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America:
The Land of Dreams
To this day, the memory
remains vivid. I was north of Chang Mai, Thailand near the Burma
border. As our open-aired truck rambled up the winding dirt road, I
spotted armed guards with machine guns, an occasional machete pointing
out of a barrel. The truck stopped at the top of the hill where the lush
forest parted. As we started down the path, I sucked in my breath at the
vast view of the valley covered in thick vegetation and layered with
greenery.
I rounded a bend to the left
and there she was: beautiful round face, deep brown eyes, tanned skinned
lined with dust and dirt. She stood a few feet away from me, her hair
tussled, her filthy clothes hanging from her thin body. Her expression
stopped me in my tracks. She stared at me, my fresh hiking boots, my
crisp khakis, my muslin white shirt. Her eyes were wide, her head tilted
slightly.
“American,” she said softly,
a small finger extending toward my face.
“Yes,” I haltingly replied.
“I’m an American.”
Behind her in the distance,
I could see her home, the small frame, mud walls, thatched roof. Her
mother hung in the doorway, shoulders slumped, a hand cupped around her
other daughter. Beside the house, her father hovered near the river, his
thick, knotted hands weaving a fish basket. He ignored mosquitoes
plucking at his arms, or perhaps he just ignored the line of tourists
tromping past, bidding hollow hellos and shading their eyes against the
sun and the indigence.
“Please keep moving,” the
guide beckoned, and for a moment I was jolted from my trance. My feet
slowly moved forward. But my little friend stayed put, her adoration
fixed on an undeserving me.
Like most Americans I had a
centric view of what I did, how I did it, and for whom. Days at my desk,
toiling at my craft, dashing to meet clients, chasing deadlines, coaching
nervous new managers, and working with CEOs in large corner offices, I’d
forgotten there was a world outside those walls.
It was hard to imagine that
a continent away someone was watching my every move and admiring me
simply because I lived in America.
It was hard to imagine as I sipped Starbucks with my friends and
complained about the rising cost of cable, a world away my little friend
had never lived in place with running water. It was hard to imagine as someone
impatiently honked a horn at me, her toughened feet no longer felt the
thorns along the trail. It was hard to imagine that what I claimed was an
economic upheaval was no where near the paucity that was this little
girl’s life.
“Flower,” I heard her whisper.
Earlier we had toured an
orchid farm and in my deep abstraction I’d forgotten I still was wearing
the souvenir flowers around my neck. I removed them and gently place them
in her small palm. She turned to scamper off.
“Wait,” I called out. “May I….
may I take your picture?” I motioned with my camera and though she looked
puzzled, I knew she understood. I quickly unsheathed the camera from the
case. Then I bent down, brought the lens to eye level, both mine and
hers, and clicked the shutter.
For years the photograph sat
on my office shelf. On days when I felt the pressures of my work, when I
wanted to scream because the cell phone died, when the computer was
hesitant and so was a new client, I’d look up at her, the beautiful face,
the hungry eyes, the scuff of soil on her chin and I’d remember. I’d
remember that no matter how bad some days were, I get to live in a place
the world reveres as the land of hope and dreams.
Copyright
© 2009. All Rights Reserved.
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