Usually when I pass the public school on my way to lunch, shouts peal from it in a rhythmic chant like battle cries or cultic formulas. The teacher bellows something in Lao, and the students thunder in response. Today, however, the walled compound stood empty and silent, and the kids loafed on the street corner in their white shirts and ridiculous bandanas. One of them, so dressed, caught my eye as I passed.
“Hello!” he said.
“Hi.”
“I am sorry!” he yelled, bright-eyed and eager.
“You’re sorry?”
He clapped a hand to his face, eyes bugging out in confusion, before his friends grabbed him and pulled him away, giggling. They were impressed by his nerve, but paid enough attention in English class to know that he had no idea what the hell he was saying. Without the shouted cue from an authority figure, the kid was lost.
Meanwhile one of the younger boys was gearing up to cross the street. He looked both ways, calmly, then let out a long, piercing shriek as he ran into the middle of the street, where he paused, looked both ways again, and let out another godawful howl while he pelted the rest of the way across.
It’s not the first time I’ve thought that kids are more like drunks than we’d care to admit, nor will it be the last. I can almost see why we lock them up in schools.
The Traveling Yokel 