I’m sitting on a little mound in a small clearing. In front of me is a wall of sugar cane; to my right—a bamboo forest; behind me—the remote village we are visiting. I’ve been told that we are the first foreigners that have ever come here. One little girl listens to music from my iPod as I journal. Being here is extremely nostalgic for me—the fields, the smell of food cooking over an open fire, the houses made of bamboo, even down to the mangy dogs running around. Everything takes me back to growing up in Thailand. Off in the distance I hear a few roosters crowing. This morning, when we arrived, us girls went out to the cane fields to have a look around. One of the older village girls chopped a stalk of sugar cane for us to sample. 
We chewed on it and watched the children play, trying to break stalks for themselves. I picked up a baby goat wandering about by himself, and we passed him around to take some photos. We sat down with the troop of children accompanying us and taught them the banana song. They did summersaults in the clearing and played as we talked.
This is a construction day with too many hands and not enough tools, so the girls have been encouraged to fellowship with the women and children of the village. I’ve moved to a different part of the village now. The open mound offered no shelter from the sun and several of the older girls were concerned because of the heat. I now sit under a tree hut on one of the two make-shift benches. Where there was once only me, I am now surrounded by fifteen to twenty children, making it impossible to write. No matter—I set aside my notebook and listen to the children banter in Oolongo. Two girls come up and begin to braid my hair, while several others use our truck as a jungle gym, and two more trip over my feet running away from each other. They all notice the streak of mud left on my feet by one of the boys, but I tell them it’s okay. A few moments later a little boy comes up with a small bowl of water. A girl, no older than ten, takes the water and gingerly begins to wash the mud off my feet. I joke with them and say that it is like Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. We all laugh, but the moment was far more precious to me than they will ever know. To the little girl, it is no big deal. I am a stranger to their town, there to visit them, and it is a treat for her to have a specific, unique reason to interact with me. For me it means seeing the comparison between humility and having the heart of a child.
