Meeting Miss Andoo's mother

Miss Andoo's home outside Petchabun,

She looks ancient, wrinkled face and cracked jaws that chew beetle nut non-stop, pausing only to spit out big blods of red saliva into a wooden bowl, half blind rheumy eyes that seem to look right through me while  her fingers bend by age explore my arms, my legs and shoulders, another big red slimy blog of saliva hits the of that wooden bowl that judging by the state of her dental work has been a constant companion in most of the latter days of her life, her meagre possessions spread around her, a space in a typical wood shack the northern Thai countryside is so rich of - though the words "rich" seems in this particular context a Farang invention - ....hard to believe she spends 24/7 chewing beetle nut and never venturing more than a single meter from this spot, apart, maybe, for sanitary pitstops...probably crawling on all fours to that moquito covered stained by age and beetle nut spotted matrass mere metres away from her "spot"...conveniently close, you know... 

I guess the only distraction to her daily beetle nut chewing routine are her children's irregular visits. Old age comes at a price most obviously here on the northern Thai countryside though back in the "civilized" west we lock our elderly away in old people's homes where they subsist on their daily tea and soft bisquits while we and wait for the enheritance...it all comes down to the same...

Getting  to  her wooden dusty shack meant wading through waist deep brarish water, the result of incessant rain these last days, another good reason for Mama Beetle Nut to never ever  leave her wooden dusty kingdom...yeah, I am out in the boons again...