travel fiction based on nonficition in la

The guide had black hair tied in a knot atop his head. His wife sat in the seat beside him holding the baby, singing it songs and letting it grab her finger. She could not have been more than seventeen. As I watched their faces against the backdrop of the endless moving greenery of the valley I remembered one time when I asked them about marriage. What is it like to be married? I had asked, a question I find myself asking everyone these days. Ah! Marriage is very important! He had said as if that answered the question. I looked to her and she had nodded vehemently. Well, what is like having children? Children are a gift he said. I couldn’t believe that the world ended there for them. That marriage was important and children were gifts and life was as simple as that. I pushed with more questions. It is important to get a good wife and I try to be a good husband. She hit him to translate for her better and when he did she laughed and nodded. She says I am a good husband he said. I was born under a special planet and that means she has been very lucky. I also do not drink and this makes her very happy.
The books had said so many things about them. About their rituals and traditions. I had spent months studying about them from journals in cafes on busy streets back home and here I was trying to get answers and only getting one line replies. I wanted confirmation, explanations. I wanted something I had read to be reflected in their comments. I wanted them to know as much about themselves as I did. I wanted to teach them if I had to about their heritage and history, culture and customs and cosmology. What if they can't read I actually thought, or hadn't read the latest cultural theory?
Ignoring the important part (as if this even needs to be said) that they were telling me what mattered. Nothing else needs time or explanation for them. Marriage is important, children are gifts, the rest, is the rest. The rest supports what is important. In the car he saw me in the rearview mirror. Where are you going without a passport? He said as he did when I looked lost in thought, she touched him to translate for her and then they both laughed. My wife says that she thinks you have much going on in your head he said warmly into the mirror. I laughed with them and for a moment, I saw them laughing and the baby holding her hair in his hands and I was there, watching what was important.