Fall

This fall I spent in Chicago. (I can't seem to get away -- and am now actually, actively trying to return!)

As I was getting ready to leave TN and head north, my sister called and invited me to stay with her and her family for a month or so.

I said yes.

And it was wonderful to be back.

I'm not sure what more to say about it.

I lived with my sister and her family for about 2 months. "Helping out" by taking care of my niece and nephew. It was wonderful to be part of her family. I was also extremely social during those two weeks -- catching up with friends, resuming my old life to some extent (biking everywhere, dancing, volunteering, pot-luck dinners, book reading, stitch&bitch, etc). And it was just enough that it made me realize how much I'd missed it being away. And how much I wanted to return.

My time in Chicago ended on my birthday. Last year I nearly forgot about it. This year, for some reason, I wanted to celebrate it. So, thanks to a kind offer from Chelsea, Noah and Christean, I threw myself a pot-luck party in their house. It was WONDERFUL! Exactly what I wanted. Many of my friends all gathered in one place (though not all at the same time) having a good time visiting with me and with each other. Smile!

Next day I left for Monmouth again, and after a short visit with my friend, I headed to Massachusetts (after an 8-hour layover in the big city!) to visit my Dad and Step-mom.

Life here is very quiet. I've been updating and re-arranging my resume. Practicing writing cover letters. Trying to put together a website (or something) as an electronic portfolio of my artistic abilities, etc. Learning lots about the internet. Dad and I went for a couple of walks in the woods. We hope to clime a mountain, if the weather holds.

Thanksgiving was fun. My parents like to go to the Meeting pot-luck Thanksgiving dinner. And this year there were 70 people (and you thought you had a lot of people at your dinner!). It was great fun. I chatted with a bunch of "nerds" -- all of us reveling in our nerdiness -- and was awarded the title of "The most inappropriate dinner conversationalist" -- intended as a complement and an honor -- when the conversation turned to my rendition of "The case of the mummified pig." (I am happy to share the story with anyone who wants to know. It really isn't that bad.) And after dinner we sang. For several hours. Until it was dark and our voices were horse. Then the next day, Rachel-from-Chicago who has family out here, picked me up and swept me across the state (and gave me my first trip to Cape Cod) and took me dancing. Great fun!

And now it is almost December and I am planning to start moving again. Heading south. To NY and DC and maybe TN. And then? I don't know.

As for getting back to Chicago...

As I was deciding to leave, in the summer of 2005, I got three fortune cookie fortunes in a row (and the only fortune cookies I got that summer) that all seemed to say: "GO!" Very strange. Ironically (and not that I live my life by fortune cookies), at one of my farewell dinners, after giving up my apartment, getting rid of my stuff, and buying a plane ticket out of the city, I got a fourth fortune cookie. This one said: "Stay!"

Now it is a year later (and I haven't checked with the fortune-cookie-teller to see what it suggests) and I am not in Chicago, but I'm working on it.

Summer

OK. I'm 6 months late on this one. But better late than never right?

So here goes.

After my conference in Chicago I headed down to visit my Mom for a week or so. At least that is what I thought I was going to do when I climbed on the bus and headed south.

The reality was different.

I wound up spending the next three months hanging out with my Mom. But it wasn't all fun and games: I put her to work. Or she put me to work. I'm not sure which. We sorted through the entire house! Pulling things out of closets and drawers and boxes that hadn't been opened for Years(!) and dumping them into the middle of the room and looking at them and then either pitching them or putting them away again. We found several family treasures in with the trash and future re-sale items -- like the record book of how much it cost to build the house in the mid 1960s, and Grandpa's old work records, and a couple of beautiful glass pitchers (made from old soda bottles) that Mom had seen being blown 40 years ago in Japan. But my favorite was the two rolls of slide film, in their original packaging, un-opened(!) that had printed on them "best if developed before October 12, 1964."

We also, I'm afraid, contributed a bit to Global Dimming (a very frightening phenomenon where particulate pollutants create a haze around the planet, counteracting global warming, but causing equally horrible changes in climate) by burning a bunch of old papers!

