14/07/10

This morning at morning announcements a man from Argentina talked to the students a little about Laura Vicuña (who our school is named after), who wasn’t born in Argentina, but lived and died there. He left after speaking and I went to class. After classes I had gone to the professional school across the street to talk about science fair when I ran into him again and he said “are you thai?!” Yes, my mom is actually. “Where is your family from?” When I said Bangkok he got so excited and said “I love Bangkok, that is my favorite city, I wish I could go there now! Well bye!” And he hurried off and I was thoroughly confused.
When I was in town today I saw a cute little boy about 2-3 years old wandering on a path by the road so I smiled and waved at him. The thought flickered through my mind that it was strange that he was wandering alone, but he was still in yard/house territory so I kept walking. I stopped at the ATM to withdraw money and when I finished I saw that he was now toddling down the main road, almost to the bank. It didn’t feel right to me—kids here have a lot of freedom, but it isn’t normal for a kid this young to be wandering completely unattended. I asked him where he was going and where his house was but either he doesn’t speak much, didn’t want to speak to me, or doesn’t speak Portuguese. I took his hand and we walked back to where I had first seen him and I tried to get him to point to where he lives, but with no success. A woman I know was sitting outside her house so I asked if she knew him, but she didn’t. She tried asking him where he lived (but only in Portuguese, I have no idea why she didn’t use Xopi. That was kind of weird) but he didn’t respond to her either. She asked the people who walked by if they knew him until a girl about 11 years old walked up carrying firewood who was his sister. Apparently he had tried to follow her when she left and nobody had realized, so we sent him home with her.
In my Portuguese lesson tonight I saw the Argentinean man again who greeted me “ah my Thai friend, from the land of smiles!” I asked him how he knew I was Thai and he said “oh you have a Thai face. I know Thai faces!” He later admitted that he had seen me this morning and asked my director what my heritage was.