Sabaidee from Laos. My wife, Disty, is spending a month here volunteering at the Luang Prabang Friendship Hospital for Children. I came for a week to carry her bags, and I am meeting up with old friends and making new ones.
Last year, I had the privilege of hosting Khamchanh Souvannalith (Ton) for a weekend in Boston. He was a visiting fellow brought to the United States by the Asian Cultural Council in New York. He was interning at the American Museum of Natural History and wanted to come to Boston to experience the Lao New Year at a Lao temple. We had hosted another artist from Laos before, and Ton spent the Lao New Year with me. Disty was out of town, and Ton and I spent the weekend together visiting the Lao Buddhist temple, Wat Buddhabhavana, in Westford, Massachusetts, only 20 minutes from Applewood Books’s office in Carlisle, Massachusetts. From that weekend together, we have become close friends, and when I knew I would be traveling to Luang Prabang, I wanted to connect with Ton, his family, and his work.
Ton is the Collections Manager and Education and Outreach Manager at the Traditional Arts & Ethnology Centre (TAEC) in Luang Prabang. TAEC collects, preserves, and interprets the traditional arts and lifestyles of the country’s many and diverse ethnic groups. The Museum was co-founded in 2007 by Tara Gujadhur and Thongkhoun Soutthivilay and currently employs 22 people. I am hoping to volunteer there for a few days during my visit.
***
Saturday, October 15, 2016
Sabaidee, Laos
As we approach the airport in Luang Prabang at sunset, the clouds and red-gold smoky dusk hugging the round green-canopied mountains, the muddy river below winding through the lush countryside, I feel like I have arrived home. After a 30-hour flight from Boston to Dubai, Dubai to Bangkok, Bangkok to Luang Prabang, I walk off the plane and onto the tarmac. The smell of the place—incense mixed with burning wood and charcoal—brings back so many memories. It can be oppressively hot and humid in Laos, but not this October evening. With the full moon already rising, this evening marks the end of the rainy season and the beginning of the dry season, when temperatures drop and tourists return in larger numbers.
From the airport we share a taxi van with the medical director of the children’s hospital where Disty is volunteering. She is arriving back from a trip to Australia. We check into our accommodations, the Coldriver Guest House, a beautiful little inn tucked down an alleyway that is run by a charming young French couple with two little children. A few minutes after our arrival, we were met at Coldriver by Phet, a former monk who was a friend of our older son Andy. We are here for Andy and ourselves. In 2009, at the age of 24, Andy died in a motorcycle accident in northern Laos where he was working for an NGO teaching English and pursuing his dream to create sustainability for the Lao people. Disty and I have made it our priority to return here often. Andy’s friend Phet, now married and a tour guide, has become another son to us, and it is comforting to see him. We went to dinner at KhaiPhaen, had some of the tastiest food ever in Laos, and, finally, went to bed.
***
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Boun Ok Phansa
Ton let us know by facebook that TAEC was having a special event to celebrate Boun Ok Phansa and Boun Lai Heua Fai. Boun Ok Phansa marks the end of Buddhist Lent. It falls on the full moon of the eleventh lunar month. Buddhist Lent lasts for three months during the rainy season from July to October. Long ago, Buddha instructed his monks to stay in their monasteries, practicing meditation and studies, during this time. Since then, Lao Buddhist monks continue this tradition. Bout Ok Phansa celebrates the end of Lent. In Luang Prabang, the religious center of Laos, the day after Boun Ok Phansa is Boun Lai Heua Fai. Literally “boats of fire drifting down the river,” this holiday celebrates the river and pays homage to ancient dieties of the river: Phra Mee Khon Kha and the Naga. Families and villages make fire boats using banana tree trunk slices, banana leaves, flowers, incense, and saffron colored candles. Lighting the candles and incense, making a wish, and setting the boats afloat in the Mekong helps to wipe away sins and give good luck.
In early morning, Disty and I head over to the museum, where we are in time to make our own fire boats. We pay our admission and find Ton in the gift shop, where he is working. It is so wonderful to see him, and he takes us on a quick tour of his new exhibit, Seeds of Culture: From Living Plants to Handicrafts, a special exhibition exploring the importance of nature to culture (http://www.taeclaos.org/exhibitions-current.html). During the tour, Ton lets me know that I have a meeting scheduled on Tuesday at 11:30 with Co-Director Tara Gujadhur and Kristy Best, the museum sales and marketing director, to discuss my volunteering. We finish the tour, we head to the outdoor cafe. It is set up with banana leaves, banana trunk slices, reeds, and flowers. We sit down on a grass mat with a young Lao docent who shows us how to make each part of the heua fai. Disty and I test our finished boats in the tub of water to make sure they are seaworthy for their long lighted journey down the Mekong River to bring us good luck.
