-^-for posterity-^-

the last day of the basketball tournament.

we were playing in the honorable mention game and we had one player that was quite good. we were playing a team that was also good and doing so in the middle of the afternoon when the sun is at its most brutal state. i sat on the bench and was not nervous at all. i simply had to give advice in vietnamese to the different players and clap when things went well.

in the first five minutes our best player went down with, you guessed it, a sprained ankle. he writhed around on the ground while the crowd laughed and i made sure to go and get some ice for him. i sat on the ground with him as he winced in pain.

so, we lost by about 30 points and the other team kept their starters in for the whole game making sure to let us know that we were not going to have any chance of wining.

we all boarded the bus at 5:00 in the afternoon for the 12 hour drive home.

the bus ride home was quite an experience. first of all there were 13 of us in a 12 passenger bus. secondly, we had all of the extra things that the young people bought for their family. one thing vietnamese people do when they go to another part of vietnam is to buy lots of snacks and candy from wherever they visit. every person under the age of 20 had a couple of large bags full of candy and dried fruit to bring back to their family and we had to find room for all of the bags.

i tried to sleep figuring that it would be more comfortable than a concrete floor. sleep came quickly. after twitching and turning for a few hours of bliss, i was woken up by some youngsters poking around my ear. they woke me up and i had to explain to everyone why i was sleeping. you see, if possible, you're not supposed to sleep and enjoy the trip. the dirty jokes and bags of candy under my feet were not as delightful as a few hours of rest.

the driver was slow but safe.

at about midnight, when everyone was asleep, the driver woke us up and told us all to get out. we were going to have rice porridge. not a soul was allowed to stay on the van and we all stumbled out and sat down for an hour of rice porridge and iced tea. i don't think anyone was hungry except the driver but we all crawled back in the van and fell back to sleep.

most of us fell asleep and some snored peacefully. i was sleeping next to an oldish man who suddenly developed a sneezing problem. i would drift off and he would lay on my shoulder. a few minutes later, after i was sleeping soundly, he would lift his head and scream/sneeze in my ear. the first time he did it i almost punched him out of fear. here i was sleeping soundly only to be woken up by a scream in my right ear. the kind of sneeze that starts off as a rumble and then soars in pitch and ends with blaze of sound. aaaaAAAAAAAACCCHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! i didn't get more than 20 minutes of sleep between sneezes.

also, the man directly behind me had an interesting knack for burping. he always burped in successions of three. burp... burp... buuuuuurrrrrp. you could set your watch to his burping. one time he only burped twice and i was confused but only had to wait about twenty seconds for the third burp.

the marathon trip ended and my knees and back ached. we all crawled out of the van in the middle of long xuyen and stumbled to our houses in the middle of the night. it was a warm night and i was glad to be home. i walked down the dusty road leading to campus b and climbed over the security gate becasue i didn't want to wake the guards. i limped my way to my room, opened my door, was greeted by the dog who began licking my legs and arms and wagging his tail and whimpering a bit. i showered and slept on a soft bed under a clean mosquito net until 10:00 when i woke out of guilt and slumbered through my work.