Children’s Games
Six kilometers up the road from Vang Vieng the pavement breaks for 100 meters of road work. After the day’s sporadic rains the dirt has transformed into a creamy rust dough. The thick treads of roaring trucks have painted ruddy runways leading up to and trailing after the muddy pit. Just beyond is a village, where children are playing in a yard. On my approach I am greeted with hearty sabaai dii‘s, shouted by men, women, and children brightly walking on the road.
A girl is swinging a sandal, tied to a length of twine, around her body. When it gets up to speed, she kneels to the muddy ground and another girl steps up to hop over the whirling hurdle, jump rope, counting as she does “neung, sawng, saam, sii, haa, hok …”. As the numbers climb she becomes more excited and over-anticipates; with a smack of finality the sandal slaps her thigh. Giggling, she gives up her turn to the next girl. Whap, whap, the tumbling shoe dips and strikes the ground as it circles near the jumper. One tiny wonder pulls up her jeans smartly; they are too big and keep slipping down as she jumps. Another gathers the edges of her skirt into a bunched handful and tucks it between her legs, up and over down the top forming makeshift shorts that won’t trip her up. But the first jump she makes the fixture unravels and she stumbles out of the reach of the sandal, laughing, oh what a bother!
The boys have gathered just outside the fence and are stealing glances at me, aside from whatever other scheming they have been up to. Snickering when I do.
Mother and father sit perched on the porch of the elevated thatch home, arms and legs dangling languidly over the edge. The cavorting children stir them to amused laughter; they are not bored at all by the scene but seem just as engaged as if they were the ones shouting, leaping, wincing, twirling on stage.
A fervent wish enters my heart, and that is that a television not enter into this house. In my mind’s eye I dismantle every piece of the montage. Mother and father move inside, attention transfixed to the Thai or Chinese drama unfolding onscreen. The flock of girls disperses; they spend their time pruning their prepubescent selves, practicing brides of sunglass shaded, lavishly dressed pop stars. The boys run around crashing into each other, firing makeshift machine guns at each others’ heads, terrorizing the hens and chickens, annoying the cud-chewing calves and sows. The sandal, lying lost in the mud. That little instrument that could change so much. That purveyor of illusion, Trojan horse, “wooden mare of Troy in whom a score of heroes slept”, or score of venemous adders.