 hours at gunpoint in a tropical rainforest; courtesy of a roving gang of burley New Guinean bandits.
9. Careening inches from a 200 foot cliff-face in a 4×4 truck while traversing a monsoon-induced landslide.
10. Running out of oxygen at 60 feet in the Bismarck Sea, only to discover my diving buddy had jokingly turning off the air to my scuba tank (not surprisingly, he later faced his own near-death experience).
11. Riding my horse bareback at a dead run and avoiding a deadly collision with a barb-wire fence post by bailing off into a gravel road.
12. Hiding for 2 hours behind a large rock on the wrong side of a Kenyan military shooting range during an exercise involving explosive mortar rounds.
13. Emergency evacuation to Panama for treatment of childhood pneumonia coupled with meningismus.
14. Choking down Twinkie-sized grubs in PNG, which, like America’s favorite snack, were also white and gooshy on the inside (maybe not life threatening, but at the time I thought I was going to die).
15. Trapped under a raft in the backwash of a 12-foot, Class 5 rapid on the Nile river.
16. Nurturing an acute, double-whammy case of typhoid and amoebic dysentery after spending 4 weeks on the Sepik river (probably from eating those twinkie-size grubs).
17. Hunkering down inside of 4 sleeping bags and trying to ignore the 60mph gusts that threatened to blow me off the 12,000 foot peak in northern Colorado where I was attempting to sleep in the dead of winter.
18. Blowing through a 15-man roadblock comprised of half-drunk, gun-swinging PNG natives.
19. 11 hours of hurtling through mud-thick logging trails and dense Cambodian street traffic, in the rain, on a dilapidated 250cc Honda dirt bike missing both sets of brakes and a functioning headlight.
20. Adroitly slipping out of a coconut tree and falling 15 feet onto a balmy beach in Kenya … with a 12″ hunting knife in hand.
21. Climbing into a 40ft stand of bamboo outside my middle school in the PNG highlands in order to escape [yet another] tribal fight.
22. Waking up in the wilderness of southern Colorado to discover bear tracks 20ft from my pillow; no doubt attracted by the half-empty soup cans unceremoniously deposited at the foot of my brother’s sleeping bag.
23. Near-miss lightning strike in a grass hut.
24. Hydro planing at 70mph in the pouring rain, jumping the median and clearing an 8ft highway crossing in a full loaded ’94 Ford Tempo Sedan.
25. Inadvertently intruding upon the secret ceremonies of a sect of Bon-Boni (vodoo) witch doctors in village of west Africa; viewing of the ceremony was under penalty of death.
26. Escaping Papua New Guinea’s avian version of the velociraptor [aka: a Cassowary] by climbing vines suspended from the rainforest canopy.
27. Swimming with severe leg cramps 200 feet off shore in the South Pacific after doing the breast stroke through a mob of several hundred blue-bottle jelly fish (perhaps not entirely life threatening, but given the excruciating pain on every surface of my body, I was wishing I was dead).
28. Haplessly mugged by 6 men in a restaurant in Nairobi.
29. Losing my eyebrows and most of my bangs after lighting a lantern in a closed-in tent with what turned out to be gasoline.
30. Walking down dark village paths at night with a flashlight trying not to fall into any passing Driver Ant colonies; large colonies having been known to consume small antelope.
31. Careening down a windy mountain road in PNG in a public bus only to crash head-on into a semi truck that had brilliantly managed to take up both lanes on a blind curve.
32. Mobbed by an angry Cambodian wedding party after collapsing their 80 foot pink wedding tent by running it over with my Toyota Tacoma.

Chris inspires me because he’s serious about what he believes and he’s willing to make personal sacrifices to help others.  Given an honest self-assessment, I’m not sure I’m even as serious as Chris – at face value I’ve dedicated my life to helping others, but on a daily basis it’s easy to make it just a job rather than a true lifestyle.

The other group is a homeless program down in the tri-state area.  The gentleman who runs the program heard about BWM and became extremely excited about the prospect of helping people in Africa.  Rather than going to his family or church for donations, he engaged the most unlikely crowd to help people in Africa, the homeless men in his program.  The message that there were people in greater need than themselves was a challenging revelation, but not as challenging as the idea that they could do something about it.

