Travels

It’s late Sunday afternoon. Even though it’s 29°, the house feels surprisingly cool. The sun has disappeared behind some dark, threatening clouds in the west, and the fan is blowing directly on me. It looks like we’ll get a thunderstorm later on to cool things off a little more. Who knows, we might even get down to an almost chilly 25° or 26° overnight!

Earlier Sivone, Vanh, and Peter came and picked Cathy and me up, and drove us to Moui’s mom’s place for lunch. There we met Nin, Kesone, and Boui who’d traveled by motorcycle. We also met Vanh’s cousin, whose name escaped us. I should probably try to explain how Moui, Boui, and Vanh’s cousin are related to Nin and her family, but it’s a long complicated story that I don’t fully understand myself. I can say that Moui’s mom is Vanh’s father’s second wife. The house we visited today was the house that Vanh grew up in. Let’s make it simple and just call them all “cousins”.

Hi guys, it’s Cathy here, and I have to clarify the relationships. Moui is Nin’s aunt, and Vanh, Nin’s mom’s half sister. Boui is a first cousin to Nin, and is Vanh’s full sister’s daughter. All this means that Boui is also a niece of Moui, that is, Moui is Boui’s aunt. Vanh’s cousin actually is her cousin. Her mom and Vanh’s dad are brother and sister. Just to add to the confusion, Boui lives with Moui’s mom and Moui lives with Nin’s mom and Nin lives with us half the time. All of them seem to come and go from our place, and I never really know what’s going on. [Ah, yes, that simplifies everything... Let’s just call them “cousins”–Gord]

Those of you who’ve met Vanh may remember her talking about how her family home was bombed during the Indochina war and how, as children at the time, they saw bodies floating down the Mekong. Before lunch today, we walked to the area along the banks of the river where the Royal Lao Government soldiers would bring suspected Pathet Lao sympathizers from the surrounding villages and kill them. Once the suspected sympathizers had been killed by a hammer blow to the head, by being stabbed, or by being shot, their bodies would be dumped into the river. In the same way that the now-peaceful Italian countryside near Monte Cassino that we visited with Dad bore no signs of the horrors of the battle at the Hilter Line, the field we walked in today revealed nothing of its dark history. Instead, a few water buffalo calves grazed peacefully, while strange dragonflies with their feather-like wings flitted about. The Mekong flowed along lazily, muddy and wide, at the bottom of the steep bank. I listened closely, but I couldn’t hear the echoes of the screams.

After the Communist takeover in 1975, this fairly isolated stretch of the Mekong, with its then densely forested banks, also became a favourite area for Lao’s who wanted to try to escape across the river to Thailand. At night, the Pathet Lao soldiers would tie all the fishing boats together to keep the people from using them. Instead, the people would tie what little money they had in a plastic bag around their waist, and then try to swim across the river on an inflated inner tube. Here and elsewhere, soldiers would shoot those they saw trying to escape.

We returned to the village the “back way” along muddy trails and back lanes that ran beside the fields, and behind people’s houses. Vanh knew many of the people we met, and some of them stared at the strange sight of falangs walking through their community. Just before we reached the house, we walked by a house where the family was in the process of making rice noodles to take to the market. They kindly showed us how they made the noodles, and let Cathy try her hand at it.

To make the noodles, rice flour is mixed with water and then squeezed through a sort of pastry bag, with a sieve-like bottom, into a big pot of boiling water. As the noodles are very fine, they cook quickly and soon rise to the top of the water where they’re scooped out and then draped over the hand to let the excess water run off. A practiced noodle maker makes very long noodles. Cathy’s were somewhat shorter and, they told her, would be worth less at the market. Still, they tasted pretty good when we brought them home and added them to the lunch table.

Making Noodles.

Inspecting the Results.

Moui’s mom had made quite a feast for us. There was beef (or buffalo?) soup, laap, a dish made with long beans, bamboo shoots, banana flowers and bean sprouts, sticky rice, noodles and, of course, Beer Lao. Probably to make Cathy and me more comfortable we sat at the table instead of on a mat on the floor, Lao-style. The food was seep lai, and we were eem pot by the time we were done.

Can you spot the Falangs?.

Last Tuesday, we went with Boun Lod (the little girl who was badly burned when she was only a few days old) and her parents to the prosthetic clinic at the rehab hospital to see about getting her fitted for artificial arms. The hospital itself isn’t much to look at, but the staff, including visiting professionals from England and the Netherlands, took a keen interest in Boun Lod and her difficulties. After a good deal of discussion, the staff decided that, for the time being at least, she would be best served with one arm that had a split hook that could be interchanged with a prosthetic hand, while her other arm and hand would simply be cosmetic.

At first, Boun Lod was not too interested in a cosmetic hand. It was probably not too surprising as the example they showed her was enormous and dead-looking, like a prop in a bad slasher movie. (Yes, to those of you who know the crokinozer trophy, it looked like that! –C) When they explained to her that her hand would be much smaller and brown, she warmed to the idea.

At about three-and-a-half years old, Boun Lod doesn’t really see the need for arms or hands—she gets along fine with the help of her parents and siblings, and by using her feet for most everything—but her parents have told her that she’ll need hands before she can go to school. And she really wants to go to school, so she was happy about the whole arm/hand idea.

Boun Lod and her parents were to return to the hospital the next day to get the molds made. From what we’ve heard, the prosthetic makers are first rate—unfortunately, they’ve had a lot of practice due to the effects of UXO (unexploded ordinance) left over from the war.

Cathy is continuing to investigate possible ways for Boun Lod to have the surgery she needs on her face, neck, and chest. So far, there have been a couple of promising responses, but nothing definite yet. Boun Lod’s parents, Via and Noy, will start taking English classes at Vientiane College in mid-July in preparation for what we all hope will be a positive response from a North American hospital. But, even with a positive response, any surgery would still be many months away.

Almost unbelievably, there are only two weeks of classes left in the term. I feel like I’ve made real progress with the report writing class, and I’ve seen steady improvement in the elementary students. Cathy has worked very hard with the chemistry students, and we’ll see if her efforts have paid off when the results of their midterms come back next week.

We’re looking forward to Chris’ arrival in a couple of weeks, and to taking off on our trip to Pakse and southern Lao, to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and to Luang Prabang and northern Lao. After that, we’ll come back to Vientiane for Peter’s birthday, and then make a quick trip to Xieng Khuang and the “Plain of Jars”. Then it will be time to head home. Yikes, where does the time go?