Day two of Laos’s hill tribe trekking began in a clearing mist with our trail in the shadow of adjacent hills. The plan was a modest one hour walk from the Khmu village of Hua Phi to the Hmong settlement called Xiang Pha. From there a four hour downhill journey to a riverfront town of Xiang Ngeun where we could summon a canoe to return to our base camp an hour upstream.
Bamboo, bananas, and butterflies were continuous features on narrow, well-traveled paths connecting 
settlements and access to productive fields. Teak trees grew everywhere. It was the main structural component of their huts. I saw no signs of commercial logging deforestation. In a small way, locals dragged individual timbers via streams to the main rivers for trade.
The Hmong differed from Khmu subsistent farming with individual family farms in a confined area rather than an encompassing village. Livestock was raised for sale. Pigs and goats were kept in corrals rather than beneath the family abode. I was told Hmong spirits dwelled in the earth and sleeping on the ground maintained better contact. Fields of rice and corn had fencing signifying property rights, in contrast to a Mother Earth provider concept of Khmu.
We came across an elderly Hmong lady foot-levering a pestle to hull rice grains while a young lad threshed the chaff with a basket. The lady characterized satisfaction for duty-driven results of her toil. At no time did I see idle behavior nor think such allowance could exist in this society. Beyond, a man-made swamp appeared to yield some form of marine life for harvesting. Textile art was used for their known ceremonial wear plus another cash item for the marketplace. I walked away with a deep respect for these highland peoples.
The next four hours were gruesome. The sun was now high overhead. Our downhill path was less than surefooted from erosion. My leg muscles soon felt stressed by the constant downward step. I was more apt now to stop for a butterfly photo to break the routine.
The river town of Xiang Ngeun was far more advanced than villages we had passed. Galvanized metal roofs and concrete structures failed to have much allure. At the river’s edge, I found fascination in the bustling commerce. Young boys with windowed masks and small spears waded to catch small fish. Many young girls harvested natural weeds on the river bottom. A teenage girl piloted a canoe to ferry people across the river. A middle-aged woman washed house mats near the shore. A family towed small teak logs from a stream outlet.
Over the past two days, my guide Sathith related his story. He grew up in a remote village near the Thai border. As a young man, he came to Luang Prabang for work, adventure, and support to his parents back home. Starting as a dishwasher in a bar-restaurant, he took English classes. Good work and English got him transferred to the tending bar. From behind the bar, he was able to relate well with tourists and chose tour guiding to expand his horizon. Two years ago, his adeptness won the respect of a Finnish girl on holiday. Their short time together led to romance. His hopes were dim as the girl’s father disapproved of their intent. Last spring she was secretly able to return to Laos for a month. Poor Sathith has little chance to get a visa to leave and much less of a chance to save enough money for airfare to Finland.
Our motorized canoe arrived for returning to our base-camp.
Flying from Bangkok to Luang Prabang in a twin-engine plane was reminiscent of the dirty little Fokker in Ethiopia. The airport in Luang Prabang was of little difference than Lalibela. The arrival Lao visa will be a feature page in my passport. There was an excessive amount of Germans grouped for a package tour. Outside a few guides greeted arrivers with paper signs. There were Tiger Trails seeking Roger Rowley. Satith Sengvilay was to be my guide and companion for the next two days. I felt certain Laos was the right choice once I viewed the rugged fertile landscape from the air. From the airport, we bounced around in our van with lush vegetation heaving over the dusty dirt road. I beamed inside assured Laos was a good selection.
A twenty-minute ride brought us to a launch point at the Nam Khan River. Here other groups were assembling to or ending an adventure. In eighty-something heat and humidity, I gathered the ‘cool’ highlands were merely relative to ninety-something lowlands. Here I could take essentials which by now I am thinking minimal and stash my luggage. A modest buffet was offered but having had lunch on the plane I opted for a cold beer, the bad choice before trekking, add heavy Levis and you are dragging most of the way.
We tipped into a shaft-propeller driven canoe for a twenty-minute sight experience of activity on the riverfront. Fishing, gardening, bathing, water buffalo, and commerce bought the locals out to wave our passing. Along the way, torrents of water were gushing from the thick forest ahead without a usual tributary stream. We pulled in beyond to a seasonal cascading waterfall and pool setting. It was the weekend and several people gathered to enjoy the cool waters, we tourists as well. Tad Xe Falls may have been a refreshing destination but our day was just beginning so I prompted Satith to continue.
The two of us ventured off. Satith was well conditioned to handle the heavy load of provisions and essentials in his backpack as I trudged behind with my oversized fanny-pack. A two-hour struggle along well-used footpaths took us ever upward. A few breaks along the way as my consumption emanated through my pores.
