The Cost of Kinship

by Maren Fischer (United States of America)

Making a local connection Vietnam

The only thing standing between my sliding boots in the slick mud and my certain death off a precipice of the sprawling mountain rice terraces of Vietnam was a 79-year-old woman and her outstretched hand. With a strength that defied her wrinkled skin and paper-thin sandals, she pulled me away from the descending 300-foot drop. She and about six other native Hmong women accompanied us along the trail, lending a sturdy hand when necessary, while up at the front of the winding line of hikers was Cam, our 19-year-old guide who climbed with her baby strapped to her back in colorful fabrics. Shame curled in my gut. What must we look like to these women who have flown these trails since they could walk? A group of strangers who come from strange places with their skin that burns easily, their unnecessarily large backpacks, and their cameras that cost more than 6 months' worth of food. As we wound further through the mountainous terrain of Sapa, grabbing onto branches and traipsing over logs, the answer became clearer. At a resting point on the trail they were ready and waiting for us: 10 little girls aged 5-12 with handmade bracelets and sad looks on their faces, imploring in puny, heartbreaking voices, “Buy from me”, “Buy me please”, “Please buy please buy”. My mind immediately checked which day of the week it was... Wednesday. These girls were not in school and yet they had learned just enough English to cajole a tourist into purchasing handicrafts. What do you do when you want to support the local community but don't want to perpetuate keeping girls out of school so they can earn money off tourism? I bought a bracelet. It burned as her young, thin fingers wrapped it around my wrist. Here was a place with such an enormous magnitude of beauty; beauty as I had never seen. But the glowing green fields stared solemnly. I tried to breathe in their wisdom, tried to understand the injustice. The mountains breathed back a vision of the hours spent with spine hunched and sun beating down, squelching wet paddies and sore arms, collecting grain upon grain of rice with back turned away from the majestic landscape, never fully able to savor it. Cam cheerfully breastfed her son at the end of the hike while we wiped our sweat and caught our breath. We had arrived at our homestay: a traditional Vietnamese house that had been expanded to accommodate 12-15 tourists. We exchanged greetings with the family, dropped our bags by the sleeping mats, and set about our given tasks to prepare the dinner- chopping vegetables, stirring rice. Amid the preparations a scream rent the air; one of the men had retrieved a pig from an unseen pen and was wrestling it into a cage on the back of a motorbike, the hog squealing terribly. The horrible cries continued as the bike drove away. I prayed fervently it wouldn't end up on our dinner plates. While we worked, the two daughters of the family came to observe the strangers with delight. The smallest was 5, the older one 7. We didn't have much language between us, but I sensed an opportunity to finally make a real connection. Gloriously, the rest of the evening was filled with piggy-back rides, dancing in the yard, and hand-clapping games. We ate together, (pork, I was pretty sure, but I stoutly ignored that fact), braided each other's hair, and said goodnight. The next morning the hike continued, and this time my new young friends joined us. The oldest daughter skipped alongside me, pausing to pluck Indigo leaves from the grasses and show me how to rub them on my palms to dye them blue. I cheered that the innocence of childhood could transcend any cultural barriers- could bring together an American woman and a 7-year-old Vietnamese girl- and then at the end of the trail she turned to me, pulling woven bracelets from her pocket, and pleaded, “Buy from me”. How many smiles were meant to subtly persuade, to feign closeness? All I could do was believe there had actually been something real; something true in the rice terraces of Sapa.