I am a seller, said the Ice Girl

Greetings,

As dawn light savored green jungles along rivers a young Banlung woman-mother, one of many, cut ice. She sawed ice into manageable chunks as glistening elements dripped their moisture into delicious red dust. Red dust is stirred by countless women sawing and sweeping in front of their red dust covered wooden shuttered doors. Up and down the red dusty street.

Ice slides into blue plastic bags. Four foot long blocks of ice are loaded on the backs of antique battered black and red motorcycles driven by delivery boys wearing dusty baseball caps with glittering golden stars. Women in front of their shops open large orange plastic boxes to hold fresh clear frozen ice. 

Ice lives and dies every morning in a red dusty paradise. Sun streaks water. Ice cries.

After school the mother's daughter, 12, saws ice. A man sees her. What are you doing? he asked. She smiled. She is happy. I am a seller, she said. Her English is clear, distinct and filled with confidence. She bags a block of ice and hands it to a cycle man. He hands her crumbled red dusty notes.

She saws ice in afternoon heat. You are a good seller, said the man. Yes, I am, said the girl. I greet the buyer and sell, I cut, I bag, I talk, I sell. Ice is moving.

See you later, she sang playing her saw through crystals inside red dust. 

Metta.

Weave heart

Greetings,

To celebrate your stress free, completely relaxed moment of eternal mindfulness with heart before on and well after the 25th here are some calm meditative images from the Stung Treng Women's Development Center.  

Mekong Blue, as blogged before now in the long now is a UNESCO award winning project noted for superior quality, creativity and originality with silk. The Center improves the standards of living for 50 women and their children. They have vocational training and educational programs. They are employed. They have a future.

Shop with your heart. Shop to give back. 

Metta.

A bubble girl story

Greetings,

A wise traveler named Hugo, the Director of a Life Improbability Research Center near Paris dropped me a comment asking for the story about the Laotian bubble girl. 

Here it is. One day I walked through Luang Prabang and reached a dirt path leading down to the river, a bamboo bridge and distant weaving villages. At the top of the path three young girls were selling, or hoping to sell hand made colorful wrist bands, small wooden beads and bamboo dolls. Same as at Angkor temples.

In the afternoon when I returned they were playing with thin plastic air filled balls. Her eyes held all the secrets of the world.

Like many kids they attend school either in the morning or afternoon.

It's the same universal story, "We need money for our families." 

Keep it in the air.

Metta.

A new gallery of Stung Treng town and area is live. It features the Women's Development Center (Mekong Blue), primary school kids, the wat and flags at Thala Bovivat. Enjoy.

http://tmleonard.squarespace.com/stung-treng-cambodia/

The Chinese Virus

Greetings,

Before floating south to Pakse and the Mekong toward Cambodia here's a summary of the northern visions. 

Buon Tay is a small dusty town two hours south of Phongsali on a narrow red dirt silver stone road flanked by rising thick forests. Oudomxai, a large Lao-Chinese town five hours south is a real Chinese mess.

High remote Lao villages and harvested rice terraces lead toward Luang Prabang. Disneyland East.

The Chinese are invading Laos. In masse. It's a virus.

The geographical borders (Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam) and incessant rampant anxious desire for money, exploitation and natural resources (timber and minerals) dancing with political, economic influence and cheap labor drives the Chinese engine. Hello Big Brother. 

Buon Tay is one example of the new wild west filled with Chinese guesthouses, restaurants, billboards, CCTV television programs, black diesel belching ubiquitous blue Chinese dump trucks filled with dirt and Yunnan workers.

Factories (cheap clothing & construction) sprout like mushrooms. Crowds of ill-mannered loud rude Chinese idiots rule. Drunken men sing, "We are the world. Long live socialist ideology and economic profit."

Groups of Chinese construction workers in track suits received plastic bags filled with cartons of cheap cigarettes as partial payment for their socialist sacrifice and backbreaking toil. They trudge dusty roads near green mountains back to their makeshift tin shacks. They are the new immigrants. They build roads and hammer and shovel and carry and slave to create hard nosed businesses. It reminds me of poor Maija village near a business university in Fujian.

The Lao markets are filled with Chinese goods: beer, juice, disposable plastic consumables. 

A wealthy Chinese man with a gold watch, leather bag and dress shoes goes to the market. His sour dull depressed looking wife handles the money. She makes all the economic decisions. She buys some meat - a luxury only they can afford.

Lao women spread their luscious green vegetables on banana leaves. They arrive, chat with friends, sell, leave leaves and return home to grow more food. Shallow stranded immigrants wander around staring at onions, lettuce, cabbages, cuts of meat. They are poor. The lost desperate starving dull eyed Chinese workers traverse sparrow songs, passing recycled garbage, sleeping dogs, and industrial dump trucks spewing glorious growth potentials inside shrouds of mountain mist. 

Lao laugh and smile. They've seen fools come and go. They know these fools will stay, breed and take over.

No exit.

Metta.

pain killers

Greetings,

Another brilliant day blooms zooms bright and infinitesimally small intense light. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. You'll never catch it.

What you don't see is fascinating.

The clatter of foreign tourist utensils sing near dumb thumbed Angkor Wat guidebooks dancing with dusty beggar children hawking stories of orphanages and medical clinics.

The Children's Hospital has 22 beds in one room. They are full. They are filled with infants and children wearing air hoses in their nose. They suffer from pneumonia and tuberculosis. This is common in Cambodia. A parent holds a tiny hand.

I.C.U. has five beds. They are full.

400 mothers cradling kids wait to see a nurse. The nurse can dispense five medicines. Three are cheap generic pain killers.

Life is a pain killer.

The other two drugs are generic placeboes. The mothers are happy to get SOMETHING, anything. They have no knowledge about medicine.

One effective pill prescribed by a doctor costs $1.00. Parents need to buy 15. 

$15.00 is a fortune. Out of the question. Parents accept cheap ineffective drugs. Parents need a miracle. How much does a miracle cost?

They are hopeful. They wait. They have ridden on the back of cycles from distant villages. In their village everyone had the answer for their child's sickness. Babble voices of the old survivors. Babble voices of relatives seeking salvation inside a dance with Death.

An old village healer waved smoking banana leaves over their child running a fever. Hot and cold.

Mothers wait to see the nurse as sparrows seek water in broken light.

Metta.