Leaving and Lamenting

In November the news came. The men´s soccer league was postponed until next summer, after our two year commitment had ended and our second child would be born. This meant no official work for Misa for eight months or so. Of course payment would continue for our act of presence in random meetings where we always desired to do more, to serve more. And so, as we stared inactivity in the face and felt concern over being stagnant in our service, it was decided to leave on a jet plane.

We had to move fast. Making a decision in November opened up possibilities back ¨home.¨ Employment, service, schooling, etc. All ready for January. And so just over a month before our departure, we were finding out we had to say good-bye. I do not care about the logistics. I won´t continue to mourn over stressful flights or selling our belongings. But there is plenty else occupying my mind.

I will mourn my friendships made here, both Lao and foreigners. Great hearts with wisdom. People offering well beyond what I could give. I´ll miss our house and our street with neighbors ready to engage with my toddler on his daily walks. I´ll miss the speed bumps that he used to trip over while walking and now sails past on his balance bike. I´ll miss the trees full of flowers that would fall to the ground and each morning Camilo would collect to give to mommy. He would put them up to his nose and say, ¨good.¨ I´ll miss the papaya tree he helped me water and the mulberry bush that he learned to stop picking the great fruits from. I´ll miss our one bedroom house where we grew ever more intimate as a family of three and our outdoor bathroom where we showered all together to keep from boiling multiple pots of water. What this country represents in the first two years of my son´s life, I´ll miss that.

I will also miss the safety that we experienced here. Far enough away from American politics and pop-culture to just be ourselves. Far enough from our families to create our own Hernández Allen family culture. Safe. But also the physical safety. Freedom to get on a bicycle and go with my son to the market. The safety of accepting a Loca ride and expecting to arrive without an assault. All of our Mexican lessons and perhaps trauma on hold. We´ll mourn over that.

But today I find myself mourning something so particular and it really does hurt. I´m processing how little of this country and culture I actually got to see. I have Lao friends who are real Lao people, but I am missing the context of their lives for so many. We live in the capital city, a melting pot for cultures and peoples. Big families who live day to day on their rice fields send their children from every tribe to see if they can make it here. The Chinese are here throwing around green bills. The center of the country´s former French occupation is here. The Indians are selling silks in the basement of the city´s big market. The Europeans are enjoying not-so-high quality education from outrageously expensive private schools. The Koreans are creating their own tour companies. The Africans from I´m not sure which country are playing soccer at the field on the other side of our fence.

Of course the city isn´t too city. I have chased sheep and goats from my yard. I have wondered where to take your children when you´ve had enough of them at home. I haven´t seen an overpass in two years. It´s just a long ongoing town spread out in all directions with a large police presence and four languages on each sign. 

While living here in the capital, I can see that my Lao friends are different. I have gone through culture shock and struggled to accept some cultural ideas. I have seen parts of the culture, but I have never seen my friends at home where they came from. I have gotten to know them like the fourth grade Jessy arriving in a bigger town and leaving my cowgirl boots behind after a day of kid´s comments. They are trying to fit in with the ever changing and melding city just as I am.

We have had our legitimate reasons for not making the ventures to the villages and I have no regrets. A fifteen hour bus ride with a young child to arrive at an ever-changing plan wouldn´t fit us anymore. If I were living here as a single woman, by now I would have encountered the bottom of each valley they let me into and tried my tongue at each language. But as a mother, here is all I know of Laos.

Two weeks ago Camilo and I were finally going to go for it. Take the bus around the curving roads for ten hours to visit the home of our friend who warned us that we would need to pay for a hotel for the night, that her house just didn´t have enough room for our extra bodies. I was hopeful to see the houses on stilts and get my hands dirty grooming rice while watching Camilo run around with little Lao cousins. And then our friend woke up the day before departure with Malaria. All she could tell me was this was a sign to her that it wouldn´t be safe to take her pregnant friend with a two year old on the trip. Not sure whether to be thankful for my friend´s sickness while deeply saddened, I will mourn our loss. I´ve already experienced dengue while pregnant, I of course wouldn´t want to risk the rest of what could be. But….

Have I really seen the real Laos? I think backpackers on two week sprints have seen more. I hope to come back. To know. To watch my friends give soccer balls to the school they grew up in. To eat the spiciest food of my life while watching my friends banter back and forth with their village siblings. To wear a big straw hat and painfully learn the proper way to pull rice up from the earth. 

As we pack up this week to go back in time 12 hours, I’m already missing what I never got to see. Have I really given all I can to Laos if I never really got to know it?