This story comes from my mother, when she was still living in Kampong Cham, Cambodia, the town where she grew up. Her father, aka my grandfather, has lost his job, so the family decided to move into the bigger city, Phnom Penh, to look for job opportunities. They moved in with my grandpa’s sister. When they were in Phnom Penh, they couldn’t really afford meat and such, but there was a lot of water spinach growing around their house.  So they would eat water spinach with almost every meal, and there were a lot of different ways they would prepare it. One common way is stir-frying it, which is the method my mom told me about. I was already familiar with water spinach stir-fry, as my mom would make it often as part of dinner. To me, it always seemed like one of those common dishes that anyone could make whenever, and  I never thought of it as more than a plain side dish., so I was really surprised when this was the dish my mom chose to talk about. But after hearing her story, I’ve come to realize that there is value in even the smallest of things, and something that may not seem significant to me could mean a lot to someone else. As for how it relates to our hypothesis this summer, to me it shows the power of mutual aid and community. My grandpa’s sister taking in my mom and her family is an example of how a community will always be there to help, and the water spinach recipes my mom’s family brought makes me think of mutual aid since both my mom’s family and my grandpa’s sister were able to benefit.