This past weekend Isabel and I were invited to Củ Chi, a suburban and rural district of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam located about two hours north of District 1. We were to stay at our principle’s home where she would be hosting a party for the teachers and staff at APU to celebrate the coming of Tết and the Lunar New Year. One of the interns at our school, Helen, made it clear to us that there would be very few students, about four including both Isabel and I, going to Củ Chi and to expect lots of quality time with our teachers. Anxious to get out of the city and explore more of Vietnam, we didn’t think twice about accepting the invitation and packing up our belongings for the weekend ahead. Helen hadn’t said much about what Củ Chi was like, but one distinct quality that everyone we talked to mentioned was how beautiful the property was. Being a lover of both nature and photography, I couldn’t wait to see what Củ Chi had in store for us and hopefully get some nice pictures too.
As three students, twelve teachers and one driver all crammed into a tiny APU van bound for Củ Chi, I envisioned a weekend full of adventure and new experiences, however what I actually got was a lot more than I bargained for, and this is where we begin the story of my unforgettable weekend in Củ Chi…
Things started getting weird from the moment we arrived.
After the long journey in such a cramped vehicle everyone was excited to finally arrive in Củ Chi. We unloaded from the van and were soon ushered to a large house where we would all be staying for the night. The first piece that made this trip so interesting was our rooming situation. Isabel and I were told that we would be sharing a room with our math teacher, a 20-something year old woman from Ohio. She’s a really good teacher and pretty cool, but I’m almost a 100% sure that sharing a bedroom with one of your teachers is illegal in the United States. Much to my surprise, we were all laughing within minutes of entering the room. I thought Hey, this isn’t going to be too bad. Right?
Wrong. Very wrong.
It was time to go to dinner, and that’s when shit started going down. We walked back to where the van had dropped us off and made our way to a large outdoor ‘patio-like’ area. This is where the party would be held the next day, so numerous people were scurrying around and putting the finishing touches on different decorations. Isabel, our math teacher (aka Ms. Stephanie) and I sat down at a long table they had set out so that everyone could eat dinner. We were only seated for a few minutes before we were joined by another intern from our school, I’ll call him Damian. If you know anything about the movie Mean Girls, then you definitely know who Damian is, and this kid we met at Củ C
hi is literally “too gay to function” (#meangirlsreference). Look, I have no problem with gay people whatsoever, Damian is just the type of person who gets reallyyy comfortable around people, even if he has just met them. Of course that’s not always a bad thing, but when he starts calling you his bitch after knowing you for ten minutes it can get a little weird. The four of us talked throughout dinner, and after about an hour of chatting and eating the crowd started to thin out. Isabel, Ms. Stephanie and I got up and made our way back to our room, causally being followed by Damian who was just a few strides behind us. When we got back to the house, he asked if he could join us to hang out. Of course we said yes and all sat down on our beds and began talking once again. Pretty soon Isabel left to practice her lines with Helen as she was going to be the MC for the party the next day. It was at this point that Damian decided he was going to be spending the night with us. Ms. Stephanie and I were both awestruck when he returned to our room with all his designer bags and made himself very comfortable on her bed. He began admiring the background photo on Ms. Stephanie’s laptop. “Ooh, he’s cute,” Damian said as he tried to get a better look at the boy on the screen. “Yup, well that’s my boyfriend,” Ms. Stephanie said as she closed her laptop and pushed it across the bed. However Damian kept talking about how attractive her boyfriend was. To say Ms. Stephanie was uncomfortable with the whole situation would be a major understatement. The second Damian left the room to talk to another student, Ms. Stephanie grabbed me and said, “We need to find Helen. Now,” and thus starting our ten minute search for Helen and Isabel. Finally we found them in the building right next to our room, go figure, and quickly explained to Helen what our ‘little situation’ was. “The hardest part,” Ms. Stephanie said, “is that he’s a really nice kid, he just gets a little too touchy feely”. And that’s exactly it. Damian is super nice and fun to be around, but he just doesn’t seem to have any boundaries when it comes to physical contact with people, and sometimes it can make you feel really uncomfortable. Helen wasn’t at all surprised that we had this little issue with Damian and told us she would 
take care of it. Relieved that something was being down to resolve the problem Isabel, Ms. Stephanie and I all headed back to our room for the night. Just when we got back inside Damian arrived to come pick up his stuff. “So you don’t want me to sleep with you?” he asked as he began to pick up his bags. “I just don’t want to get into any trouble,” Ms. Stephanie said as she sat down on her bed. Damian huffed and stated, “I just hate who I’m stating with.” Ms. Stephanie looked up at Damian and asked him who he was staying with. He rolled his eyes and grumbled, “A widow.” We all looked at a each other in confusion. A widow? “What’s a widow?” Ms. Stephanie questioned, eager to hear his response. “You know, someone’s who ‘frigid’,” Damian told us. Once again, we were all very confused. “What’s ‘frigid’?” Isabel asked as she gave me a worried look. “Oh you know,” Damian said, “a person who’s boring because they won’t have sex with their boyfriend or girlfriend. What do you call those in America?” he questioned. “Um, a virgin?” Ms. Stephanie said as she tried not to laugh at how ridiculous this conversation was. “Oh yeah!” Damian exclaimed, “Well I hate virgins.” I immediately looked down as I felt my face turn red. “I’m a virgin,” I told him as I finally looked up, “does that make me ‘frigid’?”. “No no, you don’t 
have a boyfriend. Only people with boyfriends are frigid,” Damian told me. Ms. Stephanie looked like she was about to lose it. Not only does she have a boyfriend but she is also Catholic, so you kn0w, the whole purity until marriage thing. When Damian finally put two-and-two together, he screamed, “OH MY GOD!”, and ran over to Ms. Stephanie’s bed. “I’m so sorry!” he told her, “I had no idea. I mean you’re so funny. I thought you had sex, like, a hundred times.” With that statement, Ms. Stephanie looked like her eyes were about to pop out of her head. “It’s getting late, so you should probably go back to your room now,” she told Damian before he apologized again and left for the night. The room was silent for a moment before Ms. Stephanie looked straight ahead and said, “What the hell just happened?” The three of us erupted in laughter as we remembered bits and pieces of the night and how crazy it all was. This was not at all what I had in mind for my first night in Củ Chi, and the next day was just about to get even better.
