I miss Laos. I missed it since I landed in Bangkok, and I've been missing it ever since. "It is hard to pinpoint what it is precisely," I tell my mother over the phone, "but there is something about Laos that makes it a beautiful and special place. I want to go back."  It is possibly a combination of the gentle nature of its people and the accidental landscape. It is the frugality combined with a clear sense for beauty. It may be the communist - buddhist way of living. Or the sight of people riding motorbikes as they hold colorful umbrellas; or the intense green of the rice fields; or the incense burning at every temple as monks dressed in orange clothes take care of the shrines dutifully; or the spicy meals combined with tam-tam-"ing" with Beer Lao and Lao-Lao. It is probably that during this trip and work sessions I laughed more than I have laughed in months, and that our partners took great care of us during our stay. Since my return to the US I have asked everyone the same question: "Can you believe I let a stranger take my passport from Xieng Khouang to Vientiane to process my Thai visa?" I guess in Laos I learned that you can actually let go and trust that things will be alright;  my passport was there a week later waiting at the Xien Khouang airport right before our flight. How can you bring some of what you have learned into your life? Do you think that the actual experience is enough to internalize and absorb the new perspectives? "Do not underestimate how much you actually learn or grow after each trip, even when you are not able to articulate it," I repeat to myself.  One insight after this trip - that I can't yet dare to mutter - revolves around the idea that probably living the simple/frugal life is the way to embrace complexity. As I struggle to write this coherently I remember how Khamdee, Sinthone and Mr. Maus taught us how to dance to Lao music.  Actually, who cares about complexity when you can dance and bump your hips once in a while.

- Where are you from?- Khamdee asked me to inform the waiter.
- I'm from Mexico- I replied.
- Is that in America?- the waiter asked; - is it part of the United States of America?
- No- I replied. - It is the country right below the US .
- Oh! I understand - he said before continuing with his duties.

I'm watching Cartoon Network in Thai even when I should be sound asleep by now. It took us 24 hours to get to Vientiane and now we are 12 hours ahead of our circadian cycle. "It is interesting when traveling this far feels so natural," I told Sean as we boarded the plane from Bangkok to Laos. Just a few moments earlier we bumped into Will at the airport on his way to Laos from Indonesia. A few months ago we also bumped into Will in Amsterdam when we were traveling together to Nigeria. "Laos will be a very unique place, a bit untouched by modernization" I recall reading a week earlier. "We are going to get noticed, in a good way," Sean says as we find our sits on the plane. "Do you think I might pass by Laotian?" I asked knowing the answer.  "We also eat spicy food in Mexico," I told Khamdee - our host - as we ate sticky rice and spicy sauce for dinner, but the concept of a Mexican or Hispanic identity means almost nothing in this context.

How do you choose the right words? It has been so long since my last post that I feel responsible to write something worth of such a long silence. It is not that for the past month nothing worth sharing happened. On the contrary;  it is that sometimes you just need a time off. Summer isn't over yet so I'm sweating as I write, which is a little unnerving.  I have new roommates at home and I met new friends, so as always life and who you share it with keeps changing. My Mom came to visit and for ten days we talked endlessly. "We should stop analyzing everything," she concluded after one of our lengthy conversations. "Can we just relax and let life do its part?" Immediately after we spent another hour analyzing why we were so analytical.  Truth is we sometimes force ourselves to have total clarity on what to do, where to go and how to do it. Total clarity is a myth. Is it? As I'm struggling with words here, Polina has brought her notes to the dinning table and is now working on one of her projects.  She sings without knowing that I'm writing about her singing; without knowing that for a moment her humming becomes the piece of inspiration.  Am I being too hard on myself by trying to write even when I don't feel like it? Or is it necessary to keep the writing going as an exercise of persistence and discipline. See? I'm already analyzing something that is not even worth discussing, not when I'm so tired and my only real inspiration is to go to bed.