The day-one destination village of Hua Phi is home to the Khmu people. Local natural materials were used for their structures. Bamboo, banana, palm, reed, and teak made mostly two-level dwellings for animals below and people above. Chickens and pigs ranged freely. Dogs and cats were, I guess you could say, domestic. Assured of my free reign, I wandered about in awe of their subsistent ways. Several children had a push-toy made with a long stick in the neck of a plastic bottle with crude wheels and axles at the base. Childhood ended at about seven when able to work the fields or handle household chores. I don’t recall the exact statistics but the village has over four hundred people in twelve families. Planting, sowing, and reaping were I expect a continuous cycle. Given a rain and dry season, a convention must have given crop cycles.
Their end of the day brought in people from the fields. Teens played volleyball of sorts with a beanbag ball and soccer rules lobbing over a head-high bamboo pole. It was a spirited competition.
My evening bath was reminiscent of a mandi during my Volunteer days in Java. An open cistern of water is ladled over your body in breath-taking ice-cold shock. The cool-down was most welcome as my recovery in such heat was slow in coming. Their running water was gifted from NCO, an organization not known to me. Cleanliness proved important here as all seemed to have their time in the mandi or an open faucet.
An affiliated family to host Tiger Trails ran an enterprising commercial store and trade outlet. A widow of two years and four daughters would hold their own in any marketplace. They handled the distribution of goods for locals to market. Toting fifty kilos of goods rivaled any task a man could or would do.
The vegetables Satith carried were turned over to the ladies who relayed it to others for cleaning and slicing. Satith was keen on performing his cooking task over a wood fire, preparing a stir-fry and soup for our evening meal. Here I found sticky rice to be a paste form in which to sandwich mouthfuls of vegetables by hand -- finger-food utensils.
These enterprising ladies had a television and music videos that turned their store into a mini theatre. Thanks to a generator with a two hour evening cycle beyond the seven o’clock sunset. Satith was enthused about music but my weary bones needed repose. Comfort was a matter of need and I found the bamboo mat as inviting as any five star accommodation. My next conscious moment was first rooster call. Sometime latter with the second rooster call I turned on my ineffectual iPhone to focus on three-thirty. Shouldn’t this activity be coming at dawn? I stumbled out in total darkness with my flashlight for a nature call under billions of stars and millions of galaxies overhead in a crystal clear night. I estimated the calling roosters to be eight. The one outside my bamboo curtain had lost some bravado lauded by others in the village. His cock-a-doodle-doo barely fostered a weak doodle-doo. For sure he had his day.
Dawn gave birth to a busy village life. Washing, sweeping, and duties in line, the locals were engaged with a new day. Satith came with omelet and bread for me and I watched passers by eat sticky rice on their way to the fields. The Enterprising Ladies were receiving fifty kilo sacks of cash-crops for their commissioned mass deployment to market. An entrepreneurial man with a two-wheeled, gas driven, tractor of sorts pulled up with cart in tow to transport the goods to town.
It was good for me to be an ineffectual visitor, passing by for a moment of their daily lives. We traded appreciable smiles. No one looked for a handout. My picture taking went unnoticed. If they showed curiosity, I would respond with a digital picture review which was met with smiling eyes of approval.
In review of one of my favorite movies Stealing Beauty, I am cast into the artistry of Bernardo Bertolucci. Not to discount the allure of Liv Tyler but I want to point to the projection given to us by Bertolucci and another favorite Federico Fellini. Such visionaries can bring us into their fantasies. Perhaps not a total gift from the Italians but they have an edge to expressions of beauty and desire. In this vortex I tend to reel back into moments that I have experienced. We cannot dwell in their imagination but reflect on our own.
