Baci Ceremony

We were told that today was a particularly lucky day to hold a Baci ceremony as it was the new moon that starts the new year. When a orange-robed novice monk shows up at your guesthouse inviting you to attend a Baci ceremony what else can you say but yes? And that's how I met Sipon the novice monk...

The adventure started with a Mekong river crossing in a pirogue, a motorized craft carved from a single tree trunk. Picture a grandma totting a rooster in a bamboo cage, a throng of young girls returning home from selling "lucky birds" and bracelets, a novice monk named Sipon and three volunteer English teachers all overflowing in a boat a few inches off the Mekong.

We walked the thirty minutes of the dirt road to the Hmong village and were introduced to the village headman with hands raised as if in prayer, the nop of greeting.

The table was decorated with a marigold and banana leaf cone similar to the Krathong of Thailand. Two bowls were filled with the contents of a chicken

The Baci ceremony consisted of touching the table and saying a few prayers for good luck and fortune. Then each member of the family tied a bundle of white cotton fibers around each wrist of all of the guests while saying individualized prayers and gently giving a two-handed handshake. A feast of chicken and cooked vegetables was laid out on the best linens (banana leaves) on the floor with sticky rice.

In a show of friendship, the headman put his hand on my knee. Luckily I had seen this cultural sign before and understood it to be a sign of friendship...

Its amazing how far a few words in a foreign language will get you. By learning just a few key phrases in the local language I speak infinitely more Lao than the typical tourist and its times like these that make me so happy to be able to communicate with my hosts. Even if just a little.

We were offered shots of backyard hooch called, "Lau Lao". As we drank the potent homemade rice whiskey, the hosts seemed to enjoy our gnarled faces the most... After each shot of whiskey we were handed a piece of chicken. Interesting to note that we were handed generous pieces of the best meat...

As things were being cleared we were asked if we wanted to buy beer. From the western perspective its a little strange to be invited to a party and then told to buy beer... But we had to remind ourselves that we have more money in our wallets than the whole village makes in month. For them this party was an investment... An investment in the education of their children... So we each kicked out the equivalent of a few dollars. The headman's wife returned a little while later with Pepsi's for everyone. She said the store was closed, but we weren't sure if that meant the store was closed or we hadn't contributed enough for the beer fund...

If you look close at some of the photos you can see the red-ringed mouths of some of the Grandmas who were chewing betel... Also interesting to note was the poster of UXO (unexploded ordinances) on the bamboo wall of their home...