The 21st Century Here We Come

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More Akha Trip Photos

Here are some more photos for your viewing pleasure.

 The fearless crew (Boutan, Kerstin, Bob, Tom, Ling, Yoxa and Me.

 Yes thats right that is a picture of a puppy riding on a pig in the Akha village.

 This is the picture of the only water source/shower in the Akha Village.

 In a city on our way which has a lot of Chinese and more foreign tourists this sign was posted.  It says "When in Laos make your payment kip"  In the background students doing some practice dances with communist flags.

At our lunch spot Tom is sitting under what we hope was a dead beehive.

 Another View of the Akha village huts.

 Yoxa, Kerstin, and Tom sitting around discussing the future projects.

Bountan entering an Akha home.  Each house is surrounded by a fence with a block or stone on either side.  As you enter you are not allowed to step on the actual fence because the bad spirits will travel with you.  There is some thing very similar in other cultures around the world.

Akha!

The Akha village experience was a two day trip that seemed to take weeks.  Starting out early on Tuesday around 6 am a crew including Tom, Bob, Kerstin(a german intern with Tiger Trail), Yoxa(a friend of ours plus the director of development(I think that’s her title) with Tiger Trail), Bounkham(a guide with Tiger Trail), Boutan (an older lao man who works with CLI also one of Laos preeminent writers, who likes translating Hemingway to Lao), Ling (our driver) and me.  We are an interesting bunch setting out with one goal.  That goal was to see an Akha village which few other foreigners see.   The Akha are an ethnic people who originated in china and have worked their way down in to Phongsaly and Oudamxay provinces in Laos and other parts of Vietnam.  

This particular village has no electricity and according to Bob the people don’t like to bathe.  They can be attractive but age quickly with the rough lifestyles they live and wear beautiful bright colors.  This bumpy and dusty trail took us almost 9 hours to get to the Akha roman village.  It was at this village on the side of the highway that we left the van (Ling was not too pleased or secure with the idea of leaving it there) and walked the 40 minutes to the remote Akha village.  We walked along the ridge tops until we got to a gate of bamboo and wood that we enter the Akha village.  As we entered no one greeted us we just let ourselves in until the guide took us to the village headman’s (nayban in lao, sorry spelling lao karaoke is very hard) house.  He was out so we took a stroll around town to get to the old naybans house.  On our way we ran into a sign that listed things built in the village by German donators and the United Nations Office Drug and Crime.  Directly behind the sign was a school which was in disrepair.  The reason for the trip was to see if Tiger Trail and CLI could work together to help supply this village with a school. 

We walk through the town on the way to the old naybans house and it is very basic.  Small paths between houses with pigs, cows, dogs and buffalo sharing the paths.  The village is set into the hillside and as we would find out later has one bathroom and one shower.  We arrive at his house and are warmly greeted and led upstairs where over the next few hours we would talk about the village and eventually eat dinner.  I took a tour around town while it was still light out with the guide Bounkham and Ling.  

Bounkham told me some very interesting and shocking things.  This next section is not for the faint of heart.  If an Akha woman has twins the babies are left out in the sun to die while the parents are exiled from the community for a month while all of their belongings are burned.  They believe that twins are a bad omen.  After a woman gives birth she eats a black dog.  Not sure why exactly but we did see a large number of black dogs and puppies running around and now we know why.  They don’t care about divorce.  Yoxa told me about one man who had three wives, first one died, second one he divorced and is currently married to the third.  His second wife is now on her seventh husband.  When women get married normally around 15 they put their hair up in a bun sort of thing and don’t wash it until the husband dies or she gets divorced.    

The sun went down and we had to find our way back to the house for dinner.  Dinner was served under a light powered by D Batteries.  Its amazing how nice things like indoor plumbing and lighting really are.  You don’t miss them until they are gone.  We found out more information about possibly building the school and Bob seems to think that it is viable as long as the funding is there.  It will be difficult because it is such a remote location but doable. We did our shots of Lao Lao with Yoxa and Kerstin doing their best to fake taking the shots.  It was a homemade brew which really was not very good.  They served us dinner and we ate a raman type noodle dish with some Laap and some vegetable soup.  Good but most of it was a little spicy for me.   

The old nayban seemed to look about 14 but he had already served as nayban for 2 terms.  The current nayban was selected by the village elders and he also look about 14.  The reason he was selected because unlike many other Akha people he had passed the 6^th grade.  Currently the academics in the village there were four grades and two teachers and 75 students.  After the 4^th grade kids had to go to another village and then for high school had to completely move a few hours’ drive from home.   The nice part was that during a good portion of the discussion most of which was in Lao I could understand/follow along.  It felt empowering and rewarding to know just enough to follow basic conversations and across the room tom and I shared looks of satisfaction at our comprehension.  

After dinner and Lao Lao drinking, Tom, Bounkham, Ling and I made our way back to the actual Naybans house where we kept drinking Lao Lao, lipton tea and eating oreos.  Weird I know.  The naybans house was the only one in the village with electricity and they only had a single light in the middle of their upstairs.  Then the drunk father of the Naybans says “OK massage time”.  At first Tom and I are reticent because we don’t know if some young girls will be forced to give us a naughty massage so we respectfully decline but then the girls come in and it turns out just to be a massage.  Not the greatest massage I have ever received actually felt a lot like just full hand pinching but its not like I would turn it down.  Then on to sleep.   

