When in Rome

Tuesday, June 29, 2011

5:10 PM (Vietnam Time)

Nobody sweats here. The clouds have cleared, and Scott and I have experienced heat like we have never experienced it before. It’s a throbbing heat that beats down on us and is combined with a humidity that envelops us. I wanted to see the blue sky, but now I am not so sure.

Early yesterday morning, we had breakfast with Dr. Man at 8 am and were notified that we were moving to the hospital guesthouse and out of the hotel after breakfast. This caught us by surprise since we were not at all prepared for it. I finally got my chance to ride on what Scott and I call a “three-er,” meaning three people on a motorbike. Dr. Man’s wife and son joined us for breakfast and helped drive us home. I hopped on the back of the bike with Dr. Man’s wife and son in the front and with no helmet. We didn’t have a choice. “When in Rome” I guess. They drove us to our hotel, and we frantically packed the small roots we had put down in that hotel. It was starting to feel like home and was my retreat from a hot or overwhelming day. Scott and I just threw everything in our bags and headed downstairs. By this time, we were absolutely drenched in sweat. I thought scrubs would be comfortable in heat, but I could feel my shirt sticking to my back and my sweat dripping down my leg. I looked at Scott and nearly burst out laughing. His scrubs were soaked through and through. It literally looked like he had just hopped in the shower, fully clothed, and hopped back out without drying himself. I looked around me and no one else was sweating. Didn’t they know how hot it was? Besides the fact that Scott is twice as tall as anyone here, you would definitely know we were foreigners by the amount of sweat pouring down our faces.

We arrive at the guesthouse which is literally just down the street from our hotel. First thing I notice is that it is large and spacious, and there is a staircase that goes up the middle of it. We drop our things off on the top floor and head back down to edit the Vietnamese version of the questionnaire with Dr. Man. We sit on these beautifully carved wooden chairs that are much more pretty than they are functional. My butt is numb after 2 hours, and I get up and can’t really walk for about 10 minutes because the seats were so hard.

NIH Stroke Scale training day

After we edit, Dr. Man notifies me that I will be teaching the NIH Stroke Scale to the doctors and nurses today at 2 pm. I wasn’t quite prepared for it, but everyone here goes with the flow, so I do too. Scott and I unpack and lay down our roots in this new place. Back at the hospital, we go up to the conference room and read over the NIHSS. Scott will be my patient. We wait for everyone to gather in the room, and Dr. Man makes the introductions about us, what we are doing here, and why we are teaching the NIHSS. He also wants to integrate it into their practice after we leave. I get up, and Dr. Man tells me to speak in Vietnamese. I can’t do it. It’s one thing to be able to speak Vietnamese to get around a city and order food, but it’s a completely different thing to speak formal, medical Vietnamese to an audience of doctors! I speak in English, and Dr. Man translates. We go through the 11 items that are assessed with the NIHSS, and I have Scott pretend to do poorly on some of them, and everyone laughs. They must think we are so funny. Big, white guy and small, Asian girl trying to teach them something in English. I felt so inadequate, me, a newly 2^nd year medical student, trying to teach a bunch of professionals. I guess it’s all about passing on knowledge and sharing the wealth of it. The seminar goes pretty smoothly. All the doctors and nurses are warm and welcoming, and Scott said that I did a good job.

All in white

Everyone reading materials and Audrey preparing

Dr. Man giving an introduction

Scott and I head back to the guesthouse to rest up and then head out to dinner at our favorite place, Lau Mam Bac Lieu. The waiter immediately recognizes us and sends a smile and a wave our way. I love being in a town where the people know you, and it was my goal to have a few restaurants that we liked where the waiters know us. It makes me feel less foreign. The waiter brings over two bottles of water without our asking because it’s what we always order. This time for dinner, I really want Scott to try cua rang me (crab cooked in tamarind sauce). They don’t have big ocean crab, but they have something smaller called ghe. It looks and tastes like crab, except it’s shell is prettier and speckled with dots. The crab is absolutely delicious. I don’t know how to describe tamarind sauce to someone who hasn’t tried it, but it’s sweet, salty, and sour all rolled into one flavor. It’s addicting. After we devour the crab and lick the sauce off the shells, we eat the skin of the tamarind pits. They are like candy. Satisfied, we chat over some Heinekins; just two makes me talkative.

Incredible ghe with tamarind sauce

Feeling like a princess

We head back to the hotel and set up our mosquito net, even though there aren’t any mosquitoes in our room. But, we bought it, so we might as well use it. Scott ties a rope from the lamp above our bed to a bar in the closet across from our bed. He gets all fancy tying “climbers’ knots,” and I am cracking up the whole time. We are 10 years old again and building forts. We hang up the mosquito net, and it looks like the princess bed I have always wanted. I lie down inside and marvel at how pretty this mosquito net is. I feel like a princess.

I take a shower in what we call “the bathroom shower,” where the bathroom is literally a shower. There is nothing that separates the shower from the toilet and when you shower, everything gets wet—the toilet, the entire floor, and even the sink. I am ready for bed and lie down on my princess bed only to realize that the mattress is hard, almost like lying on the floor. My whole body aches. How do they sit on the wooden chairs and sleep on these hard mattresses? I guess they just do, and we do too.

-Audrey

Gecko in headlights

Figure-eight to center the net

Our sturdy anchor