A Village Visit (and some other stuff)

You can see the garden in front, and behind the trees are the fields

Last weekend we got to visit a former student’s village.  It was so much fun!  At 7AM we hopped on a bus and rode a couple hours out of the city.  When we go there we were picked up by a truck to get the rest of the way to her house.  When we got there we had some watermelon then got a tour of the family’s fields.  They only do one crop of rice, which they plant in June, so there wasn’t any when we visited, but they did have a couple fields of potatoes, cucumbers, and corn.  They also have a garden with melons and herbs, and orange grove, chickens (which run everywhere), and goats.  It was much bigger than I expected it to be, and it had a lot more diversity.

In the afternoon we visited a home for guys that are recovering from drug addictions.  The woman who runs it has been the connection between a few of the current students here; a couple went through her program and a couple were just family friends who live in her village.  We spent time attempting to talk to the guys and singing with them, then we went to the river and went swimming.  It was absolutely beautiful; the water was clear and cool.  It felt great on a hot day!

We were able to share two meals with the girl and her family who hosted us.  It was really good!  We had chicken, soup, beans and sticky rice for lunch and chicken, fish, fried eggs, and soup for dinner.  The fish was caught just that afternoon by another student who went with us, and we were told that the chicken were alive that morning.  Can’t get much fresher than that!  We ate in the traditional style: sitting on the floor at a really short small table.  We all ate with our hands directly from the serving dish.  It’s so fun and different from America! 

Don't worry, we didn't ride the motor bike!

We had to stay at a nearby guesthouse because we are not allowed to stay with the family.  If we had the government would probably have come around after we left and asked questions.  Vientiane is very friendly, but outside of it, they are not so accepting of foreigners.  So we stayed in a guesthouse.  It was really funny when we got there, though, because one of the students that went with us made the receptionist open up about eight rooms, and then picked the best two rooms for the four of us to stay in.  Guesthouses here are different from the States because they are not used as often.  Some rooms are nice and kept up well, but others are kind of dirty.  The students made sure we got the nicest rooms possible, and that they were on the second floor, which is safer.  It was decent, and I can’t complain because we only paid $2.50 a piece for the rooms.  It was a bed to sleep on, and it was clean.

In the morning we went out for breakfast and had phe (pronounced fuh).  It is a fairly bland noodle soup with beef and herbs in it.  Apparently it is a multi-purpose soup; I have had it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner here in Laos.  It doesn’t have a whole lot of flavor, but it is really good if you add some lime to it.  The people here add a sweet chili sauce to it quite often, but I’m not really a fan of it.  It falls somewhere between ketchup and chili sauce, but the flavor is a bit strange to me.

The drinks here come in plastic bags.  It's so fun!

After breakfast we walked around the market and the students bought us some fresh squeezed sugar cane juice.  It is so sweet.  I barely finished mine, and Alice could only drink about half of hers.  I don’t understand how they can drink that, but think chocolate chip cookies are too sweet.  It’s pretty much like drinking pure sugar!  I liked it, but I can only drink a little bit.  They can down a whole bag in a couple minutes.  After that, we hopped on the bus and came back to Vientiane.

We were only back about 20 minutes, when we were invited to go to church with everybody.  The service was three hours, and most of it was spent singing.  There was about 20 minutes of testimony time and a half hour sermon, but the rest was singing.  Luckily, there were a few other foreigners there, so about a third of the songs were translated into English so we could follow along. 

After church we met an American Lao girl who came here on a medical missions trip and to visit her family that is still here.  She is a college student, but is using her break (plus another week) to come and translate for the medical team.  We are planning to meet with her for dinner tomorrow, so it will be neat to hear more about what she is doing.

This week has been very similar to last week.  We have been helping the students learn English, they have been attempting to teach us Lao, and we have been helping out in other little ways where ever we can.  This Saturday we are going to put on a program for some Hmong children, along with Kip, Anna, and a couple people who are visiting them for a week or so.  I’m not sure what we are planning to do with them yet, but I am really excited!!