If Lia had been born in Laos, where her parents and twelve of her brothers and sisters were born, her mother would have squatted on the floor to give birth. The floor was dirt, but it was clean. Her mother, Foua, sprinkled it regularly with water to keep the dust down and swept it every morning and evening with a broom. She used a bamboo dustpan, which she had made herself, to collect the feces of the children who were too young to defecate outside, and emptied its contents in the forest. Foua never let them actually touch the floor. She remains proud to this day, that she delivered each of them into her own hands. Reaching between her legs to ease out the head and