Dam it All

“The ground's generosity takes in our compost and grows beauty! Try to be more like the ground.”

-Rumi

One of the prevailing themes of this semester's program has been issues of water use and water scarcity. I'm in Morocco right now, just a mountain range away from the Sahara Desert, so water scarcity is a huge issue. In Vietnam, however, things are a different story. Judging by the torrential downpours we experienced almost every day, I don't think scarcity of water is a huge issue, nor will it be in the foreseeable future. A bigger issue, then, are dams.

The Himalayas are just across the border, so Vietnam is blessed with many fast-flowing rivers heading towards the ocean, giving it some of the most fertile rice paddies in the world and allowing it to support a very, very dense population. The same raging water also gives it a huge potential for hydropower production. The two most important rivers in the country are the Mekong River in the south and the Red River in the north, which runs through Ha Noi. I discussed in a previous entry the risks associated with the damming of the Mekong. The Red River, meanwhile, is still undammed, but its largest tributary, the Black River, is the host of the largest dam in Southeast Asia, the Hoa Binh Dam.
The Hoa Binh dam is an integral part of Vietnam's history and official mythology, since it forms such a huge part of the economy; currently, 27% of Vietnam's energy comes from the dam. The official story goes that Ho Chi Minh visited the Black River in 1963 and decided that it was too fast-flowing and wild, and made transportation too difficult. He declared that once the North and South of Vietnam were reunited, that a dam should be made to claim the river. Unlike with the construction of other dams, the almost 90,000 people displaced by the dam offered no dissent, because they knew it had been Uncle Ho's desire. Some even moved their houses before the plans to build the dam were announced, because they knew that His will would be carried out.
That's the story told to us by dam engineers we talked to at least, while they gave us a speech at the peak of a mountain overlooking the dam, in the shade of a 50-foot-tall statue of Ho Chi Minh.

Needless to say, it was kind of a surreal field trip.

The first place we visited after leaving Hanoi was a small indigenous village in the foothills of the mountains. After having spent a few weeks in the Mekong Delta, which is flat as a saucepan, it was great to be in the mountains once again. The mountains of Vietnam are home to most of its many minority ethnic groups, many of whom resisted colonization by the Vietnamese many centuries back, and are still isolated from the mainstream society.
This particular village belonged to the Muong People, a fairly large ethnic group that speaks a language closely related to Vietnamese. It was a government-designated "Heritage Village", which basically means that the villagers are paid by the government to maintain certain customs and dress, and not modernize too much. It felt a lot like being in a living museum, which was kind of weird, but I could appreciate that families still had electricity in their homes and some pretty nice-looking plasma screen TVs on the wall. Most of the young people try to leave the village in order to live in Ha Noi and find better jobs. This sounds sad to a lot of us who hate to see culture being abandoned in favor of development, but the parents seem to actively encourage it, wanting the best possible for their children. And who are we to say that someone shouldn't pursue a certain path in life just because of where they were born?

These women were adorable, but they were merciless in trying to sell us stuff.

Possibly the cutest pig I've ever seen. That's almost unreasonable.

Our destination for the night was an island in the Hoa Binh Reservoir, the enormous lake created when the dam was put in. Many people refused to be relocated, and instead moved their homes up to ridgetops, which then became islands. The reservoir was beautiful, in an eery sort of way. The water was almost perfectly smooth the whole day, and the mountains rising abruptly out of the water were beautiful, but the fact that it was a manmade landscape kept nagging at the back of my mind. If nothing else, it's a testament to the huge power humankind has over our world today- and how little we have at the same time. 

There were 8 or 9 tiny puppies on the island where we stayed. That was about all I needed to be entertained.

For anyone who's ever wondered what starfruit looks like on a tree.

One of the perks of being on an artificial reservoir is that a lot of places are now more accessible. We took a boat ride into a very weird "fjord", and then got to find a really cool swimmable waterfall a short hike up a stream. It was great swimming, and it had been far too long since I'd swam in a waterfall. The only problem was that someone stole my sandals while I was swimming (there were a number of other people there at the same time). I didn't really like them, mostly because they turned my feet a lovely shade of purplish black whenever I wore them, but it's not fun wearing heavy-duty sneakers and socks in the tropical heat. 

Did I mention there were puppies? 

Finally, we got to visit the actual dam. It's difficult to say how I feel about the existence of dams, and hydropower in general. On the one hand, it's a mostly renewable source of energy without many emissions, and dams can genuinely help with flood control downstream. I think I'd rather have that 27% of Vietnam's electricity coming from hydropower than coal burning or nuclear energy. But on the other hand, they create even more problems. Thousands of people can be displaced by the reservoir, ecological damage can be immense, and "flood control" often tends to mean "desertification". In the case of poorly constructed or politically sensitive dams, all that repressed water can mean a giant water bomb, which can be absolutely disastrous.  It's a question I really don't have the answer to. If anyone does, I'd love to hear it. 

Farmland beneath the dam

That's all for now! Thoughts, criticisms, or corrections are welcomed.