Cu Chi Tunnels

I wanted Mia to learn about Vietnam before we went. She was very resistant, so I didn't make her. I figured that maybe during our travels something would peak her interest and she would learn after she got home. I especially wanted her to learn about the Vietnam War (they call it the American War there.) She had no interest.

Then we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels near Saigon (the city has been officially renamed Ho Chi Minh City, but all the Vietnamese I talked to still called it Saigon.) It is a historic site they have preserved for education. The Cu Chi Tunnels were a tunnel system used by the Viet Cong during the war. Because of Agent Orange, Napalm, and the continuous bombing, it became impossible to liv

e on the surface of the earth in that little part of the world, so they moved underground. Whole villages with women, children, old folks, and soldiers all lived underground. They had underground kitchens, wells, barracks and living quarters, safe rooms, and escape routes. That particular system had 250 kilometers of tunnels that went into Cambodia, under American military bases, and had escape routes into the Mekong River. They shoveled the excess earth into the river so that they would not leave hills of earth to give them away. They used bamboo to create ventilation systems. They had three levels of tunnels. The first had the best air and they lived in them. The second level was for moving down to a safe level if invaded, and the third level were the escape tunnels. According to our guide, the Cu Chi tunnels were just one of many tunnel systems that spread all over Vietnam.

Mia was initially interested in seeing them because you could go down and crawl around in tunnels. How cool is that? I had heard about the tunnels during my own study of the Vietnam War, but I had no idea. All our minds were blown.

They had a film they showed us before we went on the tour. It was made in 1967 and there was no white washing or political correctness. The American soldiers were referred to as "the enemy" and were talked about as being ruthless beasts that killed women, children, and old people. They showed a sweet class of Vietnamese kindergartners while talking about this. The Vietnamese soldiers were all brave and strangely beautiful. I say strangely beautiful because almost all the soldiers I saw in the film were lovely young women. I asked my Vietnamese guide about that and he said that during the war there was no difference between men and women. Everyone was a soldier and fought. They talked about one woman who had been injured as a young girl in a bombing and so dedicated her whole life to killing Americans. The film ended with a surreal scene of these beautiful women soldiers doing a traditional dance in their army fatigues.

Mia was horrified. The Vietnamese got awards for killing Americans?

It got worse for her. After the movie we went to another section of the site that showed the different booby traps built by the Vietnamese to protect themselves. They were simple mechanical traps, adapted from the hunting traps they used for killing tigers. There were pit traps that swung on a hinge and had spiked bamboo on the bottom. There were 6 different types of foot traps that had bamboo spikes for stabbing the unfortunate person's foot or leg to disable them. There were door traps that would swing down and slash a person who was trying to enter a house. They were all simple designs using the materials easily found in the jungle, elegant even, but vicious, invisible, and deadly. My mother added that the spikes were often dipped into excrement in order to infect wounds. Those booby traps surrounded villages, homes, and were all over the tunnels.

The tunnels themselves were amazing. They had to seriously expand them to make them big enough for Western sized bodies. There was a small section we could go into and crawl around to see, but most of us were too claustrophobic to get far. One of the tools the Vietnamese used for this type of fighting was their body size. I am 5'4" and was taller than most Vietnamese people I saw during my travels. I counted two women in my entire time there that were taller than me, and only about half the men were taller than me and not by much. (The Thai and Japanese people I saw on my travels were much bigger, to give you an idea of how small these people were.) Their bone structure is tiny, too. Add this to the fact that there were food shortages throughout most of the war and you have little, little people. They used this to their advantage by making little, little tunnels. The entrances were tiny. A full sized Vietnamese man had to wiggle in with his arms over his head to squeeze in. None of the American, Canadian, or Brittish people in our group was small enough to get in except the children. On the bottom level of their tunnels, the escape routes, they routinely put in smaller sections, like girdles, to keep out the chasing enemy soldiers. Think of a rabbit disappearing into it's burrow. A fox had to dig its way in and by then the rabbit was far away.

Mia had a hard time with this whole display. She kept picturing in her mind the men in her family that she knew who had been in the military (like her father) getting trapped by these booby traps, shot at, called "ruthless beasts." It was not an easy place to be American. I had to explain that the Vietnamese were fighting for their freedom, that this was their Revolutionary War. These people were protecting their homes and their families. They didn't bring the war to us; they were the ones invaded.

