SPRING ROLL RECIPE: How food leads to life stories
PART OF OUR WORK WITH UNCSA DMA-DEGA PROJECT
As part of our collaboration with Bob King and his UNCSA students, our two lay health workers demonstrated how to make spring rolls — a decidedly Vietnamese dish —which lead to the telling of a story about living in the jungle to escape war, the scarcity of food then, the importance of food today and her mother's influence. Filmed in May, 2011in Winston-Salem, NC.
Postscript: The storyteller's mother died in Vietnam in June 2011, a month after this video was made. She was probably between 90 and 98 — maybe not quite 100 years old as told in the story — but clearly the eldest in her village.
Transcription (with interpretation to make the speaker's answers clearer):
Question: How old were you when you went to the jungle?
I was twelve... No eleven years old (in 1979).
I had been in the jungle for twelve years. Then I came to the USA in 1992. Now I'm 43. That was long ago!
I gave birth to two babies — two kids — in the jungle. I gave birth to them myself, no doctor, no people to take care of them. I took care of them myself. I cut the umbilical cord myself, I did it by myself. I took care of two kids in the jungle.
Then one girl was born over here in the USA. I had a doctor over here. Then my family felt hurt. They cried for me. Because why? Because they didn't know where I was. Because some people didn't know. Why did you stay there like that (in the jungle out of contact)?
Then my dad died. I don't know. My mom, my mom's 100 right now. Yeah, my mom's 100 now. She's old, old, very old.
I take care of her right now. I say to her, "I still borrow your money." I tell my mom and dad — my dad is gone now — but I tell my mom, "I still borrow from you."
"Why do you say 'I borrow?'"
Because she took care of me!
Then when I get money— even just a little bit — I send it to her. Yes.
Then I explain to her, "I borrowed your money". But I didn't borrow her money really, but she fed me and took care of me.
So I pay her back.
"When I send this money back to you, I repay you." I say it like that.
She cries. She says I'm a smart girl — but I'm not smart because I didn't want to tell my mom and my dad and my family I didn't want to go to school because I was a girl and it would be better if I help my dad. Yes, I helped my dad.
I helped my mom by farming and helping to feed everybody in the house. When I had to leave there was nothing I could do to help them.
And I went in the jungle so I could not go to school. So now, I don't know how to read and write. But I speak English a little — not a lot — just a little. I speak Jarai, Bunong, Rhade, Koho, Vietnamese and English.
I speak a lot!
Question: Why did you have to go to the jungle?
Why? Because — I don't know. I was too young to understand.
(At another interview Kwol explained that the Viet Cong came to her village a few days earlier and forced her to stand in a latrine up to her neck for a full day, pressing her to give names of dissidents in the Montagnard community.)
I went to work. I remembered helping my dad and my mom and my sister, my ex's sister, my family. I have ten family members. I'm the baby. I'm the youngest so I helped my dad with his farm work.
A man already hiding in the jungle said the Viet Cong are going to take me from the farm. At our farm we grew rice, coffee, and someone was coming to get me. I don't know.
Question: You don't know?
I didn't know anything. I cried and cried. I cried everyday. I stayed in the jungle and the next day I woke up and I wanted to see my mom. Where's my mom? Someone said, you stay here without her. I had my brothers with me, two brothers, but both died. My brother in law died. My sister's son, he died. Then there was only me. Five of us fled to the jungle. But all but me died.
Question: They died of illness?
They died in the jungle. By the Viet Cong they were killed. The Viet Cong killed them.
Then I went back to see my mom because it was a such a long time — in 2003. My mom didn't recognize me.
She said, "You're not my daughter." Yes, it's true. She said, "You're not my daughter."
I said, "No, it's me, Kwol."
"No, you died. Kwol died long ago," she said it like that.
"No, it's me", I said it like that. Then I took her and cried and cried.
I hugged her and she said, "You smell different." Because here in the US it's different than in Vietnam, where there's no food or anything. So that's why she said I smelled different.
But I don't know, I still remember when I stayed in the jungle and I ate food — I ate anything. I still remember this.
Sometimes I when I tell my story to my mom, my mom says, "Yeah, if you don't remember this you'll forget it."
She says, "You'll forget it."
"You stay in America. You've made a good life."
She says I've got a good life here and freedom. Freedom and I've got food to eat.
"You feed your kids."
My mom tells me that.