We proudly carry our little boats across the street and visit the Children’s Hospital Friendship Center, where we buy tickets for a traditional dance performance being held as a fundraiser for the hospital that evening. We wander back to the guest house to rest up.
At 6 pm, we arrive of the Friendship Center and find people from the hospital whom Disty knows. Disty and I leave the group and head in to find seats, and we are told by our Lao host—who is the head of the dance company, the usher, the bartender, and the greeter—to follow the sound up the stairs. We climb the steep stairs two flights and find a door behind which we can hear a lot of excitement. We open the door. Oops, that’s the dressing room. We head up another flight of stairs to a rooftop where we are looking out over all of Luang Prabang. Someone is lighting candles around the perimeter and long the top of the decorative cement railing. The full moon rises as we are standing there, a large mango-orange. All around us in the city and countryside below are lights, electric and flame, celebrating Boun Lai Heua Fai. I have never seen this view of Luang Prabang before. It is both intimate and exposed, high above the city on the fourth floor, perhaps the tallest building in Luang Prabang.
We are entertained by an hour of traditional music and dance. An older woman is the singer; the orchestra, three young men in their 20s and 30s; the dance troupe 5 women and three men, including our host. The performers are in traditional costume. The dances are short—welcoming guests, retelling classic Lao stories, nostalgia for home, and one that celebrates love, conjuring “gallantries exchanged under the moon.” We head into town and discover a world of lights. The Buddhist temples are ablaze—shining paper stars, candle-illuminated paper boats, lanterns, days and weeks of preparation. We are lucky to have arrived on this weekend. Around each corner, another surprise view—a blood-red tile rooftop glowing with moonlight, a secret candlelit room with a golden buddha, rows of paper lanterns like a cemetery of light, people everywhere taking pictures, young monks relighting candles blown out by the warm breeze. It is a feast for the eyes and the soul.
On the main street, we find our favorite crepe stand. I have a banana crepe, Disty chocolate and mango, and we head home for sleep.
***
Monday, October 17, 2016
Boun Lai Heua Fai
Awoke early to roosters crowing along the river and sounds of motorbikes crossing the wooden bridge that spans the Nam Khan river. I have crossed that river on the back of Phet’s motorbike, and later today I am hoping we will go again to the arts village 15 minutes away, where there is handmade paper and a former-monk-turned-sculptor named Souk who carved for me a 18-inch high ebony statue of Nang Thorani. When Buddha was near to reaching enlightenment, Mara, “The Evil One,” brought an army to stop him. Buddha, seated in meditation, touched his finger to the earth and from there arose Thorani. She had been washing her hair with all of the water that had and would ever be poured in honor of Buddha. With one twist of her hands Thorani wrang out a torrent of water so powerful that it washed away The Evil One and his armies and allowed Buddha to continue on the Path.
Today is Disty’s first day at work at the hospital. We have breakfast and she takes a tuk-tuk from the guest house. I have made a few plans for the day, but I am focused on tomorrow’s meeting at the museum. First to the market to buy a local phone. In addition to meeting Phet in the afternoon, on my list are a visit to the temple President Obama visited when he was here last month, Wat Xieng Thong, to look at the mosaic stories on the walls. I also want to drop in at the TAEC Boutique in the middle of town to visit Ton and his wife Noi, and find a coffee shop, where I can cool off and write. My goal for the day is to discover something surprising.
