I'm choking and I feel guilty. This pig stomach, it's a gift. It's grisly and dry
but that's not why I'm having a hard time chewing. The men around me smile and nod
and return to their game of bocci ball, clueless about my misery. My guide, Pan,
he knows I’m a vegetarian. He averts his eyes.
I'm a mess. My mind subconsciously willing me to spit it out, to run away, but me
also coaching myself through it. Swallow and the pig stomach will be in my stomach.
One big gulp and I'll have one hell of a stomach reunion; host to an intestinal
fiesta. Vegetarian is not a household term in Laos. Refusing the ladle of soup,
an offering from a drunken villager out of the communal bowl, would have meant we
both "lost face." It would have been worse than rude. Pan's already walked away
but I’m stuck, standing here, still chewing.
These 30 seconds are hell in what has so far been a good night. A date—although
I don't know it yet. The night is going to get worse. Although I don't know that
yet either.
A little boy is done with his snack. He throws his empty potato chip bag on my feet.
His mother, she "tsks" and smacks him. Picking up the litter, she throws it back
on the ground, only behind her and away from anyone's feet. This lesson, it's not
the solution I would have given. But this is not my home.
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Village life sometimes means not having time to think about the long-term effects
of plastic bags. Or whether pigs have happy lives. And me. I'm trying not to let
my smile falter. This backyard gathering. This nightly bocci rivalry. It's a celebration.
Today's jobs are done. Today's labor means today there's enough food for everyone.
Everyone plus one. A guest. Me. The men I'm with. They're inviting me to join the
next game of bocci. This is a privilege. I accept.
The backyard we’re in is full of gravel. It may as well be a friend’s home in Ligonier,
Indiana. The place everyone swarms on a nice night because you know you’re welcome.
I step onto the bocci court, which is outlined in logs. My first ball, I throw out
of bounds. It rolls towards the one-room house. The ball is about to roll across
the doorless doorway. I feel like my kickball in Indiana just breached our nasty
neighbor’s backyard. An elderly woman appears and stops it with her foot. She’s
chewing something and her hardened face shakes back and forth. One man walks over,
head down, and collects it from her. She disappears back inside. Her disapproval,
I’m pretty sure, is directed at me.
Men and women in Laos, they don't intermingle. There is no public touching, no hand-holding
across genders. My shoulders and legs, they're covered in fabric despite the heat.
So are everyone else's. There are at least ten village men and I'm hyperaware that
I'm one of two women.
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The other girl, someone's wife, she's tonight's cocktail waitress. She pours a shot
of laolao, homemade rice whiskey, in the communal cup and approaches each person
in turn.
Laolao is danger bottled up. Antibacterial strong. And we skull it like candy.
She pours me small shots like the ones she pours for herself. It's a nice gesture.
But it's not helping. The laolao makes me dizzy. Either more guys have shown up
or I'm seeing double. It feels like she's always in front of me with another offering.
We're soccer-game loud and I actually throw a ball well and we're…well…we're drunk.
We have congratulatory handshakes and I'm pretty sure I understand the trash talk
between teams. Laolao, it means you can understand new languages. Just maybe not
everything about a culture. But right now, that's not what I'm thinking about.
I’m trying to figure out how I got here. I am the only farong, foreigner, in this
tiny Laos village. At first I thought this excursion was part of the tour I’m on,
but now I’m not so sure. This bocci game, it might be extracurricular. Visiting
the village wasn’t on the itinerary. Pan’s friends, they keep teasing him about
something and then furtively, they look at me.
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*
Backpacking through Luang Prabang yesterday, I saw a sign to wash an elephant at
a one-day sleepaway camp. The elephants, I thought, they need me. I arrived earlier
today. The only person signed up under my guide. Pan, he's attractive despite the
three inches of black hairs growing out of a mole on his chin. Back home, I would
think it's repulsive. But here, here I've noticed the style on quite a few men.
It kind of makes me smile. Smirk the same way I do when I’m disgusted by guys hocking
giant loogies.
As much as I like my mole-hair-sporting guide, the elephant camp is not as conservation-forward
as the sign made me think. The elephants, they've been rescued from logging jobs
only to be moved here, where they still aren't free. Sure, at nights they are taken
back into the jungle, but really they are chained to a tree. Free roaming isn't
part of their routine. In their lifetime, it never will be.
