Thong Sayavong

I grew up in a village where the Mekong runs slow, where my father planted rice and my mother sold herbs at the market. Life was steady, simple, but never easy. When the railway project began, everything changed. Our house stood where the new tracks were planned, and we were told to leave. The money they offered was small, not enough to rebuild the life we had.

I was twenty-eight when I took the job with the relocation company. It paid more than farm work, more than selling fruit by the roadside. At first, I believed I was helping. They called it progress—new roads, new markets, faster trains to China. But then I met families like mine, people who had nowhere to go, whose land was measured in numbers on a compensation form. I saw old men cry and young mothers clutch their children, uncertain of where they would sleep next. I saw my own parents, standing outside the wooden house where I was born, waiting for a future they never asked for.

At the office, I heard my coworkers talk about development, how Laos would be modern, how this was necessary. But in the villages, I saw the other side—the uncertainty, the displacement, the quiet anger. The farther I traveled, the less clear things became. Was I doing the right thing? I no longer knew.

So I quit.

Now, I work as a laborer on another project, laying concrete for roads that cut through fields where buffalos once grazed. I don’t know if this is better, but at least I am not the one knocking on doors, telling people to leave. Maybe Laos will become the country they promise, with better jobs and stronger businesses. Maybe my children will live in a city where they do not have to choose between dignity and survival. But for now, I live in this gray space, between hope and regret, between what is lost and what might be gained.