alms-giving and a Hmong village (May 21)

We arose early today – 5:00 am!  The purpose was to head to the village center for “alms-giving,” where community people and visitors prepare food to give to the 400 or so monks who live in Luang Prabang.  Happily, we had the food prepared for us (sticky rice) and placed in little bamboo baskets.  OAT had chairs and mats set up for us (shoes off), and we sat down on the low chairs to wait for the monk procession to begin (being lower than a monk is a sign of respect to them).  They arrived, and filed by one by one as we took our right hand, grabbed a ball of sticky rice about the size of a golf ball, and placed it in their individual containers – we were not to look at them, and they would keep their eyes down, not focusing on the people at all.  The community members do this every day, with some of the women getting up at 3:00 am to cook for the monks who are not allowed to cook for themselves.  Hmmm.  Maybe I'll become a monk. . .

When we were all out of rice, we went to the temple and Sean, our guide, led us in a Buddhist chant to bless us and anyone we wished to bless, including the monks.  We also had more food (pork in banana leaves and boiled eggs) to give to the monks inside the temple.  Sean, who is now married with a couple of kids, was a Buddhist monk for 3 years, and thus knows insider information about the monks, their lifestyles, their chants, etc.  We donated some money for the temple to put in a toilet (or a “happy room” as it is called here because you are so happy when you are done).  We didn’t realize it at the time, but we could have pulled out an incense stick with a number on it and grabbed a little sheet of paper with the same number on it and on which was written a fortune.  One of our members did get one and Sean read her fortune which was not a very pleasant one. . . .

We stopped at the local outdoor coffee shop and had coffee and rolls, both delicious.  The coffee was half condensed milk and the coffee was extremely -- well, “soft.”  We went back to the hotel, had more breakfast if we wished, and then got on the bus to head for a small community which is supported by the Grand Circle Foundation.

We met with the town “mayor” (called the first leader) as well as two other members of the city council.  They talked about the Circle Foundation and how good it has been for the community:  toilets constructed for guests like us and for the community; concrete sidewalks and driveways so that when it’s the rainy season, it's not all muddy; funding for the school; and for various other projects.

the "mayor" in the gray shirt, his wife next to him, another community leader in the stripes

They also talked about the difficulties of organizing so that none of the three community groups feels slighted or left out:  the Hmong, the highlanders, and the lowlanders.  They added some information about the Communist party.  For example, party leaders have to be members of the communist Party, but there aren’t really any unfunded directives coming from the government party.

Then we walked over to the school and visited a combo first- and second-grade classroom.  What a delight.  We walked in and sat with the students (she had 30 of them).  My darling little girl showed me one of her textbooks and told me what some words were in English:  girl, boy, mother, father, fishing, trees, colors, etc.  She was sharp.  She also sang the “ABC” song for me, and I recorded it, then I showed her the video.  She was embarrassed but also thought it was super cool.  The entire class then sang songs for us in English:  the ABC song, Old McDonald, and a couple of other standard English kid songs.  Then we sang for them and presented our gifts to the teacher.  She makes $250 per month, and she indicated that is difficult having 30 students in two different grade levels in the same classroom.  She thought she was going to have a helper but that never materialized.  The children learn English in grades 1-3.  The teacher must have a set repertoire of songs and must know the alphabet (as did the kids) because she didn’t speak any English to us, and didn’t seem to understand our questions.  She seemed to be quite competent and the students study math, English, Lao, and the environment.

We walked around the village a bit more after the school session.  For a developing country village, it was doing quite well, but that may be because of the Grand Circle Foundation.  This foundation has thus far worked with four villages in Laos (this one is the fourth), and they typically work with one village for 3 to 4 years and then move on to another one, doing things such as I already mentioned – infrastructure, community toilets, the community building, and the school.

bamboo leaf.  multiple uses for both the leaf and the stalk.  the village had a bamboo "forest"

a village man creating slivers of bamboo from the stalks

typical house in the community.  on stilts both for the rainy season and to keep out snakes and spiders

the house "stove"

we visited with the owner of the community forge (several pictures below)

Then we had lunch in the home of the family of the town leader.  For appetizers we had DUNG BEETLES and CRICKETS!  Truly!  and they were actually quite good.  Then we cooked our own first course with the ingredients we all had separately purchased at the morning market after the alms-giving.  Guess I forgot to mention this stop, but it was a typical developing country morning market with all the "accoutrements" including flies.  We were all given one item to purchase along with some money, and we had to go find the item.  Sean told us how to pronounce it, but didn't tell us what it was.  We had to interact with the locals at the market to figure out what to buy (and how much, given the amount of money we had).  It was fun.

dung beetles, anyone? 

crickets, anyone?

some sort of flat sea weed

We also had the chance to visit the house of the local shaman.  It was interesting to see what the interiors of the houses looked like.  Note the electrical box.  He also told us about his life.  He was married and had 12 girls.  Not a good thing because he needed to pass down his shaman skills to a son.  He was granted permission by his wife and by the government to marry another wife.  his 13th child was a girl, and then finally the 14th was a son.  The son was about 3-4 years old.  The first wife and the first 12 kids now lived in a larger city, and he lived with his second wife and two kids.

He talked about his shaman healing skills and wrapped Dan's knee in a bundle of healing paste wrapped in leaves.  He was supposed to leave it on for three days.  Dan, however, took it off that evening.

The shaman then dressed in his native shame garb and danced one of his traditional dances usually danced at a wedding.

Lastly, we all shot home-made bow and arrows at a target.  Two teams, our team won.  Fun.

For a final stop, we went to the women’s silk weaving shop that also included several hand-made products made by the women.  We all bought a few things, but I think generally the women were disappointed we didn’t buy more.  I bought pillow cases, one for me, one for Olive/Randall, and one for Juleen/Joe.  I also bought a couple of orange string bracelets made by this girl.  I gave them to Quinn and Julian.

Nice cool bus ride back to the hotel.  We rested, cleaned up and went to the bar for a cocktail and then went to a French restaurant for a dinner.  Excellent meal. Went with Greg, Dan, Anna (our overall guide), and the two of us.