============================================================== To reach ALL SJD members, please send to sjd@satjadham.net ... Do NOT include any other addresses when sending to the list... Include as LITTLE of the original messages as possible........ Message sent by: "Kongkeo Saycocie" ============================================================== Life in Savannakhet was great. Where we lived was like a palace. Imagine a big courtyard in the middle full of any kinds of fruit trees such as LamYai, NamNom, and Sida to name a few. Also, with a clutter of post office employees' houses making a perfect square; wherever I went, I was treated like a small prince. We had someone to drive our "De Cheveau" car, someone to cook for us, and someone to take care of my little siblings. I would say that I had all of the post employees' kids to be my bodyguards for I usually had some toys for them to play with. Though born with a silver spoon, I never treated them less than my equal. At that time, we had two tricycles which my dad bought for my two big sisters (I wasn't born yet!) when he got back from France. You know? girls never liked to play tough so most of the time we (me and my friends) monopolized the tricycles. Besides, they rode those bikes for a long time, they sure would like to try something else. So, what we liked to do was to race against one another. With the Mekong river as background and a street alongside it as our playground, the racing was spectacular. Wonder those motocycles passing by thought the same thing. I, with a selected group of friends on my side, and another one with his gang divided into 2 teams. Though only two of us could ride the two tricycles at a time, our friends had a decisive role in deciding the outcome of the racing too. You know what they did? They pushed our tricycles and ran alongside cheering us to the finish line! Sometimes, I became one of those who pushed the tricyle or ran alongside with it. If I remember well, I was only 5 or 6 years old. Still, I was bad enough to get lots of bruises on my knees. Worse, when I was old enough to ride a bike, my mom had to hold a bandage waiting for me at the door because I fell off the bike so many times that I couldn't remember. Then, one day before sunset, I proudly rode my bike home with a retenue of my friends running behind me. When my mom saw me, she hardly believed her eyes. Believe it or not, there wasn't a slight bruise on my knees! At that time, what we liked to do most was to play the seek-and-hide. Since, our post office playground was so huge, not to mention the post office itself, it would take the finder hours and hours to find all of the hiders. I remember some of my friends hid in the mail bags. Not to be ashamed of any trick, some even hid on the top of the trees. Anyway, once the trick had been discovered, it wouldn't work any more. This caused a great dismay to all the copycats. The seek-and-hide game went on for a while until some of us got scared because, for some reasons, the finder couldn't see the hiders even they stood in front of them. This incident usually happened at the post office itself. What made our hairs stand on their end was when we were told that this post office was the very place that the Japanese soldiers committed suicide in mass when they lost the World War II. Telling the truth, even without the Japanese mass suicide, the building looked very grim. I don't think anyone in the right mind would want to stay in this big building by himself. If I remember correctly, the 2nd story which was used as our residence had 4 bedrooms, 2 living rooms, 1 bathroom and 1 store room so it was so easy to get lost inside. The 1st story, our hiding place, also had so many rooms as upstairs. (to be continued) _ ***************************************************************** Visit SatJaDham Homepage at: http://www.satjadham.org (or .net) *****************************************************************