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from namphou to naxay... ~ March 22, 2003 - 7:38 p.m. this weekend is feeling... revelatory. I'm not sure how much I want to say about what I've been thinking, because it's so new, and big, and filled with light. I want a little time to wrap myself around it. I am taking the weekend to think. to make big, big decisions. let me tell you about my walk home. because I will move soon, into my little house on the mekong, and I will miss this walk. the walk from namphou to naxay. my hangout to my home. as I leave namphou, the tuk-tuk drivers call out to me-- "naxay! where you go?" I laugh, I wave them away. they know I walk home most of the time. I am walking farang. the first part of my walk is dark and quiet. the streets between namphou and the night market are mostly empty at night, apart from the occasional night wanderer. these are impoverished souls, thin and dried-looking, picking through the garbage piles looking for leftovers. they live like the stray cats and dogs that are everywhere, and have the same haunted look. they ask me for money, hands together in the position of prayer, of supplicance. I give them money, whenever I am asked, and whenever I can. this is part of my spiritual path, to give what I can when I am asked, whether it be money or assistance or only a kind smile. giving money helps to keep my relationship with money healthy. I cannot hold too tightly to money and be right with my heart. I have learned to let go, to let it flow through my life. I always seem to have enough, somehow. and it is worth remembering that I am obscenely wealthy in this little country. I recently found out that my friend thong vai, who waits tables in a vegetarian restaurant, works 13, 14 hour days, six days a week, for 20 dollars a month. he is not considered poor. you are below the poverty level if you make 8 dollars a month or less. with teaching and tutoring, I make over 5 hundred, an amount most lao can't even imagine aspiring to. so, it's worth it to remember. how priveliged I am. I walk the quiet streets, occasionally giving money to a wandering street soul, most often a rail-thin woman with a baby strapped to her back. occasionally waving off a tuk-tuk driver who doesn't yet know that I am walking farang. at the night market, I often stop at the baguette cart on the corner. here I buy either drinking water to take home or a snack to carry on my walk, a baguette drizzled with sweetened condensed milk, which I've developed a passion for. the woman who owns this cart used to look right through me, but she's warmed up to me as my lao improves. now she gives me a broad grin when I walk up, rattles of strings of words I only partly understand, drenches my bread in the milk because she knows I like it. there are others who hang out on this corner at night, street vendors and tuk-tuk drivers and late-night folks. "hello!" they call to me, and I call "sabaidee!", and we smile. or they ignore me, the way some do. but I am friendly, I smile, and I speak my ragged few words of lao whenever possible, and so I am not actively disliked. or this is my perception. there are whole families, too, who live on this corner at night. 3 or 4 mosquito-netting tents set up along the sidewalk. just like san francisco. I walk on, eating my sweet-milk baguette, past the flower sellers, who have bright lights on at night as they construct elaborate bouquets and decorative wreaths for altars. sometimes they are busy, sometimes they smile, once they invited me to join them for dinner as they gathered around a small, round table. I smile and greet them, move on. as I pass a large building, which I think has something to do with the police, I sometimes run into mr. dom, an older man with a few snaggly teeth set randomly into his gums. he was once a soldier for the US, and likes to practice his english with me. I very happy to see you! he says. I think about you every day! mr. dom is a security guard at the building of unknown origin, and sometimes he is getting off work as I pass by. if that happens, he walks his bike in the street next to me, and chats to me as I walk. his conversation is mainly the same. we go over how old I am, how long I will be in lao, that I live in naxay, that I am a teacher. that I have no husband, that he has four children, that the oldest is a barber. he wants me to come and visit, but this has not yet happened. if mr. dom is not around, I walk on alone. I pass the construction company, with its large dump trucks parked in front. I have to step into the street to walk around them. there are men who live in the cabs of these trucks at night, construction workers, I imagine, and I see them sometimes, taking off their shirts and getting ready for bed. after that, I come to a strip of vietnamese stores and restaurants, still mostly lit up, even late at night. they will stay more or less open until the family goes to bed. I smile at these folks, but generally don't greet them until they greet me, because I don't know who is vietnamese and who is lao. whether a sabaidee or a xin chao is called for. after that, I walk by the toyota dealership, with its nighttime security guard. this guy is a little weird, and makes me slightly uncomfortable. a week ago, he offered me his left hand to shake. this is, generally, not something a lao person would do. offering someone your left hand is a big insult, and I wondered if he thought I wouldn't know that. I squinted at him, and held out my right hand instead, and we stood there for a moment, opposing hands held out. then he gave up, and shook my right hand, stiffly. he always tries to talk to me, but my lao is so bad that he's never been very successful. last week, he started in with a couple of english words, carefully rehearsed. "you... want me?" he asked. it was the first english I'd ever heard from him, and I wasn't sure I was hearing right, so I just ignored it. said good night and walked away. but later I felt sure I knew what he was trying to say. last night I ran into him again, and he took a deep breath and said "I... love you?", pointed at me, and gave me the thumbs up. and finally I got pissed off with the whole thing. you don't even know me! I told him. and then again, you don't even know me! it's not like I haven't had the same kind of proposition a thousand times in the united states, but it seemed especially offensive here, because he'd never talk that way to a lao woman. it pissed me off that he thought I might jump into bed with him just because I'm a foreigner. that he thought he could talk to me that way and I wouldn't be offended. I waved him off and moved along home. he's lost his late-night chatting priveleges with me. but what kicked my ass when it hit me a couple of blocks later, what had me giggling wildly to myself, is that he probably practiced for days so that he could proposition me in english. so after all that, I'm almost home. last night there was a police checkpoint set up a block before my turnoff. about twenty cops, on both sides of the street, pulling people over. they do this, I think, to make a little extra money. when they pull you over, you pay them 10,000 kip (one dollar), and they let you go on your way. I am not driving, though, but walking, so they leave me alone. sometimes they want to flirt, but I just keep moving. hello, where you go? they ask, in english. koy pie ban, I say. I'm going home. sometimes, just before my turnoff, the boys are there. a ragged group of teens and twenty-somethings who like to hang out on the corner and drink rice whiskey and play guitar. they laugh and call out to me, and sometimes I stop to chat for a minute or two. last night they were there, watching the show at the police checkpoint, when they laughed and called out to me, I stopped. turned down their drinks, as usual, and practiced what little lao I have. wai, a 19 year old kid with a guitar, had some english, so we chatted in a mishmash of english and lao. he played me a song on the guitar. wai, like fast? I asked, and he laughed. yes, like fast, he told me. they were wanting me to settle in, have a seat, but I was tired and needing to get home more than I needed to hang out on the street. mrai, I told them. tired. koy pie ban. I'm going home. nolahfondee... I called over my shoulder as I walked away, turning down the dirt road towards home. sweet dreams... that's my night walk home, and I'll miss it when I move to the mekong.
(((rings))) |