Another of the projects I took on was helping my Mom with her genealogy research. Not doing the actual research, but doing the (to my mind) fun and fluffy stuff -- "added value" they called it at the consulting firm where I worked. We have a bunch of old photos floating around, as do many of my relatives. Slowly bleaching out; fading away to sepia colored pieces of paper. So it was only logical that we start digitizing them, label them while there is still a chance that someone knows who they are, and (best of all) connect the electronic photo with the records Mom's compiled. My contribution to the family genealogy project involved scanning the photos and then "photoshoping" the images so that they looked crisp and new. Sort of. Some of the image "tweaking" went really well and a bright, clear face appeared out of the dim old photos. (which inspires an Amazingly triumphant feeling!) But some of the faces are nearly lost to time. And no matter how much I manipulated the image, any suggestion of a face was mostly imaginary. (By the way, no one seems to know who these people are. So this is not one that I tweaked at all, even though I love the photo (especially the tall, dark man -- I can't figure out why he is so dark and everyone else has faded away -- and the girl looking up at him. He looks so confident and she looks a bit uncertain about him, like she can't quite believe that he is there).)

While I was down in Tennessee, I was also semi-adopted by my "cousins." I say cousins in quotes because I think they are actually my second cousins, once removed and third cousins. (I looked up the definition on Wickapedia or Encyclopedia Britannica or some such on-line "source of all knowledge" and "cousins" used to refer to all kin-folk, and even good friends, so I'm sticking with "cousins" to describe them).

One of the highlights of being semi-adopted by them was being taken under their wing and taught the old, traditional skills. Farming skills. As much as they could teach a "city girl" like me anyway. We canned soup (this is a very useful skill and one I plan to use, even in the big city) and I sewed (I made my first pair of pants and they looked great!). We went on a tour of some neighbors' farms so I could see the cows getting milked (Holsteins are SLOBBERY! worse than the worst dog you could imagine) and have my finger sucked on by a calf (they have a powerful suck!). We even visited an auction (which brought back memories of college when I worked as a proxy-bidder for the local auction house -- great fun!). The best of the best, though, were a visit to the junk yard (actually a salvage yard) and making sausage.

I have always loved junk yards. There are always all kinds of cool things lying around. When I was a kid my grandfather would take us to the dump. Near the entrance was all the stuff that people didn't want, but somebody else might. While the adults did what ever they did (I honestly have no idea), I got to prowl around and scavenge for stuff. I got some of the best toys there -- a big plastic dump truck we played with for years, a yarn doll that started a trend that lasted for years (I think I even still have the doll somewhere). Even my first bicycle came from the trash (though that was from an alley, not the dump).

My cousin Bryan works for a metal salvage yard. And, knowing my interest in stuff like that, we got to take a tour. We showed up on a very hot day in August -- not as hot as Thailand, but close. We spent about an hour wandering around, looking at old stuff -- I can't remember it all, and even if I could, there were things there I couldn't even begin to describe. Like the junk yards of my childhood there is an area full of stuff that people might want (office furniture, drinking fountains, nuts and bolts, etc). And then there is the area where all the metal parts, that aren't much good for anything but scrap, are gathered before being sold or shipped off to be recycled somewhere else. Being a salvage yard, one of the biggest sources of metal are used cars. Some of them still work, but most are just scrap. But cars can't be shipped "as is" to a recycling plant. They take up too much space. So the cars destined for the melting pot are taken apart -- by which I mean the gas tank taken off, and some of the other more valuable parts removed. Then the cars are lined up, and taken, one by one, to the car crusher. The crusher is Very Cool! I mean who doesn't like heavy machinery -- especially one that can take a car or mini-van or truck and squish it down so its two feet tall! Bryan let me ride with him as he picked up a car with a fork-lift (skewering it if he couldn't get it from underneath) and loaded it into the crusher! Squished it (by remote control, no less!), and then repeating the process again and again, until there were 8 (count them eight!) cars in a pile like a stack of pancakes! Awesome!

