The Return: Homecoming 1972
The hazy crazy plane ride back to Korat, Thailand with my Mom, Noi. was a very long trip. I was now FIVE years old, and understood a lot more than I wanted to- but the Thai language was not one of them. Noi cried off and on for those twenty-fours hours of traveling. I cried too. It was now A fact- no baby sister. She had been kept by her grandmother and Noi's ex-mother-in-law back in America. We didn't really know how to ever get back to her again. My baby sister seemed lost to us forever on that sad day -as we bomeranged back towards the land of our birth.
The best part of our return to Thailand was my Auntie, Noi's baby sister-NaThung, coming to live with us as my Mom's helper! Auntie basically cared for me while Noi found a job on the US Air Force base and became our sole breadwinner. Noi brought home the bacon and Auntie fried it up in the wok! Auntie was SIXTEEN years old and had moved from our family's rice farm in NE Thailand. My Auntie would prepare all my meals, spoon feed me, and usher me back and forth to school. She became like my big sister; and helped to ease the memory of missing my baby sister as time went on. Auntie would visit me once a week during lunch breaks at my new Catholic school. Auntie would hold my hand as we walked out to the small food stall across the street. We'd sit on tiny plastic chairs and eat fried glistening yellow lo-mien noodles topped with red sticky sweet slices of Chinese bbq pork. We would either tuk tuk or taxi back and forth from home to school giggling like a gaggle of geese all the way. For my Auntie, it was also thrilling and unfamiliar compared to the farming village where she and Noi had grown up. Auntie had freedom to come and go as she wish. She was living her teenage dream by not having to work in the rice fields. The heat and long hours always made farming the least favorite career. She loved learning and discovering everything just as much as I did, which made each day a beautiful treat!
Noi, Auntie, and Me all lived together on a beautiful lush dirt road behind a fenced-in gated yard. Our traditional Thai house was a modest wooden two bedroom one bath bungalow situated on twelve feet high stilts and had a big front porch that had a stinky durian fruit tree next to it. It was delicious to Noi and Auntie and all the old people in our neighborhood, but even to this day it makes me nauseous just to smell it. We had VERY modern appliances that our neighbors had never seen-such as a flushing American toilet. Noi had seen the other side of luxury when living in America, and did not want to go back to the traditional squat toilets over a hole in the ground. Our bathroom also had an overhead shower with warm and cold running water that, she personally directed implementation of from her own design. Noi was able to achieve these western style interior designs in our house from her connections with the GIs from the US Air Force base where she was employed. Noi's limited English had improved and communication was no longer a problem. I especially loved the refrigerator with a cold freezer to hold my chocolate ice cream from the Air Force Base commissary. A very special treat that helped to remind me of the good things about my pre-school days in America.
Noi treated me like a Beautiful Princess (as my traditional Thai name translates to) and sent me to a very private Western style Catholic school in Korat. I wore the traditional white crisp collared buttoned up shirt with a blue smock coverall dress and black patent Mary Janes to school everyday. My hair was held back on both sides with a silver hair clip and I was learning how to speak Thai again. The nuns did not appreciate my inability to understand them-so I would get one smack of the ruler on my open palm IF I did not understand their instructions. The nuns would not translate for or coddle what they thought was a" spoiled richThai girl who didn't know that she was Thai!" The cards seemed stacked against me again, but this time it was in my face so I wasn't surprised by the constant paddling. Noi supported their discipline. It would teach me to be a lady and learn how to fight them-like a lady. Noi did not want me to grow up like she had on the farm as an uneducated wild girl. Noi's intentions for me were simple- become an educated respectable lady, and that entails living a spiritual life.
Every Sunday on her day off, Noi would take Auntie and Me to the Buddhist Temple in our neighborhood. Earlier that morning, we would have awakened at dawn, and given alms to the monks as they walked down our dirt path road in single file. Everyday the monks receive donated food as their only meal before meditation begins. Auntie usually gave the monks food before she woke me up for school; and on Saturdays I was allowed to sleep in. Noi believed in all of us getting as much sleep as possible-so our family napped a LOT! However, Sundays we all woke up early and prepared food for the day to share. Arriving at the temple and finding a spot to sit down on the floor for an hour or so was the longest most boring thing we did all day long. We had to sit quietly on the hard hot floor and watch the monks dine and greet all of us. When the monks were finished with their only meal of the day, they would begin to quietly chant and pray. We would all then join in and close our eyes listening to the harmonious voices in unison. On those mornings when I was really really tired, I could feel myself floating on the waves of enchanted chanting. Flowing back and forth as if I was the music itself floating thru the air massaging everyone into divine sleepiness. I now have those magical moments stored away in my mind's eye so that I can see and feel them when times get dark and lonely.
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