Tha Khek Retreat

So. Last weekend the whole MCC Laos group and families went on a retreat to Tha Khek, a town about 7 hours south of Vientiane. The group totaled about 45 people....of those 10 Canadians and me. As all of the other ex-pat staff is Canadian, the joke is that I'm having a double cultural experience. Not only am I learning about Lao culture from local MCCers, I also am learning new words, geography and culinary treats from our Northern neighbors! The retreat was a good intro to the country. It is staggering the differences between the capital, where we live and the countryside just a few minutes outside of town. In the past several years, there has been a lot of money invested in Vientiane to improve the infrastructure and increase tourism while the countryside is more or less the same as it has always been. We had Lao food the entire weekend. Traditionally the food is put in bowls to share in the middle of a mat on the ground. There are no plates or silverware, you just grab a handful of sticky rice and start exploring! So we ended up with lots of sticky rice, fish, papaya salad (local favorite...super spicy!), dried meat, laap (minced meat with mint and lime), fuh (noodle soup) and rice porridge. All of us newcomers decided that we had to try something slightly scary, so rather than the snail, chicken foot or fish eye, I went for the squirrel brain. I put a big ball of sticky rice around it, but I still had to dig it out of a cooked hairy rodent head. Due to the soft limestone mountains, there are a lot of caves in this region. So we had the opportunity to do some spelunking. One of the caves was just discovered in 2004. The man who discovered it was following some bats he was hoping to eat for supper and they led him up a cliff into a hole that ended up being full of these ancient Buddha statues. No one knows how they got there or exactly how old they are, but people come from all over to leave offerings in this cave. Laos is about 60% Buddhist and 40% Animist. The guest speakers for the weekend came from the Hope Center where I'll be working. The Hope Center is a new local partner for MCC, it just worked out well for me to get this kind of introduction. The center works with children aged 4-17 from all different disadvantaged backgrounds. Some are homeless and some live with relatives. Some of the children have escaped human trafficking in Thailand, and others have parents who are victims to the increasing drug problem in this country. The center has different resources available for the students. Academic, athletic, and musical activities, but more than anything, a safe place to come play and be kids.