The tuk tuk leaves the terminal dusty Nong Kiaw. Eight tourists piled on the seat left and eight on the bench right. Not a free place and bags around the driveway. Four hours of very interesting perspectives for the journey towards Luang Prabang.
few minutes after our departure, the driver stops his tuk tuk to raise a family Laotian, father, mother, young son and le bébé naissant. Le père scrute les lieux... même s'il n'y a pas de place pour la famille, il fait signe aux autres de monter.
Sans hésiter, le femme fonce vers le fond du compartiment pour aller s'accroupir sur le plancher de tôle, bien accotée contre la fenêtre arrière du véhicule.
Quelque chose cloche avec cette femme. Beau temps, mauvais temps, grande ou petite, riche ou pauvre, à pied ou à vélo, au travail, au repos ou dans les loisirs, les femmes laotiennes sourient en toutes circonstances.
Pas elle. En entrant, son visage fixait le plancher pour aller s'écraser dans son recoin inconfortable. Pas l'ombre d'une émotion ne traverse his face and eyes. Emptiness, absnce, total nothingness.
Other women, young mothers like herself and old peasant, poor and poorer, are jumping on board during the trip. No space for them NONS more. Despite the unenviable position, life and joy emanating from their eyes. But not in the woman's empty.
A simple matter of fatigue, perhaps? After all, the woman has a baby on his neck which requires milk to a staggering rutyme. No, it's more than just fatigue.
Even when he was offered, with insistence, to take place on the bench, she refused, preferring to remain at the bottom of the cab. As if she would steal something from someone. Even when she refused multiple offers, she does not even shaking his head. It's just if the head moves back and down his chin. As if she was afraid to upset or offend someone.
When you offer him some food, it restores the offrance his oldest son. As if she did not deserve those calories.
A tourist takes out his iPod and a listener tends to oldest. Curious, but also scared and hesitant, the son ends up being tempted. The tourist places the listener in his right ear. A beautiful gesture of sharing. The session of music and dance (the dance for tourists who bring some joy in the life of the toddler) lasts 10 minutes. The woman looks at the entire scene. For a split second at the very beginning, we almost felt an ounce of light and joy in her eyes. But this semblance of an ounce of emotion sells quickly, the woman falls into limbo.
No, not that tired. Widespread fear of taking anything. As if she deserved nothing. Women must be 30 years, but it seems 55. As if his life belonged to him several years ago. A life sacrificed. A look at 10 000 suffering.
The sky clouds over, the storm arrives. We descend the paintings on the side of the tuk tuk to stay dry. The Curtain fell, the light is scarce inside the vehicle. The woman is still sitting on the floor plate. Sitting on the benches, our faces are still light. But the woman's face, hidden in the floor well, he is well in the shade. In the shadows ... a little picture of his life. The woman seems to be even smaller. His gaze is fixed. She looks outside. Its position, the only thing she can see outside is the rain that falls. I think she watches the rain instead of fixing a gap of some sort.
Every time our eyes met, hers is landing on the floor in two, three movements. Fatigue weighing on his eyelids while the rain continues to descend on the outside. Always, every time she closes her eyes, the latter rouvent three seconds later to return to infinite void. She refused the right to rest his eyes for a few moments. Sleeping lady. Escape. Dream for a moment that your life is no more than an endless sacrifices.
No picture of this lady in the tuk tuk. The least we can do is give him what little dignity he has left. And anyway, I did not need a photo to remind me that look to the 10 000 punishment. These empty eyes are etched in my memory forever. I marked for life by these two almond-shaped eyes. The tuk tuk
reaches its destination. The woman exited the vehicle, the baby in one arm, a basket in the other. Her husband does not help.
The woman's shoulders curve forward, an infant in one arm, a basket in the other, the oldest hanging on the back of her skirt. It departs from the terminus dusty ... slowly but surely moving towards the next step of the way of the cross of life ...
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