Although she was surrounded by the noise of the war, she found a small escape from the hiding and running during “down time” in Laos. She was curious as a child and enjoyed exploring the jungle especially with her cousins, who were all boys. Her cousins, who like most boys at that age, thought that hanging out with a girl was the worse possible thing to do so there was resistance to her joining them. However, she was persistent so many times, she ended up tagging along despite their popular opinion and her grandmother’s warnings.
Her most favorite childhood memory was of frog fishing with her cousins. Frog fishing was most enjoyable during the night so she had to carry a torch-like lamp with her into the jungle. It was important to not allow the lamp to become damp or else the light would go out and she would not be able to see. She was very careful about this and followed her cousins to go frog fishing.
There was a memory of her first time going to the river with her cousins that ended up badly. Her grandmother warned her before leaving not to go since her boy cousins were not going to watch out for her, but she insisted she could take care of herself. She had a lamp and followed after her cousins until they reached the first river to cross, where they instructed her to stay since the river was too deep for such a small girl to cross. As they crossed the river and walked further away, she only had their lamps to follow until those disappeared.
Some time had passed and her lamp was still burning enough for her to see the water below her feet. It was difficult to tell if there ever was a frog or just a loose branch or rock in the water since as soon as she bent down, she accidently let her lamp fall into the water. Lights out. Her first thought was to get back to the main road and as she was walking (barefoot!) back, she could feel her feet sink comfortably into the mud with each step and held her arms extended forward to distinguish the landscape and find a passage.
She was adventurous and also went on hunting trips with her father, who was also resistant to her participation on these trips, but she was his only daughter so maybe that carried more weight on her father’s decision to allow her to go with him? She says she was an obedient child and respected her parents, especially her grandmother, but she also did not completely stop being a curious and somewhat rebellious girl during the war since she found a piece of her childhood that let her temporarily escape the chaos surrounding her.
SMALL ACTS OF REBELLION
Although I experienced this different perspective on what hiding meant to me with her, I am able to share some childhood memories with her of having my own secret fun. With my cousins, we enjoyed sneaking off to the candy store in my neighborhood. When our parents were not around, we would go to the corner store to either buy four Nutty bars (0.25/bar) or two Star Crunches (0.50/Star Crunch).
Aside from the game, this was a highlight of having cousins visit on the weekend. Although not always verbally communicated, a weekend with cousins was never fully satisfied or complete without a trip to the candy store. The most adventure came from finding ways to avoid our parents knowing we left. We paid so much attention to our parent’s whereabouts that we were able to know the best time and day to escape to our own secret place, where we could feel no limits. It was almost always a Sunday early afternoon that we would carry out a successful plan to evade parental consent. For us, we knew that we needed to be prepared. It was the same protocol every time we did it.
First, pick the people to go (usually the ones with money).
Second, have a list memorized of all goodies to be more time efficient.
Third, have a distraction team (just in case parents come home earlier than expected) ready. Lastly, RUN! (cuz we had no time to waste).
Most of these were successful (99.99999999% of the time!).