My Dear Michelle,

Santa brought me an instapot and I attempted to make PHO and it sparked a stream of memories so deeply treasured in my soul of our adventures in Vietnam.

I just hope you are doing well.
Not a day goes by without some remembrance from our adventure together crossing my mind.

I decided to write tonight and this is my flow....

After reading it, I knew I had to share it with you.
Although we have not been together in five years (so hard to believe) these memories make me feel closer to you than ever.
So much love and energy sending your way!
Sa wah de kah!

LOU LOU


--->
PHO..real.

My memory overcomes me.
Of the moment Michelle and I walked into that expansive, yet moldy blue hostel room in Hanoi.
We were both so sick.
On the brink of optimism.
Assessing the room as if it were a hospital unit we were to rest in for weeks to come.
The video that plays in my head as we utilized all the energy in our bodies to step foot by foot onto the stair in front of us.
The nice welcoming entryway.
The red.
The golden cat statue clapping hands.
The questioning of my own consciousness.

We were so sick.
And understandably so.
We had been seated next to the teenage bride and groom in Laos on our way trekking out of one of the most physically challenging adventures we had had in our lives.
It was foggy.
My fingers gripped into the slippery, moss emboldened rock as if my life depended on it.
(Well it kinda did because we were traversing a slope face in Laos on 10% visibility conditions, with our lifes' belongings on our back, our packs, in a rainstorm after multiple days of hiking).
It was hard.

But after zip-lining through jungle redwood trees as if we were part of a star wars episode where the Ewoks were cheering us on.
But instead of Ewoks they were these skinny, strong as can be, young, cute Cambodian men.

And we were on top of the green world.
Sleeping in the canopy of the jungle.
Waking to views of white angle birds flying through the Laotian canyons as if it were a dream.

I remember getting across that rock face and thinking, "the Chicago marathon has nothing on this".
It was so incredibly adventurous and physically strenuous and that was just one part of the journey.
And somehow, through the mist, we ended up at a tribal village wedding.

The bride and groom so young.
Wayyy younger than me.
I was 29 on that trek.
The bride was maybe 14 or 15.
The groom sweet sixteen.
I was teaching Ryan Pederson how to french kiss next to the Thiensville Lions Park Milwaukee river waterfall at that age. SOOO innocent.

And this rouge golden couple had their lives planned for them.

Me.
As free and tired as a rainbow bird.

And I looked into this beautiful couple’s eyes.
Our lives so different.
What did they understand of my life?
What did they think?

If I were on my wedding day and a Laotian couple came to sit next to me and my husband at our head table, a decade-plus our seniors, after sweating and questioning the purpose of life… I would be very confused.

But they were more than welcoming.

They were honored that Michele and I were by their sides!
It was perhaps the talk of the town for weeks.
So we ate everything they ate in respect.

I vividly remember this bowl of greens in front of me.
And its not the "greens" you know.
This was taken from the bush.
I’m not kidding.
I remember knowing with every cell in my body that I would get sick if I took a bite of the verdant leaves and water droplets in front of me.

That's kind of what it was like.
Bay leaves.

Honest to god, this dish could have been a bay leaf bush.
Are "bay leaves"… what westerners dry and seep in soup, what I was consuming?
It was a branch almost in the bowl.
A clay bowl.
An old lady in the village probably made that brown bowl with her old hands.

So, so
so fresh the bush atop the bowl.
So fresh.
Like water droplets from the humidity in the atmosphere were resting on this green bush in my bowl.
The perfect, cylindrical, maze-like droplets that could tell you your future were settled on the leaves.

And it really really did taste like bay leaves.
And that’s not what I was worried about.
The taste.
The bite…. was quite herbal.

But in my memory, there are these intimating water droplets.
Beautiful, blue, clear all-consuming droplets on each bay leaf.

And it wasn’t like a salad all mixed together.
It was a branch.
Presented in a bowl.
With so much fresh dew.

And I knew.

That that dew.

Was going to make me very, very sick,

but the bride and groom were beyond courteous.
I wish I could talk to them.

Because we had no language to exchange.
Just smiles.
And bites of food.
And eye contact.
And nervousness.
And wonder.

There was also this "carcass" dish.

In my memory,
against the verdant, vibrant greens of the landscape
and blue-gray fog of the sky
and red of the brides gorgeously pattered red and gold threads of her wedding dress
and her red
red
deep red lips…

was this brown carcass mush.

