Removing the Bad Spirits

We woke up very early. I think we have arrived at just the wrong time for our hosts. They will spend the next five days planting rice in the rice fields. This morning they woke up at sunlight and dressed for work in the field. The family owns 5 or 6 hectares of land. They mostly grow the rice to feed the large extended family, and everyone under the age of 55 helps.

The rice fields are beautiful. They are in the back of the house, extending as far as one can see left and right, butting up against the beautiful green mountains, with forests and golden brown earth. Perfectly centered in the view from the stone wall at the back of the house where I sit, about 1000 yards away in the center of the rice field is a small grey-brown wooden open house with a rusting corrugated tin roof. It is balanced by two soaring bamboo trees. The highest mountain is slightly off to the left, but centered above the little rice house is a cell tower, broadly striped in red and white.

Kham, Ajahn Bounxay's oldest sister, and her husband Phoumy's house reminds me of Andy's friend Oui's house in Tamafaiwan, Thailand, which we visited in 2007, but it is quite a bit more upscale. It shares a property with Ajahn Bounxay's mother's house, a simple wooden house at the front of the property. To access the property you need to go through a metal gate that holds in the dogs and chickens and ducks and the three little children that belong to Ajahn Bounxay's sisters. The first floor of Kham and Phoumy's house is one open room and, as you are facing the house, a stairway turns from the middle of the left side up the left side wall to a landing in the front left corner. The steps are not uniform in height and the top two in particular, require me to use the carved mahogany balusters on the railing that surround the stairwell to get myself up the stairs. When you arrive on the second floor, there are two bedrooms to the left and a closet that runs about 10 feet x 3 feet wide across the front middle of the house. As you pass the closet and rooms, the entire right side of the upstairs, about 30' x 10' is open. We are sleeping the open are towards the rear of the house on a pair of mattresses on the floor. At night it is protected by mosquito netting, though I haven't seen or heard many mosquitoes. It is a private space with a reciprocating fan on the ceiling and floor. There is a computer set up on a table on the closet wall where, above it, all the electricity is located on a board on the closet wall.

They have set up a table in the open room on the first floor, where they insure that we are adequately fed. They are attentive hosts. This morning, we had a breakfast of fish soup, small birds, a dish of fish cut into one inch squares that were covered in gelatin, pineapple and mango, and, of course, sticky rice. Everything is delicious, although the head of the small bird had been tucked under the wings, and it crunched in a way that made me a bit uncomfortable. So I didn't eat the head of the second one.

Our language skills are not ideal. There is no English. All communication is in Lao. There is very little actual information passing from us to our hosts that is essential, because we neither understand nor can be understood. We are learning the names of the foods. We are learning a bit about the family, but the conversations so far have been unessential pleasantries that must be exhausting for our hosts. And usually, even that requires the use of a dictionary.

After breakfast, Phoumy comes and asks me something. What I think he said is "Let's go the the river." We are game. Disty and I join Phoumy and walk quickly down the road about 1/4 mile, chasing Kham, turning right at a small road, and cutting through a house with lots of children sitting in the underneath area of the raised wooden house. I thought that they were there for school, but I knew that everyone is home this week for the rice planting. Rather than going to the river, we were going to the ceremony for Ajahn's young cousin, who died on Saturday.

We headed up the wooden stairs of the simple house and entered a room filled with adults, mostly elders. There were two other rooms at the back, where the parents and grandparents of the young boy sat. We were asked to sit in a place of honor along the back of the house, where the monks would later sit to perform the ceremony. We were given water and Khao Dome. There was a bowl of sunflower seeds sitting in front of us. Phoumy received a white blessing string and left, letting us know that Ajahn Bounxay would be coming at 10. It was 9. Disty and I looked at each other and I could see reflected in her eyes what I was feeling. An hour can be a long time.

To my right was Mai Phom, who explained that his name is a high tone, not to be confused with, phom, the lower tone word for hair. He is an important member of the family, with a charismatic way. Disty sat to my left. To her left was, Mai Thong, an ex-monk, whose son is a monk in Thailand but is home for a few weeks on vacation. Mai Thong later led the lay part of the funeral ceremony. After about 30 minutes of watching people come in and out, we were moved to the opposite side of the house. We were given pillows to sit on and tea. We were seated amongst the elder women: two sisters of Ajahn Bounxay's mother and some aunts.

Near us now, was the room where the family of Bounsong sat, and Disty went in and spoke with them softly. She was speaking with a young man. She was in there for quite a while, and I watched her with admiration as she navigated across culture and language to heal. Behind us on a table alongside the wall, was a television that was playing a video of Indiana Jones dubbed into Thai with Thai subtitles. Every once in a while the original German spoke in the film appears. While we waited for the Monks, people were watching the most thrilling parts. Magically, a basket of Bounsong's things appeared. His belt, a pair of pants, a vial of something that may have been cologne. His little brothers came by and stared at the basket. The older of them couldn't stop looking and had a look on his face that I've seen on mine when I find an object of Andy's that brings back his essence to me.

Eventually, at about 10:30, Ajahn Bounxay and two monks, one of them Mai Thong's son, and three novices appeared, taking their seats along the back wall. They began the service, and it was much more chaotic than services we have attended at Wat Buddhabhavanna back home. It was a long service, with much chanting and bowing and candle lighting and sitting. At one point, I thought the ceremony was over and I was really uncomfortable and switched my position to sit on my knees. At that moment everyone turned and looked at me, and I was very embarrassed to have disrupted the ceremony. A chair came out for me. Then one for Disty, just in case. As we special guests sat there, above the others, it was clear that the commnity was only concerned for our comfort and happiness. But I felt that, perhaps, it was at the expense of the dead boy. That somehow we were bad spirits that manifested ourselves in the room. At one point the wind blew the windows open and blew out the candles. I could not shake the thought that our karma had negatively impacted the village. But I also felt that we were there for a reason. Bounsong's mother was sitting in front of us, and I felt like putting my hand on her shoulder, as others had done for me, to let her know that I understood what it was like to lose a child. But between language and cultural divides, I decided against it, and I am not sure she will ever know.

After the ceremony, the monks were fed lunch. They left about noon, and we were asked to move back to the position we were in when we first arrived. I sat next to Phom, again, and as we ate he taught me the names for the foods. It turned out that almost everyone there was avoiding the spicy food—a signature of Lao cooking—because the spiciness made their stomachs hurt.

After eating, too much, we politely said goodbye. And as we left, ready to head up the road to Kham and Phoumy's, someone called out to us and led us to Ajahn Bounxay, who had been waiting to take us to see the Wat and the hot springs, deep in the forest.