After we'd squished the cars he took me over to the crane -- the one with the four claws and the electromagnet, and the cab that was a good 20 feet up in the air!

"Do you want to drive?" he asked. Did I! To tell the truth, it was a bit intimidating to be sitting way up in the sky pushing the levers forward or backward or sideways a fraction of an inch and having this huge, jerky thing respond to my every whim! But once I got the hang of it, it was great! It was just like riding the toy cranes they had in the playgrounds when I was a kid, only a hundred times better! One hand moves the claws and two joints of the crane's arm. The other moves the other joints, the cab and turns the magnet on and off. And there I was, up in the air, moving claws full of scrap from one pile to another! Until Bryan decided to have a little fun and sent us spinning around, at top speed, in a circle with the arm of the crane swinging along behind! Everyone down on the ground -- Mom, Dale and Betty, the guys who's job it was to cut up the scrap (blow torches going full blast) -- ducked. Bryan says they could (and have?) picked up a car and flung it across the yard (80 to 100 feet!). WOW! Can you imagine?!

Makes me want to go "Grrrah!" in a very tough, macho way.

On a completely different note, the other adventure was making sausage. I feel the need to issue a "spoiler" warning for those of you who are veggie, or have sensitive stomachs. Don't look at the following photos if you can't handle dead meat (as opposed to "live meat?").

My cousins are farmers. Part time now, though when I was a kid they had cows and pigs and chickens and horses, etc. I remember the stuffy feeling of the chicken coop, and the very strange taste of warm, unpasteurized milk fresh from the cow. Most of the animals are gone now, except for the pigs. And the pigs get eaten. My mom has helped them make sausage (and other cuts of meat) for a couple of years now. And so, to take advantage of my presence, and to teach me about farm life, they killed a pig so I could help, too.

My feelings about eating meat are these -- if I am going to eat meat, I think it is appropriate that I also know where the meat comes from. And most of us who get our meat from the grocery store, or in a restaurant, don't know where if comes from. Or don't think about it. I haven't quite been able to bring my self to killing my meat (though working in a lab I have killed other animals), but I have, now, participated in butchering it.

I'm not sure quite what to say about it, really. It was a long and tiring process. The pig it self was quite large (at least as far as I can tell) and produced over 300 lbs of meat. We turned 140 lbs of that into sausage! The sausage making was a two day process. Day one was entirely spent cutting up the meat into roughly one-inch chunks. Day two we added the spices and ground up all the chunks to make the sausage and put it into 1-lb and 5-lb bags! I can see why it isn't done all that often. It is exhausting and somewhat disgusting work. But I'll end by saying, fresh meat, un-preserved, is so much better tasting than anything you can buy in the store!

And that is what I did on my summer vacation.

HOME!

I'm home!

Thailand was wonderful! I was hot all the time, and ate all kinds of very strange foods (most of which were delicious, but some of which I will be happy never to see again!) and met or worked with all kinds of wonderful and interesting people. It was... restful, stressful, stimulating, exhausting, and above all a powerful experience. I thought a lot about being an immigrant, about what it means to be literate and illiterate, about what it means to be part of a culture or apart from a culture... All the stuff that travel does. ("travel broadens the mind" and all that.)

But it is great to be back!

I got off the plane a little over a week ago, and went immediately to Janet's where all my Chicago stuff is stored. I can't tell you how exciting it was to pull out a pair of jeans, t-shirts made of cotton (as opposed to the fast drying, wicking ones I took on my trip), even socks! And sweaters! WOW! I'm loving being a little bit cold after three months of sweating all the time. It amazes me, not being sticky at night when I go to bed.

I am also amazed by the lack of culture shock I am experiencing. Thailand and the US are very different, and yet... it doesn't feel all that different here. I am not sure why. The strangest thing, the thing that freaks me out, is the sun. In Thailand, the sun always rises between 5:30 and 6:00 am, it always sets between 6:30 and 7:00pm. It is dark(!) by 8:00pm. Here, the sun doesn't set until after 7:00pm. It doesn't get dark until 9:00pm or so. It is very strange, and disturbs me: I can't tell time by the sun anymore!