In small steps and loose change over the course of 6 months they managed to put together $2,000 which they sent in to BWM.  How amazing is that!  Who can put a price on that kind of sacrifice?  At the end of the day their response was “we never imagined we could do something for someone else!”

I’m totally excited for those guys and the change their efforts will make in Africa and I’m amazed at the sacrifices they made to achieve that.  But the person that amazes me most is the man that was able to inspire those homeless men to act beyond themselves even when they felt utterly powerless to do so.  What an incredible effect to have on people.  His impact is not in just sending money to help people five thousand miles away, but he’s personally invested in caring for people around him.

Honestly, it’s pretty easy to remain emotionally detached and send money; but do I really care about the people around me?  How would my world look if I stepped out and imparted a vision of change and self-worth to people around me and inspired them to act beyond themselves?  What kind of butterfly effect could that have on the face of poverty?

Lets face it, sometimes, maybe often, we do need to sell a few of our personal ‘guitars’ because we are a consumer society that exists on way more than we need. However, at the end of the day it’s not how much we give or how elaborate our efforts are; it’s not even how much impact we bring to people a thousand miles away.   The value of your actions can be measured by what the sacrifice means to you, and the relational impact it has on others.  Buying a cup of coffee for a guy on the street, giving $10 bucks or even $1 dollar at a charity event, or spending half an hour chatting with an elderly neighbor who needs some company – these all have extreme value.  These simple actions woven into an ongoing lifestyle of compassion can have a profound effect on the world.

• 33 job applications to review
• 17 phone interviews to conduction – one in Ethiopia
• Multiply 17 interviews by 6 references each and you have 102 reference calls
• Did I mention I need to create the interview and reference question sheets?
• Ongoing negotiations with a TV network for an episode spot in Ghana
• Since no drilling partner for BWM yet exists in Ghana I have to find one – by June
• Initiate first steps with 3 potential partners, all who are calling me this week
• Receipt out 2 upcoming funding disbursements for 2 ongoing proposals
• Create a Rapid Assessment Sheet to use as a baseline for all potential partnerships
• Write an evaluation of a recently declined partnership
• Draft a dashboard report layout for the project management database I’m overseeing
• Provide ongoing feedback for the final draft of a proposal I’ve been collaborating on for the last 5 months with our Zambia partner
• Write a brief concept paper outlining expectations and desires for a multi-year initiative with a partner in Kenya
• Answer like 50 emails of subjects ranging from “what do I think of play-pumps” to “should we sign a petition for the reauthorization of PEPFAR.”
• I have a box of receipts from the last 5 weeks that needs filed asap
• I desperately need to develop a press kit, but good luck finding time
• I have 2 AIDS projects to research and present recommendations to the Board for funding
• Crap, and I need to write my Quarterly Board Summary Report for the board meeting next Saturday
• Araella’s birthday is in 3 weeks and Tara is roping me into the insanity of planning a Fairy Birthday Party for a small army of pink-sheer-clad ankle biters
• I’m leading a rock climbing group out of my church for which I have to plan events
• Tara’s garden obsession requires my ongoing muscular input, from building planter boxes to shoveling manure from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’
• The burden of being a mac genius generally necessitates my services for one emergency or another (this last week I solved one issue for a person in NC and another one for a friend calling from Kenya!)
• I exercise at least 4 days a week
• There is the inescapable daily daddy time required by one with an energetic 3, soon-to-be 4, year old daughter
• In my spare time I’m trying to figure out how to wire a “minty amp” and home-made harmonica mic
• And just for fun, the two 50 foot oak trees in our back yard need a significant hair cut b/c they are shading the particular patch of lawn where Tara wants to grow her garden

Sheesh… I’m tired just reading that list; and those are just the urgent to-do item. I think I’ll go take a nap.

