My Battle Wound From Vietnam

It is a hot day at the Phu Tho commune where we had just finished class in the officials’ meeting room.  We have just completed lunch which consisted of many delicious traditional Vietnamese dishes and many bottles of homemade rice wine.  It is customary for the officials to come around to each table and offer a toast to the table with a resounding “Chup su quai!”  Being in the center of the commune where all of the officials work, there are many rounds of toasts.  Luckily the rice wine is clear and I begin cutting my shots with water after about eight, knowing I still have a full day of manual labor ahead of me.  Even with the water shots, at the end of the meal I have taken about 12 shots so as not to be rude as all males are always expected to toast the leaders and I could not fill my glass with water before the next official walked up.  After a short time of lethargy, we are challenged to a game of volleyball against the officials after we finish our day of work.  Having a decent core of the Rhino Slammers intramural-championship-winning team, we jump at the chance to play some “real” competitive volleyball. 

When they initially invited us to play I was skeptical of their skill.  They had seen our interest in their game two days earlier and asked if we wanted to challenge them.  We had dinner reservations so we were not able to that day but we promised that we would come back the next day with a full team ready to play.  Vietnam is not well known as a volleyball powerhouse.  They have not sent a team to the Olympics for either indoor or outdoor volleyball and they are only average in the Southeast Asian Games.  I saw some of our opponents playing earlier and they seemed decent but that was only with a few smaller stature players and they were not even playing the rules tight.  Could they really field a full team of six that could compete with our height?

It turns out that they were able to compete with our height.  The day before we had just lost a game to them.  They managed to pull ahead early and we were unable to stage a comeback before it was too late.  Towards the end I was able to get a serving streak that threw them off but I was unable to bring us home to victory.  This time would be different.  This time we would have a rotation set before the game.  This time we would maximize our individual skills and match up players according to their weaknesses. 

We are directed to the center of the commune where a net had been strung up on the crumbling brick courtyard we had just walked through earlier.  Some of the officials are warming up, barefoot and shirtless.  Doing my best to be “culturally sensitive” and to beat the heat, I immediately join them, losing my already sweat-soaked shirt and clay-covered Keens which are dirtied from a long afternoon of laboring at the health center.

We begin the game with a clank of a rock on the steel standard.  The opponents are quite impressed with our average height (slightly skewed by Alex Lange who was a head taller than any of their players).  Lange is next to me in the line-up, providing a formidable front-row block, which disrupts their offence and instills fear into their hearts.  We can tell that it is a close game only after a boy begins tallying the score on a chalkboard nearby.  The tally marks form a box with a diagonal crossbeam which makes reading the numbers much easier than the traditional American method.

 As Lange and I come down from yet another block attempt, I turn to transition off the net at the same moment as Lange.  His large, bony elbow whips back and with a solid “Crack!” makes contact with my left temple.  Lange, my good friend of 2.5 years, later reveals to me that this was the first time he had seen a look of visible, agonizing pain on my face.  All I can think of in this moment is the realization that I might lose consciousness and I begin to prepare for impact with the brick court.  Luckily, I manage to hold on to the threads of consciousness and it never left me.  Coming out of the almost-fetal position I am in, I quickly shake myself back into reality, ready to play.  As I turn around to my teammates, their looks of awe and horror clue me in to the severity of the collision which must be much more intense than my initial assessment.  I ask if I am bleeding, touching the location of impact and feeling nothing.  A dazed Dana looks at me saying, “You should probably get off of the court…” 

I walk to the sideline, stoic as usual, still completely unaware of the magnitude of my injury.  I reach up to touch my temple for the second or third time and finally the moist, crimson blood appears on my fingertips.  It had taken quite a few seconds for the bleeding to begin but once it has, it is the Red River of O+.  Photos later reveal the extent the bleeding, which resulted in a stream of oxygen-rich, literally blood-red fluid gushing from my temple down to my chin.  If I leave it unchecked, I will surely pass out before the scab stalactites can form on my jawbone.

Those who see my injury are much more worried about it than I am, probably because I am not worried at all and they tend to overreact in general.  Someone quickly smashes a tissue onto the impact zone to try to stop the bleeding, telling me to hold it there and put pressure on it.  I repeatedly remove said compress to show my friends my new souvenir.   I am fervently ushered around the courtyard with no end destination in mind as more and more spectators crowd around to get a closer view.  Someone goes to fetch one of the doctors from the nearby health clinic.  It takes him a while to arrive and as I wait I stand around, showing others the wound, making jokes the whole time.  I am elated that I will have a scar from this trip and especially from Vietnam.  The fact that I received it while locked in a vicious competition against the leaders of the local commune increases my excitement tenfold.  When the doctor finally arrives, he makes a gesture that appears to be shooing me away but I eventually gather to mean “Please, come into my office.” 

This “office” is the same dining/meeting/propogandizing room we had just finished our meal in.  There are still empty Bia Hanoi bottles that recently contained the homemade rice wine strewn about everywhere and a few people are cleaning up left over food and empty shot glasses.  The good doctor directs me to his “examination table” which is actually a table recently cleared of food and rice wine bottles that still have some school supplies that were recently put there at the end opposite me.

The doctor has the same mind-set as I do.  He seems non-phased by the cut and quickly dresses it with hydrogen peroxide, iodine, and a fat roll of gauze.  The bandage makes it look much more serious than it actually is.  The spider webbing of athletic tape he uses to secure the gauze covers half of my forehead.  I am told that the combination of the bandage and my newly shaven head make me look quite intimidating, especially with my default blank stare face looking like more of a scowl than a blank stare. 

With that I am released with a great scar and a great story.  I try to return to the court but the overcautious leadership requires me to refrain.  They suggest I “take it easy” for a while as I need time to “recover.”  Obviously they do not know me very well.  To appease their unwarranted worries, I watch the game unfold from the sidelines.  Unfortunately the game results in another loss. I am disappointed that I was not able to participate in the redemption game with my team although I am happy that I gain a permanent bodily remembrance of one of the most interesting volleyball games of my life.  The story was definitely worth the wound.