As much as I loved being in Thailand, I LOVE being home. It's all the little things, like knowing which way to look before crossing the street, or what is in my food, or the sub-text in a conversation, or having a conversation at all. These are the things that make being home restful and comforting. These are the things that make me think I am happy not traveling, settling down, getting a job... To that end I attended a conference -- the American Association of Museums conference -- all of last week. It was interesting. Lots of different museums and perspectives on museums. The goal was to explore, and possibly find a job in, exhibit development.

But I've been bitten by the bug. I'm not sure I really want to settle down and be mature and find job and all that. I want to keep traveling! So, I'm not sure what I will do. I have no plans. A very strange, and potentially dangerous place to be!

Bang Fie!

After leaving Wat Phou, I begin the trek back to Thailand. It was a long trek. It took me 12 hours to go 200 miles. I think I've said this before, but it seems to take a long time to travel in Thailand.

My trek started at 8:00am when I waved down the bus back to the city. I arrived in town about an hour and a half later and treated myself to a leasurely breakfast of sum tum and a lovely conversation, in English and Thai, with the young woman who made it. Then I took the smallest tuk-tuk to the bus station (basically it was a motor cycle with a side car, though the "side car" was a double-seater basket thing, rather than the low, 1920s style thing I usually think of -- it would have been sweet for a romantic ride around the city, or attached to a bicycle). At the bus station I waited for an hour or more for my bus to get full enough to justify the ride to the border, but eventually we left and arrived about an hour later . I walked across the border (a strange experience -- it was just a stretch of road, about half a mile long, with very little in the way of signage, and little -- obvious-- security). Then another bus (songtau) to another bus to the train station. Then third class (as usual) to Surin where I had arranged to meet Mook, and some of the other teachers who were at a conference.

I spent then night with Mook, in a very posh hotel -- with real western style mattresses! Thai mattresses are very thin only an inch or two thick. I was often excited to see what I thought was a thick, western mattress, only to find that it was essentially a box spring. Sigh. -- The next day I got to see (and surprise) a bunch of other teachers from the school, one from each department. It was Great to see her, and the other teachers! And funny to go to an education conference in Thai!

After the conference I hoped on a bus and headed back to Prangku. Where, unlike the first time I had tried to visit the teachers there, a month before and at the beginning of the summer, many teachers were on campus and I got to see them and talk with them, and say good-by. A very nice end to my time in Thailand. Full circle.

And I got to continue my Thai dancing career in the very place where it began. In early May, small towns in Thailand celebrate Bang Fie: the rocket festival. In Prangku it is a two day celebration. On the first day there is a parade through town. All the local neighborhoods make a rocket float and drive it through town, accompanied by dancing women. (Can you guess where this is going?) The rockets are HUGE! Nine or ten feel long, with a tail another nine or ten feet long for the fuse. Aew and I went to the parade, wandering around looking at all the rockets and being greeted by former students and fellow teachers and townsfolk everywhere. As we approached the rocket for her neighborhood, an old woman (Aew's aunt?) grabbed me and started teaching me how to dance. As the float started moving down the street she made me walk and dance with her. She made me dance down the street -- The whole way! She wouldn't let me stop! (It felt a bit like the story of the girl with the red shoes -- she loved to dance so much that she neglected her family. She was given a pair of beautiful red shoes that wouldn't let her stop dancing which she couldn't take off. Eventually she either danced her self to death, or danced her feet off (depending on the version of the story you know) and lived in misery, and repentance for the rest of her life.) The old woman kept grabbing my hand and making me dance when ever I stopped for a rest, or made signs like I wanted to go watch the rockets go by. So, I didn't get to see any of the parade. However, we did win first prize for our dancing!

