Harvesting Rice in Laos

RICE HARVESTING

The young volunteers, Elders Vance, Johnson and Xiong, rode their bicycles out to the rice farm of the family of Nunaa, one of our young members.  The elders rode about 15 miles at a steady pace that we just kept up with as we rode behind in a tuk tuk.  (October, 2014)

Nunaa met us on her motorcycle and led the way.  It isn't cold here. They wear jackets, though and little face masks to keep the dust out of their lungs while riding along the roads.

Nunaa's dad came to pick us up at the end of the paved road.  He is driving his truck/tractor.  He was very gracious and pleasant.

Nunaa's mother welcomed us to their home on the farm.   Nunaa's family are not members of the Church, but have become more accepting of their daughter's membership.           

The cycles have been sharpened to do their job.  Last year, Elder Johnson cut his finger to the bone near the first of his day, but just wrapped it and kept working, cleaning and disinfecting it later.  He has a scar from it, but survived.

Nunaa gave Judy a hat, mask and gloves to use while harvesting.

Judy, ready to work.

The rice fields had the more mature stalks on the far side.  You can see the brown heads of grain.

Rice stalks are bundled and left in the field to dry, sitting on stumps to keep them above the mud.

The mature rice grains are golden brown.  The technique is to grab a bunch of stalks with the left hand and cut with the right.

L to R: Nunaa, Elder Vance, Nunaa's sis, relative, Elder Xiong, Elder Johnson, Dad, Elder Singley.

Storage building of some sort on the farm.  Most of the buildings, including their house, were on stilts to keep above the rain and mud in the rainy season.

The road to the farm was just dirt for the last 3-4 miles.

This is a tractor/truck full of rice shocks, ready to take to a threshing machine to take the grains off the stalks.  Notice the really long wagon tongue.  The driver sits on the box and guides the engine and wheels up front with the long handle bars.

The senior couples only stayed to work a couple of hours and we had to get back home to get some other things done on our Preparation Day, so Dad took us back to catch the tuk tuk back to Vientiane.

All along the road, people waved when we waved, and sometimes they even initiated the wave.  I don't think they see too many Americans  out this way.

DIC Charity Work

Water and Sanitation for Schools 

One of the types of work we do in Welfare Services is to provide clean water and sanitation facilities.  In Laos, Deseret International Charities (DIC), has provided 150 schools with water and toilets in the past 15 years.  Many of these schools had none before.  Some had inadequate or non-functioning systems. 

Saka, a secondary school of 800 students, receives students from 5 villages.  They don't have enough resources for such things.  This one had 2 toilets, but the well went dry during portions of the year.

 

We handed over the facility officially at a ceremony they held on Teachers' Day, where they had their students dancing.  The people in uniform are teachers and administrators.

The girls are wearing the typical school uniforms.  Their dances are slow and graceful.

Their sound system was huge and really put out the sound.


Teachers and a few parents and officials.

Elder Singley gave a speech, with Elder Xiong translating for him.  Elder Xiong is from California, but his heritage is Hmong and he has been great for the Hmong people here, who speak a different language from Lao.

Vice-principal

Official, thanking DIC for the project.

The people gave a certificate of appreciation to our Branch President, Konsavanh Khampadidt for connecting the school (in his community) with DIC.  Konsavanh is loved and respected by all who know him.

The District superintendent presented a plaque to DIC.

These are the chiefs of the villages whose students attend this school in Saka.  Village chiefs are consulted and must give approval for things that happen in their communities and are honored.

Flowers given by the superintendent (right) to the principal.

They also gave gifts to each DIC couple -- a nice teak wood carving.

A little humbling that they had people shading us from the sun as we walked to view the toilets and water system we had sponsored for them.

"Dignitaries" of the project in front of the finished toilets for a school of 800.

LtoR: Teacher, Sis. Singley, Judy, Education Director for District (Supt.), Principal in front of the well house and water tower provided by DIC for the school's water and toilets, about 100 ft away

classroom in the secondary school.

They provided a nice meal for us and for the teachers.  Lao people eat lots of vegetables and they like very hot spices in papaya salad, spinach salad, and on other foods.  They had delicious fried chicken, pork, rice, greens and put mint leaves in some of it --- very tasty.

Sister Singley

President Khampadidt invited us to his home/shop.  He has a little store and makes all kinds of baskets.

The big round baskets are to contain chickens so they don't run away.  They can just move them around the yard.

The blue nets are fish traps.  Fish can swim in through a kind of funnel, but then can't get out.  The flat-topped round things on the ground are tables.

Elder Xiong tried on a hat and rice cycle.

Between towns was this giant teak wood Buddha by a car dealership.

truckload of bamboo

We have several other school toilet handovers coming.  The officials wanted to wait until school got back in session and things settled down.  That should be about now.  The Singleys have been busy getting these projects identified and hiring contractors to get them done. We need to get some more started, now.