As I was walking down the main street heading for Wat Xieng Thong or a coffee shop, whichever came first, I saw a sign for a photographic exhibit on meditation. It was in a temple, Wat Suvannakhili, and featured the photos of German photographer Hans Georg Berger. Inside the 20 x 40 foot room with gilt-decorated red walls, a dark green wooden planked ceiling with gold crown molding hung a gallery of photos that spoke to me: a parade of monks coming towards me through a forest path deep in walking meditation, an older monk, a young monk, a Buddhist nun, images that, as Hans Berger later told me, have meaning for the Lao monks and people. And, of course, there is a gift shop here; and behind the counter a young man who is cataloging and transcribing palm-leaf manuscripts containing the lost literature of 130 years of colonial rule and a disregard for the rich traditional literature that is, in this Wat, now being rediscovered. I would like everything in the shop, and I would like to meet the photographer. As a publisher I am drawn to the beauty of the books; as a human being I am drawn to the calm loving beauty in the faces, postures, and places of the subjects of the photos. If only we could learn from this. I do not meditate, but I long for inner calm and happiness. The young man gives me Mr. Berger’s phone number, and tells me he is just arriving today and that I should call him tomorrow morning to arrange for him to sign the books I hope to buy before I leave. This is my amazing moment of discovery. Where I have stumbled by fate and the hand of some unforeseen force, maybe Andy, to find a connection. When we open ourselves to these moments and allow them in, they appear.
I met up for a late lunch with Ton and Noi and their two beautiful children, Nang Fa, a 5-year old girl, and View (a 1 1/2 year old boy) in a noodle restaurant overlooking the Mekong. Noi is the manager of the TAEC Boutique shop, and we talk a little about the shop, but mostly about how they met and their aspirations. Ton has a car, unusual in Luang Prabang, and he and Nang Fa drive me back to the guesthouse to meet up with Disty. We arrange to all meet back at the boutique to watch the Boun Lai Heua Fai parade; each village sending a 20-30 foot long illuminated boat and accompanying reveler villagers down the main street and into the Mekong River for the fire boat’s hopefully long lucky journey.
***
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
I arrived for my meeting at TAEC a bit before 11:30 and ask for Ton. The museum is located slightly off the mainstream of town, where the night market is held every night. It is located up a steep hill in a beautiful old colonial building. Up nine stone steps each a little different in height I arrive at the front desk on the right where there are two young women who greet me. I ask for Ton. We walk through the museum—past the first room with its general displays of Lao ethnic minorities and through a second room with displays of . The Special Exhibition, “Seeds of Culture” is on a room off to the left and we pass through a doorway into the gift store. As we pass through the 75 square foot store, we head into an open porch overlooking the city with a cafe with two tables for drinking tea and water, a seating area for relaxing, a discovery area with clothing and hats to try on, and a weaving loom. I sit at the table and wait for my meeting. Someone in a house below is playing a western folk tune on a guitar. There is a cooling breeze from two ceiling fans moving the animal mobiles above me. I sit at one of the tables, facing the exit from the gift shop and Ton brings me a glass of water.
Kristy Best, the sales and marketing manager, comes out to meet me. She is from California and has recently arrived to work with the museum. She suggests we go out to lunch with Co-Director Tara Gujadhur to talk about how I might help. We pick up Tara at her office and wander down to a noodle place a few blocks away.
The restaurant we go to is like many small family-run outdoor eateries in Laos. The food is prepared beside the tables in a small area of the storefront. There is no indication that the food is safe to eat, but I think Tara and Kristy eat here often, so I am not concerned. We sit at one of the three cement tables. I have put aside my vegetarian diet for the week, and I order Khaopiak, a noodle soup with chicken. Over lunch I learn about TAEC and its retail business.
TAEC has an approximately 75 square foot shop in the museum and a slightly smaller boutique space on the main street of town which sees the foot traffic of most visitors to Luang Prabang. The new boutique has been growing in sales and is now almost equivalent to the main store, although that may be seasonal. It is managed by Ton’s wife Noi, a very capable young woman who brings a high degree of customer care to her store. The boutique space is brighter and more modern in its design and layout. Both stores carry the same goods. These are mostly provided by village artisans. The few exceptions are a museum souvenir mug made in Thailand, a few books, and a museum t-shirt.
Tara and her team are much more sophisticated in their approach to business than I expected. I learn that they have recently started tracking KPIs (key performance indicators): visitors, percent of visitors making a purchase, revenue per visitor, revenue per purchase. The numbers are very impressive. One of the most interesting is the revenue per visitor, which at $30 is significantly higher than the $4.75 average for museums in the United States. They are dependent on earned revenue. There are few donors to the museum and no endowment to fall back on. They are thinking of ways to increase their earned revenue. For a few minutes I put on my business advisor hat and suggest they catalog all of their opportunities for increased revenue. They are thinking of doing a catalog, but they are challenged by a lack of reliable and inexpensive shipping to international customers. There are other opportunities we discuss, and they will go back and visit these with renewed strategic thinking. Their challenges are remarkably similar to those of many other museum stores, retail operations, and small businesses everywhere in the world. However, they exist in a poor country, isolated by being landlocked, with expensive shipping capacity only through DHL. They compete with others in the region to sell the handicrafts of Lao ethnic minorities, and they must charge a high price for the goods even before they add the high expenses of shipping.
