15. The Dedication of a Street Beggard

The Dedication of a Street Beggard

The late afternoon sun began to shine softly on the leaves of the trees along Lanexang Avenue. The traffic was still very heavy with a lot of cars passing by.  I tried to carry my body by slowly moving my legs and keeping my eyes focused on the mound of garbage on the street. I swallowed my saliva and wondered if there would be any remaining food left in the garbage that I could eat to survive one more day.

Hunger kept mounting every second.  Each time my stomach hurt, I had to sit down on the curb and use my knees to compress it. When I was feeling better, I could move forward. That very moment, I thought about my entire past life, especially when I was young and had a family. I was walking in zigzag along the curbside of the road, past a restaurant where loud voices could be heard, which was a sign of people’s happiness.

“Sir! What should we do with the food that’s left?” asked the restaurant owner.

“Bring a bag and put it in there. I will take it home for my black dog."

I looked at myself and moved toward the front of the restaurant to ask for some left-over food. But as soon as I reached the front door, somebody chased me away;

"Why did you come here? Pretty soon our guests will throw up because of you!"

I begged, “May I have some left-over food to feed my stomach?"

“There is no left-over. Go away."

I had to forget about eating and made my way to the curbside. Being hungry has always had caused a lot of suffering for me.

By that time, the sun over Lanxang Avenue changed from light yellow to metallic rust like red. I looked to the west, at the edge of the sky where many cloud formations looked like dancers in the fairy tales. These creative sceneries were fun to watch for destitute people like me. But hunger forced me to look somewhere else --a big garbage mound. I reached out to a big bag in one of those mounds, grabbed it with my two shaking hands, dug inside and detected half of an orange, some bones and two pieces of meat. I put everything in my mouth with great appetite, along with two bananas found in the bottom of the bag. Once I was done eating, I leaned my back against the wall, rest my body and continued walking aimlessly.

Now I no longer had to worry about dinner. My only problem was to find a place to sleep. I kept on walking along the road curb and then ended up on Luangphrabang Road which was lit by bright street lights. I walked and walked because I didn’t know where I might find a good place to stay for the night. Anywhere I went, I was quick at being chased away.  

“Go away! This is not a place for you to spend the night. Don’t you have a house?”

“I can sleep under this tree, may I?"

“Not under this tree. Pretty soon, things around here will disappear!”

I looked at that middle age man with begging eyes, but I couldn’t tell if he saw me or not, because I was standing in the dark. I suspected he was the owner of this building, judging from the thick golden bracelet he had on his wrist and the necklace the size of a small finger hanging on his neck. I looked at myself and then at him, and realized we were as far apart as the earth and the sky. After he threw rocks in my direction to chase me away, I opted not to argue with him, turned away and left the area.

As I walked away, I thought about the brighter days I had as a village headman fighting the war against imperialists. When people flocked to my house, I would always tell my wife to serve them food and drink, even if I had never seen them before. I felt very proud to have done the right thing.

“Those scars you have on your body, how did you get them?” asked one of my homeless fellows when we spent the night in the open air, with fog and blowing wind, near the Sihom road intersection. All of the images of my past life immediately flicked in my mind. I waited some time before I answered his question.

“It’s a very long story. Could you bear to hear it?"

"No problem! I can listen!"

“I was not lucky. In 1969, when I was wading across the Namfod River, which was then at full flood stage, F105 aircrafts flew in from nowhere, started flipping around, and dropped a flurry of bombs. They kept coming back and bombed the area for a whole day.  I didn’t have a chance to reach my family because of the airstrikes.

At one point, running out of patience, I decided to jump out of my hiding hole, ran along the bank of the river, crossed the flood plain area, and disappeared in the woods above my village. I tried to find a shelter and ran under the blasting bombs toward the north end of the village. I saw houses on fire and it looked like the whole village of Bane Na-Oung was in flame.

I was not afraid of anything anymore and finally reached my house. Nobody was there; my wife and children were all gone somewhere. Seconds later, I heard a bomb exploding and shaking the ground all around me. After that, I didn’t feel anything. When I regained conscience later, I was in a bed at the regional military hospital. I was treated there for one full month.

            During my hospitalization, I tried to inquire about my family but the only thing I learned was that Bane Na-Oung was burnt to ash. Not even a single domestic animal had survived. The medical staff told me I was extremely lucky to be still alive.

From that point on, I didn’t know what to do, except moving around from place to place.  One day I was with my younger brother, the next day with my young sister, and the day after that, with my older sister. Each day, I ate food with tears. I also became physically disabled.

"Why didn't you remarry?"

“You think I should remarry, given my condition? You have to understand that when you are married, you have to be responsible for your action. You cannot have a new wife just to have somebody take care of you, that’s not very gentleman-like. Anyway, what kind of woman would want to marry a disabled person like me? Even if such a woman exists, I wouldn’t marry her for fear of kharma.”

