We girl SAILers just spent the best last weekend at a home-stay in the countryside while Brandin went to visit his family in Pakse. Again the small up start organization PADETC provided us the opportunity to participate in this wonderful program. We were driven out to the countryside, about 2-3 hours out of town to a small textile village. We met these amazing Lao women who worked together in the same village producing their own dyes and we were warmly greeted and had to sing a welcome song in Lao which was very cute and charming. After that, we were divided up and “adopted” by house mothers. Some of us had two to three Lao mothers. I had Mother Mai. She was very sweet, shy and soft spoken.

We were split up into groups of two because each group would make our own organic dyes. Samantha and I were to produce dye from the trunk of the Jack fruit tree. We had to chop up pieces of the tree trunk with this huge machete and put the pieces into to a large pot to boil. We didn’t know what color it would yield, but after 25 minutes, we had a golden yellow and were very excited. We learned to boil the silk, wash and rinse it before soaking it in the natural dye we had just made. We then dyed our thread of silk and let it dry while we ate. After lunch, we took our bundles of colored thread and spoon it onto a spool and placed it in to the shuttle. Then we were taught the art of the maneuvering the loom. It was so much fun and yet so hard. Some of us took to it like fish to water, others of us had some challenges, but over all, everyone truly enjoyed the experience. It was hard work and very time consuming. A long roll of fabric that they would sell to the market was roughly 35,000kip or about $4.00US. I can certainly appreciate the fabrics I had recently purchased.

Later that evening, we feasted with the Lao women and celebrated our time together. We drank a special kind of “dry” Lao wine made from rice and rice husk. We had to add water and beer to it and I have to say, it was delicious!!! We eventually retired to “our” mother’s homes to sleep so that we could wake up at 5:00AM in the morning to make the rice, feed the animals and go to the Wat to give alms to the monks. Mother Mai’s house was a small bamboo house. I climbed up three make-shift ladders leading into the house which opened to a one room house that housed 5 people. The floors were made with long bamboo and split bamboo were laid on top to cover the floor. I was quite hesitant because there were many holes in the floor and the floors rolled and moved. I thought my feet were going to go through the floor board. Off to one side, was a small kitchen where they cooked rice, the size of a closet with no windows. We were surrounded by chickens, cows, ducks and other woodsy creatures on the outside. It was a fascinating experience but I was also filled with trepidation. They rolled out a bed and found that I had two bed fellows. I was relieved when they asked me if I wanted to sleep under a mosquito net and I eagerly answered yes. I could her the frogs, crickets, chickens, cows, and ducks outside and yet I sleep well. I like the sounds of the woods and I found it very soothing. I had a difficult time with the smell. They would burn charcoal with tire rubber and it would burn my nose and throat making it very difficult for me to breath and sleep. Other than that, it was a nice stay over and I know how lucky and blessed my life has been.

The next day we went to another village about 1-2 hours away where we made Lao baskets. It was also very fun and again, so much work and so much patience were required. I think it would have been even better had we had more time and had a longer stay rather than such short visits. We made many new friends and truly enjoyed ourselves. We hope to keep in touch with our new found friends and we will sadly say farewell to our 2nd home this Friday.