Caracas.
Caracas.
Caracas.

It was brown carcass mush.

And the bones sticking out of this dull broth were not healthy.

It was like starved chickens.

But it was not chickens, because the bone sticking out of this hot broth was more than a chicken bone.
It could have been any sort or malnourished mammal.

The bone sticking out if this broth reminded me of the elephant graveyard in Lion King.
And the bride and groom probably had never seen Disney's Lion King.

And they seemed so pleased to be presented with the marron mush.

The sacrifice of the hungry animal in that broth, I cannot contemplate.
But they were grateful.

So I spooned it up.

Through body language, I was instructed to wrap the bay leaves around this boney mush. And you better believe I did it.

I have no memory of taste.
Just my cells inside my body knowing that I would get sick.
But out of respect, I ate as much as I could.

Honestly, I do not remember.
I am sure the I had more than a few bites.

And not that it tasted bad or anything.
I have no memory of taste and do not even mean to paint a picture that this meal was "gross".
It's just that I knew the acrimonious meal was teeming with bacteria that my gut would not be able to tolerate.

Michelle’s body rejected it almost immediately…
And I am pretty damn grateful for that.
I love her so damn much.

I remember being on a bus.
I have no concept of if this was minutes or hours after our bridal meal.

I do remember, that she later had been constipated in Cambodia before after went on this treetop excursion in Laos. And even her enema in the Phnom Penn hospital was nothing compared to the explosion that happened on the bus.

I knew there was urgency.
And I stood up and said "Pullover!"
And the driver slowed to a halt and Michelle catapulted out of the door and
SHIT HER PANTS!
But she was actually pretty miraculous because she did not shit her comfy crazy patterned Thai pants she was wearing, but instead, let this lethal bridal dinner flow out of her intestines, out of her colon, onto the dry, red Laoation dirt.

When she got back onto the bus, it was not a sense of pride on her face…
but sweet relief.
Happiness actually.
And I understood every single angle of that smile on her face and I was proud of her.

Forever, we will share in that moment.
Oh how I miss her as I write this story and hope she reads this smiling and laughing and squeezing her beautiful butt cheeks together.
Ha!

And my butt cheeks erupted when we got to Hanoi.

oh god.

The bathroom was this horrific light hugh of blue.
And in all the Asian bathrooms you have a squirter to clean your butt cheeks.
That white, plastic squirter, oh how it mocked me.

I just remember sitting there. Staring at the molding walls.
Almost appreciating the art form of mold crawling.
Understanding for the first time that your body could shoot out straight 100 degree water from your asshole with some trance traces of shit.

Oh, it was bad.
The cramps.
The questioning if you were going to die.
The curling of your intestines from the inside out.

That fucking bridal salad.

oh my god.

I remember paying like a bazillion dollars to call my parents to consult with them on weather I should take my emergency diarrhea medicine or not.
This was after like 4 days of straight shitting in that Hanoi hotel.
Dr. Jaeger said to take it.
Cephalexin.
The westerner’s traveler savoir.

We did contemplate moving to a new location because it was so bad but so good, but we could not conjure the energy.

And the ironic part was.
In the last 48 hours of our venture in Hanoi.
We were out on the streets and the colors were incredibly vibrant.
The fruits at the stands.
A rainbow in every rhombus.

But old people.
The old people who are not old.
There was an incredible vibrancy and energy to the city that I have never experienced in my life.
Beautiful, peaceful, resilient elderly in every park, on every corner doing Thai Chi.

You could feel it reverberating through your bones.
It healed us.

I feel like we just walked around Hanoi like zombies.
Not participants of the city, but pure observers.

There were dances and chants and architecture that blew your mind.
It was like Paris and the most beautiful Asian god had a baby and it grew into Hanoi.
There were parks and grasses and majestic buildings and modern Asian architecture.

Jaws dropped, we placed foot before foot and took in the mysterious beauty.

Oh the boulevards that I experienced in my study abroad in Paris were here, and I was crossing them but it was with one hundred energizer bunny happy Asian elders.
Oh how profound the sense of energy

It healed us.

In more ways than we could understand at the moment.

How I wish we could go back.

Me and my travel companion.
And just eat Pho.

And tell the world...
This is what is Pho real.





Hallie Jaeger
Development Manager, BOEC
Adjunct Faculty Sustainability, CMC