Growing up in Oregon you’d think I ‘get’ water. I understand it. Battled it’s persistent attempts to get into our basement. Quenched my thirst with it on those sweltering 80 degree summer days! Braved many a spring day with no umbrella! Yeah, I get water. Its importance, its role in the system of things.

Spending three days cruising around the Mekong Delta made me reassess. The people living around these parts ‘get’ water. It’s everywhere. It’s everything.

For starters, there are two seasons around here. ‘Dry’. ‘Wet’. The former is when there is less water but still a fair amount; the latter is when there is lots and lots and lots of water and sometimes even more than that.

During the dry season, two times each day, the water level in the Delta fluctuates about 3 meters (or little over 8 feet). During the wet season, the variation is about 5 meters (or around 13 feet), twice a day, every day. If you live nearby water (and it’s almost impossible to not live nearby water), then you live every day with these fluctuations. And those fluctuations can sometimes lead to floods in the area. The water doesn’t come over the top of dikes, or walls, or dams…The water percolates up from the ground; saturated ground; a water table that rises and falls and at times rises far above the level of the ground. Homes, docks, boats – all that one does, all that one occupies, all that one travels in, are built to succeed in a world of water.

Do I really understand water?! Ha. I can’t stop it from getting in my basement; but, I sure do a fine job bailing out the basement.

The Vietnamese got some issues with water quality (wink, wink, that’s an understatement). I’m not sure if there is a sewage treatment plant anywhere in the region. Water takes it all away. Water can do that – it’s powerful. It grabs plastic bottles, it stirs up human waste, it pulls down cell phones and shoes and broken engine parts and glass.  It’s seemingly magical power to wash it all away is also its biggest liability.  It can be toxic, poisonous and yet remain the key to life for millions of people who depend on it for, well, everything.  Kids and adults swim in the waters of the Delta. Lots of fish are pulled from it and eaten.

There are actually floating fish farms on the Delta.  Underwater fences are built to grow and harvest fish. In water that has magically pulled and stirred and held tight to all the waste.

Happy, savvy, good-natured and kind people; but they’re in quite a spot with their water.

Oh, and then there’s its neighbor. China has the spigots to Vietnam’s two major rivers. The headwaters for the two rivers are in China. And, in China, dams producing hydroelectric power sit along both rivers. Any time China decides to hold back water – effectively storing power – it causes higher salinity in the Mekong. Why? Less water means that the ocean tides flow deeper into the Delta. Higher salinity is not good for any freshwater species, including humans. Vietnam and China have a great many things in common: cultural foundations in Confucianism and Buddhism; similarities in written language; rice as the staple food. But political relations are fairly cool between them; trust seems low. And water sits right in the middle of it all – literally and figuratively.

So, now I know water a bit better. I am sort of in love with it, in a best friend sort of way.

Water. Please, please. Take very, very good care of it. I mean it!