Personal Narrative: Traveling Through Laos

I stepped off the plane, onto the slick tarmac, hearing the echoes of my father’s dry-heaving in the back of my head. Standing in the humid air of Laos, the thunder boomed, the lightning crackled and the rain poured; we waited restlessly for our ride. As they arrived, I vaguely began to recognize the faces of my many cousins. My parents and brother wen in one car, and I went in another. Driving rapidly over the unregulated speed limit, we arrived to the dock thirty minutes earlier than everyone else.
There I sat, surrounded by strange faces and strange people, yet this was my family. When we finally arrived at my mother’s village, walking along the muddy path in the dead of night with only a flashlight, we came upon my grandparents’ home. I looked up into the dimly lit faces of my mother’s parents, faces I hadn’t seen since they
As we chatted about our lives, I realized that we shared many similarities, and that living on opposite ends of the earth, we weren’t all that different.
Traveling through Laos, I noticed a few characteristics about my parents’ homeland. Although Laos is one of the poorest countries in the world, I was surprised to see a lack of homelessness. It wasn’t until many months later that I realized why this was the case. There aren’t many homeless because family members looked out for each other, and when someone is sick or cannot make ends meet, there is someone to lift them back up.
One month passed, it was finally time to leave, and it was an emotional moment for me. I’m not one to ever emit any emotions; however, I couldn’t hold my tears, flowing freely down my face, while saying my last goodbyes. With tear-filled eyes, I looked deep into my grandfather’s face, promising to him I would come back to see him soon, not actually sure when or if I would come back in