my latest cooking conquest … and yes i bought them, killed them, gutted them all with my bare hands
a bday celeb for Melinda (front right in pink/white stripey shirt) – she is in town for a couple of years doing training with the nurses at the hospital. Common party food … bits of meat (sometimes fish), noodles, herbs etc wrapped in lettuce leaves … the meat of the day was actually a pig’s head which had been used to do some surgery training with the doctors the day before!! A nice time to be able to pull the vegetarian drawcard!
two of my favourite play pals in namtha (martin and lara) … and because they speak French and I speak English … our chosen form of communication is Lao!
this little guy lives just across the football field from me … our friendship has progressed signficantly from the days when he used to scream at the sight of me! I get cuddles now … which are clearly much more appreciated!
This chick (Somphon) can run faster, climb higher, drink more and generally outdo most other blokes around our little village. She also likes to come visiting me around 5.30 in the morning at times … endless energy! Somphon is the only other chick I can find that also thinks it’s unfair that the girls spend most of their time cooking while the boys are playing soccer and so sometimes does away with the household responsibilities and joins in with the boys on the footy field. A welcome partner in crime!
Filed under: spain
A crazy video flaming lips moment from the Summercase festival in Barcelona, that I needed to share …
Filed under: Updates
two different things
first one … was eating dinner at a mate’s house the other night and she was breast feeding while I was eating with the rest of the extended family. After the Grandma had had her fill, my mate passed the baby over to her so she could eat. The baby started screaming, so the Grandma stuck her milk free boobs into the baby’s mouth to keep it quiet for 10 minutes or so, while Damdy finished her dinner. I have to admit to keeping a low profile at this moment for fear of having to share my assets around!!!! Hmmm … Actually this is the mate with her baby pictured below
second one … was helping cook at a different mate’s house last night and a bit of garlic I was pounding away on flew up into my eye, which of course stopped the pounding for a few moments and caused me to close my eye in a bit of stinging pain. All of a sudden I feel a cup of water being poured over my foot which apparently, or so I’m told, will make the pain in the eye go away!! I think they thought I was a bit soft because the pain was in fact still there and I still had my eye closed and had still not resumed the pounding of the garlic!! Sometimes I really do feel like a bit of a spectacle …
These new bits of vocab caused me to giggle
So “galafur” means “stapler” and “leuk galafur” means staple, however the direct translation is “the stapler’s child”!! Also “maak falang” means “chewing gum”, however direct translation is “fruit of the foreigner”! Lovely thing to be remembered for.
And so I am back in my little home town and feel pretty happy to be here … happier than I thought I might feel actually, so it is all good! Has been huge amounts of rain since I left, so everything is super green and the dust is gone (check photos below)! While I’m thinking of it, my phone is working again, so all those lovely friends out there that send me through texts, they are getting through again … so get back on it!!! Love them!
I am particularly excited at the moment, because I am off to get my boat made this weekend … a cut out canoe style that should fit about four people or so. I had been trying to get it made here, but it seems noone can find any wood … so I have to take a boat up river for a couple of hrs this Sat to a village called “Baan Saam Sop” … where there is a guy who is apparently an expert on these things. Am just a teeny bit concerned about the trip there because “Baan Saam Sop” translated means “Village of 3 dead people” !!!! … and I know there are some rapids along this section of the river!!! Anyway, someone else is taking care of the paddling for me, so I’m sure all will be good.
On another tangent, one of the things I love about living here is the lack of observation of up to the minute fashion, trendiness, glossy magazines etc etc … Since I have been away though, it seems that there has been a trend flowing through town all to do with motorbike rearvision mirrors!!! So while I was away, I left my motorbike with a friend at the Teacher’s College. Anyway, when I went to pick it up again a couple of days back, the rear vision mirrors were taken off. I of course enquired after them, to be told they had taken them off because they were “too big”!! After much discussion on this issue I discovered that the “trendy” thing now is to have much smaller rear vision mirrors and that the “big” ones (keeping in mind there is only about 2cm difference in area) are “ngaam lao” … which means “beautiful in the past”. Anyway I had some jobs to do in town, so I asked them to put them back on, even though I now realised they were “not cool” anymore!! But do you know I had to stand there and argue this point for about 5 minutes before they would allow it, because I was told that people would laugh at my mirrors and none of the young people had these anymore!!! They virtually made me promise I would buy the new ones!!! I haven’t experienced this much peer pressure since high school!!! No doubt if I don’t change them soon, one of the teachers will take them off for me as “a favour” … although maybe I will make an “uncool” stand on this one!!
My buddy Damdy and her 4 wk old daughter Southeeda. She asked me to give her an English name as well … so she is also Lily. If you are thinking that my smile looks a little forced it is because I have a lap full of baby wee!! Kinda forgot for a moment there that they don’t tend to use nappies over here, so this is seconds after the damage occurred!
and so this is my backyard … was only 2cm or so long before I left!!! Is kinda a nice jungle type look though don’t you think?? I’m trying to convince myself of that because I can’t deal with the thought of cutting it!
with some pals and some randoms in VT! Soaking up as many people as I can find the night before my return to Namtha!
