Tag Archives: Vietnam

by - 13 Comments

Friends in Far Away Places: a meditation on “good-bye”


Saturday night our friend Kathryn came to dinner.  Sara cooked Pad Thai.  There was salmon pate and wine, and an evening on our deck with a friend we dearly love.  We had wanted to celebrate Kathryn’s recent milestone birthday—I won’t mention her exact age, just that she could pass for someone a good 2 decades younger.

But that’s not what matters here—not what matters most by any means. What’s more important is the fact of friendship, the fact that Sara’s worked with Kathryn in countless places around the world, and I’ve been with her in a good many locations myself.  What matters most is this benefit, this blessing of friendship—one of the unexpected perks that comes with Sara’s work in disaster response.  It makes things feel a little less disastrous.  It normalizes.

Travel to exotic places is sometimes made a little less pleasant by the day to day reality of actually living in uncomfortable locations, places our pampered American upbringings have not prepared us for.  But when it comes to folks we’ve worked with, there’s just no down side.  Sure it feels good to know that Sara’s work improves the lives of others, but when one gets down to the nitty-gritty selfish reasons I benefit from this arrangement, it’s really all about the people.

Since I’m not the one actually doing the work, since I’m the one sometimes forced by circumstances to set aside my career as a writing teacher to be with Sara in the field, I’m especially grateful for the folks we meet along the way, the ones we live with, shop with, cook with, cry with. 

I’ve gotten close to many of Sara’s colleagues, folks like Elizabeth and Minh, like Dee and Aileen, like Todd and Robin and Lesley and Jack.  But Kathryn, well, Kathryn has not only been one of my personal favorites—Kathryn is leaving us today—going back to the US to take a job with another international aid organization.

And though this makes me sad—(sad for only selfish reasons, I might add)—it’s a great development for Kathryn herself, since she’ll be headquartered in the same city her daughter and grandson live in, the same city several other of our friends have also settled, friends Kathryn too has worked with in many places on the planet, from Thailand to Tanzania.

I already miss the year we shared with Kathryn in Vietnam—months living together in Hanoi, days shopping in the Old Quarter, mornings walking West Lake, a 30 hour train traveling the country south to north. 

Here in Haiti she’ll be missed by many more than simply Sara and I—and our dogs, wagging, barking, licking kisses to” Auntie Kathryn,” whom they adore.  Here she’s loved by both Haitians and expats alike, people who have come to Port-au-Prince to participate in the recovery—come from places as far away as Alaska or Alabama, India or Indonesia, Eastern Europe or Western Africa.  

Kathryn is loving. 

And accordingly—she is loved.

The bottom line is this—

When working far from family, far from the comforts and conveniences of home, we’re thankful for the exquisite blessing that is friendship—friends who comfort, friends who share our homes and become like family.

 We’re grateful for the Kathryn’s among us—

— even when we say goodbye!

by - 3 Comments

Season’s Greetings from Vietnam


Sara and I, along with our dogs Ralph and Lucy, would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from our home in Hanoi.  Without a doubt we would rather be hosting our annual Christmas party from 4th Street, but instead we send you best wishes and warm hugs from our home-away-from-home, along the shores of West Lake in Vietnam’s charming capital.  Hanoi is a city of lakes, and we are fortunate enough to live a mere 20 meters from the city’s largest, grateful to walk our dogs along its shores, despite the thriving mosquito population even into December.

The locals claim it’s cold this time of year, walking the winding streets in winter coats, hats, and scarves, in weather that warms to 70 if not 80 degrees Fahrenheit most afternoons and drops to a mere 60 at night.  Unless things cool off drastically come January, we will have lugged our warmest coats half-way around the world for no other reason than we were told it was “cold” here in the winter, forgetting that “cold” is a relative term, especially for those living in a tropical country, where unless you live at the highest elevations of Himalayas that extend into Western Vietnam, you will have never even seen snow, let alone know what we mean by “cold” that freezes pipes and paralyzes even the heartiest during the sub-zero days of January back home.  For us the weather is perfect this time of year, sunny and clear, and at its coldest what we would call “crisp” in the US.

For those of you who know about our work this fall with the Jimmy and Rosalynn Work Project 2009, the Mekong Build, let us assure you the event was a huge success.  For those of you less familiar with this work, you really only need to know that each year for the past 26, the Carters have hosted a large building project somewhere around the world, partnering with Habitat for Humanity.  This year the Mekong Build happened simultaneously in the five countries through which the river flows—Thailand, Cambodia, China, Laos, and Vietnam.  Here in Vietnam alone we built 32 houses in 5 days and hosted more than 700 volunteers from both Vietnam and around the world.

As the national director for Habitat Vietnam, Sara provided the leadership necessary to make our week a success.  Along with my friend Elizabeth, I scripted and staged the entire opening and closing ceremonies, even writing speeches for Diana Negraponte, wife of John Negraponte, the deputy Secretary of State for George W. Bush.  For Sara all of this was old hat, for me it was the experience of lifetime—literally, dinner with the Carters, chatting at length with Rosalynn.

Perhaps the most touching moment of the week, however, was on Wednesday, when President Carter addressed the crowd in our village church yard.  While the president was talking about his visit being a healing opportunity for our two countries still at war with beginning of his presidency, two veterans of that war sat side by side in the audience, one American, the other a former member of the North Vietnamese army.  As the president spoke of healing and the mending of broken relationships, the two veterans, former enemies, clasped one another’s hands, weeping through the rest of the ceremony.

In President Obama’s inaugural address nearly a year ago, he promised those President Bush termed the axis of evil that we would reach out our hand in friendship, if our enemies would unclench their fist.  In Vietnam it took more than 40 years, but less than four weeks ago enemies one time as formidable as Taliban militants today held hands and wept in friendship, peace, and mutual respect. 

It is this kind of peace, this kind of healing, we wish for you this Christmas.  We may be far away this holiday season, but we too, reach out our hand of friendship across oceans that feel like 40 years —sharing our love for you, our prayers for your well-being.  May you be blessed this holiday. 

With love for each of you,

Kathy and Sara