They are many things in our daily life that we take for granted. We don’t realize what it would be like if these things were no longer part of our universe. But some of the hill tribe women at Wildflower Home have a different perspective…
One Saturday afternoon, just after finishing all our chores, the women sat together and had a relaxed moment chatting, laughing, and teasing each other. Sahe, our youngest mother, reported the experience she had earlier in the week when we went to a local mall called Airport Plaza. We were waiting at the hospital for our turn and seeing the line was so long, we decided to go buy the milk she needed for her baby. However, I did not know it was her first time in a mall. As we were in a bit of a hurry, I was walking fast to reach the supermarket, and suddenly I noticed Sahe’s eyes getting rounder. While talking about her trip in the group Sahe said in awe to the women: “There are stairs that go up by themselves!” The women and even some children started laughing and told her that we call moving stairs “escalator”.
A week later, we had to go to the mall again, but this time to the second floor, so Sahe had the opportunity to try out the escalator. With a mix of curiosity and fear she put her foot on the first step while clinging tightly to my arm. She exited the escalator with a big smile of satisfaction.
Again during our informal talk, Po suggested that one day all the mothers go to Le Carrefour, another shopping center in Chiang Mai which is a popular chain store in France. Naphae who spent almost all her life in the Laotian forest asked: “Le Carrefour….where is this mountain?”
Naphae likes new discoveries and in our increasingly globalized world, for her there is always something new. She went to Airport Plaza to sell some Wildflower Home products and during a trip to the restroom she found out with amazement that she did not need to turn the knobs to get water out of the faucet, instead she could just pass her hands under it. Afterward she was also confused when Nong put 10 baht in a toy machine and received a toy to give to her son. Naphae asked again: “where is the 10 baht?”
The same night in the mall I invited Naphae and Nong to choose the food they wanted to eat. Looking through all the glass showing different kinds of dishes, they concluded it was “Naaklua(scary), all this foreigner food”, and we ended up at the food court where they could find some food they recognized. As we ate Nong commented: “The people are walking here and they do not seem to have fun. They do not talk to each other.” Naphea also noted, “How can the people can spend all the day inside the shopping mall? There is no air here.”
Few weeks later, when I accompanied Naphae to the fresh market, she asked me if we had the same in Canada. I answered:” not exactly the same”, and I explained her….thinking that we surely did not have the flies turning around the bloody meat we were contemplating buying. She says, “Your markets in Canada must be boring, no?” I smiled and said to myself that probably the flies in Canada are thinking the same as Naphae.