"In that case, why didn’t you stay with your younger sisters?"

"They all wanted me to stay with them, but think about it. They also have their children to take care of, and I couldn’t do anything to help with that. So, I decided to be on my own and take care of myself until the day I die. How about you?  You are still young and healthy; why did you choose to beg for a living?"

“There is a drought going on. You cannot grow anything."

"Maybe you are too lazy to do farming work?"

“No, not at all. Some people may be really lazy or do not have any land to cultivate. Not me!"

It was getting close to mid-night. My companion and I took the time to air our thoughts without any real purpose in mind. I reached out to pick some tissue paper and nailed it on the wall for fog protection. The noises of the running cars on the road were much reduced, except for occasional loud sounds from motorcycles, Karaoke shops and night clubs. Above it all, the night followed its normal course, amid a frigid cold temperature.

Came the next day, the sun rose and shined all over.  I woke up because I felt weak and achy all over my body.  My companion had already left because he might have been very hungry since he did not have any dinner last night. I grabbed a bottle of fresh water which was half full to wash my face. I then walked through the fence and moved forward.

But today was kind of a lucky day for me --the luckiest day for a street person in a year. I reached the Km 2 area, the site of the three heads elephant monument, and went into a villa to do my begging. As I was standing near the front gate, a rather fat house owner walked from the house toward me and sized me up from top to bottom in a rather unfriendly way. He asked,

“Why was your leg cut and why do you have so many scars over your body?"

I replied that I was hurt during the war. His angry face changed a little bit and he asked,

“Are you disabled because of the war?"

“Yes! That’s what happened, when I tried to rescue my family."

He then went inside his house for a few minutes. I lost patience waiting for handouts and was about to leave the premises when I heard a call. I quickly turned back and saw him coming out with a big plastic bag in his hand. He asked,

“Don’t you want to get a drink before leaving?"

“That’s OK. Thank you very much,” I replied.

As soon as I emerged from the front gate, I opened the plastic bag. There were a box of sticky rice, five to six pieces of fried meat, five oranges, three sausages, and about 30,000 kips. My heart jumped up with joy. During my three year life as a beggar, I have never got so many things at the same time.  I wished him good luck in my heart and prayed for his continued success both in his current and future lives. So that day, I did not need to do any begging. The hand-outs that I received from that good heart man were enough to last for a week.

I walked back along the bank of the Mekong River, went past Lanexang Hotel by about 20 meters, and stopped to lie down and relax on the grass yard. For today’s lunch, I had food that was thousand times tastier than what I used to have the previous few days. I wondered why did the man give me so much money? Could it be because he looked at me as another human being, or because I was different from other human beings due to my disability?

By mid-day, I went into the Mekong River for a bath to clean up and refresh my body, and then came back ashore to enjoy my lucky meal.  I ate lunch and roamed along the streets where cars were running noisily, with horns sounding and accelerators at full speed. This was the true picture of our time, where human deficiencies mingled with modern materialism. I have never made that observation since I started my street begging adventure.

Times passed without waiting for anyone. It did so while carrying away most of the truth and leaving behind some of that truth for people to see and touch.  I didn’t know how long I was asleep on the grass yard. When I woke up, the sun that was so bright earlier had now become red. It was a warning sign that time had taken some things away from us human beings.

As time passed, the money that I received from the generous donor was almost all gone.  I thought about going back to the donor once more but I felt ashamed of myself for even thinking about it and decided not to go and disturb him again. I chose a different route for my begging but that day, although I was not as lucky as in the previous two weeks, I still had something to feed my stomach with.  I had some sticky rice and two pieces of meat for dinner.

I carried my bag of rice and walked toward Namphou Square. After I have covered some distance, I noticed a big crowd gathering and a lot of talking going on. Then I heard somebody shouting loudly,

“Go away! You still have strong legs and arms.  Why are you begging? Go!"

“Please give me something. Since this morning, I didn’t have a single grain of rice in my stomach."

"No! No! You must go away."

I looked at that person with fear and trembling. He was ten times dirtier than I, walking dizzily as if he was going to faint. His mouth was full of saliva. He moved toward the garbage plastic bags, put his hands in each one of them to search for food, and plunged his face in. I thought he was in pain, and approached him when the other people had left.

"Are you hurt?"

"No, I am not hurt, but I am really hungry."

I looked at my bag of rice and looked at the man.  I also thought about my own hunger if I gave him what I had in case I couldn’t find anything else to eat. This was a possible scenario. Finally, I sat down beside him and pulled his hand to force him to sit down with me. Then I gave him my food bag. He grabbed it very quickly and said;

"Today, this is the first time I have a meal!"

I swallowed my saliva and watched him eating with great appetite to appease his terrible hungry.