One week in Isan, Thin Poo Village.

     Monday was my first meeting with students. The story was, is that there is to be a Women's Development group forming around here and they were to have some English lessons to help them. Two, sometimes three young people, turn up each day for 'lessons'. These kids are too poor to go to school and are needed at home to help their families.
     On Wednesday the big cheese from Nong Kai district turned up to just have a look around. More people attended the Adult Learning Center and immediately the boss guy and his entourage arrived things changed. He and his party were offered orange juice, a microphone was produced, the atmosphere changed from informal to formal.  And the speeches... If this guy had any idea of seeing what was going on, his image would be very different from the everyday. But he made his visit and his speech, though I noticed he read the newspaper while his deputy got on the mike. Reminds me of a politician who was rambling on  when a mate sent him a note and he sat down.
Someone retrieved the note, "Pull out Digger the dogs are pissing on your swag".

Official Visit.

My students are kneeling in the front one with a blue flash on his t shirt and the little fellow to his right. They are below the big guy in black. The women with check shirts are local teachers in their uniforms. The pink banner to the left announces that PM Yinluck has sponsored this local Women's Empowerment group.
To my left is Jack the coordinator of "Isan Survivor" and my boss.
So there you are.






That day we lunched on the roadside near the center. Mostly I have eaten what was put before me with some polite refusals. I find it is my imagination which makes many of the decisions. That and the images I have of from markets I have been to. Isan food is often the envy of other places in Thailand. And that is well justified. Local vegies abound. There is fish from the Mekong and from the sea, and plenty of chicken, pork and beef. Sticky rice is plentiful and though supposed to be hard for the foreigner (Ferang) to manage I find I deal with fairly well. Asian stomach have similarly difficulties with bread. Yesterday we lunched in town on Vietnamese dry noodles and last night we had a Korean bbq. Jack set up two charcoal burners with water boiling around a central upturned dish  on which we grilled chicken and pork around a moat of water for boiling vegies and noodles, managed by chop sticks. What I do find challenging is a watery soup with all kinds of floating bits and below the surface wonders. Take away means collecting from a  shop in plastic bags 'sealed' with ingeniously tied elastic bands.
     Some of the most exciting eating is when a local grabs something from a tree and offers it for eating. Tamerind is especially good that way and it is sealed in a brittle crust which cracks away leaving a brow sticky hard seed laden fruit. Yum. Then in the market there is jackfruit, pawpaw, limes and many others I could not identify.
     With these local markets which are so sustainable it is almost tragic to see  a Tesco Lotus supermarket  offering all kinds of labour saving bits and pieces so easy to buy and so different from the local traditional healthy gear.

Collecting Tamarind by hitting the branches with a stick and then picking up.

Wednesday Market. Fly swats are plastic bags on sticks.

Homemade rice noodles with hart packaging.

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday and the Mekong.

After  one trip  to town in the ute we returned to get food for the bbq and it took some time so I decided to walk home and make a kind of walking meditation out of it. As I did so the sun was setting over the Mekong and there are various temples along the way which enriched my journey as the sun finally set. The first shot is of a long boat for competing on the river.

Along the river there  are little pavilions from which to watch the river or take the cool breeze which may offer itself.