Greetings from Oudomxay

Hosamut Ahn Dee

Our guest room in Indira Guest House overlooks Andy's library. Last evening, seven monks chanted in the main room of Hosamut Ahn Dee, performed a string ceremony, and we poured water on the teak tree and money, candy, and flowers on the elders who came to join. This morning at 7:30 am, we will dedicate the library. Thanks everyone who has journeyed with us. It will be a day of great sadness and joy.

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.

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.

***

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.

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.

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:

“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

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.

Dream House of Silk: Visiting the House of Jim Thompson, Bangkok

If I were to build a house in Southeast Asia, the house would be made from elegant old traditional buildings found in the nearby countryside. They would be simple. Any lumber, stone, brick, or tile would gathered up, disassembled if necessary and numbered, floated up a river and down a klung to rest and be reassembled together in a place that looked out on a garden. The entire house would be a reflection of the warmth of the place and the people. The windows would be open—no glass or screens. And the large wooden floor-to-ceiling carved doors would fold open and closed together to openly unite the inside with the outside or not. All of the furnishing would be comfortable and tell a story: of Kings and elephants; Buddha and naga. I would have guest rooms so that I could share this space. I would have fish in the urns in the garden, and little rooms spread around the property connected by paths surrounds by plants. The dining room would be a room of special interest, with details to entertain, so that evenings could be spent talking and telling stories, while the tropical gardens below would refresh the evening air. The daytime would be spent in work. Making things, reviewing work. Perhaps a nap in the afternoon while the soft rain fell. In the morning, a cup of coffee to start the day.

But I would not build the house looking out over the village of the weavers who had woven my fortune. Master of silk, collector, entrepreneur. Master and slaves. I would not sit in my living room and inspect the goods, counting my money on the backs of the poor. It is an old world way of being in the world. An inequality of privilege; ultimately getting lost in the jungle and never finding your way home.