Krama

She wears a krama daily.

Wraps in around her head in the morning, when she’s making breakfast. Wraps it around her neck, mouth, and nose when she’s riding the motor—me on the back with my arms around the little ones squished in the middle, my own krama pulled loosely around my neck so my mouth is free. All of us wear the krama then, too. Phirun’s is blue, mine’s orange, Sovann’s green, and Mak’s is maroom color that makes me feel warm and smart just to see it. Everything good is in that krama, that scarf of Mama’s. Mak wears that every day, except when she dresses up. She has a gold, lacy one then. When Phirun was a baby she carried him in a green krama, tied down her waist and up her shoulder. Before Phirun came, she wore it around her waist. When Sovann did it too, Oam laughed and said, “You havin’ a baby, too?”

At school the boys don’t like the wear the krama. Sometimes we wear them like capes, like Superman. Other times we use them to tie each other up. But I like ‘em when I’m riding the motor. Keeps the dust and flies out. It’s not anything I think about, really; the krama, that is. Everyone wears one, and uses them for everything: wiping, carrying, securing. Only reason I’m even thinking about it now is because of something my teacher said today. I have an English class, and my teacher is American. Her name is April. I go four days a week after school. This is very unusual but Mak wants me to go because she says we don’t know how long this good fortune will last. April is very black, and very beautiful. We think big thoughts in her class.

So today April wore the krama, but we all laughed at the way she wore it, like a snake coiled up around her neck with its tail and its head hanging down on either side. She asked us what is the proper way to wear a krama. We showed her this way, and that way. Then she asked us different ways we use the krama. And we told her, this way, and that way. She was very impressed. Then she told to us the history of Cambodia, when the Khmer Rouge took over the government and killed so many in its slaughters and work camps. The Khmer Rouge, she said, wore special krama with red and white tiny squares she calls “checks.” They turned the national symbol of comfort and practicality into a fearful and degrading thing. Everyone feared the red-and-white checked krama during those terrible years.

My friends and I, we know about the Khmer Rouge, of course. And we know of this hateful krama, those colors which we rarely see now for sale in the markets. Last year, we went to the Killing Fields. I left the group for a while and I stood thinking, looking at the ground. I saw pieces of krama: blue ones, and red-and-white check ones. All dirty and coming up from the ground.

But now our teacher says we can redeem the krama. We are restoring dignity of our people in our country and making April smile every day. She says she has never seen more beautiful smiles than in Cambodia, tucked and folded amongst the krama. Here, there, and everywhere. “Your eyes smile,” she tells us.

“Let’s make kramas,” she says. “And send them to my country. We can make pictures that show how to wear and use the krama, like you showed me today. I will teach you how to make a business plan. You can teach me how to share your culture with my people.” We laugh, and we say we will do it.

This, she says, is what peace is.