Growing up in my house, we had very few traditions; we were a transient family with few roots and somehow traditions seem to require roots before sprouting leaves and maturing into anything permanent and steadfast. However, in the hazy recollection of my childhood memories, there stands the petrified remains of a few bygone traditions which I hold with some fondness. One of which is Sunday evening pancakes. As missionaries and staunch church-goers, Sundays were not as lazy as perhaps the Lord intended. The frenzy required for preparing for church, followed in stark contrast by the nearly unbearable doldrum of the church service itself, and then the renewed frenzy of a large Sunday lunch, general left our family in a state of exhaustion by mid afternoon. This, coupled with the expectancy of evening church, left little in the way of inspiration for Sunday dinner. Hence Sunday pancake night was born. 

My dad is a fantastic cook, but of all his cuisine, none stands out more than his panache for breakfast; pancakes especially. Particularly living in the bush in Africa or the highlands of Papua New Guinea, nothing quite felt like America as a huge stack of pancakes with homemade syrup, a glass of milk, and if we were really lucky, bacon.

You may wonder what has inspired the reminiscence of so distant a memory as pancake Sunday. While not as regular as a weekly event, my family is developing our own traditions; albeit along the lines of Tara’s innate gourmet leanings. We do crepes; an entire meal event consisting entirely of crepes – and if Tara is inspired (which she usually is) candles, china, and music. The main course usually begins with smoked ham layered with tomatoes and swiss, and seasoned with thyme. Sometimes though, we do breakfast crepes with eggs, cheese and sausage all wrapped up in the crepe. A little green chili and salsa makes them huevos rancheros crepes, and tomatoes and swiss makes them provincial.

The real reason for having crepes though is the desert course – generally fruit compote, or chocolate sauce or ice creme… okay, usually it’s a combination of all three. This last Sunday it was strawberries with a sweetened cream cheese sauce drizzled over top.

Now that I think about it, I think we just might make this a regular tradition.

Crepes may strike you as a posh and intimidating cuisine – I assure you they are not. In fact, they are little more than thin, eggy pancakes with a few simple fillers rolled up inside. The beauty is really in the simplicity of the dish coupled with a very satisfying array of flavors. Below is the basic crepe recipe our family uses and a few of our favorite fillers. If you have your own favorite ways for serving crepes, post them in the comments!

Basic Crepe Recipe (courtesy Alton Brown)
Ingredients
2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 cup flour
3 tablespoons melted butter
Butter, for coating the pan

Preparation
In a blender, combine all of the ingredients and pulse for 10 seconds. Place the crepe batter in the refrigerator for 1 hour [we rarely bother with this]. This allows the bubbles to subside so the crepes will be less likely to tear during cooking. The batter will keep for up to 48 hours.

Heat a small non-stick pan. Add butter to coat. Pour 1 ounce of batter into the center of the pan and swirl to spread evenly [should be only a couple millimeters thick). Cook for 30 seconds and flip. Cook for another 10 seconds and remove to the cutting board. Lay them out flat so they can cool. Continue until all batter is gone. After they have cooled you can stack them and store in sealable plastic bags in the refrigerator for several days or in the freezer for up to two months. When using frozen crepes, thaw on a rack before gently peeling apart.

*Savory Variation Add 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs, spinach or sun-dried tomatoes to the egg mixture.

*Sweet Variation Add 21/2 tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 2 tablespoons of your favorite liqueur to the egg mixture.

Filler 1: Ham & Swiss
Ingredients
1. your favorite ham lunch meat
2. slices of swiss cheese
3. thinly sliced tomatoes
4. ground, dried thyme
5. salt & pepper

Preparation
Throw an already-made crepe in a pan and heat it up, lay down the ham, tomato, salt, pepper, thyme, and finally the swiss cheese. Fold over the edges of the crepe and press down the sides to crease the edges and then flip it over. The swiss cheese will melt and help hold down the folds. Shake it out onto a plate leaving the folded side down

Filler 2: Breakfast Crepes
Ingredients
1. eggs
2. cheese
3. favorite omelet ingredients (tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms, etc)
4. sausage or bacon
5. salsa and sour cream (optional)

Preparation
Essentially make a “scrambled” omelet, mixing in ingredients and scrambling the eggs. Sausage and bacon can be served in the crepe as part of the omelet or on the side. Heat and cover the crepes and fill each one with the egg mix wrap up like a burrito. For huevos rancheros serve with salsa and sour cream on top

Filler 3: Fruit and cream cheese sauce
Ingredients
1. fruit (mixed berries, peaches, strawberries are the best)
2. cream cheese
3. sweetened condensed milk

Preparation
Chop up the fruit and set aside. Soften cream cheese in the microwave or stove and add 2 parts cream cheese to one part sweetened condensed milk (e.g. one cup of creme cheese to half a cup of sweetened condensed milk). Whip till a smooth and creamy. Should be barely runny and slightly warm. Serve with fruit rolled up in the crepe and the sauce liberally poured over top.

