Laos

Cloth holding the baby, tight to the woman's back. A long, brown skirt; heavy, and heavy swaying slow with the slow heavy walk of the woman under the hot, heavy sky. Bare feet, an orange scarf around her head, I watched her leaning across a stream, still flowing quick in this, October, the last month of the rainy season.

From a bananna tree a leaf was snapped. And back, rocked, pushing herself, she stepped to the other side; walked on slow heavy. The shadows fell now, black almost, upon the burning road. The woman held the thick, broken stem to her shoulder, and as I watched I could almost feel it; its torn rough surface, wet now with the snapping of it, and the thick cold sap that touched her hand. The leaf was let to bend behind her - a darkness fell. A perfect shape of shade behind her to shelter the baby's head.

I watched her walk on. And I knew that she too, as a baby, had been sheltered in this way. Knew in the simplicity of it. And in its thoughtless beauty. Knew because the sun is not new and bananna leaves are old. I had left China that morning, and as I stepped into pedals once again I felt the promise of a country that had escaped the perils of a growth too quick.