We had come to a point where we were so desperate that we tried to drink our own urine for hydration. Since we hadn’t had much water in days, our urine was highly concentrated and only made our thirst worse. Before getting onto the boat, none of us had imagined that we would end up fighting each other and drinking our own urine. But survival can drive people to extremes. Imagine being a 10-year old boy with nothing to eat for almost a week and nothing to drink for two days, witnessing his father being nearly murdered by the man we trusted with our lives.
By this point, none of us were the same people we had been before. We had lost all hope, which was now as empty as our stomachs. Our faith was as dry as our lips. Most of us were onboard to escape injustice. None of us were afraid of dying. Instead, we were waiting for death to come to us. We were willing to surrender our lives to the angel of death—but even it wouldn’t help us…
. . .
The next morning, as I was lying curled up in the fetal position inside a small compartment in the bow of the boat, I heard my cousin Trai yelling, “Núi! Núi!” (“Mountain! Mountain!”).
I immediately crawled out of the hold, and sure enough, there it was!
. . .
Later that afternoon, we came upon another fishing boat, which was a brown motorized boat that was bout 10 feet longer than our boat.
Once again, we tried to communicate with the fishermen.
One of the fishermen shouted something in a foreign language.
“I don’t understand. Where are we brother?” Dad replied.
Dad gestured to one of the fishermen by making a cup with his right hand and poured over his mouth, asking for water.
A fisherman brought out a ceramic 5-gallon jug of water.
Dad handed him a Seiko watch, but the fisherman shook his head.
By now my mom got impatient and came out of the cabin. She took off her wedding bracelet and handed to Dad.
“Give him by gold bracelet. Our children are dying of thirst. We need that jug of water.” Mom told Dad.
Dad gave it to the fisherman, who gladly accepted. He handed over the jug of water. He also took out a pack of cigarettes and handed to Dad.
“These are Chinese characters on the pack!” Dad exclaimed. “We must be in China!” Dad sounded ecstatic.