Laos Part 2-Ban Nadi

The first place we were going was a village called Ban Nadi, high in a mountain valley south of Phonsavanh. The drive there felt like a trip back in time. Little groups of thatched huts alternated with vast rice fields and forested mountains that peaked somewhere in the clouds beyond our view. We climbed steadily on a dirt road until we got above the treeline, where the only things to see were grass, ferns, the occasional water buffalo, and Buddhist shrines at prominent gravesites.

After breaking tree line we continued for another hour or so until we reached the valley where we would be working. It’s at the headwaters of the Nam Sane river (“Nam” is Lao for water). Growing rice is difficult at this altitude, so the rice fields have to be bigger than they would be at lower elevations to feed the people. The valley floor is the only flat area for miles around, so it’s an agricultural center for the region. Fourteen villages share the valley, and every square inch is built on, used as a vegetable garden, under rice cultivation, grazed, or some combination of these uses.

On arrival we met with the regional chief of the fourteen villages. For somebody whose home is being eyed by the government for development, he was a remarkable cheerful and helpful fellow. He designated villages for us to visit, people for us to talk with, and instructed the individual village chiefs to assist us with our work. I won’t bore you with the details of my work; suffice to say it involved a lot of walking around and looking at streams, talking to people about streams, and making sure I didn’t step on anything that could hurt me.

The most interesting part of my time in the Ban Nadi was integrating into village life. I had no choice; there aren’t any guest accommodations in these villages and Lao tradition is to show extreme hospitality to strangers. The chiefs decided that the best place for us to stay was with Ban Nadi’s chief ‘s home. According to Lao tradition that meant it was his responsibility to look after us, and he was a most gracious host. We stayed with him and his family (which included his wife and him, his inlaws, and an undetermined number of children that were in and out the whole time and never spoke to us) for four days, and while we there we were treated as part of the family. We at, slept, and socialized with them. The men of the family often accompanied us on our walks to the various streams in the area while the women prepared the food, fed whatever livestock the family had in their yard, and generally looked after the home. The meals invariably consisted mostly of sticky rice, but boiled or fermented vegetables, some spicy sauce, a clear chicken broth, or occasionally a bit of meat of some kind generally accompanied the rice.

The house was a typical rural Lao dwelling in construction and design, but larger than most others I saw. It was a rectangular plank hut with a thatched roof on stilts. It was essentially a one-room building but the two couples slept in little alcoves with bed sheets that could be drawn for privacy. People in rural Lao have little or no furniture, no heat or air conditioning, and no plumbing. They also eat with their hands from shared dishes. We had our meals seated on the floor on mats with the dishes of various foods spread around us.

Sleeping arrangements were equally Spartan. Each person has a thin straw mat that they roll out over the hard wooden floor. I slept on the floor the first night with the rest of the team, but the chief was clearly distressed by this. There was a single bed in the house. It was a simple raised platforrm with no mattress and was no more comfortable than the floor. Nevertheless it was clear that he thought that I, as the leader of the team, a guest in his house, and a “falang” (Westerner) should be sleeping on the bed. Even though I preferred to sleep on the floor with the rest of team, I risked offending him if I did not accept his offer. I slept on the bed because it was easier to graciously accept his offer than to insist on being treated equally to everyone else.

Most villagers in Ban Nadi and the surrounding villages own tiny hydroelectric units that they stick in local streams. They look vaguely like small outboard motors. These units typically generate enough power to run a couple of low-wattage light bulbs or maybe a DVD player at night (provided the streams are running fast enough to turn the propellers. If there's no water, there's no electricity. Most evening socializing is still done by firelight. Just like in a campsite, the fire tends to be the focus of activity. With no TVs, radios, or computers there isn't much to do at night, so people generally talk a bit after dinner, the men might pass around the lao lao (Lao moonshine), and then they call it a night.

We had full schedules while in Ban Nadi so most nights I turned in early, but one night I couldn’t sleep so I stayed up talking with the chief’s inlaws. Between answering questions about what Australia and the US are like and why I’m not married already I took my first good look at the hearth by the light of the single light bulb. It was a cement block poured into the floor with a metal tripod embedded in it. As I looked closer I realized the tripod was made of discarded artillery shells. My hosts informed me that artillery shells are the preferred material for hearth stands in Laos because the holes in the shell casing are perfect for holding meat on a spit over a fire. That way you can cook rice in a pot on the tripod and roast meat on spits at the same time. It essentially turns a campfire into a multi-burner range stove. I was intrigued by the ingenuity of the concept, and heartened by the idea that something originally designed to kill people had been turned into something that now makes peoples lives better across the country. That night just as I was drifting off to sleep a sudden rumble shook the house. The father-in-law saw the startled look on my face from across the room and simply said “bomb” through a snaggle-toothed grin and then chuckled at his wide-eyed falang friend trying to sleep.

The next morning we got up early for our trip to Haiter, but before we left we had a hearty breakfast of sticky rice, eggs, and various leftover chicken parts. While some of the team were gone to buy the final supplies, the father-in-law brought out a tiny round metal canister and set it in front of me and began to chatter away in Laotian. The object was a cluster bomblet, one of the most feared weapons of the Vietnam war. Planes dropped cluster bombs over enemy positions and the bombs opened mid-flight, broadcasting dozens of baseball sized bomblets over the target area. Each bomblet was filled with a handful of explosives and bunches of ball bearing-like shot. As I understand it they weren't much use against machines but were grotesquely efficient at punching holes in people. According to one of the bomb-clearing organizations working in Laos they were responsible for more deaths during the war than any other munition, and continue to be particularly dangerous today because there are so many of them remaining in the landscape. They are the perfect size and shape to either go unnoticed near a house or school, or be picked up by an unsuspecting child. Anyway, the father in law explained that if you can snap the fins off the top and remove the explosive and primer without killing yourself, you’re left with a round metal vessel a little larger than a man’s fist. Unscrew the cap, fill the inside with kerosene or fuel oil, screw the cap back on and stuff a bit of cotton in the primer hole and you’ve got yourself a portable, compact, nearly indestructible oil lamp. Apparently these things light homes throughout rural northern Laos today. Shortly afterward the rest of the team arrived from the market and it was time to meet the security team that would escort us south to Haiter.

Photos:

1. The valley where we stayed.

2. A villager demostrates a particular kind of fish trap called a sohn and says "The fish go in here!"

3. The chief of Ban Nadi and me.

4. The chief's house.

5. A mini hydroelectric generator.

6. The hearth in the chief's house. Note the three artillery shells used as a cooking stand.

7. The oil lamp the chief's father-in-law made from a cluster bomblet.