There is so much out there about the brutality of the Americans against the Vietnamese during the war. The soldiers were called baby killers by their civilian peers when they got home. This experience at the Cu Chi Tunnels wasn't what I would have chosen as Mia's entrance into that part of our history, but it was really eye opening. How can you vilify soldiers for killing women and children when anyone in a Viet Cong family could be a soldier--the wife, the husband, the children, the uncles, the aunts, the grandparents?

Ho Chi Minh told his people that if they lost the war, they lost nothing. If they won it, they won everything. They were fighting for their independence, their liberty, freedom from foreign rule. They believed in what they were doing.

It will be interesting how Mia applies this experience to her future studies of the Vietnam War.

SE Asia

We're leaving for a monthlong trip to Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand tomorrow. It will be Mi'ita, my mother, and I, taking a GAP tour, then visiting my uncle in Thailand who will be showing us around. He married a Thai woman and has lived there off and on for probably 20 years. Mi'ita and I have been trying to learn some Vietnamese for the trip. I must say, I was better at Swahili. (We originally planned on going to Tanzania on Safari, but canceled that trip due to dangerous political conditions.)

My goals for this trip:

1. I hope we all have some fun. I hope my mother enjoys it, especially, and I hope Mi'ita and I don't drive her batty (or vice versa.)

2. Mi'ita and I have already learned a bit about the linguistics of Asian languages--tonal rather than syllabic, lack of articles, formal address for different types of people, etc. I hope we will learn some more.

3. My mother was a young woman during the Vietnam War. She never went, but knew many people who did, and the war was huge for that generation of Americans. I hope that she puts some of her own demons to rest, and I hope that Mi'ita and I learn some about that period of American (and Vietnamese) history.

4. Money! Oh my Lord, it is hard for me to convert dollars to dongs, bahts, euros, or pesos. It will be good math, and I hope Mi'ita is better at it than I am.

5. How to travel. Whether she enjoys traveling or not is of no consequence to me. I hope she learns how to do it well, though. Packing for it, navigating airports, getting along with fellow travelers, figuring out maps and train schedules, learning enough of the local language to get along, bartering at markets, enduring a bit of discomfort, how to be safe from diseases and accidents and "bad guys."

6. Politics. Husband was doing military intelligence during the Cold War, and has definite negative views about communism. I am hoping that she will learn how communism works from the ground (and be less negative herself. After all, capitalism has it's own list of problems.) Also, Thailand is much like England in which they have a mostly figurehead monarchy and a ruling parliament. Unlike England, you can be jailed for even saying something disparaging of the royal family. They are also expected to have a coup attempt while we are there, which my uncle assures us will not be violent. He's lived through 4 or 5 himself. If that's not a crash course on political systems, I don't know what is!

7. I won't be making Mi'ita do any actual academic work while we're there. It's going to be a tremendous education in itself. I will be making her keep a daily journal.

Next language: Swahili

It's always handy to have a rich grandmother in the wings.

Homeschooling is not cheap. Books, field trips, , stay-at-home mom, private lessons, manipulatives, computer programs, travel... Other people have figured out how to do it on the cheap and I could do it in a pinch. But there are sooooooo many cool things out there to buy!

My mother loves to travel and has said that as soon as Mi'ita is old enough she'd like to take her on Safari to Africa. Oma was in the peace corps in Swaziland in the 70's and has been back to Africa at least once since. She mentioned again that as soon as Mi'ita was old enough... and I said that now might not be a bad time. She is old enough to remember the trip and to endure some uncomfortable things, and young enough not to be an obnoxious teenager.

So we're off to Africa this spring! My mother is springing because I have no where near the $5000 plus each ticket price. Wow!

On the curricular table now is: Swahili, Tanzania, African history from ancient to modern, ecology, wildlife biology, biomes, global warming, poverty, AIDs, and I don't know what else yet but I know that's not it.

State Report: California

Remember all those state reports you had to do in school? State flag, state bird, state flower, state capital, most populous city, major industry, year it became a state.

How much did you really learn about that state? What would I know about South Dakota, where I have never been, if I could list for you all those details? Anything important?

Mi'ita drove the whole length of California, down I5 starting with an agricultural inspection and explanation on why California does agricultural inspections and other states don't. Past Mt. Shasta and little Shasta, and the little volcano to

the south of them, through their deciduous forests. Swiftly we hit the scrublands, overnight near Chico, past the state capital of Sacramento, explanations of what Sacramento means, why it's in Spanish, and why California has so many Spanish names and especially cities named after saints: San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, San Diego...