The next day I scrounged up company to go to the shooting of the rockets. All the teachers were either working or claimed to be afraid of the rockets, so I went with Ju's 14-year-old brother. I can see why, honestly, but was determined to go anyway. The way it works is this: anyone can make a rocket that they then enter into the competition to see who's rocket is biggest (and yes, that is a deliberate double meaning -- The purpose of the Bang Fie is to encourage the gods to get busy and make it rain). Then, during the festival, the rockets are shot straight up into the sky. Some of these rockets are incredible. One I saw was up in the air for over 135-seconds. It went so high that it vanished into the clouds! All the gathered spectators watched and scanned the sky for signs for the falling rocket. Eventually, we saw it, falling to the horizon several miles in the distance. Hopefully not on some one's house -- a real danger from the festivities. It was great fun! But definitely a potentially dangerous holiday!

































The next day I got on the train to Bangkok. Third class. For 10 hours. Beautiful country and the ride wasn't too bad --I'm getting used to the hot, crowed compartments, and hard seats. I spent one last afternoon in the big city, then off to the airport for the long flight home.

Luang Phabang

I hardly know where to begin. I hardly know where I ended last time!

This trip has felt like a series of starts. I start doing something, and then change direction. Start doing something else, and then change direction, again. It's a bit frustrating at times. And I feel like a skipping stone: bouncing from one thing to the next without really getting deeper than the surface. Until I suddenly sink.

After leaving Ban Na, Angela and I traveled together toward Luang Phabang (a small, very restful town in the center of the northern part of Laos). We took a bus to Vang Vien, then hoped onto another bus to the tiny town of Kasi. Vang Vien is famous for the adventure experience: caving, hiking, swimming, kayaking, etc. And is in the middle of Karst topography, so is incredibly beautiful! But off we went in search of a less touristy experience. And we got it. Sort of.

Kais is basically a wide spot in the road where the buses stop for meals on the way north and south. So there are a plethora of places to eat, though they all sell the same food with only minor variations. We found a room (a bit of a dive, but what do you expect for $5 per night for two people) and spent the night recovering from our journey. One thing I have learned here it that it takes at least a day to get anywhere by public trans.

The next day, we got up and started exploring. The guide book mentions "rumored caves" and we started searching for them. Asking, in our meager Lao, "Where are the caves?" We were pointed south, along the road we had traveled the previous day and so started walking. Stopping periodically to ask again, "Are the caves this way?" Yes, yes! with a wave south, was always the answer, until we met an old woman working on a sticky rice basket. "Are the caves this way?" we ask. "Oyi!" she says, and calls her son. "Are the caves this way?" we ask, again. "No! They are the other way," the way we had just come from! What can you do but laugh! The wonderful perk though, was that we found, by pure chance, the only fluent English teacher in the town!

He and his friend acted as tour guides taking us to two caves and a waterfall. These two natural wonders mean something slightly different in Thai/Lao than in English I think. "Caves" are almost always shallow and almost always have Buddha's in them -- I think they have some sort of religious significance, though I am not sure what. "Waterfalls" are sometimes what we think of as a waterfall, but can also be what we call a "rapids" where the water falls only a foot or even a few inches. They were all beautiful though! Angela and I spent the day, just resting in the quiet and the green! Beautiful!

Next day it was on to the big city of Luang Phabang. It has become a tourist haven. It is always a shock to me to see Farang after spending weeks surrounded by Laos people, I forget that I am one too. So, as usual, in my 6-year old way, I started pointing out all the Farang I saw ("Oh, look! there is a Farang!"). This lasted until Angela dared me to point them all out! I quickly realized that I would be saying nothing but "Farang!" for days, and stopped.

Luang Phabang is a very restful city. I can't quite figure out why. Some of is the presence of all the Farang (Black, White, and Asian -- technically "Nippon" I was told by a Thai person). Some of it is the presence of the blend of Western and Eastern architecture. Some of it is the fact that during the day, all the Farang head out on tours, and those that stay in the city are very quite and slow and peaceful. Not running frantically from site to sight to see it all as quickly as possible.