I spend the day reviewing KPIs and understanding the structure of their website, so that I can help update the content. While I am sitting in the cafe area, I meet Alai Sayawed, the Gift Shop Manager. He is very busy, and I ask if I can interview him. He asks if we may do it tomorrow, and we agree to try for Wednesday.
At 4:30 I meet with Tara, Thongkhoun Soutthivilay, Kristy and we discuss the KPIs and possible ways that they can grow their retail business. They are in need of an ongoing way to try out ideas and increase their earned revenue. I suggest that a membership in the Museum Store Association (MSA) would be the perfect way for them to connect to ongoing ideas and advice, and I agree to donate this to the museum. The MSA’s newest member and first member from Laos will be Alai, and I will let him know on Wednesday. I am hopeful someday we will have Alai join us at a conference. Even better would be to have the conference here.
I head back to my guesthouse and meet to Disty for dinner. We take a tuk-tuk to a Western restaurant hidden off a rutted dirt road, Secret Pizza. There we see Tara and family and have dinner with doctors and nurses from the children’s hospital.
***
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
I am excited to interview Alai. I spend the morning writing and checking out my video and sound equipment. I arrive at the museum about 11:00. I find that Alai has got to cover for lunch at the boutique, because Noi needed to come to the main store to pick up inventory. He will be back after lunch. During this time I take many pictures of the museum and gift shop to use in the video interview. At 1:00 he returns and we agree to do the interview at 2:00.
Alai is so charming. He is very mission driven and customer oriented. The interview goes well. Lots of work to do to put together the audio and video, but I am very excited about the results.
I need to leave by 2:45 for a 3:00 meeting with Hans Berger, the photographer whose photos are in the meditation photo exhibit. I had called him on Tuesday morning, and he agreed to meet me and sign books. I arrive a few minutes early, and I wait in the gallery under the ceiling fan. I’ve learned to cherish these places. I am sitting on a bench looking at a photo of a monk meditating. On the glass of the frame is reflected the garden outside. The monk is floating in the image of the reflection. I take a photo of the photo.
Hans Berger comes downstairs and greets me. We spend some time together and he tells me about his background, his photography, and the project he is involved with to digitize photographs taken over the last 120 years by Buddhist monks of Luang Prabang. The monks have been photographing each other, documenting monastic life. These photos have survived thanks to Phra Khamchan Virachitta Maha Thera, an abbott of Luang Prabang. Since 2006, more than 35,000 photographs have been treated and put into safe storage.
I went to the small gift shop and purchased a number of books, some for myself, some as gifts for my staff. Mr. Berger kindly signed these, and I walked away with a very special souvenir of a very special moment.
Sunday, November 6, 2016
Monday, June 23, 2014
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Hosamut Ahn Dee
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Auspicious Rainbow
Yesterday, Cooper, Disty and I left Bangkok and took the short hour-and-a-half flight to Luang Prabang, Laos.
At breakfast earlier at the Anantara Riverside Bangkok I was feeling a bit rocky, perhaps dehydrated from playing tennis the evening before with Gorn, the same pro I played with two years earlier. After downing some electrolytes, I started slowly at the over-the-top buffet: fresh watermelon and cantaloupe. I ratcheted my way up to an omelette: mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, scallions, chili, red pepper. Oh, and a 8-square-inch hash brown patty, cooked crispy.
I was gaining breakfast steam and found some chasha bao (steamed pork buns) and shrimp bao. Then I went back for some French toast piled with melon and dragon-fruit in one-quarter-inch cubes. A couple of slices of brie found their way onto my plate and a small lemon cheese pastry.
As you can imagine, I was feeling a bit better by now. And then something appeared that I had not had in a very long time: a tray of three-inch diameter sugar-coated brown donuts. To the left of this tray was a bowl of condensed milk. I had never even put these two in the same sentence. And after going back to the table and having a single donut, I was called on a mission to put the donut together with the condensed milk. This was the cure for all things. Breakfast complete.