Filler 4: Ice cream and chocolate sauce
Do I really need to say anything more? Make sure you chill the crepes in the fridge before filling them!

Life continues on its lazy axial spin and in the ironies of life I find myself in the burbs with a 2-door garage and the proverbial white picket fence. Ex-Khmer Rouge generals shooting burglars across the street, moto-congested streets flooded half a meter deep from monsoon rains, gut soup, and expansive rice fields… all these seem but a dream in this sterile, cookie-cutter continent that smells of ajax and hair products instead of fish sauce and sweat. The persistent brown clay that still adheres to my rock climbing gear seems to be the only physical proof of my life that existed a scant 8 months ago in SE Asia.

What dimension is this? What burb on what planet entices me from my third word adventures? Or is it really me? All good questions. It is in fact me. Upon completion of my contract in Cambodia I made my way back to the States where a job interview was awaiting me. Two interviews in fact. One with World Vision as their water program manager in Papua New Guinea, and one with a growing NGO called Blood:Water Mission. Long story short I found myself in a u-haul heading to the deep American South and the soul of country western music. Blood:Water Mission is an amazing organization formed by the Christian band Jars of Clay to address the HIV/AIDS and water scarcity crisis in sub-Sahara Africa. It is by definition a funding agency, which is both ironic and a great blessing: ironic because I’m so not a a donor, but a blessing because to be an effective field worker I need to understand the backend of NGO’s, how they operate State-side, and what it takes to engage Americans.

It’s a double blessing because BWM is a great organization – it’s a small group of people my age with an amazing passion, not only for serving others, but a commitment to understanding and implementing best practices in international development. Hired on to head up up the ‘1000 Wells Project‘ which is focused on providing clean water solutions to communities, I started in February and have be able to speak into the direction and formation of the organization’s strategies, visit international and professional agencies around the country, and I’ve already hit the African continent on a three week tour of Rwanda, Kenya, and Uganda.

In addition to their project strategies I’ve had fun wearing different hats from photography and writing, to leading workshops, helping with media production, and setting up and maintaining their computer systems. Did I mention it’s a mac-based organization?! That’s what really sold me on BWM – they gave me a mac laptop and let me use cool and effective software. No PC junk used here! ) (ok, actually we do have one lone, rejected PC we keep in the corner just to laugh at or kick whenever we feel depressed or vexed).

I head out to Africa again in September, this time checking out some AIDS opportunities in Kenya before shipping out to Zambia to investigate some programs we have been funding in that part of the continent. I’ll follow again in October for another trip; this one more relational than project oriented, building community relationships and helping some of our staff and board engage in the field side of our activities.

So life is a little different than it was eight months ago. Every morning the garage door opens grudgingly when I press the remote, and the automatic sprinkler system takes pot shots at me as I break for the car. 30 minutes of traffic offer little in the way of entertainment besides the occasional bumper sticker, but I make up for it by listening to Spanish audio courses and practicing my harmonica. We have a real house with a backyard where Araella plays in a sandbox, swings on a swing, and practices slacklining. We go bicycling, which usually involves people staring and shaking their heads as I whiz by with Araella strapped to my back in a pack, and we take frequent trips to the park. It’s a good place to be. Not one I want to be in forever, since the call of the wild still sounds clear and strong. But for now I’m in an amazing place and blessed to be a blessing.

I’ll post some entries I made about the Africa trip on BWM’s website and I also want to put up some closing remarks about Cambodia before I sign off on that chapter of my life. Hopefully that will put me back in the blogging groove.

