Hello, me lovelies! I leave tommorrow afternoon to return to Laos. I have had a good summer here in the states, and now am fully equipt to return to the Mother Land with Master's degree and Thomas the Tank Engine set in tow. When I get settled in I can post pictures again more freely.
The negative aspect of being in the States all summer is that Jonas has been exposed to all of the kiddie shows on PBS and Disney (my parents have cable) so now he is interested in all of the merchandise that is connected to those shows. He really likes watching the Doodlebops (on Disney), but luckily they don't have Doodlebops toys or DVD's that we have seen.
Last week I went to Mississippi where alot of my relatives are from. It was there that an older woman told me that I look Iranian, "just like your cousin". The thing about that is, neither my cousin nor I are Iranian. Or even very dark for that matter. At any rate, I'm not offended, only confused. I will wear my Omniraciality with pride.
Another racial incident that happened last week occurred with an elderly lady whom I do not know. I put an ad in the "good neighbors" section of the newspaper saying that I was interested in an autoharp and used children's books to help me in my English classes in Laos. Well, this old lady contacted me saying that she had an autoharp that she would give me for free. I went to her house and, as old people are wont to do, she started talking alot about the old days and the history of the autoharp. First of all she told me about how it was from her old church which closed down. Then she said that when the church closed down they sold alot of stuff to "the Blacks". I was wondering who "the Blacks" were, thinking that maybe it was maybe a family's last name or something. Then she said that she knew "the Blacks" wouldn't use the autoharp so she hid it and kept it in her house rather than sell it to them. At this point I realized "the Blacks" were "African Americans". And I was pretty sure that they could figure out how to play a very simple musical instrument. Anyway her husband really helped me understand the situation even better when he referred to "coloreds" at one point in the conversation. I found it all very disturbing. When I am in Laos, I am a minority as a white person. I do get ripped off sometimes but no one disrespects me or talks down to me because of my race. I do hope to adopt from Asia one day and it shocks me that there are still such racist "normal" people in the world. I just don't understand it.

Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2006 at 1:12 PM