At Wat Phou That, at the base of the That (stupa) there are steps leading up to the That. On either side of these steps are statues of Sang Thorani, the goddess of the harvest. When Buddha was near to reaching enlightenment, Mara, “The Evil One,” brought an army to stop him. Buddha, seated in meditation, touched his finger to the earth and from there arose Thorani. She had been washing her hair with all of the water that had and would ever be poured in honor of Buddha. I have taken that to include the water that we pour during the water ceremony when we are remembering Andy. It is one of the most connecting ceremonies that I have found, and it never ceases to inspire and move me with an overwhelming sense of love for everything that is lost and everything that is yet to be found. Thorani carried this love in her hair and with one twist of her hands she rang out a torrent of water so powerful that it washed away The Evil One and his armies and allowed Buddha to continue on the Path.
This afternoon, on our flight from Bangkok to Luang Prabang to meet up with Chip and Rosanna and Dustin, we started our descent over the rolling mountainous landscape of our spiritual home. And to the left, bigger than any I can ever recall, was a rainbow, stretching from one edge of the reddish-brown earth over the mountains to a place I will probably never know. We gently touched down, like the hand of Buddha calling on Thorani.
***
At breakfast earlier at the Anantara Riverside Bangkok I was feeling a bit rocky, perhaps dehydrated from playing tennis the evening before with Gorn, the same pro I played with two years earlier. After downing some electrolytes, I started slowly at the over-the-top buffet: fresh watermelon and cantaloupe. I ratcheted my way up to an omelette: mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, scallions, chili, red pepper. Oh, and a 8-square-inch hash brown patty, cooked crispy.
I was gaining breakfast steam and found some chasha bao (steamed pork buns) and shrimp bao. Then I went back for some French toast piled with melon and dragon-fruit in one-quarter-inch cubes. A couple of slices of brie found their way onto my plate and a small lemon cheese pastry.
As you can imagine, I was feeling a bit better by now. And then something appeared that I had not had in a very long time: a tray of three-inch diameter sugar-coated brown donuts. To the left of this tray was a bowl of condensed milk. I had never even put these two in the same sentence. And after going back to the table and having a single donut, I was called on a mission to put the donut together with the condensed milk. This was the cure for all things. Breakfast complete.
***
At Wat Phou That, at the base of the That (stupa) there are steps leading up to the That. On either side of these steps are statues of Sang Thorani, the goddess of the harvest. When Buddha was near to reaching enlightenment, Mara, “The Evil One,” brought an army to stop him. Buddha, seated in meditation, touched his finger to the earth and from there arose Thorani. She had been washing her hair with all of the water that had and would ever be poured in honor of Buddha. I have taken that to include the water that we pour during the water ceremony when we are remembering Andy. It is one of the most connecting ceremonies that I have found, and it never ceases to inspire and move me with an overwhelming sense of love for everything that is lost and everything that is yet to be found. Thorani carried this love in her hair and with one twist of her hands she rang out a torrent of water so powerful that it washed away The Evil One and his armies and allowed Buddha to continue on the Path.
***
This afternoon, on our flight from Bangkok to Luang Prabang to meet up with Chip and Rosanna and Dustin, we started our descent over the rolling mountainous landscape of our spiritual home. And to the left, bigger than any I can ever recall, was a rainbow, stretching from one edge of the reddish-brown earth over the mountains to a place I will probably never know. We gently touched down, like the hand of Buddha calling on Thorani.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Oudomxay: Last November and Back Again
Last November, Disty, Chip, and I took a mini van from Luang Prabang. We splurged on this, wanting to have a more relaxed and comfortable trip than what we’ve experienced on the bus. We were picked up at our guesthouse by a van that then went to Chip’s house and on to the North bus station. There we picked up another van.
In our silver Mitsubishi van, there were four rows of bench seats: in the first bench sat the driver and a middle-aged woman. In the send row sat the male German tourist. I was sitting by myself next to the left-hand window in the third row that had a small folding seat section on the right that allowed access through the side sliding door; and Disty and Chip were sitting in the back bench.
