Family

It’s kind of crazy how much I think about my family being here in India, especially my mom. I finally had to wash my own under wears this morning. As I was rubbing the piece of cloth against itself I heard my mom’s voice in the fading distance telling me, “Wash the private area a clean as you possible. Don’t just wet the underwear and think that it’s clean.” [I heard it in Hmong, of course]. It’s so funny how much I miss my mom. I think about her all the time. I can imagine here complaining about my stuffy nose and how I must eat medicine – knowing that I can’t swallow pills and I believe medicine kills me – in order to get better. I can hear mom’s voice in the faded background saying, “Yog koj tsis no tshuaj es koj yuav ua cas paub zoo, nas?” [If you don’t eat medicine, how will you ever get well?]

I also heard Yia’s 10 year old voice stating, “In Thailand it never gets dark. It’s always day time, that’s why people go to sleep even when the sun is still out.” He used to think that in Thailand it never gets dark because we watched a Hmong movie once; in the movie the couple went to sleep when it was still daylight. I guess from that point on Yia concluded that Thailand never gets dark. Isn’t that funny?

Throughout this whole experience I keep hearing Dab Laug Nyias Pov’s comment about Indians being poor but being Hmong is poorer. Before I left home he told me, “When you get to India you will see the face of poverty. They will be poor; if you put it on a scale of poverty they get ZERO. However, if you put Hmong people (the ones in Laos and Thailand) in the poverty scale, we get NEGATIVE TEN. India’s lucky to still have a country and form of government. The Hmong people, no.”

And of course, Mysee’s enthusiasm rings at every corner of my India Study Abroad experience. I just keep thinking to myself, “If only Mysee was here… If only, if only.” On the other hand I’m thinking, “Mysee would die here if she were to come alone; if I learn this and that perhaps I can help her navigate this crazy country when she comes here to study abroad.” Now I’m sure Mysee understands that this is not the same India as it is in the Bollywood movies, just like how the U.S. is not the same U.S. as Hollywood portrays. Hollywood and Bollywood glamorizes everything which gives people a false (and more exaggerated) picture of their countries.