Mom and Dad

My mom and dad came to visit me for almost two weeks! And it was so nice to see them again! We stayed pretty busy and it was fun to introduce them to my students, friends and teammates. They also replenished my supply of dark chocolate. :)

 They arrived on Friday morning. My students also decided to cancel class that day, so it worked out pretty well! We ate breakfast and visited a temple and Patouxay, a big monument in the middle of the city. This is by a water fountain at Patouxay.

 Mom and I in front of Patouxay. I think we also ate some Lao food the first night - papaya salad, grilled fish and sticky rice.

On Saturday, one of my students invited us to his house for lunch and to meet his family. He's one of my favorite students. He was a very good host, and it's just fun to spend time with students outside of class. His sister and her friend were also there, so it was nice to have lots of good English speakers.

 Monday we went to That (pronounced tat) Luang. Which is the symbol of Laos. The hip bone of some ancient Buddha is buried here. One of my students was a monk for 11 years and just quit a month ago. He lives at the temple in That Luang so he gave us a tour and told us some history. We came straight from school, which is why we are all dressed up.

 Some of the paintings inside That Luang. They explain the 7 lives of Buddha.

 I think this got stretched... We ate sin dat or Korean barbeque with some teammates on Monday night.

 My parents came to my classes twice. The first day they told about themselves and answered students questions. The second day the students gave presentations to teach them about culture and such of Laos.

 My adorable nephew Brayden! They had some cute pictures of him on their camera, so I stole some of Brayden too! I'm excited to be home in the summer and see him again! :)

 This is a really bad picture, but Yui, one of my friends, and her parents took us out to eat at a yummy Vietnamese restaurant. They also all speak English very well!

 We flew to Luang Prabang, which is a city in the north of Laos, for the weekend. It's really touristy! But has beautiful mountains. Saturday we went on a trek through the jungle. Our guide was really good! We trekked to Kwang Si Waterfall. It was huge, with many layers, I think this is the first one.

 We continued the tradition of eating pizza on Saturday night. :)

 We rode elephants. Going through the river.

 Mom and I rode together. Our driver spoke great English and answered lots of our questions.

 Dad had to ride alone. :(

 We climbed Mt. Phou Si. A little mountain/hill in the middle of Luang Prabang. We watched the sunset.

 Some sunset pictures for you, Danae. :)

 We also took a boat to some caves. The boat was big and only for us three. It took two hours to get to the caves. It was a nice ride, and nice to see more of Laos.

 Many Buddhas in the caves.

 On our trek to the waterfall, we also visited a Hmong and Khmu village. Hmong and Khmu are the two largest minority groups in Laos. This is a Hmong baby. Lao babies are adorable!

 Sorry, the pictures are out of order, but this is some of the land we trekked through to the waterfall.

 At our lunch stop on the way to the waterfall. Laos is really a pretty country!

 Mom and I at the waterfall.

 You could swim at the waterfall. It looked like fun, but was a little too chilly for me. Dad had fun though.

 Going off of the rope swing. You could also jump off of the falls in the background.

We went back to the waterfall on Sunday because we didn't have much time there with the trek.

Mom and dad relaxed at home when I taught on Tuesday and Wednesday. And then they flew home Wednesday evening.

I think this is most of what we did when they were here. I'm glad they could meet some of the people who I talk about, so now they will understand a little more. And good to catch up on things from home. It was a nice visit! So, if anyone else want's to come... we have a spare bedroom and I can drive you around on my motorbike! :)

Sticky Rice

Sticky rice is the most commonly eaten food in Laos, and it is delicious! It is sticky, so you just reach into the big basket and squish a little ball together with your fingers. Then dip the ball into some jeo or scoop up some papaya salad to shove in your mouth. Eating with your fingers is also more fun! Much better than regular rice. And ViengPhone let me help cook it!

 This is ViengPhone and 3 of her sisters. One is studying agriculture at the National University. Phan is in high school, so she helps on the farm and such too, and Pang quit high school so she can stay home with the one year old, Noy. Pang sews Lao shirts while she is home watching the baby. Nang is in the middle, she is ViengPhone's niece (from her older sister.)

 Eating lunch around the little table. We probably had fish soup.

 ViengPhone is putting the rice that had been soaking for the last 4 hours into the basket to cook.

 The rice is in the basket above the pot on the fire. Their kitchen is a separate room from the house.

 The sticky rice is steaming. This is rice grown from her field. When they plant, they plant mostly sticky rice, and only a little white rice.

 Her sister and baby sister in the kitchen.

 After the rice steams for maybe 30 minutes, she dumps it on this wooden board thing to spread it out.

 I'm spreading out the rice. I don't know why, she told me to.

 Then she forms the rice into balls and puts them in the baskets that you can see in the background.

 Eating dinner. Also with her dad!

Because I was the guest, everyone wanted to cook me some yummy food! Some of her sister's friends came over to cook me noodle salad and to see the foreigner. ViengPhone kept telling me that no foreigner had ever slept in her village before. So the kids wanted to come see me. I think I was a bit of a disappointment. :) I tried to speak to them in Lao.... but they usually couldn't understand what I was saying. I think they were a little bored that I also ate sticky rice and noodle salad.... I don't know what they expected to be different about me. But they were sweet! And her sisters were really fun!!

Rice Farmers

This past weekend I went to one of my student's homes. She lives 2 1/2 hours away by bus. We left at 8:00 Saturday morning. She lives in a little country side village. It was really fun, but I don't know if I wanna go back any time too soon. I love my comforts of living in a city! :)

There are 6 girls in her family. She is the second oldest. Her family was so sweet and welcoming! Saturday was New Year's Day, so we went to some parties and sang and danced. They were very kind to make me fish soup and chicken soup and duck soup and chicken laap and papaya salad and noodle salad and fish laap and.... but I had enough Lao food to last me for the next month or so. 

They kept saying that I should stay home from the farm because it isn't good for me to be out there. And if I am out in the sun, I will not have beautiful white skin. But, thankfully, they let me come out to the farm with them!!! :) :) :)

 ViengPhone, my student (you can see her face) and her sisters are putting the small rice seedlings in baskets to take the the field to plant.

 Her mom, Viengphone, and her two sisters out in the field planting the rice.

 I helped too! They also probably wanted me to sit in the shade so I wouldn't destroy their crop this year.

 The mud is kinda fun :)

 Her dad was plowing the other plot to plant rice in soon.

 This is a big field. There are maybe 20 different families that have plots of land in this big field. They are separated by the walls of the irrigation system.

 This is a neighbor's plot of rice that was planted a little earlier.

 They have a big irrigation system. It's dry season right now, and hasn't rained since October and won't rain until April. Their village is right on a river, so they take water from the river to grow rice two times a year. To get out to her plot of land, you need to walk on the walls of grass. I was a little worried I was gonna fall in to the rice!

 All of them planting in a row.

I like their hats.

I was really happy I gotta see how they plant the rice! Also glad I gotta plant a bit myself. But perfectly content planting a tiny section and letting them make me sit in the shade so I wouldn't be too exhausted from the hard work.