About half-way through the six hour drive, the driver stopped and picked up two young women who were standing on the other side of the road. They didn’t seem to speak Lao, and they were not very sociable. They sat next to me—one on the bench to my left and the other on the jump seat. They were apparently were very tired and they spread out like liquids and filled every available crevice of space in the van. The one on the jump seat fell asleep with her head flopping backwards occasionally into Disty’s lap. The other was draped all over me. It was interesting how unfamiliar their behavior seemed to us. Though my my exposure to Lao people is somewhat limited, their indifference to personal boundaries seemed culturally different to me. They were very entertaining but made the ride much less comfortable.
About an hour after we picked them up, we stopped to eat. The young woman sleeping on the jump seat failed to wake and when her friend shoved her and she woke,she didn’t move, leaving Disty and Chip trapped for a while until her friend pushed her out the door. After lunch, they returned to sleeping. The two mysteriously got off about an hour out of Oudomxay, and we enjoyed the luxury of space for that last part of the ride. The van let us off on the outside of the bus station, just 1/4 mile from the stairway to Wat Phou That and the site that we had selected for the library.
We had let our friend and former-monk teacher Bounxay’s brother-in-law Phommy know what day we were coming and what time we expected to leave Luang Prabang. Our plan was to call Phommy when we got to town. As we were dropped off, I called Phommy and tried to explain where we were, but I think my limited Lao failed us. He thought we were somewhere in the bus station. However, moments later Bounxay’s sister pulled up on a motorcycle with delicious baked treats. How she found us, whether she was looking for us, or whether the baked goods were even intended for us, we’re not sure. But it was wonderful to see her, and she called Phommy to let him know where we were. Moments later Phommy pulled up in his pickup truck, we put our bags in the back, and we drove down the block to the guesthouse which Disty had read about that had the good internet. We got two rooms, and this became our home and office for the next four days. Directly cross the street from the guesthouse were the steps to Wat Phou That and Andy’s future library.
In our silver Mitsubishi van, there were four rows of bench seats: in the first bench sat the driver and a middle-aged woman. In the send row sat the male German tourist. I was sitting by myself next to the left-hand window in the third row that had a small folding seat section on the right that allowed access through the side sliding door; and Disty and Chip were sitting in the back bench.
About half-way through the six hour drive, the driver stopped and picked up two young women who were standing on the other side of the road. They didn’t seem to speak Lao, and they were not very sociable. They sat next to me—one on the bench to my left and the other on the jump seat. They were apparently were very tired and they spread out like liquids and filled every available crevice of space in the van. The one on the jump seat fell asleep with her head flopping backwards occasionally into Disty’s lap. The other was draped all over me. It was interesting how unfamiliar their behavior seemed to us. Though my my exposure to Lao people is somewhat limited, their indifference to personal boundaries seemed culturally different to me. They were very entertaining but made the ride much less comfortable.
About an hour after we picked them up, we stopped to eat. The young woman sleeping on the jump seat failed to wake and when her friend shoved her and she woke,she didn’t move, leaving Disty and Chip trapped for a while until her friend pushed her out the door. After lunch, they returned to sleeping. The two mysteriously got off about an hour out of Oudomxay, and we enjoyed the luxury of space for that last part of the ride. The van let us off on the outside of the bus station, just 1/4 mile from the stairway to Wat Phou That and the site that we had selected for the library.
We had let our friend and former-monk teacher Bounxay’s brother-in-law Phommy know what day we were coming and what time we expected to leave Luang Prabang. Our plan was to call Phommy when we got to town. As we were dropped off, I called Phommy and tried to explain where we were, but I think my limited Lao failed us. He thought we were somewhere in the bus station. However, moments later Bounxay’s sister pulled up on a motorcycle with delicious baked treats. How she found us, whether she was looking for us, or whether the baked goods were even intended for us, we’re not sure. But it was wonderful to see her, and she called Phommy to let him know where we were. Moments later Phommy pulled up in his pickup truck, we put our bags in the back, and we drove down the block to the guesthouse which Disty had read about that had the good internet. We got two rooms, and this became our home and office for the next four days. Directly cross the street from the guesthouse were the steps to Wat Phou That and Andy’s future library.
***
The next few days of last November were filled with an unexplained flow of events.
***
This past week, I was walking in the woods and I saw a Monarch butterfly. I began thinking about the Monarch’s journey from Carlisle, Massachusetts to Mexico. They have been born to make the journey—using the sun and earth’s magnetic fields to navigate, each generation heading further along to make the long migration, reliant on winds and light as they push themselves southwest. They are travelers. And we are travelers, reliant on what we believe to be will and good planning, but in the end on things we are made to do by forces beyond our understanding.
