From the Tops of the Trees

Ban Vinai Refugee Camp, Thailand, 1985

When the sun gets to the highest point in the sky, the leaves of our favorite tree become a great umbrella of cool for my cousins and me to play under.

“Hurry!”

Mai throws a ball of rice onto the ground. Yer races the chickens in the yard to get to it. A bald rooster with black tail feathers beats her. The look on her face is so sad and so hungry the fun disappears.

I wave the Lion Dog and the Jackie Chan Dog close. I hold onto the Lion Dog’s neck and climb on his back. I push my little legs into his sides and try not to fall when he starts to walk. I can feel myself slipping off his back, but I’m not afraid. My father catches me just in time.

In his arms, he lifts me higher and higher. I squeal.

My father says, “When someone falls, you have to pick them up and lift them higher than they were before!”

After a night of heavy rain and wind, we wake to find pebbly fruits scattered on the ground. Beneath our tree, Yer and I crouch low and look for the fruits that are still good enough to eat.

We know that if we eat too many, we’ll get stomachaches and our mothers will be mad. If we eat only one or two, we can pretend we’re eating hard candy and it is a very special treat.

In the quiet, we can hear the aunties talking about the war as they sew. They talk to each other about the river they had to cross to get to Thailand. They talk to each other about how Thailand wants Hmong refugees to leave their country. They are scared to return to the old country. They are scared to go to a new country. The adults talk of war, and they get scared all over again as if the war was not yet over.

That afternoon I ask my father about the war, and he says, “You’re safe.”
He takes one of my small hands in his big one and tells me, “Look at your hand.” He points down at the tips of my toes and says, “Look at your feet.”
He says, “Your hands and your feet will travel far to find peace.”
His eyes are as serious as his voice, so I say, “Yes, they will.”

It is rations day. Every week, a big truck comes into the empty space in the middle of where we live. Thai soldiers give each family enough food for three days. They tell us they are practicing a “Humane Deterrence Policy” so that no more Hmong people come into the country. I don’t know what they are talking about, but I do what the adults around me do and nod my head like I understand.

That evening, before my bath, I look down into the cement well and ask my father why we live behind a gate. I want to know why other people can come in, but we can’t leave. He says, “We live in a refugee camp, a place to hold people who are running away from wars.”
I ask, “Father, is all of the world a refugee camp?”
“No,” he says.
“What is the world outside this camp like?” I ask.
My father has no answers for me.