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Village stay, part two (or three)
21/02/11
School today was a bit of a disaster. It seems that no matter how much we plan, things just don't work out. I believe it's mainly because they are only taught to repeat after the teacher but not to answer questions or use their brain in any interactive way. It makes any progress very hard to achieve. Still, we do our best to teach then as much as we can.
David bought a football and we played with the kids. They were good sport.
Afternoon...
The class with the kids at home always goes better than the one at school. I'm really not sure why. Each evening we also teach the guides. I think it's my favourite class even though it's quite late (8-9.30pm) and I'm usually quite brain dead from the heat by that time.
22/02/11
We got up quite early today and had roast pork with fried rice for breakfast. WE then had to prepare for lesson at school as we were too tired to do it the night before. We spent an hour working our arse's off when our host turned up and announced that there were no school that day and we were to go with them to the temple festival in Pai Lai instead. You should have seen the massive grin on David and my faces. no school! Yey! WE were ready to go in no time.
5-6 hours later....
Ok. The festival thing is never ending. I'm still sitting at the temple waiting for our hosts and it's almost 4pm. First we went to have a very early lunch with some locals from Pai Lai village. There was this one Lao guy who somehow looked quite western to me. It turned out he is married to a Swiss lady and lives in Switzerland. And he insisted to speak to us in German. David and I could understand some of it but speaking german was dificullt for both of us. He offered us some 'rice schnapps' - it was quite smooth actually, much better than I expected. We also had some food (buffulo three ways with cold rice noodles - not great) and some Beer Lao. Roughly an hour later we left for the temple. WE had no idea how long the ceremony was going to be. I needed the toilet so Khampan took me to the nearest house (in the village, not in the temple) and asked the owner if I could use the bathroom. First thing I noticed ws that they had a proper shower! God, I wanted to jump in. When I came out of the bathroom I saw that Khampan had joined these people for another feast - more buffulo and more Beer Lao. I guess that Lao people are very hospitable, especially during the festivals. You cannot just use the facilities - you gotta join the party. So I had no option but to join in too. I have to say that I'm not very comfortable with drinking alcohol Lao style. One glass is filled up and passes to the nearest person. He/she drinks up and the same glass is filled up again and passed to the next person. Big hygien/yuk issue for me. I also had to eat more food that wasn't very tasty and I was worried it it would give me stomach problems (I wasn't wrong, unfortunately). It was rice, with something sweet and minced pork wrapped in banana leaf. All served at room temperature, circa 34 degrees Celsius. After half hour we were free to go.
Back at the temple the prep for the ceremony has started. All women were sat on mats outside the temple. Every one of them had a special dish - it looked like ornamented bowls mainly gold or silver in colour. I couldn't really tell what was happening - it seemed like nothing and david and I were getting pretty bored and hot. Then a procession had started. The monks were carried out of the temple on some kind of beds and we all followed them around the temple. Three times. Everyone was throwing rice (for good luck? blessing?) and then we had to sit down (D and I on a bench not a mat) and the chanting began. It lasted 45 minutes. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do more: faint or fall asleep. It was scorching, we were really tired and dehydrated. When the chanting had finally finished the monks 'shower' ceremony started. The ceremonial bowls filled with water during chanting were used to pour water into a dragon shaped gutter that lead to a shower spot where the three monks were sat. Men went first, women followed.
Then it was back to the mats again. Women and children sat down forming a passage way for the monks to walk and collect money and flowers. That seemed to be the end of the festivities and we were told to go and sit in our truck. We waited for nearly an hour and I was really glad when we finally left. But we were not going home just yet!
On the way home we stopped in two more places to eat and drink. David and I couldn't care less. All we wanted was some water and bed. Not more dodgy food and beer. To make the matters worse every single place we went to was serving the same food: buffalo, cold rice noodles, chilli. Eventually we returned home. Mystomach was cramping all evening!!!
24/02/11
It's our last day in Hat Khai. On one hand I'm really pleased because I've missed ahot shower, western toilet and internet. And I'd love some yoghurt and fruit for breakfast. But on the other hand I quite enjoyed staying here. The villagers are kind, friendly and have good sense of humour (even when mostly using sign language with us)!
Yesterday our host's daughters had painted my nails. And David's! It wasn't jsut plain varnish, it was proper ornaments!!! It was a good way to kill time, especially that it was raining cats and dogs outside! Right bang in the middle of dry season. The dirts roads almost immediately turned into small rivers.I can't even begin to imagine what it is like in the rainy season.
That night I couldn't get to sleep. I had a bad cough that kept me awake. When I finaly fell asleep I was woken up by strange banging noise. It felt like the house was shaking. My first thought was that our hosts are getting at it! But then everything stopped and I could here our hosts talking to each other. I went back to sleep. Only in the morning I found out that it was a earth quake! Everyone was talking about it as it turns outn to be a pretty rare thing in Laos.
What a night!
Later that day we went to the river to chill and sunbathe. Poor David stayed too long in the sun and got a bad sun stroke. He was puking all over the place and we were really worried. It could have been a combination of a sun stroke and food poisoning. Somehow he manged to sit up for our farewell ceremony, but he stayed lying on a mattress all evening looking pale. It could have been a blessing in disguise as we didn't get drunk stupid that night with our hosts and the guides. Hangover for a long journey to Nong Khai would have been a nightmare.
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