Recently, I’ve been rereading John Muir’s wonderful piece “A Wind-storm in the Forests.”
“We all travel the milky way together, trees and men; but it never occurred to me until this storm-day, while swinging in the wind, that trees are travelers, in the ordinary sense. They make many journeys, not extensive ones, it is true; but our own little journeys, away and back again, are only little more than tree-wavings—many of them not so much.”
***
We unconsciously held onto the earth during our journey to Oudomxay, as events swept us forward to places we never would have gone were it not for forces we could not control or understand.
***
We are now in Bangkok and Cooper has joined us. In addition to knowing Disty since they were very young and me since her first day at college, Cooper is Andy’s godmother. She is the third board member of Wat-Library Network, the non-profit we have put together to build and maintain our little library and more. She is our "seow." In Lao, this word means something like a "life-friend."
Cooper arrived very early this morning from New York, and we will spend the next couple of days in Bangkok before heading off to Luang Prabang to meet Chip; my niece Rosanna, Andy and Chip's first cousin, and her friend Dustin, who have been traveling in India; and Andy’s friend, the ex-monk Phet, who is now a tour guide in Luang Prabang.
We will all leave Luang Prabang together on Friday, June 20, 2014 by minibus. We will arrive on Friday evening in Oudomxay. There we hope to meet up with my Lao son, Aik. If there is enough light when we get to town, we can go to see the library.
Were Andy to be alive, I probably would not know about this far away place, about the stone steps leading up to the magical Wat Phou That, about having a Lao son, about the smell of the bougainvillea hanging from the trees along the stone steps, or about the gentle and charismatic Satu Peng who is the head monk of the Province and the dreamer who drove the building of a library in honor of our lost son.
Then again, were Andy alive, I wouldn’t need to be flying toward him, seeking one last vista of life in his sky-blue eyes.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Father's Day 2014
It's been a while since I last posted. Today is Father's Day, and Disty and I are heading off to Laos tonight to dedicate Hosamut Ahn Dee, the library in Andy's memory that has been built in Oudomxay, Laos.
Disty surprised me this morning with a card that she found on her desk as she was cleaning up. It was a beautiful discovery, but she was concerned that it would upset me. Nevertheless, she ended up deciding to share this sweet memento. I reminded Disty that I am all about memory, connection, and artifact. Applewood Books was built on that, and I thought it was the perfect way to start off our journey. Memories of Andy; of Microwave, our beloved departed basset hound, and the small but charming and fluid script of Chip, reminding me that love is never gone for those that love and those that have been loved.
On the thank you cards we sent after Andy died, we had his picture and two quotes. On the front, was a quote from Jalal ad-Din Rumi: "This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred fails to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet." There are many ways to read this, but if I were an Air France steward welcoming a Zuckerman on board, I might use this as a metaphor for commercial flight to Southeast Asia: the hundred veils being the window shades, letting go of life being suspending your self as you sit stationary for 17 hours, and stepping without feet being the travel through air. Of course, Rumi did not intend that, but I take this journey to be love. A father for a son, and sons for a father.
On the back of the card, was a quote from Emily Dickinson:
Unable are the Loved to die
For Love is Immortality,
Nay, it is Deity--
Unable they that love--to die
For Love reforms Vitality
Into Divinity.
Disty surprised me this morning with a card that she found on her desk as she was cleaning up. It was a beautiful discovery, but she was concerned that it would upset me. Nevertheless, she ended up deciding to share this sweet memento. I reminded Disty that I am all about memory, connection, and artifact. Applewood Books was built on that, and I thought it was the perfect way to start off our journey. Memories of Andy; of Microwave, our beloved departed basset hound, and the small but charming and fluid script of Chip, reminding me that love is never gone for those that love and those that have been loved.
***
On the thank you cards we sent after Andy died, we had his picture and two quotes. On the front, was a quote from Jalal ad-Din Rumi: "This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred fails to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet." There are many ways to read this, but if I were an Air France steward welcoming a Zuckerman on board, I might use this as a metaphor for commercial flight to Southeast Asia: the hundred veils being the window shades, letting go of life being suspending your self as you sit stationary for 17 hours, and stepping without feet being the travel through air. Of course, Rumi did not intend that, but I take this journey to be love. A father for a son, and sons for a father.