Spent the weekend in the Los Angeles metropolis, in two completely different neighborhoods: Burbank and Seal Beach. Swam in the Pacific Ocean, southern California style (very different than Oregon style.) We stayed with friends and family, seeing how middle class Americans live in one of the most expensive places in the country. Did Knott's Berry Farms on a Tuesday in October and almost never had to wait in a line. We got to go twice in a row on the log ride, which Mi'ita deems not as good as our own Enchanted Forest. Skipped Disneyland.

Her auntie gave her a tour of her work, a metal spring company where they fabricate springs using electricity to cut the metal. She explained why electricity is better than laser or water, which they used to use. Fascinating.

Headed north along the coast now, to Salinas. Had a good conversation about Cesar Chavez, migrant farm workers, unions, United Farm Workers, hunger strikes, sanitation services available to workers and how that effects food consumers, and immigration. Saw the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, signed an electronic post card to protect the sea horses, got a good lecture from her father about how to balance marine reserves and fishing rights. Headed over to see a protected forest for migrating monarch butterflies. Saw sea otters in a kelp forest in the bay. Discussed why California has sea otters and Oregon used to but no longer has. Our friend gave us a tour of her work as a plant pathologist for the USDA. We are still growing bacteria skimmed off Mi'ita's fingers in a petrie dish that we are going to look at under a microscope soon.

Saw the King Tut display at the de Young Museum in the Golden Gate Park. Saw the Golden Gate Bridge. Didn't stay as long as I wanted. Talked about Chinatown and Chinese immigration, but didn't get to see Chinatown, much to my disappointment.

Headed north along Highway 1, right on the Pacific Ocean, all the way to the Redwood Forests. Beautiful. Camped. Saw the Trees of Mystery, drove through a tree 2100 years old. Spawned a discussion of the crusades.

Spent the night in Crescent City, shaped like a crescent bowl ready to scoop up tsunamis started by earthquakes in Alaska. Talked about the tsunami that hit Native Americans 300 years ago.

Now that's a state report.

Taking a page from my mom's book

My mother was a 3rd grade teacher for a hundred years before she finally retired. When she started she was terrified of teaching science because English was her forte. She had never taught science before. She eventually lost her fear and became Washington State's Science Teacher of the Year (go mom!) She had this lovely philosophy--if you don't know, make it up.

Well, I didn't know a lot of stuff driving eight hours through Oregon and northern California. I wanted to drive so that Mi'ita would get the scope of our country. California is huge. We live in a temperate rain forest and driving down I5 is showing her the land. So, here I am talking very knowledgeably about forests when I know diddly squat.

"We live in a temperate rain forest, Mi'ita," I intoned pedantically. "This area in southern Oregon is a semi-arid mixed deciduous and evergreen forest. See the oak trees and the ponderosa pines? Semi means half and arid means dry. It isn't a desert here, but it's much drier than where we live."

"See that stand of dead trees, Mi'ita? There are some pine beetles eating the trees. Loggers took out the mixed trees and planted a monoculture. Mono means one and culture means the plants that live there. The pine beetles eat the type of tree that the loggers planted and since there's only one type of tree, they are wiping out forests. If there were ten different kinds of trees, then only one tenth of the forest would be damaged and the animals would still be able to live there."

"Look at this dried up riverbed, Mi'ita, and how low Lake Shasta is. California must be having a drought. It's probably global warming."

Go ahead and laugh. Then tell me what I got wrong so that I can straighten her out.

On the road

We're off to California tomorrow morning, bright and early.

As much as it pains me to say it, no math is coming with us.

We started homeschooling a month before regular school started with the excuse that we were going to take this two week trip in October. I would like to homeschool year round, taking time off for trips as they come up rather than taking the whole summer off. Really, all our vacations are educational since we all love to learn. This summer Mi'ita went to fossil camp for a week, chemistry camp for a week, and theater camp for two weeks. She loved them all. This trip is no less educational, even if it is unofficial. We will be seeing friends and relatives to be sure, but we are also going to the King Tut exhibit in Golden Gate Park, the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, and camping in the redwoods. I hope to squeeze in a Shakespeare play in Ashland, a trip through Chinatown and Alcatraz in SF, and maybe the Steinbeck house in Salinas. My friends are going to show us around old Hollywood, too.

In the spring I want to visit my brother in Nebraska. He lives right across the river from the start of the Oregon Trail. On the way back home, I'd like to travel the Oregon Trail, walking some of it even. Mi'ita's teacher tried to foist a geography book on us the last time we went to school. Mi'ita said, "no, thanks." Mrs. M. voiced her concern that we needed to cover the Oregon Trail as it is 4th grade stuff. I think we'll be fine, thanks.

We'll see how this trip goes.