the last night i was in laos we had a spiritual time together as well as celebrating a laotian ceremony.

the spiritual time was very peaceful. we sat next to the river on a balcony with jagged mountains to our right. i leaned back in my chair and stared up at the sky and the orange slice of moon. we would sit in silence and i couldn’t quiet my mind so i let it run for a bit. i thought about things, i enjoyed thinking and feeling them inside of me.

staring up at the sky, through the abyss and darkness, i felt like the earth was wonderfully small. in vietnamese there is a saying ‘the frog who sits at the bottom of a well.’ it is meant to denote a person who doesn’t really have a thorough perspective of the world. a frog who sits at the bottom of a well can only see the well’s opening. the opening of the well is not large enough to let the frog have an objective perspective and i felt just like that frog leaning back on my chair and looking up at the sky.

thought the sky was dark and there were only a couple of stars shining through the haze, i felt as if i could see the atmosphere move. from my position, it almost felt like i could reach up and grab the clouds as they swirled and twisted in the sky. in my mind’s eye, they all looked green and blue, much like the weather maps on the ‘weather channel’.

i enjoyed listening to the bugs chirp, the river flow. i felt like, while i was only looking through the narrow opening of the well, that really wasn’t a problem.

we moved to the front lawn where someone had built a fire and someone else had brought things for roasting marshmallows. we stood there and chatted.

we all participated in a laotian ceremony. as it was explained to me, this ceremony is given to anyone who is about to undertake something large in their life. someone who is going to get married, someone who is going far away from home or someone who is going to be traveling.

there was a large bucket filled with flowers at the center of the table. also in the bucket were large piles of white yarn cut into 8 inch long pieces. one would go up to the bucket, grab a piece of yarn and take it to someone else to bless them. the person being blessed would raise their left hand and put it in front of their nose and mouth while holding their right hand outstretched.

the person blessing you would then move the string backwards and forwards on your hand while saying a blessing. they would then tie the yarn on your wrist and you would have to wear it for at least three days. i had a mess of yarn on my right hand that i will remove in a couple of hours but that i have worn for the past two and a half days. something inside of me won’t let me take it off even though everyone in the office wondered what it was.

after the yarn ceremony, we stood around aimlessly and chatted. someone took out the blue hymnal and a group of us stood in the corner singing. i hadn’t sang in four part harmony for at least the past year and something inside of me was quite dry.

we opened it up and six or seven of us sang. i sang tenor and my voice, while slightly rusty (i have sang karaoke but that’s a one person job, mennonite hymns are communal), i was able to follow along for the most part.

our voices rose and fell and the old songs came back and brought with them millions of memories. all those times i stood up and grabbed the blue book from the bench in front of me. all the zipping noise they made. all the times i opened up to a song and stood next to my mother and tried to sing. all those voices around me. the beautiful tenor that used to sit in the front. the bases that would sit somewhere in the middle on the right. the sopranos who would be all over carrying the melody. i remember all the song leaders we had when i was growing up. they all came back to me as choppy, happy visions and i smiled.

we sang ‘praise to god immortal praise’ which is number 91 in the blue book and is my grandfather’s favorite song. i asked that we sing this song because i wanted to remember them (they sit on the left side about two thirds of the way back). the song starts out and marches along. the tenor part is high for me in parts and my voice strained. i lifted my head, tightened my throat and breathed deeply. it was my sacrament for my ancestors.

the song ended and i inevitably had a tear in my eye and my throat was tight maybe not entirely because of the singing. i stood there for a moment in the heat and the darkness listening to people mumble and talk around me and i didn’t know quite where i was.

i could have really been anywhere for, when your eyes are following the notes, your brain is interpreting them, your voice is making them move and your memory is saturated, your soul’s home is everywhere.

i return and the world is happy to see me. it's a wonderful feeling.

the dog is the first to greet me and he runs into the hall and pees all over the floor and licks my face. i say hello to jack and julie and jo. they are all friendly and we smile and ask simple questions courteously.

i go to school the next morning and everyone in the office wants to know about laos. they all smile and ask questions and are sincerely interested. they want to know if it is developed, what the people are like and if i brought any candy back. i didn't because i couldn't find any.

the students meet me in the halls and in coffee shops and they come up to me and want to know what laos is like. did i meet any students? did i meet any girls i liked? they had a lot of questions and we smiled and exchanged pleasantries.

i played basketball and everyone was happy to see me. they all smiled and asked me about the trip and talked about how wonderful the game was on saturday that they played against a rival town. they won in the last second with a majestic shot from the corner. they were glad to have me back.

it's wonderful to come home and be loved. it's wonderful to feel like you're at home when you're just about as physically far away from your real home as is possible.

in the end, i really wonder what home is and if i could ever feel at home on, say, the internet. is this a community?

is this real?

one of the cr's from laos told me this:

last year they cleared 800,000 pieces of unexploded ordinance. it was a substantial amount.

if things continue at that rate, laos will be free from unexploded munitions that were placed by the us in only another 100 years. thank god for war and freedom.

i was lucky enough to b e put on the puke bus from ho chi minh city to long xuyen. i have an old lady in front of me with two small children. she only reserved one seat and they are all piled on one another with bags at their feet. she is currently leaning against the window and her children are standing on her making clicking sounds. they're about four and six. she has puked a total of 10 times since this five hour bus ride began and every time she vomits she makes this disturbing guttural sound that seems to shake the bus.

behind me is a group of young people who chatted me up a bit and wanted to learn more about an giang university. they had interesting things to say and have a glow about their face that only young people get when they're away from their parents and having fun with friends. no restraints, only freedom.

two of the four have puked a couple of times. i didn't really keep track and it always catches me quite off guard. the one girl is sitting directly behind me and, when she wants to puke, she'll lean forward, push the seat with her hand and let of a gushing whirlwind of partially digested food.

there is one lady who is sitting on the right side of the bus who gives advice to everyone.