Asia is the only place on earth where you can go to a McDonalds and order a McRice Burger. It’s also the only place where, while waiting in line for your McRice Burger, you might stand behind a Caucasian man with a shaved head wearing Birkenstocks and a British wool cardigan pulled over top a full length orange Buddhist robe while caring a woman’s purse in one hand, and in the other hand a plastic bag labeled ‘The Body Shop’. Yes, please go back and read that again. Identity crisis with a capital ‘I’.

My short 7-day vacation to northern Vietnam began with an 8-hour layover in Bangkok. Bangkok is a city. Beyond that I have little else to say. If you like cities that are fast-paced, crowded, have luxurious malls and greasy street vendors then Bangkok is for you. Me… I can appreciate it once a year, particularly if it involves a movie at the VIP cinema and a trip to the Outback Steakhouse. The key to an 8 hour layover in Bangkok is timing. Knowing where to go, cramming in as much relaxing as possible in one of Bangkok’s opulent malls, and in particular, gaging just the right amount of currency exchange so that you are not left over with too much Baht and have to spend the extra at the airport on something you really didn’t want, but not so little that you don’t have enough to pay the cab when you arrive at the airport – I ended being about 20 cents short.

My flight out of Bangkok departed at 7pm and arrived at 9:30pm in Hanoi. Foreign countries are always a little spooky at night. If Tara had been on this trip we would have had everything planned out right down to the GPS coordinates including hotel reservation, directions, cafe stops, and transport to and from the tourist hot-spots. As it was just me, I cracked open the Lonely Planet Guide to Vietnam on the plane ride over, got my baggage in the Hanoi airport , hopped into a bus that was a mix of Asians and tourists, and 20km down the road leaned over and ask the driver “so where are we going?” I like a good adventure.

Dawn has come and past and it’s now ten minutes of seven; my last day in Vietnam. From my vantage point at the Little Kitchen Cafe here in Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi, I can watch the strange antics of several hundred Vietnamese as they perform their morning ritual exercises around a Lake Kiem, which seems to consist of a rather odd mix of calisthenics and aerobics, jogging backwards, spastic hand waving, swinging around pompoms on a string, and even tossing little sponge balls with a fan-shaped racket. Yes, I am in a foreign country. I’ve been up since 4am this morning and my coffee is having a rough time battling my eyes for possession consciousness. I spent the previous three days in Sapa – a quaint tourist town in northern Vietnam known for it’s rugged mountain-scapes inlaid with a thousand terraced rice paddies. It is amazing – at least from the post cards that I saw.

My three days there were characterized by heavy fog set in by a typhoon, which barely made it possible to make out the indigenous guide 5 steps ahead of me let alone the 1000 foot mountain-valleys I was skirting along on the narrow footpath. When we dropped below 5,000 feet the fog did clear reasonably well and the views were breathtaking – some sun would have made it truly photogenic, but I was not about to complain that the skies above me were cloudy. The Northern provinces are famous for their indigenous hill tribes, minority people groups with their own cultures and languages.

My guide was a vivacious little Black H’mong woman from the Lau Chai village; now a virtual tourist highway through which hundreds of foreigners tromp each day to ogle and photograph the rural farmers and their sub-standard lifestyle. Having spent a great deal of my life in rural, sub-standard villages, I was less impacted by the poverty and more impressed by how industrious and inventive they were as a people-group and I ogled and photographed away with the rest of the tourists.

Visiting Vietnam is not quite like visiting other touristy countries. Being communist, Vietnam maintains ridged control of every aspect of life, paying meticulous attention to the minutia of every foreigner that enters its borders. The Samaritan’s Purse office here is bugged heavier than a bee hive and passports with valid VISA’s are required to be photocopied at every hotel in which you stay. Furthermore in order to even step off the beaten path into a rural community, proper certifications and permits must be filled out and required fees paid. Failure to do so can result in arrest and interrogation and even imprisonment. Fortunately, for all the bureaucratic red tape, Vietnam has streamlined the tourist process reasonably well and all guides and agencies manage the permits and fees for you automatically. If you ever happen to tread in restricted areas without proper paperwork, the locals generally warn you rapidly b/f it comes to the attention of the authorities. For all the West’s prejudice against communist governments one only has to examine Cambodia and Vietnam briefly to recognize that, in many cases, a reasonably benevolent communist government is far more beneficial to a country’s economy and people than a horribly corrupt democratic system. The level of education of even the motorcycle taxi drivers in Vietnam exceeds that of the vast majority of business persons in Cambodia; the roads are better maintained, the cities cleaner, and even the rural areas possess basic services. History proves that democracy promotes greater economic prosperity over the long-run, but in the face of corruption, low education, and dismal infrastructure, a well-managed dictatorship definitely hits the mark in the short-term (though we won’t romanticize the altruism or organizational structure of the Vietnamese government too much).

