November already! How fast the months fly. Two days ago we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon, as many still call it. We descended through fields of coffee and tea from Dalat--the calm cool cleft wedged in the middle of the Central Highlands--and arrived, after several hours, to the humid hustle of HCMC. It's what everyone says and writes about this city, but there is nothing more outstanding than the traffic. I sat on a curb for an hour watching it go by, mesmerized by the enormity of humanity. "I know a lot of people and I've been to quite a few countries and I've read a lot, too," I thought to myself and felt an ant crawling on my leg. "Most of the time I would say that I have a pretty good handle on humanity." I brushed off the ant. "But when I sit in the same place for an hour and the traffic doesn't cease and the faces do not repeat themselves and I start to look at each of their faces and try to imagine each one's story, and then when I multiply that times 1000 for all the ones that fly past me unseen, and then when I multiply that times 1000 again for all the other streets in this enormous city. . .and that's just one city." I was overwhelmed and humbled and I looked to see if that ant was still crawling nearby. What a hugeness we are a part of! What a God who created this all!

Yesterday we went on a guided tour to Cu Chii, a small, non-descript village which hides 250km of secret tunnels underneath it. They were used by the VietCong to infiltrate areas controlled by S.Vietnamese/American forces. Our guide had fought for the S.Vietnamese for ten years and had even been sent by the government to America to learn English and computer skills for a year. But when America pulled out of Vietnam in '73, resulting in the fall of Saigon in '75, he lost his job, his status, his past, was sent to re-education camp, was released after a year, and had no choice but to become a cyclo (bicycle-taxi)-driver for 15 years. Now he is a tour guide but works as a freelancer under the table, for he (seen by the Communist gov't as a criminal) will never be approved for a proper license. He spoke honestly of the war, out of a personal conviction it seemed. Again and again he repeated, "War is terrible. There are no winners."

We went first to the tunnels themselves. Thirty meters at a time, we crawled through the dank, humid earth on our hands and knees, breathing in the sweaty odors of claustophobic people, and ached for light and breeze. They told us soldiers lived here for weeks at a time, and diggers, those fated few responsible for expansion of the tunnel system, never left. For 15 years, some of them lived and worked under the earth, never seeing the light of day. They came out after the war ended with eyes that never would adjust to that light and always had to wear darkly-tinted glasses. (We hear these stories and we are supposed to feel awe at the VC's endurance.) We also saw the cleverly designed booby traps and the crudely painted pictures behind them--long, thick-legged white men with anguished cries in the lines on their faes as they were pierced, red blotches of pain oozing from their bodies. (We were supposed to admire the VC's creativity.) We watched a movie produced by the Party which showed the people of Cu Chi before the war--smiling villagers picnic and pick fruit off the heavy-ladened trees; during the war--deafening gun shots accompany giggling villagers making weapons and training for warfare; after the war--survivors working together to re-build village which was razed and burned to the ground by "the enemy." (We are supposed to admire these hardworking diligents who never stop smiling.) Our time at Cu Chi Tunnels ended with an opportunity to shoot the gun of our choice--AK47, M16, or a machine gun--for a dollar a bullet. Had I felt the way I was supposed to feel--inspired by the glory of a war fought bravely--I would have picked one up. But instead I felt a thick disgust for the depth humanity has reached, so I just watched. We rode back to the city in our air-con bus listening to The Carpenters and I felt even sicker.

Our guide spoke to us again on the way back and his stories formed a kind of solid bread between which was sandwiched the Communist Party line we felt bombarded with.

Last, he took us to the War Crime Museum which has recently been renamed "War Remnants Museum" for the sake of the ever-increasing American tourists. The walls of the museum showed no such sensitivity, however. For example: pictures of live bodies being dragged behind US tanks or being thrown from US places; sick smiles on the faces of US soldiers standing over decapitated bodies. Pictures like these and worse, and then next to them a copy of the opening lines to the Declaration of Independence. The museum made me wonder about the atrocities committed by the other side, but nevertheless it brought me to a conclusion not unlike our guide's: War is truly a terrible thing: it is a monster which turns humans into the same."

The sun set, as it does, on that day and rose again, as it does, to a new day--Sunday, and I found myself in the NotreDame Cathedral with a wafer on my tongue, amazed again at the cleansing power of the reminder of forgiveness. I sang with the choir, "Lift up your voice! Rejoice again, I say Rejoice!" Our voice reached the rafters of the towering ceiling above. . . and beyond.