The day I didn’t buy lemongrass

[This post was inspired by my friend, Jenn LeBow’s series on mercy. This week, she asked people to write about “What Mercy Isn’t.” Follow this link to read more posts on this topic.]

Five weeks after his spinal surgery to (hopefully) repair the ravages of a herniated disc, Mike is finally starting to feel better. He still can’t lift, sit down for more than 30 minutes at a time, or play with Dominic very easily. He can, however, walk without pain now. He can move a bit more freely. He can drive.

To celebrate this progress we went out on the town last weekend for the first time in ages. We locked the protesting dog in the house. I strapped the car seat into the borrowed truck, manhandled Dominic into it, and unlatched the gate. Mike nosed the growling vehicle out onto the dirt road (that stereotype of NGO people driving around in white trucks exists for a reason) and we were off to meet a friend at one of the nicest cafés in Luang Prabang.

We feasted. Mike picked out a pastry with pear and chocolate, and one with almond cream. I ordered a coconut and apricot pastry. I also ordered scrambled egg, bacon, baguette, butter, jam, orange juice and coffee. (Still breastfeeding, folks. Still breastfeeding.)

It was hot. Very hot. Le Benneton might be one of the nicest cafes in town, but it’s still not air-conditioned and the fans weren’t even creating a warm breeze. We were sweating into the silk cushions we were sitting on. Dominic was sidling around the low table like a pudgy, grumpy crab. He was also growing increasingly vocal about his displeasure with the entertainment options on offer, and so we ordered ice cream.

There’s really no excuse for that at 10:30 in the morning, breastfeeding or not, but we ordered ice cream because we could. Because it was hot, and we were at one of the few places in town that serves it, and (this is perhaps the most valid reason of them all) it would keep the baby quiet for five blessed minutes.

She came into the café while we were eating this ice cream – ice cream that cost more than my afternoon babysitter makes in two and a half hours. It was impossible to tell exactly how old she was, but it was old enough to be a grandmother several times over. Her skin was lined and work-roughed. She was slender but stooped. She moved carefully, slowly, and she was carrying two bunches of lemongrass.

She laid her lemongrass on the table next to our ice cream and tried to sell it to us.

“We not buy” Mike and our friend said gently, in Lao, while I kept my eyes down and spoon-fed my chunky baby expensive, melting ice cream.

“Thank you. We not buy.”

She lingered. She kept asking. She was quiet about it, she didn’t beg, but she clearly really, really wanted us to buy the lemongrass.

Mike kept saying no. I kept avoiding her gaze and shoving ice cream into Dominic’s eager mouth.

There were very sensible reasons for us not to buy that lemongrass. We didn’t want it or need it, for starters. And we didn’t want to act in ways that encourages people hawking products to wander into cafes and proposition customers.

So maybe we didn’t do anything wrong, exactly, in gently refusing to buy that lemongrass. But I’ll tell you what else we didn’t do; we didn’t show any mercy. We sat there in our cushioned chairs of privilege and we didn’t share our ice cream, our money, or our good fortune in life in any tangible way. We smiled and we said no.

And the memory of it still makes me uncomfortable.