12 CUPS WAITING BY THE FIRE

This has by far been the most sacred -for want of a much better word- moment during my time here in Vietnam.

I first noticed her when she glanced back at me carrying large pieces of firewood, some as long as her own body, up the steep hill.

We were having a break on our motorbike trip and had just crossed the river, balancing on slippery boulders (and just about managed to not fall in) and were just aimlessly larking about when I saw our guide walk up the hill to talk to the woman. Not long after he waived us to up the hill, telling us that she had invited us to have tea in her house.

When we walked past a shed with two buffalos, some pigs, hens, and a small pond and entered her house, I was -we were all- completely stunned by her presence.

She beamed a most radiant, unfiltered, pure, beaming smile...I don't have words that would adequately describe her. I just know that I haven't seen anyone radiate and smile like this in a long time.

We learned that she lives in this house mostly by herself, looking after her animals and growing food, as her husband, a lorry driver, is away most of the time. The house was completely empty - apart from four wooden seats in the other room there was nothing. Just bare raw wooden floors and walls, and a fireplace with no chimney.

And yet: over a dozen small cups sat waiting by the fire.

She lit the fire with the wood she had just carried and made tea with water she had fetched from the stream up the hill. As we sat on small wooden blocks, sipping the tea, we were mesmerised.

Her presence was Buddha-like.

Here she was, alone, in the middle of nowhere, hosting complete strangers. I am really not here to romanticise poverty; no doubt her life is hard. (I am acutely aware of the ‘white privileged woman marvelling at poor people’ cliche.)

And yet.

As we sat there sipping tea, I could not help but wonder how our Western lifestyles seemed like a massive detour to hopefully eventually get to where she is (or seems to be) within herself. Our lives are a massive detour via material belongings, entertainment and random activities that never really give us what we deep down really seek, need and long for and in this process of overconsumption destroy the foundations for life on Earth. We learn to meditate, we take up yoga, or pay for expensive holidays and days in spas ... on an eternal quest to hopefully eventually ONE DAY find peace and at least briefly smile and radiate like her.

Most of us never get there. Most of us rarely smile, or only in a tight-lipped guarded way.

Most of us very very rarely smile unguarded and straight from the heart, from our essence.

She owns so much 'less' than us, and yet she was the one for whom giving -with no expectation of anything in return- was woven into the very fabric of her life. (She did not allow us to pay for the tea).

I will never forget her unguarded radiant presence.

And I will never forget those twelve cups sitting in her otherwise empty house in the middle of nowhere,

ready, waiting to serve complete strangers.