17 October 2008 - A Time For ...

A Time for ...

Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 states and in the song "Turn Turn" The Byrds reaffirmed that "There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under Heaven"

So it was in Tahsang Village today.

Today was Duang's 45th birthday. As initiated by King Rama IV, we are now up to Rama IX, Duang planned on going to the Wat to celebrate her birthday.

My day started at 05:30 with breakfast in bed. Not that it was a special day for me or that it is a tradition for Thai women on their birthday. Duang had gotten up 0500 and had showered and dressed while I was oblivious to the building excitement for the day. She made and then served me my breakfast when she woke me at 0530 so that I could be ready to start the day as quickly as possible.

Duang was all dressed in white for her special day. Her son and his new girl friend had given her two white blouses and a pair of white shoes yesterday. They had taken her shopping and disappeared for awhile. When they reappeared, they had her gifts.

I had stayed home - I had my own work to do. I made a Boston Cream Pie for Duang's Birthday celebration. It was nice to surprise her with her first homemade birthday cake of her life. Our life together is a blend and mixing of our two different cultures. Each day we are each learning something new - If not, we are at least confused about something different each day. We are both good students as well as teachers so we move on with a laugh as well as smile.

We drove to Tahsang Village to present the Monks with offerings and gifts. As I wrote before people earn merit by making offerings of food and giving gifts to the Monks. Doing so on your birthday gains you additional merit - bonus points apparently.

We stopped at the market in Kumphawapi to get some fresh food prior to stopping at Duang's house in Tahsang. We loaded up with some more food as well as bottled water and drove out to the Wat in the middle of the sugar cane fields (Duang refers to this as the "Outside" Wat). We picked up an elderly woman along the way who carrying her offerings as she does each morning to the Monks.

We arrived and laid the sahts (woven reed mats) on the bare concrete floor of the Wat. Duang went forward and lighted candles burned incense (joss sticks) as well as said her prayers to the statues in the corner of the Wat. After completion her devotion, Duang went out to another building and started carrying trays of food to the Wat. Duang's son and his girlfriend brought in the gifts for the Monks. The gifts were placed on the saht in front of the Monk's bowls that had been set up in a line on their raised platform.

At 0800 a man rang a big bell three times and the Monks appeared. We had already put big chunks of Kao Knieow in each of their bowls but there was a kind of ceremony to give them the rest of the food.

An elderly man had me light a couple of big candles in front of the statues. He then said some chants that were answered by the 13 other people in the Wat. The head Monk then did some chanting and the last bit of chanting he was joined by the assembled villagers. The chanting is not in Thai - it is in Pali - the old language from when Buddhism was spread out of India.

As part of the ceremony, Duang told me to ask for in my mind what I wanted. I don't quite understand this dichotomy - Buddhists pray and ask Buddha for things all the while Buddhism teaches that "want and desire are the causes of suffering". I guess it is similar to Christianity - you just accept and believe - you don't necessarily have to understand everything. I thought about what I wanted and my thoughts ran from money - enough money not to worry about retirement, enough money to travel, enough money to take care of people who need or will need me, I then moved on to getting a job in Thailand. I finally settled on "being happy" only to realize that I am happy. Hopefully I got my wish in on time - "To continue to be as happy as I am now"

After the chanting was completed I had the honor of presenting the offerings and gifts to the head Monk. To do so I was invited up to join the monks on their raised platform. Duang would hand them to me and I would hand them to the Head Monk. Even on her Birthday a woman is not allowed to touch a Monk and a Monk is not allowed to touch anything directly from a woman. If a man is not around, the woman places it on top of a saffron colored cloth and the Monk drags the cloth and offering to him.

Today there was all kinds of different foods for the Monks - a real feast.

Duang's gifts to the Monks in honor of her Birthday were two large intricately carved yellow bees wax candles (about 4 inches in diameter and 30 inches long), two artificial trees - one gold and the other silver (trunk, limbs, as well as leaves), two metal candle holders in the shape of opened lotus flowers, and a Monk's robe.

The head Momk filled the rest of his bowl with the food off of the various other trays and passed each tray down the line to the two other younger Monks. The food that was left over was gathered by an older layman and brought back to where we were seated. Eventually the food made it's way back to the other building which is also the workshop for weaving sahts.

I asked Duang if the Monks had a refrigerator to store surplus food like there was today to eat the next day - in case no one shows up the next day to take care of them. No they do not. The food is supposed to be fresh offerings each day. Apparently there is always some fresh offerings because the woman that we gave the ride to goes to the Wat every day.

After our service in the Wat we went back to the workshop building. It is a multipurpose building - it has a Thai kitchen (gas bottle, gas burner, and a spigot for cold water) in addition to the looms for weaving sahts.