I awoke with everyone around me gone and wandered downstairs to see Ling and Bounkham cutting up what turned out to be deer meat for Laap.  Laap for breakfast is not my favorite meal and considering I don’t normally eat my first meal of the day till 11 this 7 am deer laap mostly raw was not my idea of starting the day off right.  It was good and we did our best to eat some while the Naybans father keep trying to get us to drink Lao Lao with the Laap.  Only thing worse than raw Laap at 7 am is Lao Lao.  Luckily we were able to persuade him we didn’t want any lao lao.   

Breakfast was finished so we walked back to the other house and passed all the kids sitting outside of the school house waiting for school.  I got Bounkham to ask them if I could take a picture and they all ran inside screaming.  The Akha think that if you take their photo it will steal their soul, sadly this means I have very few photos of Akha people.  We made it to the house and then were forced to sit down for another breakfast this time of chopped up chicken.   We bolted before they busted out the Lao Lao bottle and went to take a look at the land they had prepared for the new school grounds.  It was easily large enough with about 4 cows asleep in the middle.  We said our good byes and trekked out.   

We drove back which took about 10 hours because we had to drop off Bountan in Mung Kua which added a few hours the drive.   We arrived in desperate need of some showers and very happy to get out of a bumpy van.  I am sure we will all appreciate the running water and the light switch in the house a little more often.  

Our van at the Akha Roman village.

Our trek along the ridge-line.

The view from the ridge.

Our group almost there.

Our first view of the Akha village from afar.
Below the current school in the village.

 Tom receiving his Akha massage.

 Ling cutting the deer meat for breakfast Laap while Bounkham jokes.

 A view of the village from the bottom field where the new school might go.

I tried to be sneaky taking a photo of the women as we left.

Well it was a busy few days but back in civilization messaging you all around the world.

Creative Heading

Well its been a long time since my last post and for that I appologize.  Things have been going well here in Laos.  The weather has gotten colder.  Practices have been moved from 6:30am to 8am to 8:30am.  Afternoon practice have also been moved up.  This morning we were surprised to see the stadium full of people with music blaring.  The group of students were preparing for the games and the opening ceremony.  We had finished practice before they actually started doing anything but I hear they will be there this afternoon so I will take some photos.  The stadium has been completely repainted and they are now doing work on elaborate metal structures which they will add lights.  The city has changed also.  In the past few weeks the laborers have been going crazy repainting the lane lines in the streets and completing a city beautification project.  Things here are looking very nice for the peak of tourism season starting. 

Last week Tom and I took a quick 3 day excursion to Vientiane which was a nice change of pace.  Its amazing how after being here in LP for just a few weeks all other cities seem giant and so busy.  There was actual traffic and it took more than 15 minutes to get across town.  Crazy.  Next week the CLI staff plus some people from Tiger Trails are going to trek up to Phongsali province up to an Ahka Village.  The reason for this trip is that CLI along with Tiger Trails will be working together to build a school..  The Ahka are an ethnic minority and we will actually have to pick up a guide who speaks Ahka.  They dont speak Lao.  I am excited to see this village where things are still so primitive.  It should be a three day trip.  There will be many photos. 

By all accounts the CLI donor hosting went well and the donors seem excited about CLI and the future.  Hopefully this will lead to CLI being able to expand and keep reaching more and more kids.  It sounds stupid but the work that CLI does has a much bigger impact than most of us realize.  There are other organizations that do similar work to CLI but none put the infrastructure in place by actually employing Lao people to be the librarians.  Sometimes living over here we get caught up in the bureaucratic bull**** that happens on a daily basis.  These are the times when we have to take a step back, look at the work that actually gets done and the effect it is having on these villages. 

Thank you for your support and remember that your donations have changed the lives of every child who picks up a book.  Photos to come soon since I know none of you actually read what I write just look at the pics.  We are working on a facebook page and hopefully revamping the CLI main web site in the next few weeks.  Remember any topics you would like me to write about let me know either by commenting or sending me an email.  David.m.berman02@gmail.com

Wedding season

As many of you realized yesterday was 11/1/11.  Although this alone has no particular meaning it did mean that a lot of people had wedding parties yesterday.  Tom and I were invited to two and attended two.  The first was for the education department ministers son.  Tom and I were the token CLI/Falang representatives.  It was a good time and many of the other CLI staff attended such as Chanta and Somlath.  Next up we had some Lao Lao friend's wedding.  This group was much more our age and there were a surprising amount of foreigners there.  This led to only one coach attending practice this morning...me.  Somlath didnt shows, Tom isnt feeling well and Sompien our other lao coach showed up for the last ten minutes, gave me a hug and told me he was hung over.  Ohh the joys of a 630am practice. 
In CLI related news tourist season is starting.  Over the next few weeks Bob, Tom and I will be at our tour guiding best trying to keep the supporters we have and trying to make some new ones to keep CLI and the Library Boats afloat.  We will be going to Chompet where the girls dorm is finished and up to Nom Kiaw where one of the more picturesque learning centers is.  Wish us luck and when the funders arrive I should have some more photos and actual CLI news. 
Chanta and staff have been working feverishly finishing some puppets for a new puppet show they will put on for activities.  They are papier-mache and each head is about the size of two fists together.  Not a great description sorry.  I will have Chanta throw up some photos on her blog.
http://lpblibraryboat.blogspot.com/


I hope all is well.  To those of you who celebrated halloween, I hope it was a good one.