May Day 1975

February 28, 2008 scentofgreenpapaya

How it just flew me by?

I vividly recall from childhood memory a time piggyback riding on my father’s shoulders with a raggedy doll tucked under my arm one dusky evening. Strapped on to him was also a bag of rice and what little family belonging we had. As my parents and paternal grandmother descended down a dirt path on foot, incognizant to the life changing events unfolding before me, I rotated back to catch a familiar but hazy glimpse of our small remote village with thatched-roof houses that lined the incline of a mountain. I saw our home engulfed by the night as distance slowly separated us.

Traveling by night and hiding by day, we quietly unwound along mountains and weaved through bamboo forests stopping only to feed on bamboo shoots and cores from banana stalks. On occasional, we would meet up with other families resting under an overgrown banana grove. There I witnessed small bellowing children opiated by their own mother for their god given sake. Days turned into weeks and with much bribery costing my family everything we had, we finally made our way to the banks of a great yellow river.