Finishing my three days in Sapa yesterday, I took the night train back to Hanoi. The train station is located in the small outpost town of Lau Cai, a jump-off point for tourists to the back country of northern Vietnam and southern China. The drive from Sapa to the train station in Lau Cai is a 5,000 foot descent, which in normal cases takes an hour and a half. We did it in a record 55 minutes. Motion sick beyond belief, the only way I managed not to lose it entirely came from the perpetual terror of immanent death as we careened down the mountain in the black of night, passing vehicles at breakneck speeds on blind curves in the cloak of a dense fog. My life flashed before my eyes like a DVD stuck on continuous replay and I wondered vaguely at one point if I shouldn’t be writing it down for a documentary production or at least as something to submit to a professional psychiatrist if I ever come into the means to afford one. Having experienced a systematic historical review of my life over a 60 minute period, I emerged from the van in Lau Cai with a renewed sense of purpose and a strategic ten-year plan for my life; all of which was tragically forgotten moments later when I hurled the afternoon’s cheese pizza and veggie spring rolls into an obliging dumpster on the roadside. What a shameful loss… But no matter, pizza isn’t very South Beach anyway.

I collapsed in a chair at the crowded train station and spent a solid 30 minutes praying for the world to stop spinning while mosquitoes and cigarette smoke swirled lazily around me. The call for the train came across the loudspeakers in melodic Vietnamese and I recognized it only by a faint recognition of the words ‘Lau Cai’ and ‘Hanoi’ spaced reasonably close together. Train SP2; Coach 3; Berth 28. Crap. My berth was a 6-bed cabin, compliments of my travel agent who waited until the last minute to buy my ticket when all the 4-bed cabins were filled up. Stacking 3 beds to a wall ensures that you have less headroom than a corpse in a coffin, without the luxury of having room mates that are dead. Dead people at least have the decency to be quiet when you’re trying to sleep. My room mates turned out to be newly-weds with an infant, a giggly asian teenage girl, and a middle-age man who desperately needed the Atkins diet book.. One would have assumed the baby would have kept us awake all night… that would have been a blessing. I managed about 2-hours of sleep on the 10-hour train ride because the middle-aged man 18 inches under my head was snoring louder than a #$@%! locomotive! Literally. After three cycles of Yanni in my ipod at max volume I switched ends of the bed and reset my rock-climbing quickdraws to hang the blanket up in front of my bunk, blocking out the light the married couple had left on in case the baby woke up. The train tracks clacked out the passage of time till the tout came around announcing the arrival of 4am; gee thanks, I needed to know that I had a whole hour before we arrived in Hanoi. I was greeted by a cacophony of desperate motorcycle taxi drivers all trying to out-do one another like a flock of roosters fighting for the attentions of a lone, haggled hen. Somehow I managed to select the least capable among them and spent the better part of the 5 o’clock hour trying to find the SP office; a failed endeavor for which I still had to pay an exorbitant amount as he dropped me off in exasperation outside the cafe where I now sit.

It’s 8:20 now and safe to call Steve at the SP office to find out where the heck I am. I will no doubt spend the day walking the street fending off vendors and taxi drivers in an attempt to make the most of my time here. This afternoon I have booked tickets to see the famous ‘water puppets’ and it seems that the weather has finally cleared, with the sun making a welcomed appearance after backstaging it for the last 6 days. I will catch up with you later this week providing I survive my trip back to the United States; a grueling trip with 22 hours in 6 airports, 26 hours of actual air time, and 5 pieces of checked baggage. That’s if all goes according to plan – I’ve been around enough to not be too hopeful.