Window on Southeast Asia:
Listening to the Rice Grow: A Journey Up the Nam Ou River in Laos
continued
Akha society seemed noticeably more chauvinistic that Lao society. The women brought dinner on a rattan tray and didn't eat until the men were finished. Even then they ate in the kitchen. After dinner the rice whiskey went around and everyone had to sing as they drank. Of course, the Germans had no trouble thinking of drinking songs. When it was my turn I was told I had to sing in place of drinking as I was on a medicine that I couldn't mix with alcohol at the time. For some reason I suddenly remembered that old sea shanty "A life on the ocean waves, a home on the rolling sea…" so I sang that. They Akha seemed to like it. Over time more and more children gathered, their big, black eyes twinkling as they watched us with the sort of quiet excitement that western children reserve for their favorite TV shows. Mr. Khamman persuaded them to sing a couple of traditional Akha songs for us, one of which I was able to record on my walkman. Not that it's hard to get the Akha to sing; they love singing so much that it terrifies me to think of what would happen if karaoke were introduced to the Akha.
The Cross-Roads Village.
It's a good thing I had batteries for the walkman since there was no electricity in the village. We did our eating, drinking, and singing by candle and firelight. Before going to bed I walked outside to look at the stars. All the electricity was off in the lower villages by this time and the cities with 24 hour lights were many miles away. As the moon had either set or not come up the sky was just amazing. The next day after breakfast we left the village behind. A couple of days there made it clear that these people live harder lives than those of the lower villages. Their loads are heavier and they clearly have more work to do. Their lives do have compensations for this, but not to the same extent as the villagers in the lower villages and the Lao people who mostly inhabit the valleys. While getting back down to the main road and passing through the villages, it was clear that life was easier down here. When we reached the cross-roads village, we waited for a bus to Muang Kwaa. As we waited I noticed signs that were posted there by the government. Some showed proper hygiene; others showed photos from the Lao People's Revolutionary Party Congress and had one of the few hammer and sickles I had seen in the countryside. Yet another showed happy villagers from different tribes and had a word in red in Lao script crossed out. I wondered what it might be. Capitalism? Imperialism? Mr. Khamman said the word was Lao for "Aids."
The bus was actually a tiny tuk-tuk with a colorful assortment of passengers. Among them were Akha, Khammou, and Lao with their chickens and a pig. I managed to fit in between some sacks of rice. An Akha woman sat across from me with a baby in her lap. The trip back was uneventful, at least until the young mother across from me matter-of-factly removed her shirt and started breast feeding her baby. In a funny way it struck me as a sign of an innocence not yet lost, a feeling I had had several times on the journey. For all the isolation and poverty, a certain innocence seemed to be etched into the faces of the people, from the mother in the tuk-tuk to the children in the village who found great entertainment value in singing to the strange foreigners. If they're lucky, it will never be lost.
Robert Wilson is an English teacher in northern Thailand. Pictures of his travels can be seen at photos.yahoo.com/robert_92122.
Other stories in this series:
First in our series, Window on Southeast Asia: From Monkey to Monk
Window on Southeast Asia: Along Cambodia's Backroads
Window on Southeast Asia: Listening to the Rice Grow: A Journey Up the Nam Ou River in Laos, Part 1
Don't miss future articles from Robert in our continuing series, Window on Southeast Asia.
