A mixed bag......

It has been a curious week, encompassing charity works a dinosaur hunt, the blessing of a motorbike and a visit from a ladyboy.
The weather has been mostly kind.  We have storms most evenings about 6pm and during the following 12 hours there are periods of the most violent rainfall, until by dawn the rain stops. The rain and the subsequent cloud cover have kept temperatures down.  When  I get up, usually just before 7, its about 26 degrees both inside and outside the house. Now, at noon it has  moved to 28 inside and 38 in the sunshine outside. Still perfectly tolerable unless you are engaging in significant physical effort, which I am, of course at pains to avoid. The rains, however, have brought the mozzies in greater number and although  I now have anti-mosquito screens on the doors I usually burn an anti-mosquito coil in the evenings.

(Of course, in a further demonstration of how I get things wrong, as I come to edit this at 7.30 am,  it is throwing it down and and the lane outside my house is turning into a river)

Phaab, the Temporary Monk who emerged last week spent the first couple of days out of the temple making me a thank-you gift. The bag which he made me could possibly be described as colourful, though that it is a bit of an understatement. It is certainly a conversation piece as I go about my shopping and other activities.

I have had to decline a visit to a Hmong ceremony to see a shaaman installed, which is a pity, but maybe there will be other opportunities. Sadly, my earlier commitments overran and I could not make it to the Bacci Ceremony for the motor bike either; that is a real shame I can't be sure when and if a similar opportunity will present itself

The fisherman who caught my camera revealed that he had caught something bigger and I was brought a couple of teeth belonging to the creature, which suggested we were dealing with something quite remarkable.  I had photos taken of the head and jawbone from which they appeared to have come  from, and it seemed quite likely that we were dealing with a dinosaur head. The Lao Dinosaur Museum showed some long distance interest, but they don't have email  so I could not immediately send them photos.
However, thanks to the intervention of a friend, the Natural History Museum in London was consulted and they took little time in disabusing me. It is the lower jaw of an Asian Elephant, only about 200 years old. And the "teeth", were the lower molar which had flaked apart as the enamel had deteriorated. Pity, but an unusual and briefly rather exciting activity. We shall go to the Ministry of Culture in the week and report the find - now that we know it won't make us all millionaires.

I am not sure quite why the ladyboy came calling; eager to see the village falang for herself maybe, but ostensibly looking for a mutual friend. My word, she is a big girl!! I believe that some rugby is played in Laos now and she would make a great front row forward in either the ladies' or the mens' team. Not directly related to her visit, but to others looking for the same friend, a rumour has started that I can speak Lao. My friend lives with his Mum, 150 metres down the road, and when anyone asks for him I am able to say in Lao, "he is at his Mum's", which is about all I can say, but  it seem to have impressed the locals, not least as the expression I use is the rural, poor mans' term, not the city-educated-middle class term (  though I only chose the more demotic expression as its easier to pronounce ).

Working for my charity (LEOT) took me to various meetings with current and prospective students. Giving away other peoples' money ought to be the easiest and most pleasant of activities, and mostly it is, but sometimes it can be quite frustrating. This weekend several of us spent quite a lot of time trying to track down a particular applicant with a view to offering her a grant of of about 6,000 pounds..but to no avail.  More fruitful was a visit to an outlying temple to talk with a young novice who has a UK based sponsor. The village was getting their boats ready for the boat racing season which starts in Luang Prabang early next month.  (see above). This village is the knowledgeable person's favourite for the big prizes as it flirts with breaching the spirit of the races though the design of its boat. The traditional boat is made out of a single tree, but their boat utilises timbers from different sources which apparently produces a faster boat. I am told that this village is  also famous for the beauty of the young women; there the name and location are available on receipt of a donation to LEOT.

I went bed-buying with one of our students this week. Most people here don't have beds as such, just roll-up mattresses, which when not in use mean that the space can be used for something else, though  what, I am not wholly sure. That's ok if you don't live on the ground floor in a low lying area. If you do, during the rainy season you are likely to find the waters lapping around you as you sleep. I had imagined that we were going to shops to look for a bed, but of course not! We went round temples looking for one that had a surplus bed; it seems that the faithful are inclined to donate beds to the temple with the result that there are sometimes some which are not needed. We found such a one, debated with the Abbot about the size of a donation , which he then waved away as he became aware that it was needed for a student. The bed had seen better days, admittedly, but was so plain as to make the uber-cool burghers of  North London green with envy. So 10,000 KIP for a tuk/tuk to deliver it and all sorted.

This week's  new door-to-door vendor was selling sweetcorn; those small ones with black and white corn that that the locals adore. So far as I can tell ,the larger ones that we in the West are more familiar with are not regarded as edible and are used for industrial process; certainly I have never seen any for sale in the food markets.

I have several times mentioned "my village". For the benefit of those who don't know Luang Prabang, it is not a village in the Western sense, of a small rural community separated  from the next town or village.Although mine does touch the rural area, a village here is simply a district. Within Luang Prabang there must be dozens of villages, with no obvious  natural boundaries, each with a Head Man ( I have not heard of a Head Woman, but now it has come to mind I shall make enquiries) and some limited  responsibility for the administration of the village.  The focal point of each village seems to be the temple but  I imagine that some may not have a temple within their boundaries.