The Habitat Experience

I was getting hungry and decided to go out for a walk and see what was available to eat. Right around the corner was the open-air market. It smelled like a sewer, but hunger was taking over. Raw meat, chickens, and who knows what was hanging at each little booth as the locals purchased strange sea creatures and mystery meat for dinner. I had seen this type of market before in places like Bangkok and China, but I always ended up at McDonald’s for some real food. This time, there was no McDonald’s in the entire country. Vietnam is not your typical melting pot of people; it basically has only Vietnamese, thus only Vietnamese food. These people eat anything! Dogs, cats, rats, snakes, bugs, and a few things I had never seen before. The smell in the market reflected the menu; kind of like a dirty diaper from a sick Indian kid. I purchased a bowl of chicken soup. I never had seen those parts of the chicken before; the neck, feet, ribs, and parts I did not even recognized. No white meat to be found anywhere. That evening was one of the first times I went to bed hungry since I skipped school in the fourth grade. The next morning I ate a few loaves of French bread and boarded a bus to the province of Tien Giang with seventeen other participants weary from travel. It was an energetic group of over-educated youth. Most were Ivy League graduate students; some even had doctorate degrees. I felt confident that these youth were our future. They were all there to save the world. Those who were closer to my age knew different, but we were going to play along anyhow. We knew this trip was more about saving ourselves than the poor. My roommate was seventy-five years old and in great shape; his sense of humor and energy would surely keep me laughing and working hard for the next two weeks. We also had a leader who was on her fourteenth trip; she did not speak much, but her wisdom and experience from fourteen builds soon became evident. We had a school principal with a heart the size of a melon, a young girl from LA with a certain aura of innocence, two Canadian women who came to work their asses off, two Australian girls with sexy accents, a brilliant Mexican man, and a couple of wonderful black women from the Northeast who quickly became my favorites. After the experience in Saigon, I was expecting the worse in a smaller town; surely I was going to starve, but somehow I did not care. For two weeks, I was going to live like the locals and truly experience what this place had to offer. We were building a home for three children who had lost their parents. One was fourteen and mentally disabled, one was a fifteen-year-old student, and the oldest sold eggs at the market for fifty cents a day. Their love for each other was amazing. They shared and took care of each other as I have never seen before. The surrounding community treated us like rock stars; they truly appreciated what we were doing for them. Even knowing we had bombed the hell out of their country for ten years, there was no anger, just appreciation. All three children were living with their neighbors until Habitat came to their rescue. Soon we began to move dirt, lay bricks, and pound nails with a profound pride and satisfaction. The heat did not matter as the sweat poured from our smiling faces. We knew we were doing something very special, something that would make a difference in the world, and a difference in ourselves. At the time, it was the most important thing any of us could be doing; more important than eating our favorite foods, sleeping in our comfortable beds, or sitting on our big couches watching big-screen TVs in a nice air-conditioned room. This was our real world for two weeks, and it would change our lives forever. This vacation would not teach me the difference between a vodka martini and a gin martini; there was no snorkeling, evening show, or gambling; no golf or even a spa. It was real life, reality, and the struggles of mankind. I became aware, spiritual, loving, caring, and proud. I became part of the solution. I made friends who were my equal, friends who will last a lifetime. I discovered the meaning of family—there is not a nursing home in the entire country. I discovered the meaning of a good neighbor and people you can trust. I saw no crime, no hunger, and no beggars, only poor, happy people who loved their lives and their families. I saw citizens helping each other with a refreshing sense of social responsibility. I saw families spending quality time together. There was no life of entitlement, no game boys, X-box 360, designer jeans, fancy cars, or big homes; just real people living in the real world. Most of the world is like Vietnam; as Americans, we forget that, or maybe we just never knew, or never cared. After we finished the home, we built a chicken coop and purchased three hens and a rooster as a parting gift to the family. I guess we just cut out the middleman for their egg business, our little gift of democracy from the free world. Tears rolled down everyone’s faces as we said goodbye. It was then that I realized I had wasted a lifetime of vacations on myself. Throughout my life, the majority of my vacations were for only me. Not all my selfish luxury combined could ever amount to even one-day’s experience I had in Vietnam. I really needed this trip; I needed something to remind me about the most important values in life. They call it Habitat for Humanity, but it’s really habitat for your sanity. It recharged my batteries more than any two weeks on a beach could ever have done. It made me fall in love with life again. I found out that sacrifice is a great medicine, especially for reviving the soul.