'throw the puke out of the window'

someone else, 'it'll hit someone who's driving'

'no it won't' and the puke goes out the window and no one's sure if it hit anyone.

she is about fifty and has dyed her hair the color of a pumpkin. she is wearing pajamas that are the color off pumpkin pie. her lipstick is the color of cranberry and everything together reminds me of thanksgiving.

the return trip has been a normal travel day. it started early in the morning, about five thirty, and continues now, about seven thirty, about two hours from home. we drove down laotian roads from a small resort town to the airport. there was absolutely no traffic on the roads and we had to slow down considerably a number of times in order to avoid a cow. we arrived in the sleepy capital, had some breakfast and headed to the airport. i asked the country representative for laos and thailand where i would go after i checked in and he said, 'up the steps, turn right, turn left and it's the only gate in the airport. it's a very nice airport but it only really has one gate through which you proceed and walk onto the tarmac.

the flight was peaceful and i watched a group of french twenty-somethings talk about things i didn't understand. they were all confident and hairy and seemed to be interested in everything. too bad they're cheese eating surrender monkeys.

phenom phen also has a very nice airport. the inside is very modern and there are high ceilings and chrome and shiny things everywhere. everyone sits on small stool-like chairs that have interesting backs and interesting legs and they all look very modern and uncomfortable as they sip their three dollar coffee.

on the flight from cambodia to vietnam, we spent more time waiting on the runway than we did flying. as soon as you're in the air you're falling again.

returning to vietnam is wonderful. i'm in a place where i can talk to people and where i understand things. i'm comfortable again and made it a point to talk to everyone at the airport. in laos, i only knew how to say 'hello' and that was about all. i remember enjoying the thrill of being in another culture and feeling very vulnerable. this time i really didn't like it, it could have been because i didn't really feel vulnerable at all. the laotian people are some of the most peaceful and enjoyable people i've ever met. i was not bothered at all and want to return there and live forever eventually buying a nice motorcycle and scooting down the semi-populated streets on the way to my humble pizzeria that's butted up along side the river. i'd have to learn how to speak the language.

life here is considerably more hectic. the bus is packed and people are all moving and doing so at a feverish pace. the roads are congested and everything is in perpetual motion. for better or worse, i'm home.

we drove in a tuk tuk. a tuk tuk is a small vehicle made out of a motorcycle that can somehow haul about 10 people and another 10 tubes up hills and down valleys without killing anyone. it's really amazing and we all hung on for dear life and some of us were trapped inside instead of being able to hang on the outside and breath in all the fresh mountain air. we smothered inside.

we arrived at the bank of a large river. the stones on the bank were the same stones i remember lining the edges of the branch creek that flowed near my home as a child. those stones were smaller but they were smooth and rounded. that river ran into the ocean. the river we were standing next to also ran into the ocean and it passed my home in vietnam along the way.

we took our shirts off and began to float down the river on pink tubes. the river was majestic and slow. the rocks were fairly easy to avoid and the sun was bright. we floated, talked and enjoyed being in the water, part of nature, like being back in the womb.

the trip was long, about three hours, and most of it was spent watching other tourists and admiring the beauty of the mountains we were passing under. the sky above was blue and there weren't many clouds. my favorite thing to do was to lean all the way back in my tube with the top of my head in the water and paddle in a circle with one of my hands. my perspective would change from a sharp, violently shaped mountain to a flat, peaceful river, to a stand of trees with a bright sun above and then back to the other side of the river again. i did this often and it was beautiful each time.

there were other tourists and they were fascinating. this is kind of a 'tourist economic zone' and, since most people don't come to laos to visit, it is very rural and rustic, two things that today's backpacker is looking for. this place draws anyone who wants to come and experience the world in its rawest form. it draws anyone who is looking for what life used to be like a few hundred years ago.

the most surreal part of the trip was the ending. we ended our three hour and change float down the mekong and we pulled up on a rocky shore. there were large beds sitting in the water with spell-bound tourists sitting and sipping beer. there was a small hill with chairs and palm-leaf umbrellas shading the area. there was a small log hovering above the water with 10 or 15 children jumping in and out of the water and yelling at each other. we were standing on rocks, rounded, like the rocks of my childhood. there were spiked mountains across the river and the sun was hiding behind one of them making it look specifically holy. we stood there and didn't say anything. we stood there in the middle and watched but couldn't hear anything. there were two giant speakers playing techno music with its hypnotic beat and piercing snare. we stood there, not hearing anything, watching the mouths of the children open and close, watching them splash into the water, watching the water flow beside us and watching people chat around us but we didn't hear anything. we were supremely separated from the world and the culture and had been placed on a film set or in a video game or in one of those situations that we have created for ourselves after meddling too much with technology and never allowing ourselves to be true and close to nature where we would really be able to experience life. we need to be closer to the source of it all.