And that's how I became a calf's mommy...

Meg and her calf.
Yesterday Eric and I set off on a a little hike in search of more waterfalls on the Bolaven Plateau (aka: one of the most beautiful areas on earth). We were slip-sliding along the red-dirt road thinking fond thoughts of how we could stain our pants red in Laos just as easily as at home when we heard a terrible noise. It was something between the scream of a tortured sheep and that of a terrified child. BMAAAAAllll! BMAAAAllll!!! When we stepped around the bend in the road we could see a small brown calf standing on the edge of the road screaming its little lungs out. There was no cow in sight.

As we got closer, we could see that not only was it small, but it was brand-spanking new with damp fur and a dangling umbilical cord. Still no cow in sight. Apparently I gave the little creature a friendly look because it stumbled my way bleating and carrying on while slipping in the ridiculously slick muck on the road. Eric and I kept walking, but the calf already was convinced that I must be its mother. Up the road I went, and up the road the little calf followed. Back down the road I returned because I did not wish to lead the poor critter too far astray. And so we were stuck in the road in Laos with a damp calf rubbing against my knees and bleating away.

About then a group of women came from the far end of the road. They didn't seem to understand what our wild hand gestures meant, so I walked up the road with my bovine shadow then returned, shadow still intact. The women finally seemed to comprehend the situation. They yelled to another woman down the road, and she meandered to us, scooped up the calf and tried to poke it back through the hole in the gate. Eric and I took that opportunity to escape.

Now it all would have been fine and well had we not been forced to return down the same stretch of road. Sure enough the little calf was standing out in the middle crying when we came back. Eric told me not to look, but being me, I couldn't help it. Like Lot's wife I just had to turn around, and rather than a pillar of salt, I again transformed into a calf's mommy. Yep, back it came ambling after me and rubbing on my legs. This time the little shadow even went so far as to try to take a bite out of my pant leg. I gave up and bent down to give the little animal a scritch behind the ears as Eric released a sigh of, well, something.

This time around there were no women handy to carry off the little creature, so we were stuck. Eric found a little girl down the road, but the most information he could glean from her was that the calf did not belong to her family. Back and forth he wandered searching for someone to remove my bovine shadow. I had to stay at the gate because if I moved, the calf came with me slipping all over the place in the slick mud and falling in the most tragic of manners.

In the end, I went to the nearest house's gate (where Eric had seen the child) and made some noise. An old woman came outside shouting at me and shooing me away, but I kept pointing at the cow. I'm sure the hand gestures I was using to convey my predicament were probably obscene here, and they were useless. So I marched back and forth in front of the gate demonstrating the problem. After a lot of shouting from the woman and confusion from me, the woman gestured for me to follow her. I followed her, the calf followed me, and the little girl followed the calf. We all wandered into the coffee plants in the general direction from which the calf had come. As soon as the calf was away from me, I turned to run. Then I remembered my manners, and I stopped and bowed to the old lady. THEN I ran back to the road to meet Eric. We dashed (and slipped and slid) around the next bend in the road.

And we wonder why people in other countries think we're crazy.