Pin the Tail on the Turkey

On Saturday, Julia and I had a small Thanksgiving get together with some of our students. We had originally planned on 10ish students total... but on Friday, our students told us more were coming, maybe 25 total? We didn't know how many would come... but we didn't want to run out of food.  I think we had 16 students who came. And it was fun!!

I am making the biggest apple crisp ever! We peeled 13 pounds of apples! We made green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, gravy and bought chicken.

Some students came a little early to help peel, cut, cook and mash the potatoes.

 Students in line to get their food. We had to teach them how to make a little hole in the mashed potatoes so the gravy didn't run all over the plate.

 Most of these students are mine. Most of them liked most of the food.

 My students taking fun pictures.

 Making our feathers for Pin the Tail on the Turkey game. This probably sounds like such a juvenile game... but they really liked it!

Spinning the Thippachahn to pin on the feather.

Lamphoun is helping Phouveun stick on his feather.

Notice the two boys on the right in the back. This is such a normal thing for boys/men to do. They are always hanging on each other, with their arms on their shoulders. Or if we're sitting, draping an arm on someones leg.... They're so touchy and I think it's so cute!

Julia and I played and sang Forever by Chris Tomlin. We printed off words for the kids to sing along. They loved the guitar. A few of the students could play pretty well. We heard songs in English, Lao, Hmong (a minority group in Lao) and Chinese (I have an exchange student from China). 

Unfortunately, we made too much food! :( We will be eating sweet potatoes and apple crisp for weeks! 

Thanksgiving

I have so much to be thankful for! Thanksgiving is a great time to celebrate those blessings! I am thankful that I can live in Laos for the next years. I am thankful for my wonderful teammates and friends in Laos; for all the fun we have together. I am very thankful for my students and the Lao teachers who are in our department and who we can eat lunch with. I am thankful for the beautiful weather in Laos. I am thankful that I can eat American food in Laos (especially turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and stuffing!) I am very thankful for my family and friends back home. But also thankful that I'm not too homesick. I'm thankful for my nephew and my other niece or nephew on the way! :) I am thankful that I know about Jesus' love for me. And I hope soon my students will know about his love too.

On Wednesday, we celebrated Thanksgiving with our team. We spent a good part of the day cooking and preparing food.

Linda came over in the morning to prepare the turkey. We bought the turkey from Thailand last week. I was not going to touch the uncooked bird, but it tasted delicious!

 Kenton is carving the turkey and I'm making some buttery stuff for the biscuits.

We also invited Heather's roommate and a guy who works in the Faculty of Letters. We had all the normal Thanksgiving dishes: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, corn casserole, sweet potatoes and biscuits.

Kenton  made pumpkin and pecan pie! 

After dinner, we sang some songs and wrote things on paper stones (like what we do at Galena) that we were thankful for or that showed His faithfulness. Even though I wasn't celebrating with family, it is so nice to have a little family in Laos! 

Giving Alms

Sunday morning we went to That Luang again to see the Alms Givings. Monks come from all over Laos to take part in this celebration. Every morning, some devout Buddhist women will prepare sticky rice and food to give to monks. Monks will walk from their temple to collect the food from these women and bless them with a prayer. It is the same few women who give food to the monks each day. That Luang was kinda like a huge food collection to give alms for the afterlife 

 Monks were lined all around That Luang sitting at tables with an offering plate and big bowl thing to collect the alms. People walked around distributing sticky rice, candy and money into the plates.

 There were thousands of people to celebrate. Early on Sunday morning they all sat to receive their communal blessing from a monk over a loud speaker. After the blessing they handed out their stuff.

 This is just like Christmas for the monks. They kept getting candy and money! Underneath their tables, they had garbage bags that they kept emptying their overflowing small bowls into so they could receive more stuff.

 They all had freshly shaven heads. Some of the boys are so young!

There were some nuns in white. They also shave their heads!

 Lines and lines of monks collecting alms!

 Many different shades of orangeish.

 Lao Buddhism is a mix of Buddhism, Hinduism, and animist religions. This tree had many candles and sticky rice around it.

 I don't know if the monks will actually eat the sticky rice they received here. They got dozens of sticky rice balls rolled from hundreds of fingers. It might not taste the best... But they might all get a little chubby eating all the candy they got!

 Even with all of the spiritual stuff, it was still a festival of fun. There were tons of these balloon popping games, ring toss and other games.There was tasty food and cold drinks.

One last picture of their collections of alms that they think gives them hope for the afterlife.

That Luang Festival

This weekend is the 450 Year Celebration of Vientiane being the capital city of Laos. Saturday afternoon there was supposed to be a parade. Then we heard it was canceled. We went to That Luang, the symbol of Laos, to walk around and see what was going on. This is the most important time for Buddhists to make merit. I'm not sure exactly if they make merit for themselves or for their dead relatives.... We asked some students who we saw, but it's hard to explain in a second language. There were tons of people at That Luang! And thousands of monks from every province.

 We saw monks from probably 8 to 88 years old. Some families will send their boys to be monks because then they know they will have food, a bed and an education.

 Many people taking their offerings to That Luang.

 Some of the things are made from banana leaves and flowers. One of these things costs about three dollars.

 Monks are collecting alms from some people. The monks were saying the names of people who had given.

The banks must be out of 500 and 1000 kip bills. Everyone had many small bills stuck in their offerings. This is a large offering of flowers and hundreds of 500 kip bills folded together.

There were so many people with so many offerings. It's sad to see them all going through all of this work for nothing. They're hoping that by burning candles and giving sticky rice, candy and money they can earn good things for themselves or others in the afterlife. How wonderful that nothing I do earns anything, but that I can have everlasting life through the one time offering of my Savior's life.

