circles

its taken me quite a while to figure out exactly what i want. our last day in vangvieng, saturday, i rented a bike just to see how far i could get. i crossed the river and went through the gap in the mountains, into the next valley over, and took the road north until it ended. i passed many villages, each smaller than the last, until the very last, panampe, which was nestled into the crook of the mountains as the west wall met the east wall. it was beautiful. i wanted to stay out there and work with the villagers, but everyone i asked - five people in three villages - said no, they didn't let visitors stay. why? i asked. no, they repeated, either not understanding or just refusing to answer.

so, what is this? government policy? possible, considering that eli and i were turned back on our walk around vangvieng on friday when we came across a sign that said something to the effect of "there are no services for visitors past this point, so visitors are prohibitted from entering east vangvieng". maybe they are trying to keep the tourist industry penned in and quarantined, allowing the locals to enjoy their own culture, left alone. or maybe it was all just cultural? there is some norm against letting random strangers stay in a private residence? whatever it was, i felt like i hit a wall. very frustrating.

so i found instead an organic farm which accepts volunteers. the timing was bad though, as eli was ready to move on and i wanted to go with him to vientiane, the capitol. so on sunday we took a bus to the south for 4 hours. we spent two nights in vientiane so we had time to explore the city and go to the national museum (formerly called the revolutionary museum).

the museum was fantastic. we had been to one in luangphrabang, the old king's palace that had been preserved along with lots of his booty. vientiane's museum was much more interesting. it was huge, and each wing was for a different era of their history. prehistory (dinosaurs, early homonids, cave paintings, early tools, etc), the various kingdoms that controlled the territory, and finally the 20th century.

there were rooms dedicated to the french occupation (1893 to 1954, interrupted briefly during world war 2 when japan took over the region). there were murals of french soldiers killing laos and buring their villages, with captions like "the brutal french occupation slaughtered our people and stole our lands". there were also photos of french citizens back home protesting their government's imperialism. the implication was clearly that the french underclasses were on the same side as the lao people. i love that this communist government uses its museums to spread international class consciousness.

when the french lost the war and pulled out in 1954, the united states stepped in and propped up the old monarchy, instigating another decade and a half of civil war. eventually, in 1964, the US began to intervene directly, the "secret war". there were rifles on the walls next to pictures of smiling villagers and burning wreckages, captioned with things like "comrade so-and-so used this rifle to shoot down an american imperialist helicopter". the US hired mercenary armies from thailand and south vietnam, shipped weapons to monarchists and US puppets in laos, and generally carpet bombed any territory that successfully liberated itself. so of course now laos is the most bombed country in the world, with more bombs dropped here by the US than were dropped in all of world war 2.

the next few rooms were about the communist party (pathet laos) and its early years. the politics, the struggles, the programs, the development, etc. there were rooms filled with pro-government propaganda, showing pictures of hospitals and roads and bridges and factories that the planned economy had successfully created.

so yesterday, tuesday, i parted ways with eli and took the bus back up north to vangvieng. i rented a bike and rode 4 km north to the village of phoudindaeng. i found the farm and met the people running it, and was immediatly enchanted. first of all, no one runs it. its basically a collective, and certain key people help lead the various projects, but no one is in charge. the guy who owns it, a lao guy named "mr. t", had just left for a conference on organic farming in germany. there are probably 10 or 15 locals who work there, along with however many volunteers happen to be there - in this case about 15 people. the farm grows mulberry trees, and they use the berries to make smoothies, tea, wine and jam. they have banana trees, goats, pigs, chickens, geese and silk worms. they have a bar on the river, where they catch tourists intertubing and sell them beerlao and mojitos. they also run school programs.

check out their website: http://www.laofarm.org/

when i arrived they were about to go teach an evening class and needed an extra teacher, so they invited me along. we had groups of kids, aged maybe 3 to 12, rotate between stations where they stidied different things. i was teaching directions (up, down, backward, forward, left, right, etc) but they were also learning colors, numbers and animals from the other teachers. i was teaching them english, but i made them teach me the lao words for everything (down is "nang", up is "lukol" etc).

i spent today working on a mud-brick building (this country is running out of wood, in a few years mud buildings will be essential, so the farm is trying to teach the locals the skills now). i got covered in mud and exhausted from hoisting bricks and climbing scaffolding. doesn't get much better than that. i love the other volunteers. they are from all over the world, all ages, of every conceivable background.

i wish that i'd found the farm before spending four days puttering around the town. its good that it worked out this way, as i needed some time on my own. i will catch up with eli in chiang mai thailand in about a week.