One Year Away

Penny

We have posted a new album called "Southern Laos".  Enjoy!

Laos is home to many ethnic minorities whose beliefs and language are very different from that of the Lao population.  The country’s 3 major minorities are the Highland, the Midland and the Lowland minorities.

Our 3 day trek in the Dong Phu Vieng National Protected Area (NPA) brought us in close contact with a Lao Midland minority called Katang.  We completed the trek with another couple from Holland (Oscar and Raquel) and were accompanied by 2 semi-English speaking guides and 2 local guides for the jungle treks. 

The trip consisted of trekking during the day and getting to a local Katang village by 4 PM each day.  There we would meet our host family and the village leaders and would try our best to communicate with them as the guides prepared our meal. 

The highlight of the trek was the time that we spent in the villages; walking around while our entourage  of local children followed us everywhere, speaking to the villagers, and bathing at the local water pump or river while being closely watched by the locals.  With no electricity and limited entertainment options, we (the ‘falang’ meaning foreigners in Lao) were the main source of entertainment.

Village life is very basic.  Families grow rice, vegetables and raise cows, goats, pigs, buffalo, chickens and ducks.  Most of what they grow and raise is for their own consumption.  They rarely sell anything at local markets.  Most of the daily chores are done by the women of the village.  One of the tasks that is strictly reserved for women is the husking of the rice that is done by 2 women alternately pounding the rice with a very large wooden mortar and pestle.  On both morning we were abruptly woken by their rhythmic sounds at 2:30am and 3:30am respectively.

When we arrived at each village, we were only greeted by the men while the women hid out of sight.  All the drinking, eating and singing was only to be enjoyed by the men.  Thankfully the ‘no women’ rule did not apply to tourists and Raquel and I were allowed to participate and to sleep-in.

The villagers believe in spirits and they take care to keep them happy.  They believe that each house has a "house spirit" and it is consulted for everything from whether you are allowed to clap in the house or whether you are allowed to take rice out of the "rice storage house".  We made sure to be on our best behaviour because if we did anything to offend a spirit, an animal sacrifice would be made to appease them.  One of the big no-nos in their culture is having female and male guests sleep together.  So, Raquel and I slept on one side of the room while Oscar, Joe and the guides slept on the other with our feet pointing to the inside of the house (as having your feet point to an outside wall or to someones head are 2 other no-nos).

The men in the village had a lot of questions for us.  Most were very basic like where we were from and if  we were married while others were a little more surprising.  One old man asked: "Where does the world end?"  We all looked at each other taken aback.  He then added "Where do you fall off the earth?" and using a pack of cigarettes to show the flat earth, he demonstrated with his fingers how you would fall when you reached the end of the pack.  We explained that there is no end-point and that the earth was round using our clenched fists to represent a round shape of the earth.  We tried to explain to him that we were doing a trip around the world that started in Canada and went all the way around the earth.  I do not think that he believed our explanation and probably started asking the spirits to save us from a horrible death by falling off the earth.

Even though some still believe that the earth is flat, all villagers had heard of Canada.  The road into the village, the village school and the 2 water pumps were all built by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).  We received hundreds of thank you’s from the villagers for our country’s contributions and we were asked to thank the people of Canada for improving their lives.  So, here it goes "Thank you Canada on behalf of the Katang Village in Laos"!