Vang Vieng

I had class on Monday at 8:00. After class I was sitting in the office with the Lao teachers. Suddenly, Mr. Si told us that there will be no class starting when this class is finished. (Like 11:30) We had two class periods on Monday morning, and then the rest of the week off for the 450 Year Celebration. I don't know if they like to keep the foreigners in the dark or what. I think everyone kinda knew that we wouldn't have class... but things kept changing. Anyway, since we didn't have class we decided to head to Vang Vieng. Julia and I rode a bus 3 1/2 hours north. Kenton, Linda, and Steph drove their motorbikes. Our rules say we must be experienced drivers, or have lived in the country for 6 months before we can drive outside of the city; so Julia and I had to ride the bus. We left Thursday morning and returned Friday evening. 

These pictures are kinda out of order, but it's not doing what I want. When we got there, we found our nice hotel! And then we went tubing down the river. We left at 2:30ish, so it was a little chilly when the sun was hidden behind the mountains.

 After tubing, we took hot showers and watched the sunset. Then we ate some dinner and got massages.

 Julia, Steph and Linda enjoying our bungalow.

 Friday morning we went to a cave. We didn't know exactly where we were going, so Kenton asked these cute kids if we were headed to Phuket Cave. They said yes! When they saw his camera around his neck, they asked him to take their photographs! They were loving the attention.

 Two little boys who also wanted their photos taken.

 I cannot believe how awesome it is that I get to live in the most beautiful country with the most beautiful, friendly people! These are some mountains near VV. This is a recently harvested rice field.

 Some cool flowers we saw on our way walking to the cave.

 The cave that we toured was not the one Kenton had in mind. After driving a while and following some signs, we came upon some man's house. He said he could take us to a cave. We put on the head lights he had given us and followed him through beautiful trees and rice fields to the cave. Steph is precariously crossing one of many bamboo bridges.

 The walk to the cave was so so gorgeous! With mountains and trees, rice fields and flowers and rivers!

Kenton, Linda, Julia, and Steph in the cave.

 Many Hmong people live near Vang Vieng. As we were returning from the cave, we saw a little Hmong couple with their son collecting ginger in the forest. Kenton and Linda spoke a little Lao with them, but this boy only spoke Hmong. He was so cute and loved Kenton taking his picture. He had some cucumbers he was using as ears to be silly.

 The couple and their son headed to their home.

 I got to sit behind Steph on her motorbike and enjoy the scenery as we drove to the cave.

 We all got head lamps to wear in the cave. It would have been very scary if ours hadn't worked! Our guide was pretty trusty and helpful, but it was definitely not one of the most visited caves.

 This may be the same picture as earlier, but it takes forever to load. So you can just be reminded again of how thankful I am to be living in Laos! :)

Following our guide through the trees.

 Climbing a ladder in the cave.

Saved

Friday afternoon, we got on the bus to go back to Vientiane. We were so happy to have seats! Because of the festival, many people were also headed to Viantiane. We thought we were full, but we kept stopping to pick up more people. They took out little stools for people to sit on in the aisle. After the stools were full, they squished three people on a bench. (Which isn't so horrible since they're all skinny Lao people.) After the seats were full, they let more people on to stand between the aisles and by the doors. This picture was taken before we stopped letting more people on. Actually, I don't think we turned anyone away from getting on. We just had to get a little comfier with our neighbors.

Vang Vieng was a fun trip! And we made it back in time for more stuff for the festival. I'll write more about that soon!

450 Year Celebration

This week is the celebration of Vientiane being the capital city of Laos for 450 years! There has been preparation and fixing ups going on in the city since we arrived. The celebration centers around That Luang, which is a big stupa in the middle of the city. That Luang has some important relic from some important Buddhist person in it.

Last week we were told all of the schools in the city would be closed for the week so everyone could properly celebrate. So we were thinking of maybe doing a little traveling over our break.... Then we heard that we will have school until Thursday because the policy is to have school. As of Saturday night, the Faculty of Letters does NOT have class all week, but my faculty, the Faculty of Education, does have class all week. So, now I'm planning on teaching next week, but we'll see how many of my students show up. I think (or maybe it's wishful thinking) that many of my students will come. I sure hope so! 

The big 450 Year Celebration is just a big festival with many booths and good food. It seems like a pretty big deal... but I don't really know what else all happens. Oh, there is a big ceremony on Friday which some of my students are volunteering for. Some will dance or translate or be security guards who pat people down before they are allowed to enter the stadium for the ceremony. 

Last night some visiting American students hosted a party for our students. We ate Lao food, practiced English and took pictures with the Americans. It was really nice not being the host so I could have more fun with my students! They're all just the best! 

One of my students asked me last week how she can improve her speaking. I asked her if she had any English speaking friends. She said no. I said she could come to my office after class and we can go through a book of 4000 Questions for Getting to Know Anyone to practice speaking English. On Tuesday and Friday I had 5 students who came after class to practice speaking English. We started with one question from the book, but we were soon talking about other random things. I feel like the topic of boyfriends and girlfriends comes up frequently... But maybe I can teach some of my boys that whistling at a pretty girl is not the best way to get her attention. They also enjoy hearing about cultural differences between Laos and America. They were pretty horrified when I told them that I hiked up my sinh to ride on the back of a motorbike instead of sitting side saddle like all other proper Lao women.
It's really fun to chat with my students more outside of class. I told them we could do this every Tuesday and Friday afternoon. So far they seem interested. Hopefully they'll keep wanting to come and practice English!