The space between us and our sweet friends in Mae Sot is getting smaller.
Sometimes I am able to see the small ways we are more like each other and learning from each other; making that gap just a little smaller. I have taught them to go in a circle when we play a game, rather than a randomly. They’ve taught me to just be with friends and appreciate silence. I’ve taught them what a blender does and how to use an oven; they’ve taught me how to play with rocks and truly enjoy it.
We’ve taught each other that we’re not so different, and we boast about each other to our friends. I hear them tell market vendors about us and what languages we have learned and how we help them; I show them how I post their pictures all over Instagram and Facebook.
But sometimes there is still a space between us.
A few weeks ago one of the young girls asked me if I wrote all the books on my bookshelf. When I told her no, she asked if my friends did.
She pointed to two pictures on two different, unrelated books, and asked if it was the same girl. When I said no, she asked if they were at least sisters.
How smart does she think I am? Or all my friends, even? I tried to tell her that they were written by all different people about all different things with pictures of all different people. I showed her that some were about God and some were about children and some were about government.
She looked pretty confused. Because really, our worlds are still very different, even sharing the same street.
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We came back from Bangkok last week. We are usually bombarded with people helping us carry our bags in and opening the door and greeting us with hellos (and the ritual “Oh, how fat you’ve gotten!”). Our bags end up right inside the front door and the kids began helping us to unpack.
We have extremely helpful friends.
They loved to find the toys we had bought at Ikea, and pulled out the train sets and stuffed rabbit and memory games with excitement.
And then they found the Ikea catalogue. They excitedly asked if they could read it and seemed confused looking at the different pieces of furniture. They came to a page with a birthday cake on it, and asked who’s birthday it was. They pointed to each person over the next couple pages: Is it her birthday? Is it his? Who’s birthday is it?
{A few days later being asked that question more times than I could count, I’ve decided who’s birthday it is, and I tell them the same girl every time.}
After a few more pages they found a spread of food on a table. They gasped and started to pretend eat it.
Have you seen kids do this around a picture of food? They grab at the pages and pretend to stuff their faces with this incredible spread.
This incredible spread all designed on a perfectly arranged table with perfect lighting by a whole team of people.
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Sometimes we see difficult things here. Sometimes you come home from a birthday dinner to find a stab wound bleeding out on your porch and you fall asleep in the ER while you wait for him to be stitched up. Sometimes people ask us for jobs or tell us that if their husbands hit them “just a little” it’s okay. Sometimes you see houses flooded up to the knees and watch your friends pile their precious possessions of blankets and televisions on your front porch.
These things can dwell with you and wear you out, it’s true.
But sometimes, its just when a child asks if you wrote all the books in your house or tries to eat the food out of your catalogue. You don’t expect these to stick with you or wear you out, but you can feel the weight.
The weight of knowing there will always be a gap between us.
We will keep learning more about each other and we’ll become better and better friends. I’ll learn to recognize their laugh from far away and find more jobs for them.
But there will always be a gap.
I will always have been born into privilege. And they will not.
Perhaps that is the weight that really wears; perhaps that is really the space between us.