They have small eyes, half of which are non-seeing, blind and covered in a white
film because at some point they were punished or abused. And being forced to take
tourists on rides eight hours a day doesn't sound like an upgrade. Really I'm wondering
if I'm part of the problem. Only it's confusing and giving me a headache because
I thought maybe I was helping. That my money meant they didn't have to work anymore.
That they were free. That washing an elephant was eco-tourism. But this elephant
sanctuary, it feels like a new form of abuse. This bath thing, it already feels
too twisted and dirty to ever fully clean up.
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Pan tells me about the elephants while we feed them sugarcane and banana tree trunks.
He introduces me to the mahouts (elephant guides) but the baby elephant interrupts,
wanting attention, his snout searching in my purse and perusing my face. I like
elephant goobers more than chin hairs and loogies, but still, I think I'm giving
the same smile. And Pan says that if I want I can shower and meet up with him to
deliver coffee to the nearby village. I agree without really knowing what I'm agreeing
to.
We are wet and clean as we are hiking on the uneven dirt path that will take us
to the village. This feels like a date but the rock under my foot falters and Pan
catches me while we're talking about the rules of bocci ball.
*
It's midnight and we finally put our balls down. It's a few hours past when we were
just sufficiently drunk. We don't have a flashlight. Pan leads me away from the
village and back to our camp dorms. At least, that's what I think.
We don't have a light and I'm holding his hand, both of us stumbling until we come
up to a building. It's not where we were headed. I don't remember seeing it on the
way here. Pan grabs me. Drinks catching up. Libido full swing. It's not that touching
across genders never happens here, I realize maybe for the first time. It just doesn't
happen in public.
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His lips are on mine. And my eyes? My eyes are wide and I'm pushing him away, not
wanting his hard penis against my thigh. His English is good enough that he can
tell me too many things he wants to do right now. Things that I don't want to hear.
My mind is reeling, wondering if at some point today I was flirting. If maybe these
last few hours weren't part of the elephant camp experience. Blondes in other cultures
are sometimes regarded as easy. Maybe I should have dyed my hair. Maybe I did this
to myself. Pan's tongue, it's in my ear. His arms, strong despite their scrawny
appearance, they're tight around me. His hips thrusting through our clothes. He's
every bit as aggressive as I am when sexually frustrated.
But if you are reading this, don't panic. Don't let your eyes get too wide. Nothing
happened. No clothes came off. I didn't even have to push or shove. This isn't a
story about Pan. Or about rape. This sort of thing, I think it happens between guys
and girls a lot. Laolao, it's like any liquor. It makes things too sexy to control.
And the night, the night has always been a seducer's favorite cover.
We are both drunk and we head back to the path; this time I take the lead. Walking
as fast as I can, sobering up quickly. Back the way I think I need to go. My mind,
not mine, it's over-reacting. I'm fine but I'm still placing a chair in front of
my locked door. Sitting there I nap and drink water slightly paranoid, a vigil until
six a.m.
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Pan comes by early with a token of freshly cut fruit. We chain-smoke together, allowing
the pineapple juices to negate the tobacco. It's peaceful on my stoop and I'm glad
he's there.
Once the sun breaks over the tree line it's time to bathe the elephants. Pan and
I walk side by side, never touching, down another dirt path. This place is dirtier
than I was expecting. My elephant, beautiful blind Mae Son, with her Harry Potter
scar, lifts her giant leg, inviting me up and onto her back.
My hands, resting on Mae Son's forehead, can't sit still. Thick black hairs sprouting
everywhere bristle against my fingers. I keep thinking of Chia pets only I can't
remember the name of them. I think her forehead resembles pubic hair only what it
would look like if the hairs were more spread out.
During our hour-long journey to the river, I can't stop thinking about pubic hair,
my own and others', and how it resembles elephant forehead hair. But once we line
up with the other elephants along the river, I'm distracted by childhood memories
of giving my dog a bath. And how sad I was when I found out my pet goldfish didn't
need one.
Mae Son gingerly steps in the river and we're all splashing and I'm giving my chin
hair, loogie, elephant-snot smile because giant grapefruit-sized balls of hay-filled
poop are floating past us.
We're dirtier than when we first got in. It's nauseatingly perfect.
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