Two-Day Trip to Nanoi, Nan Province
Looking through the main concrete building across to the old wooden building, I saw the class I taught during the summer. The third graders were as lively as ever. At the front of the class, a group of girls were taking a selfie. Others were hoarding around the teacher’s table. It seemed like a free period.
Do they remember me? I came to the window.
“It’s P’Pete!” A boy spotted me.
A group of girls turned to the balcony. There was a moment of silence. Then, they all burst out into the balcony waving and cheering.
I waved back. Somewhere in me was a tinge of happiness.
They were waving their hands back and forth, gesturing for me to come over. I hesitated a little bit but then gave in. I went down and crossed the courtyard to their wooden building. They rushed down the stairs to come greet me in a frenzy.
“When are you going to teach us again?”
“Can you teach our third period? We have English.”
“Common please come up.”
They kept asking me questions.
“Whoever is not in class will lose 20 points on their next test.” The coarsed voice of the math teacher echoed from above. The students were silent for a second, slowly analyzing the situation in their heads. Finally, they rushed back up as fast as they could.
“See you na, P’Pete.”
Behind me, the director came out of his office. It was time to leave. After checking that I had everything with me, I got in the car. While waiting for the director, the first and second grader rushed out of their classrooms to say their final goodbyes. From above, the third graders were waving and cheering on. The car started to move, and they ran along with us.
“Please don’t leave!”
“Come back soon!”
“Why can’t you stay a little longer?”
As the car turned into a narrow passageway towards the exit, the kids stopped following. For a last glimpse at them, I looked through the rear mirror.
The past semester in college has been really tough. A bad grade, the competitiveness, the moodiness of everyone, the snow, the cliffs. I was able to carve out a group of friends that kept me warm throughout the semester, so it was not too bad for me socially. Things balanced out but then whenever I laid down on my bed at the point of exhaustion, I saw nothing. I just wanted the semester to be over. I wanted school to be over. Yet I had nothing to look forward to.
Now as I will have to go back to the same position I was in last semester – exhausted and drowned in gloominess – I will close my eyes. Hopefully pleasant memories of Nan will come to me one by one. The smell of the mountain. The sun. The crickets. The red lanterns. The warmth from the resort owner’s smallest granddaughter. Kids biking along the path around the rice paddies. The cheer of students. Their red traditional clothes. The incomplete sets of teeth that flash out as they smile. At the end of the Ithacan winter, summer is waiting. They are waiting. For me.
A new season: farmers switch from planting rice to planting corn.
The resort owner’s two granddaughters
The resort owner collecting the seeds from the cherries he just ate so that he could grow them in his backyard.
Dawn at the resort