On the back of the card, was a quote from Emily Dickinson:
Unable are the Loved to die
For Love is Immortality,
Nay, it is Deity--
Unable they that love--to die
For Love reforms Vitality
Into Divinity.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Lanten People
On Sunday, November 11, We had dinner with Andy's friend Veronique in Bangkok. She and Andy worked together in Hoixay, before he died. She was the founder and director of Bokeo Social Enterprise (BsE), where Andy volunteered. BsE Bokeo Social Enterprise (BsE) was created by four partners in 2008, to support development
through entrepreneurship, promoting "local products
and private economic initiatives in rural communities in Northern Laos." Veronique has been a good friend to us, staying in touch, letting us stay connected. She has left Bokeo and the work of BsE has been absorbed by Free Trade Laos in Vientiane.
Over dinner she tells the story of the Lanten People of Ban Nam Chan. Later, she sends along, via email, a written piece about the people, describing who they are, where they have come from, their crafts, and the tension between the traditional way of life and modernization. Here is a brief quote from the piece from one of the Lanten people about their history:
Tuesday, November 12, we arrived in Vientiane, Laos. That afternoon, we meet Veronique's friend Anousone Phimmachanh, who directs Free Trade Laos, an organization dedicated to finding commercial outlets for the crafts of Lao people. We have coffee at a coffee shop that could be just as well be located in Cambridge or any other college town. She brings along blank books that are made by the Lanten women. These books are hand-made in the Lanten village of all hand-made materials—bamboo paper and cotton that has been dyed with the traditional blue dye of the people. There are bamboo closures sewn onto the books.
I purchased all of the books she had in stock. Twelve books have simple brown and white silk embroidery on the front; eighteen books are plain. I will bring these back to the United States and see if there might be a retail outlet or two that can sell these special books. It would be a good source of income for the villagers, who can produce 30-40 of these books each month, depending on the season.
Over dinner she tells the story of the Lanten People of Ban Nam Chan. Later, she sends along, via email, a written piece about the people, describing who they are, where they have come from, their crafts, and the tension between the traditional way of life and modernization. Here is a brief quote from the piece from one of the Lanten people about their history:
“The name of our people is Lanten. It is Chinese and means ‘liquid to dye cotton’. My people have the skills to produce their own natural colours to dye their clothes and we continue until now. Sometimes we are also called Lao Houay as we only settle on river shores. The river is very important in Lanten daily life. The water is used to wash our clothes and to make bamboo paper. If a location has no river, the Lanten will not settle there but move on.
We are originally from China. Our ancestors left 200 or 300 years ago due to jealousy and fighting amongst the people living there. There were only a few Lanten and their enemies were numerous. First, our ancestors moved to the south of China, where they crossed the sea to Vietnam using three bamboo rafts. In the middle of the sea there was an accident and two bamboo rafts sank. All those passengers died. The surviving Lanten were very sad. The remaining raft reached North Vietnam, where the refugees went ashore and continued by foot to reach Oudomxai and Luang Namtha. Most stayed there, but some continued their journey and headed for the Mekong River. They marched on, and as before, some families decided to stay along the way, at the shores of the rivers of Nga (ງາ), Ngaw (ງາວ), Saen (ແສນ), Lae (ແລ), and at the Houay Pung brook (ຫ້ວຍປຸງ) and many other places.
Travelling with the Lanten was a man known as Mister Dachan (ດາຈັນ). One day, he went hunting in the forest. For many days, he was walking through the forest until he arrived at a brook, where a dead elephant was lying. Delighted, he returned to the Lanten and told them to follow him and take the meat of the elephant to eat. Upon arrival, all realized that this place was perfectly suited for a settlement. They decided to stop their journey and called their new village Pha Sang (ຜ່າຊ້າງ) or Nam Sang (ນ້ຳຊ້າງ). But because the old people could not pronounce it nicely, today it is called Nam Chang (ນ້ຳຈ້າງ).”
* * *
 | |
| These books are made by hand |
I purchased all of the books she had in stock. Twelve books have simple brown and white silk embroidery on the front; eighteen books are plain. I will bring these back to the United States and see if there might be a retail outlet or two that can sell these special books. It would be a good source of income for the villagers, who can produce 30-40 of these books each month, depending on the season.
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