Most of our days we spent being lazy, but on my last day, I did the "frantic tourist" thing and went on not one, but two "treks!" One was a lazy boat trip (2.5 hours round trip) to see the "Buddha Caves," "Whiskey Village," and "Paper Village." The latter two are villages that specialize in making whiskey and paper to sell to tourists. Cool to see the whole process, but I was more than happy to skip sampling the whiskey. The Buddha Caves are two caves on the river full of, you guessed it, Buddha statues. People take their old, damaged Buddha's to the caves as a good place to let them sink back into the Universe. It is surprisingly restful, and Romantically beautiful, to visit all the dust covered statues.

That afternoon I took a second trek to the "Waterfall." An hour by tuk-tuk to one of the most spectacular sites I've seen here. The waterfall is very tall and falls first down the cliff, and then from rich turquoise pool to rich turquoise pool. It reminded me of postcards of a tropical island, somewhere no one ever goes. Or a tiny bit of Yellowstone National Park. Awesome in the literal sense of the word.

Next day I flew (going way over budget!) down to Pakxe where I made the trek out to Wat Phou. A Khmer ruin that was one of the first World Heritage Sites in Laos. It is Huge! and, again, very beautiful. It is one of the largest ruins outside of Cambodia. Again, very Romantic climb up steep-steep stairs to two "palaces" and a temple where wonderful carvings of ancient figures are still crisp and new looking!

I had a bit of an adventure getting there. And a bit of a whirl-wind visit. Up in the morning early in LP for one last tourist moment: a fantastic view of the Monks collecting alms in the morning. This is a tradition that occurs all over Thailand and Laos. The monks go out in the morning around 5 or 6am and walk the streets with big silvery bowls (and bags). The people line the streets, kneeling, with their offerings in hand. As the monks pass by, food from the people is placed in the bowl that the monks carry. (For those who remember, Jacob got to go with the monks on the morning we spent in the Forest Temple (I didn't get to go, being a woman) -- I think I posted that story, maybe not) The corner outside my hotel was one of the most amazing places to see this event. At about 6:20am, literally hundreds of Orange clad monks filed past, one at a time, walking down the hill and around the corner. Each collecting a small handful of food from each of the 10 or so people kneeling on the corner. The sight was only marred by the presence of other Farang running around photographing the event.

Tuk-tuk to the airport and a domestic flight from the north of Laos to the south of Laos -- not really that different from domestic flights anywhere, except that the announcements were all in Lao. And the x-ray machine was at the very entrance to the airport.

In Pakxe I shared a tuk-tuk to a hotel, but changed my mind at the last minute and caught a bus to Champasake -- once the capital of one of the three kingdoms in Laos when the French colonised it, now a wide spot on the road. The most exciting part of the trip, other than the old man who spoke very good English and told me about the history of this part of the country, was the fact that the bus I was on, took a ferry ride across the river! A bus on a ferry! A ferry, mind you, that is only big enough for about 6 cars. At my hotel, I rented a motorcycle and drove like a lunatic (sans helmet) the 15km to the ruins. There I payed my 3,000kip ($3.00 US) to enter the grounds and spent the next 3 hours wandering around in the blazing sun climbing many long sets of stairs to the rather small temple on the side of the hill. It was beautiful though. And worth it. And it was very cool to explore along the cliff wall behind the temple to see all the carvings and whatnot, made in the thousand or so years since the temple was built. (As an art-historian, I have to admit a shocking lack of knowledge about this part of the world, so I can't say much more than this about it).

Going down again, I had a wonderful bowl of soup (no meat!) and as a result, got locked in! Imagine me riding my scooter around the grounds, going from closed gate to closed gate, trying to talk to people and figure out how to get home! Very comic. I eventually made it out, only to get stopped on the road by some sort of procession! Girls with "money trees" and crazy women blocking traffic on the road, offering shots of Lao-Lao to drivers, and then demanding donations for getting the drivers drunk! The often quoted excuse, "It makes me a better driver..." may actually have been true in my case.