Two women were there to weave sahts as well as eat some of the days food not taken by the Monks. The women got busy and started weaving the colored reeds. One woman sat to the side with two piles of colored reeds - red and blue, and a long thin piece of bamboo. The other woman placed a piece over the top of the loom and worked the loom.

The loom was a long wooden rectangle. Nails were partially driven along the wooden rails at each end of the frame. Plastic string ran from one end to the other end through a flat vertical board that had a series of holes and slots along its length. The flat board with its combination of holes and slots, raised and lowered the yellow plastic string.

One woman would grab the correct colored reed and run it through the yellow strings. To get it all the way through, she used the long thin piece of bamboo to push the bent end of the reed to the far limit of the loom. The other woman would then pull the flat vertical board towards her and kind of tamp the new reed against the previously woven reed. She then pushed the vertical board away from her to set up the strings for the next reed. They did this for about one-half and hour before taking a break to eat.

We went back to Tahsang Village and I realized that this was the time for saht weaving. We walked around the village photographing some of the steps in producing a saht. One elderly woman had a pile of fresh green reeds. She was using scissors to cut off the heads of the reed.
A young girl at another location was taking piles of trimmed reeds and spreading them out on the edge of the road to dry them out in the sun.

Two of Duang's aunts, in another part of the village, were busy completing one saht and setting up their loom for starting a new differently colored saht. Next door to Duang's house, her relative was setting up her loom to weave sahts by herself.

Along the way we visited a woman who grows mushrooms. Along the side of her house was a long plastic shed - kind of like the forts we used to build as children. The walls of this plastic shack were lined with racks of round small flower pot sized cylinders of some type of fiber. Thee was a similar rack running down the center of the structure. Out of some these cylinders, mushrooms were growing. The floor was very wet and muddy so I did not venture too deeply into the structure. The women had just finished today's harvest, and I suspect those mushrooms will be at the market in Kumphawapi tomorrow morning. You are very close to your food supply here in Isaan especially if you eat kao lao (Laotian food).

I ended up a little closer to the food supply than I wanted to at lunch. Duang's mom had trays of kao lao for the gang (Duang, Duang's pregnant daughter and her husband, Duang's oldest brother, and I guess me). They had Pauk Pauk - a kind of salad made out of chilies, green beans, shredded vegetable may be cucumber but it doesn't really matter because the key ingredient is Nam Bahla (fermented fish water - 1 to 2 years old, kind of like sour dough bread starter mix, you just keep adding to it and using it). There are other things in it but smelling the fermented fish is enough to make me lose any interest whats so ever in the remaining ingredients!

There was also a large bowl of the very tiny eenie weenie shrimp or prawns - I can't tell the difference. It is kind of like mammal embryos - at the very early stage they all look alike. These were so small that all I know is that they are shrimp like creatures. I have eaten them before - chewing them - eyeballs, internal organs, antennae, and whatever is inside of them was not bad but I did not like the thin shell membranes that get caught along the sides of my throat. They are also salter than I prefer my food.

Today there was also a treat to go along with the customary leaves and twigs that constitute some kao Lao - fresh cooked tiny grasshoppers about the same size as the shrimp like creatures. Duang told me how tasty they were and handed me one. I took it in my hand and looked at it for just a little bit. I can honestly say that I will probably eat kie mot (ant eggs) and definitely Pauk Pauk before I will eat a small grasshopper! I declined and reminded everyone that I had already eaten breakfast. I didn't tell them that I was capable as well as determined to wait until dinner back at our home for my next meal if it was necessary to avoid eating Pauk Pauk or grasshoppers!

My appointed time to eat kao lao has not come yet - thank God.

During our walk around the village we passed a building where strange sounds were coming out of. Duang seemed to know what it was and suggested that I go photograph it. We went inside of the wooden workshop to discover a man milling rice. He was dumping whole rice into an old belt driven contraption and white rice kernels were pouring out of the end of the machine. It was great - a single electric motor was driving at least 6 different belts - all exposed without a single fan guard insight. Each belt in turn was powering some piece of machinery in the process. The man had to climb a short ladder to dump the rice out of a 5 gallon plastic tub into one of two bins. The combination of gravity and belt driven shakers moved the rice through the process. This was definitely 1860 or 1870 technology at work and working quite well. I found it fascinating. So I guess the time to process last year's crop has arrived. This year's harvest will be ready in two months.

To keep peace in the village, we went to the Wat in Tahsang (Inside Wat) to make the same offerings and gifts as Duang made to the "Outside" Wat. We returned to our home in time for Duang's youngest brother and his girlfriend to visit. They brought early dinner to celebrate Duang's special day - more kao Lao!! I held off - I was saving room for birthday cake and whiskey later!

Duang and I were finally alone by 5:00 PM and had a couple drinks as well as birthday cake prior to spending a quiet night.