still. // nh

one

The sun feels different here, somehow. Cleaner, brighter, more real.

I know that was crazy to think, it's the same sun as the one slicing through my apartment blinds in LA, but still. It felt different, and that's the whole reason why I came here. To feel different, to feel something else.

It was noisy here, too, just like it was in LA, but even the noises were different. Instead of car horns, muffled shouting, and loud music, there were bicycle bells, overlapping conversations, and, occasionally, the braying of a donkey.

It was peaceful, honestly.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Being this far out in the world, I was surprised my phone was still able to connect to service, however occasional that may be. I didn't bother checking the notification, knowing it would be just another text asking where I was, if I would be coming back to LA soon, or what the hell I was even doing.

The man running the small smoothie shop said something in the rapid version of Thai that was popular here, and I gave him my friendliest smile as I grabbed the plastic cup from the counter. I had no idea what was in it, still unable to read the Thai descriptions printed on the menu, but the deep pink of the beverage in the picture seemed like a safe enough choice.

At first, I thought it would be hard, being in a country with virtually no way to communicate with the locals. I tried, really tried, to learn even just the basics of Thai, but given the struggle that I still had with Spanish even after three years of high school and two years of college, I knew it was a losing battle before I even started. Eventually, I learned different ways to communicate, and grew accustomed to being on my own, in my own head, not surrounded by the constant chatter of back home, where it seemed everything revolved around words. Counting them for an essay, carefully creating them for work, even typing up a text message that "sounds okay"-- I never realized how exhausting that was becoming. Here though...

Like I said, it was peaceful.

"Chelsea! Finally, there you are," Chiara walked up to me, her dark hair in a tangled braid behind her. She took a seat across from me, smoothly ordering her drink without missing a beat. I had met Chiara only a couple of days after I got here, relieved to hear English for the first time in days, even though it was morphed and twisted slightly with her Italian accent. She was around my age and here doing mission work with her church. She traveled here so often that Thai came almost naturally to her, as did English. "Guava, today?"

I shrugged. "That's what it is? It's good, either way."

She laughed, always amused by my language barrier difficulties. But she just didn't understand the pressure of words that I felt on a daily basis, and the freeing power of getting away from it all. "Anyway, you are busy today? We are painting the house, and looking for volunteers. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so we're trying to get it all done today."

Chiara's church came here several times a year to build houses for the people that got their own homes destroyed by the tsunamis that would frequently rip apart the shores. I took a drink of my guava smoothie, thinking over her offer, although there really wasn't much to consider. Today, like all my other days, was pretty empty, and the idea of creating something with my hands that wasn't words was kind of appealing.

"Sure, are you going there now? I can just follow you."

Nodding, Chiara thanked the man for her smoothie before standing, walking out into the dirt road. "We need to stop by the shop first, to get the paint. The future homeowners wanted a green for their house, to match the trees. Isn't that so nice?"

It only took a few minutes to walk to the local supermarket, and while Chiara talked with the owner about selecting the right color, brushes, and whatever else we would need, I wandered over to the newspaper aisle, running my finger over the picture printed on the front of a small, messy-haired child with a missing front tooth. In my head, I wondered what the story was about, knowing it could be just about anything in this small town. Next to the newspapers sat a fundraising jar surely placed there by someone from Chiara's church, filled with the strangely colored coins so different from that in America. Everything, it seemed, was different here than in America, than in LA, which was a world all its own in some ways.