Ban Na

I arrived in the very northern most part of the northeast of Thailand (Issan for those of you keeping track) about two and a half weeks ago for training -- teaching us Thai and about Thai culture and about the project -- to help villagers in Thailand (and Laos) develop the computer skills and language skills necessary to compete in our 21st century world. (if you are interested, check out their web site: openmindproject.com. It is mostly run by Thai people, though the volunteers are mostly Farang and Nippon (developed world people) and there are a few Expats in charge as well. The other organization, teaching English in schools is volunthai.org) We had a weekend there getting settled and going to class -- first hand experience of how hard it is to learn a new language as an adult. I got to practice my Ponglang dancing -- much to the delight of the Thais! (very useful skill I learned there) And I'm beginning to think that all my volunteering in Thailand and South East Asia require that I first visit Nong Khai and the giant sculpture garden there.

On my first weekend with Mook, she, Jacob, a Thai family, and I drove 600km to visit Vientien, stopping in Nong Khai (the town across the border) and visiting the giant sculpture garden there. It was very strange to be there again, two months later and with a much better feel for the land and the people and the art of Thailand. The sculpture park is very cool! It is full of huge brick and cement sculptures of the life of and teachings of Buddha. There is a statue of the man who tried to cut off the Buddha's thumb, statues of people who are so devout or so generous that they give away their children, and all kinds of other moral lessons. Fascinating! And all Huge! One of my favorites is the elephant who calmly plods through a pack of frantic dogs trying to distract it from its purpose in life.

After a weekend of training, Angela, the other volunteer and I headed back across the border with Laos, through Vientien (making only the briefest of stops), and into the country side to a tiny town called Ban Na. Ban Na is a small farming village (less than 600 people) located just steps away from the Phou Khaw Khouay National Protected Area (a very large "National Park" in Laos). She and I spent about two weeks there "teaching English" to about 14 tour guides ("our boys"). The story (per the Lonely Planet and other sources) of why the town has tour guides at all is very ingenious! Several years ago, the town decided to plant sugar cane, as a more lucrative crop than vegetables. But the local herd of elephants preferred the sugar, too, and moved in, destroying the crop. To avoid killing the elephants, the towns people, with help from the Canadian and German governments, built a tower where tourists can observe the wild elephants in their natural setting. The tourists pay a fee to hire the guides, and more to stay overnight, and much of the money goes to town and other local towns to help out the farmers if Elephants destroy the crops. This way, the farmers are less inclined to shoot the elephants to protect their livelihood! The tower, in case you wondered, is near a salt-lick that the elephants frequent to get the minerals they need in their diets. So (and here is the plug), if you go, or your friends go to Laos, make sure to support the local community action to save elephants and still have a way to make a living.

I try not to have expectations at all (as reality is rarely what I expect it to be), but teaching English to the guides was not quite what I expected and was very different from my fist volunteer experience here. The town was much smaller for one. And we had a much freer schedule, in that we never really knew from one day to the next if we were teaching or not. We started the two weeks thinking that we would alternate day-long or over-night treks to the tower (talking with the guides and helping them gain familiarity with English and the kinds of questions English speaking people might ask), with "classroom" time where we would review what we learned on the trek, other important English terms, and role-play various situations the guides might find themselves in (such as booking treks). This plan lasted a grand total of three days.

On day four, we came down, ready to teach, and found all of "our boys" (as we grew to calling them), waiting for us. "No class" they inform us. "It's a Holiday!" We had cleverly scheduled our two weeks over the Laos New Year -- also known as Pai Mei in Laos and Songkhan in Thailand. In the guide books it is some times referred to as the "Water Throwing Festival." We had no idea how big a deal it was in our tiny town. The fist day started calmly enough, with us going with our host family (Mom, Dad, and Grandpa) to the temple for prayers and blessings of the perfumed water we all carried with us. Then, en mas, we all filed out of the temple and began splashing water all over, drenching all the Buddhas, the Naggas, the stupa, the statues of famous monks, everything! Then we packed up and headed to another temple to do it all over again.

Then the real party started.