Many trivial moments stay with us eternally. Other instances may transform our character for how we judge other such events. I have documented various lists but the following are significant whether trivial or transforming.I was very young and impressionable while being part of a party of a Michigan fashioned New England Lobster Fest. We retired to the garden of our benefactor. In the party of beautiful people, a golden retriever and I played catch with a stick and I drew apart from the crowd. (transforming)
Again so young, a company business dinner found me and a bunch of coworkers surrounding three airline stewardesses at the bar. The loveliest looked to me and said, “Are you married?” I stuttered, “Who me?” Everyone laughed. (trivial)
Trapped in New Haven Connecticut on business for the weekend, after dinner and alone, a combo was playing a lovely song at the Motor Inn. I walked over to a table of where three had been. The most beautiful girl was left alone. I asked if she would like to dance. She said, “No. But would you like to sit down.” (transforming)
Bettina on the plane was a long conversation on a flight from Detroit to Frankfort. She sent me a bar of chocolate on the following Christmas but I could not distinguish the return address to send thanks. (trivial)
Idle conversation at the Copacabana Palace Hotel on my first day in Rio, a lovely Australian lady rose to leave. I asked if she would have dinner with me. She said, “I’ll pick you up at nine.” (trivial)
At sixteen, I stopped at Hollywood Market on Auburn Road to get some snacks for the road. As I rounded the aisle near the veggie counter a lovely goddess tending the lettuces met my glance. Both of us were awestruck but could not say a word. Heart pounding, I left with a coke and some chips. As I went to my car she was standing near the window – another glance and I returned to the store. Within her reach the manager came between us, she hung her head, so I walked away. I returned to that store when thoughts arose but never saw her again. (trivial)
On the first curve while riding a bus up a mountain road in Puerto Rico the driver avoided a collision with an out-of-control vehicle and we ended up in a ditch. They called for another bus but said we could walk and be picked up along the way. This was my first time in the tropics as a young sailor, of course, I chose to walk. The sight of such flora and fauna along the way stays with me today. (transforming)Less preemptive events are first sightings: Taj Mahal, Chichen Itza, Borobador Java, Pyramids at Giza, Macho Pichu, Cristo in Rio, Statue of Liberty, Arlington National Cemetery, Pointe du Hoc and Omaha Beach, Neuschwanstein, Stonehenge, Cape of Good Hope, Kilauea Volcano, Ganges River, Mount Etna, Rock of Gibraltar, Istanbul, Grand Canyon, The Forum, Opera House in Sydney, The Great Wall, Angkor Wat, Mount Fuji, Vatican in Rome, Niagara Falls, Hadrian’s Wall, my Buddhist Bell, Terra Cotta Warriors, Fatima in Portugal, Death Valley, Bali, Coptic Churches in Ethiopia, Temple of Diana in Ephesus Turkey, Kronborg Castle of Hamlet in Copenhagen, Serengeti Plains, Nelson Mandela, Dali Lama, Fez, Yosemite, White Cliffs of Dover, Mekong Delta, Mount Everest, Tour d’Eiffel, Golden Gate Bridge, Chinatown NYC, Cape Hattarus hurricane, Tintagal, Auschwitz, Venice, (each transforming as a succession in attainment)
I am a firm believer in happenstance. Some would say you need to make things happen. There are so many forces beyond our control that credence with what lies before us may lead to a better path. I would attribute such as a formula for my content and fulfillment, more so in recent years.
Last year marked the achievement of traveling all the way around the world. That lifetime goal opened up with many business opportunities in the Orient since 2003. Several times I laid the groundwork, but accommodating business schedules had not allowed plans to take place. In August, two deals in Shanghai did not fall into a sequence, so it was necessary to make two trips inside of six weeks. With the first, I had a few extra days to see the Terra Cotta Warriors in Xi’an. For the second trip, I thought of venturing into Mongolia, but political unrest there left me scrambling for a plan B two weeks before I was needed in Shanghai. Hastily I threw together the triumph of a seasoned traveler and added Kenya, Ethiopia, and Morocco to my list of sixty-four countries that good fortune has allowed me to visit. I was able to include a stop to revisit Ghana and find the family I worked with thirty-two years ago.
In February, a couple days of business in Turkey provided a week to wander and wonder in the historic streets of Istanbul. Of the nearly one hundred and fifty pins on my world map, Istanbul is significantly aided by the cooperation of Kerem whose business brought me there.
Working a trade show in Cleveland allowed me to enjoy what’s new downtown. Dining on lobster is better along the coast of Maine, particularly when in the company of a special friend. My lovely daughter made my birthday quite pleasant when I flew to Tampa that weekend. My brother and his wife uphold Thanksgiving as a family tradition during my now annual trip to Colorado.
After thirty years of business, I may be basking in success, at least by my measurements. I am concerned about traditional skills with a desire to support those gifted and devoted. Fine dining at better restaurants will exemplify manner and reward the expertise of a premier chef. The enjoyment of great wine is a level of endorsement for a vintner’s craft. Much joy comes from witnessing classical music presented by near monastic devotion of a musician for their work. Artwork, in its many forms of expression, should invoke beauty and purpose in creative imagination. Primitive cultures warrant preservation, allegiance, and undying respect.
Being open to what life has to offer is merit within itself. Good fortune is not a monetary prize but a reward for the consequences of your folly.
As I battle through my office routines of the day, I must deal with schedules, proposals, and curb my emotions in the current news events over the political climate and woes of the financial world. The affairs of Africa are more a part of me since my return from Ethiopia. BBC News Africa has always been a daily event on my Internet review.
