Coming home

For the past three weeks I have no need for the alarm clock. The relentless crow of the rooster did not allow me to sleep beyond 6 am. Nature has already scheduled our time for rest and work, and implemented the mechanism to monitor that.

There are certain scenes from the land that I will never forget. A father cradling the baby in a huge blanket in front him to shield him from the cold, a mother walking resolutely down the slope, carrying a basket of firewood on her back, an elder daughter drying the seaweed in the sun, and carrying the baby brother on her back. There is no role too small for the man to play, nor a role too heavy for the women or child. Everyone contributes to the family.

While I shivered in the cold evening wind, the boys wrestled on the riverbank, the girls bathed themselves in the icy water, the women washed their vegetables in the river and the men scrubbed the pails and carried water to the yard. The thatched roof was carefully woven by the grandfather, the walls made from rattan, and the bamboos sharpened for the fence. Be it a stool, a cooking pot, a ladder, or the clothes they wear,everything that they use or own, they made it themselves. They went around with their 'fashionable purse' much to the envy of my German friend, though he had no use for the chicken in the purse except for his dinner.

When night came, strokes of fires sprung up from house to house and the forest glittered from afar. There was no hot showers, no television nor computer games. Everyone cuddled together around the fire in front of the house. The only way to keep warm, the only way to pass the time, one of the many moments they have to talk to one another.

It may appear to be a harsh life. But they take whatever they have in their stride and make the best out of it.

Coming home from the land of the great elephants. Coming home to the basics.