We spent the next 5 days moving from house to house to house, eating, drinking, dancing (those are handy skills I learned), dumping water all over each other and rubbing baby powder all over each other's faces and hair! It is the tradition to wash each other clean and then freshen up with the power. In other words, a giant water fight that goes on for days and you know the water is coming and get to just sit and take it, and even thank the person who just dumped a bucket of water (sometimes with ice in it) down your back. Great fun! The drinks were always beer (beerlao -- worse than the worst mass, cheep beer I've ever had in the US and served with ice-- if you are lucky) or whiskey (lao lao -- home brew and strong enough to take the hair off or put hair on your chest -- I'll leave it to your imagination to decide which it did for me). It is rude to refuse, so ... They did graciously give me just the tiniest tastes of both the beer and the whiskey (a sip really), but over the course of the day, it adds up. And I'm not sure if the tiny sip is actually better, as it tends to vaporize faster and get up you nose! Angela pointed out once, that everyone looks at the glass as if it is the worst thing you could offer them, then everyone, even the most hardened of them makes a face as if it was the worst thing they ever tasted. And then they smile and thank you for it! And everyone laughs! Once they got going, the people in Ban Na, and the surrounding towns, didn't stop. We were offered beer or whisky for the last 11 days in a row! The first 5 for the new year, then preparations for a wedding, then the wedding, then a birth celebration, then another new years celebration, then our own departure celebration. Whew! It is good to have a few days to "dry out."

On our last day we got to see wild elephants! We had hiked out to the local waterfall (dry because it is the dry season) though blazing hot sun (it is so hot in fact, that the other day, not thinking about it, I said, "Wow, its almost cool today." then looked at the thermometer and saw that it read 32oC (90oF)) and down crazy little paths that you had to know existed in order to find. We finally crashed through the bushes to a rocky plane with a tiny stream running through it. Angela and I look at each other and say, "Is this it? Looks like it, the guides are setting up to make lunch. And what is he doing stripping off his clothes?" Turns out just before the stream crosses the large, flat, hot rocky area, it hits a natural dam and creates the most wonderful swimming hole imaginable! Shaded by trees, with a rock to jump off of, and deliciously cool, clear, drinkable water! We spent the entire afternoon splashing around: jumping in, swimming, getting out and drying off, then jumping in again to repeat the whole thing! Perfect!

After a final dip, we packed up again, and trudged back up through the trees to the tower to spend the night. Met up with a couple of Swedish boys, who we made the guides practice their English with. And, as night fell, after another wonderful diner of sticky rice eaten with fingers we were treated to the sounds of a baby elephant and its mother coming down to the water to bathe. Just as we had done hours before. It was too dark to really see any thing clearly, but a dark blob of baby elephant could be seen shuffling up the hill, dark against the light sand and grass, to disappear into the tree line. So Amazingly Wonderful! Later there were sounds of more elephants, but the highlight came in the wee hours of the morning, when I was awakened by a call of "Teacher!" and a beckoning hand. Groggy from sleep, I staggered out of the mosquito net and followed Mr. Pon to the edge of the tower. "There!" he whispers and points. Right below the tower is an Elephant! All grown up and large as life! Beautiful and Wild and Amazing! We didn't get any photos, unfortunately, but just watching the elephant shuffling around the tower, heading towards the bush, and then changing its mind and heading down the road was spectacular!

Our own going away was very sweet and moving! The town had a party for us. They made a Banana leaf "tower" and decorated it with yellow and white flowers, and stuck sticks covered with strings into the top. A man, speaking the monks language, though not a monk, said something over us as we held to strings attached to the "tower." Then people put money and food in our hands (including a boiled chicken head in mine) and tied bunches of strings around our writs. Our wrists look a little bit like we just tried to slit our writs (to put a dark, culturally insensitive view on it), but are tokens of well wishes and good luck and affection. And we are both very proud of them. Which is lucky as we are supposed to wear them for the next 5 weeks! We ate the food (not the chicken head) and then had dinner. More beerlao, and more lao lao, dancing, singing, and food. The Laos people make music everywhere and for any occasion! Clapping hands, tapping spoons against empty beer bottles and plates or each other. Drumbing, playing recorders, or traditional pipes, and singing! Ah! A wonderful expression of life!

And the next morning we left. Angela to head to China on a trip around the world with out flying, and me to tour Laos a bit before flying home in the last 5 minutes of May 8.