What I'll Miss (Abbreviated)

I had grand plans to make a list of the many things I will miss and won't miss when I'm back in America, but now I've run out of time and have to run off to do trivial things like pack my bags. Maybe once I'm home, I'll reflect more, but for now I'll say what comes most quickly to mind...

-- small surprises, like buying yogurt in un-American flavors like coconut and grape

-- never being far from a repair shop so that when the chain drops on my motorbike or my tire goes flat, I don't have to push it far to a kind man who'll tighten this or patch that, usually for 50 cents

-- the joy of coolness when you are really hot, whether from stepping into air-conditioning, from being blown by the wind as you drive your motorbike, the cold water of your shower or (better yet) from a river or swimming pool

-- my students, who claim to love me despite lessons that are a stone's throw from smooth and polished and especially those at Nita who loved me despite my inability to communicate in the classroom or out of it

-- the Lao language, which sounded like noise to me for the first month, but in which I can now hear some music (and of which I can now make some sense)

-- my co-workers at Nita who helped teach me Lao and take me to Lao festivals, who shared with me their favorite foods, sometimes sacrificing a chile or two for my sake, who knew how hard it was to teach 60 students in one class but did it gracefully

-- Lao food and the way that you eat it with your hands and never eat it alone but all gather together and share from one or two plates, one or two sticky rice baskets; all that is worth the fact that you're never entirely sure what animal or what part of it you are eating or where the plant life was gathered from

-- my fellow volunteers at MCC and ARDA who are lovely, in a word, and from whom I learned to love coffee and to trust more faithfully in God and to know Laos more deeply; who I also had a lot of fun times and good talks with

-- my motorbike