Visions of world aid being disseminated to African people and of Ethiopia came in the form of white vehicles. Door labels for Comite International Geneve and Medecins Sans Frontieres depicted the presence of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors without Borders respectively. The opinion of the locals was that funding of any international organization lined the pockets of government politicians and ten percent may find its way to the people in need. It was obvious to me that aid presence in areas of my encounter was for show. Real need eroded the people in the Afar region at the border with Sudan. Eritrea border conflicts with the primitive existence of a simple subsistent society. “Blood Diamonds” do not control this area but like human tragedy is in such a wake nearby. In my meager extent from Lalibela to Konso, I witnessed only fertile land of abundant resources merited to a deserving and hardworking people. Given a fundamental religious base and tribal unity those I encountered appeared content with their station in life. Outside forces bore little influence. Myself, I tread lightly to avoid acts of excess. When asked what I did, I would say, “Just a worker.” It always got a smile and I would nudge in a gesture to say ‘Like you.’ We are all in the same struggle to live as best we can. The only separation is really our place of birth. The benefit for Ethiopians was never to have been colonized like other areas of Africa.
It seems to me that colonial rule by nineteenth-century European nations set a format for tribal rulers dictating over since freed lands in Africa today. Europeans placed borders irrespective of tribal habitats while laying claim to natural resources and displacing citizenry. Toss in historic Arab slave traders in the Sahara and Sub-Saharan regions with rape, pillage, and slaughter of entire communities for the sake of marketable human cargo, and you get a caldron to breed unrepentant horror.
Most of us know the distant genocides in Rwanda. In one hundred days 800,000 Tutsi were slaughtered. Cries of mercy were not heard as they sought refuge in churches where Hutu priests allowed annihilation.
Old condemnation is easily thrown at Uganda’s Idi Amin and Gaddafi of Libya, whereas it is merely dictators gone wild. A lesser-known tyrant, Sergeant Samuel Doe beheld the former American freed slave state of Liberia from William Tolbert. That victory was to put three bullets into his predecessor’s head, gouge out his right eye, and disembowel him. Doe became impervious to assault attributed to drinking human blood and eating the fetuses of pregnant young girls. American economic interests were served amidst such carnage. In a continued vengeance, the opposition was annihilated by castration, dismemberment, and cannibalistic consumption of those opposed.
‘Blood’ or Conflict Diamonds fund the rebels of Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone. I had confirmed interest to buy diamonds while in Ghana in 1976. Late one night at my apartment an unkempt man came to the door, presented a cache of raw stones in a soiled bag, and sought nine hundred dollars for the dozen culled gems. My only vision was that they had passed through someone’s system after a hard day in the mines so I declined. Since I have learned such items are the financial means for weapons. Moreover, what has followed weapons was for rebels to sequester children to take arms for their ‘cause’. Sierra Leone epitomizes the Rebel trauma of the African continent. Fawning youngsters into terrorizing citizens on their battleground was a travesty to humanity that goes beyond civil comprehension. Systematic mutilation of men, women, and children yields irreparably damage. Beatings, starvation, and torture can be overcome. However, a favored mark was to lob off the hand of men. The travesty afflicted on abducted women usurps the bounds of humankind. Sex slaves to the fighters could be a mild consequence for a young lady compared to being gang-raped but uterus mutilation scars the future should psychological forces be overcome.
My appreciation goes out to director Edward Zwick for Blood Diamonds and the performance of Djimon Hounsou and Leonardo DiCaprio in bringing us into close contact with this cause.
settlements and access to productive fields. Teak trees grew everywhere. It was the main structural component of their huts. I saw no signs of commercial logging deforestation. In a small way, locals dragged individual timbers via streams to the main rivers for trade.
We came across an elderly Hmong lady foot-levering a pestle to hull rice grains while a young lad threshed the chaff with a basket. The lady characterized satisfaction for duty-driven results of her toil. At no time did I see idle behavior nor think such allowance could exist in this society. Beyond, a man-made swamp appeared to yield some form of marine life for harvesting. Textile art was used for their known ceremonial wear plus another cash item for the marketplace. I walked away with a deep respect for these highland peoples.
The river town of Xiang Ngeun was far more advanced than villages we had passed. Galvanized metal roofs and concrete structures failed to have much allure. At the river’s edge, I found fascination in the bustling commerce. Young boys with windowed masks and small spears waded to catch small fish. Many young girls harvested natural weeds on the river bottom. A teenage girl piloted a canoe to ferry people across the river. A middle-aged woman washed house mats near the shore. A family towed small teak logs from a stream outlet.
