Remember the Hummingbird Chapter 3

The dirt path toward the rice field was flanked by patches of short white bunny tail grass.  Kaus Zuag picked the bunny tails as she paced along.  By the time she drew near her rice field, she had made a bouquet of the flowers in her hand.  She smiled and breathed in its intoxicating fragrance.  Afterward, she was about to proceed forward when she saw the farm shack shook violently.  “What is that?” she whispered frighteningly.  She gripped the hoe securely and moved forward like a mouse.  As she got closer to the farm hut, it trembled like an earthquake had struck.  Kaus Zuag swallowed hard, afraid that a tiger might be hidden inside.  She gathered all her courage and strength, and raising the hoe—she screamed and stormed into the hut with her eyes shut.  Kaus Zuag smashed the hoe into everything. 

“Hey, what are you doing?” Koob Hmoov shouted.

Still, Kaus Zuag was terrified and dared not open her eyes.  She continued to strike everything with the hoe. 

“STOP!” Koob Hmoov yelled and grabbed onto Kaus Zuag. 

Alarmed by Koob Hmoov’s touch, Kaus Zuag shrieked and opened her eyes.  When she saw him, without a thought, she ran into his embrace and let go of the hoe and bunny tail bouquet.  The hoe landed on the ground while the bunny tail bouquet flew into the air, and gravity pulled on the bunny tail panicles and awns—causing the tiny white florets to sprinkle onto Kaus Zuag and Koob Hmoov like stars falling from the sky.

Remember the Hummingbird Chapter 2

That morning like any morning, Kaus Zuag got out of bed as soon as she heard the first rooster crowed.  She stepped outside, took a sun-dried gourd that was split in half and seeds scraped clean, to scoop ice cold water out from a giant red-clay jar.  The crescent moon’s reflection was still wiggling in the water of the gourd-dipper when Kaus Zuag splashed the freezing water against her warm face.  She then lathered a bar soap on her hands and scrubbed her face with the foam.  After cleansing her face, she discarded the remaining water onto the ground and hung the gourd-dipper on the side of the jar.  She grabbed two worn-out wooden buckets and slid a wooden pole through the buckets’ handles.  Positioning the pole on her right shoulder, she left for the stream in the woods. 

When the first ray of sunlight shimmered onto the woods, slender bamboos and corpulent oaks were revealed—standing majestically tall over the other vegetation.  Birds twittered and squirrels scrambled up and down the oak trees searching for nuts, while the sound of a turbulent, rushing waterfall overwhelmed the quietness of the morning.  An efficient walker, Kaus Zuag quickly made her way toward the stream that branched from the nearby waterfall.  She took the wooden staff off her shoulder and laid the buckets onto the sandy ground.  She then rolled up her pant legs and dipped her feet into the cool, crisp, and clean water.  She took a deep breath and put her hands together to form a bowl.  She swung her hands into the stream and scooped up a handful of clear water, which slowly dripped away through the tiny cracks between her fingers.  She sipped the water, closing her eyes to feel and taste its sweetness and freshness. 

Unexpectedly, she heard something flew past her back.  Alarmed by the sound, Kaus Zuag’s heart dropped and she turned around.  Her water buckets were gone.  She looked in the direction where the sound she heard rippled to and observed the back of a lad running away with her buckets.  “Hey, come back!  Come back with my buckets!” she yelled as she chased after him.  But at the moment when her acceleration hit its pinnacle, she rushed into someone and they both tumbled to the ground. 

Remember the Hummingbird Chapter 1

 

Hidden deep in the mountains of Xieng Khouang Province where the sky was almost touchable to the hands, a hut made from timber walls covered in thatched grass roofing stood at the edge of a thirty homes village.  A young maiden, roughly 17 years of age, stepped out of the hut.  She had fair skin, an oval face with a straight nose, and delicate and very pretty features.  Her hair was a shining jet black against the bright yellow sun and it hung three inches below her shoulder.  She wore a traditional black Hmong outfit from Xieng Khouang: a blouse sewed with plain blue borders, a baggy Hmong lady’s pant, two apron-like garments—one hanging in front and one in the back of her waist, and a red sash waistband. 

Like a typical morning, the girl carried a tin bowl filled with dirty dish-washing water and after stepping a few feet away from her home, she threw the water onto the dirt ground.  But this morning, as the last water drop left the tin basin, she realized that the sound of water hitting the ground sounded different.  She turned to look and saw that she did not splash water onto the ground but on a person instead—a slender and tall young man whom she had never seen in the course of her life.  She gasped and tried hard to put on a smile.  “I’m so sorry, brother.  I didn’t see you.  I didn’t mean to splash water onto you,” she said apologetically.

“YOU!” the young man shouted furiously as he wiped water away from his eyes.  However, before he found his next word, he was awe-struck by the beauty of the young maiden. 

While the young man stared at the girl and was lost in his fantasy, the girl too gazed at him.  She noticed that he possessed pale skin, well built facial features that constructed a handsome face, and short black hair that were combed neatly so that each hair strand curved into a half-crescent moon-shaped.  Unlike her who was still dressed in traditional garments, his attire was very much like the middle class Hmong family that her mother came from.  He wore a clean white dress-shirt and a pair of black trousers.  His right shoulder carried a black duffel bag while his left hand held tightly onto a white plastic bag that perhaps, contained his lunch. 

Remember the Hummingbird Prologue

 

The rocky province of Xieng Khouang was the heart of the Hmong homeland in Laos.  Every morning before the roosters’ crow, thick smoke clouds squeezed through the cracks of thatched-roof huts and swirled toward the kingdom between Earth and heaven.  Cool breezes blew through the serenity of the morning and gently unraveled the grey smokes.  Once the golden celestial star splendidly gazed over the precious brown earth, shades of green painted themselves on the lush hillsides where Hmong villages laid.  The sounds of birds chirping, squirrels chucking, water falling gracefully, and flowers blooming to welcome a new, hopeful day could be heard miles away within the tranquil and wondrous hills.  That was before the war. 

Now, five years after the American soldiers withdrew from Southeast Asia, the mountainous terrains were no longer the same.  The once crystal clear blue sky transformed into a smoky grey heaven, an after effect of massive bombings.  The green shades vanished as they were devoured by the intensive fires introduced by the enemy.  The birds stopped singing, the squirrels stopped chattering, the water fell turbulently, and the flowers refused to bloom as darkness overwhelmed the rocky mountains of Xieng Khouang.  Even the ghostly past of the mysterious Plain of Jars seemed to have been disturbed and awakened by war and annihilation on Northeastern Laos.  But within these five years, one thing did remain the same.  And that was the quietness of the mountainsides.

While many Hmong refugees journeyed by foot and died along the trip or consumed by the Mekong River to try to escape to neighboring Thailand, others returned to their old villages—attempting to resume the life disrupted by the Secret War.  The memory of lost love ones lingered around and life became much more painful than the Hmong remembered.  But they could not abandon a millennium old lifestyle and struggled to find meanings to live on.  Gradually, they instilled life upon the land and brought back the colors and sounds of nature.  


Author: TT Vang