Saturday morning started with Isabel waking up at literally the crack of dawn to rehearse for the party later that day. After an hour of just laying in bed I finally got up and made my way to the bathroom to take a shower, only this “shower” was pretty pathetic. I used a little faucet about a foot above the ground and the weakest shower head to ever be made by man. Most of the shampoo and conditioner that I had used was still in my hair which was great. By now it was around eight in the morning and Ms. Stephanie and I were already dressed and ready for the party that wasn’t even due to start until eleven. We left the property for some breakfast and coffee with the other teachers and returned with some more time to kill. We were joined by Damian, who was even more friendly then the night before (sigh) and decided to walk around. Because we had arrived at Củ Chi 
during the late evening the day before, this was the first time we had a chance to see the place, and boy was it beautiful. There was so much life around us, from the trees, birds, animals, the place just felt alive. It was so refreshing to be in the country after living in the city for so long and as I felt the warm sun against my skin I couldn’t help but miss home. Củ Chi, although much more tropical and rural, reminded me a lot of some towns back home. The open fields, large overhanging trees littering the ground, I never wanted to leave. Yet all good things must come to an end, and my nice little moment with nature was ended as Damian tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I would take a picture of him, seeing the camera I was carrying around my neck. I smiled and took a few steps away from him in order to get a better angle, and before I had even picked the camera up, Damian was posing for me. And I’m not just talking about a nice smile, this kid was serious about his modeling, moving his body in some odd and even provocative ways. I couldn’t help but laugh and admire Damian because he really didn’t care what people thought of him. I showed him the shots I had gotten and he seemed pretty 
excited about them. I told I would edit the lighting a little to enhance the quality and he jumped up and down and said, “Thank you! You are going to be my personal photographer and I know some places we can go to take more pictures!” I looked at him blankly for a moment. “Um, I’m no professional Damian,” but he didn’t seem to care one bit. Wonderful, I thought to myself as we all made our way back to the other teachers. Finally, it was time for the party.
The party was alright, nothing too interesting happened except for the fact that I got see my teachers get drunk (yet another thing I believe is illegal in the States). Binh, a women who works for APU and was helping out at the party, asked me if I would take pictures of the different performances that were going on. It was really fun to run around and play ‘photographer’ for a while, but soon the party began to die down and it was time to go back to Ho Chi Minh City. Damian had been pretty calm throughout the day, but he couldn’t have left Củ Chi without a grand exit. Duhhhhh. APU had provided three different vans for the teachers and staff to take back to the city. One had already left so Isabel, Ms. Stephanie and I piled into the second one, eager to 
get back to our dorms after such a long day. The van was completely packed by the time it started to pull out of the property and head out for the grueling two hour journey ahead. Damian wasn’t in our van, we actually hadn’t seen him for about an hour. We were just about to get to the gates of the property when Ms. Stephanie looked out the back window and said, “Holy shit.” Immediately everyone looked back, and what did we see? Damian, running after the van with all four huge designer bags bouncing up and down. He was yelling something in Vietnamese, probably trying to tell the driver to stop. When we reached the gate, the driver did slow down and Damian was able to catch up to the van’s door. He started knocking on it in an attempt to get in, but all of a sudden the van started moving again. The expression on Damian’s face made Isabel, Ms. Stephanie and I died of complete laughter. Don’t worry, we didn’t leave Damian in Củ Chi. The van stopped once again to let him on, the only problem was that because the it was already so packed there wasn’t a seat left for him. As the van started to move again Damian was forced to quickly sit down on the floor. “Why didn’t you wait until the third van left?” I asked him, confused why he would run after this one. “I have a fashion show tonight! I can not be late,” he told me. Damian looked back at where Ms. Stephanie was siting and said, “Can I sit next to you?” She looked around at the two people next to her and told him, “Sorry, I don’t think there’s enough room.” Damian opened his mouth a little and stated, “I’m on the floor.” Trying to find a solution Ms. Stephanie told him to sit on his bag. Damian almost shrieked. “It’s DESIGNER!” he told her as he huffed and faced forward. Isabel and I tried our hardest to suppress our laughter. This guy really was fabulous…
Well, that was my weekend at Củ Chi. Definitely not what I was expecting, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Since then Damian has been extra friendly in school. I don’t mind it really, as long as he stops pinching my cheeks and trying to hug me 24/7.
I know this was superrrr long but I had a lot of stuff to say hahah
Lara
February 13, 2015
lil hippie blog 