Ron and Sally Jo Blog

Eid al-Adha (or Idul Adha as known in Indonesia) is the second of two religious holidays celebrated by Muslims worldwide each year.  The first is Eid al-Fitri (Idul Fitri) which celebrates the end of the month of Ramadan (fasting). Idul Adha celebrates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son, Ishmael. The meat from the sacrificed animal is usually divided into three parts. The family retains one third of the share; another third is given to relatives, friends and neighbors; and the remaining third is given to the poor and needy.

For us, the celebration started the evening before with a parade of children on the street in front of our house. The parade was led by children chanting and carrying home-made objects on poles. Then came a band with drums and homemade marimbas. It continued the entire night with prayers, chanting, and drumming from the local mosque, broadcast through the loudspeaker. The mosque is just across the street from our bedroom! We sleep with our windows open for fresh, cool air. (Not much sleeping that night.)

For the celebration we were hosted/escorted to a small village mosque/school by a young Indonesian family. We witnessed the prayerful sacrifice of many male sheep, goats and cattle. It was not easy to watch for us. Even our female host cringed as we heard the baleful cries of the sheep.

It was fascinating to see how well organized the process was. There were men who brought the animal to the area and announced the family who was donating. There were others then who tied the animal and brought it to the exact spot where it would be sacrificed. We’re not sure, but it seemed as though these men needed to calm the animal and make it “willing” to be sacrificed. The Imam and some others prayed over the animal and then cut its throat. Another group of men carried the body to an open area and hung it up. Another group of men then skinned and cleaned it. And still more men cut it in chunks to be divided among the various groups of people.

We ended our time with this friendly family and a small meal at their house.

where we are

It’s been 7 years since we last left Indonesia. Many things feel the same but, of course, changes have happened.

MCC Indonesia team

We arrived in Salatiga and immediately jumped into the life of MCC. We went with the others to Saleh Putih which is a “resort”, a short distance up the mountain, not far from town for 3 days of team meetings. It was a good way to meet and learn to know new MCCers and to reconnect with those we knew from previous times. There are 8 MCC staff in the office here. Three of the national staff we have known since 2005. One of those we learned to know when she was an IVEPer and came to the States. Also here now are 8 YALTers*—4 from North America and 4 from other countries (Laos, Kenya, Uganda, and India). Of course, we knew the one from Laos since we had just been there 2 months ago and had been a part of his preparation to come. We discovered the one from Uganda lived not far from the MCC office in Kampala and we are sure we must have crossed paths during our 15 months in Uganda 4 years ago!

we made it

Team meetings are a time for mostly learning on a chosen topic with some time just for relaxation. The meetings ended with an optional afternoon climb up Gunung Andong, a 4800 foot nearby mountain. We had been up twice before in 2008. It was hard work but great fun. The “young” YALTers were even tired. We ended the day at an Indonesian home for supper.

As an aside, when we flew out of O’Hare airport we watched as an American Airline pilot flew his last flight before retirement. The tradition is that the airplane goes through a shower of water as it leaves the terminal. It was fun to see.

*YALT = YAMEN + SALT. Two MCC 1-year programs for young people.

As is a Lao tradition MCC had a “baci”  for us and our leaving. It was a good time and we had a chance to tell each MCC member how much they have helped us these 2 months. In the evening we had one last meal out with Tyler, Emily, and Robin. We ate in a restaurant high over the Mekong River and had a nice view of the night market as well as the evening public aerobic exercises, a daily event.

As we wind down our time here in Laos we have made visits to several places in Vientiane. We recently visited two museums—the National Museum and the Lao People’s Army Museum. The first quite interesting and informative and the second less so!

English class

We only recently learned of meditation classes held in a nearby Wat. The time is spent in both sitting and walking meditation. At the end, there is time to ask questions about Buddhism as practiced here in Laos. Before the class starts, there is an hour for English conversation during which the monk novices want to practice their English.

We have attended the expatriate Protestant church, the Lao Evangelical Church, and the Catholic Church.

novices

We often walked by one of the larger Wats near us but never stopped. It is located just across the street from a small grocery store where we bought all our non-market food. Then recently we learned the story of this Wat and thought we should visit before we left. According to local legend, when the temple was being built in 1563 a young pregnant woman named Si Muang volunteered to sacrifice herself to appease the angry spirits. She threw herself into a hole in the ground where the building’s central pillar was to be placed, and was crushed when the massive pillar was lowered into position. This central pillar also formed the center of the town that was springing up around Wat Si Muang, which to this day is revered as the ‘mother temple’ of Vientiane (according to Wikipedia). Behind the ordination hall, one can see the ruins of a Khmer Hindu shrine which was part of the temple in 1563. The present temple was built in 1956. We found the Wat quite interesting in its blend of animist, Hindu, and Buddhism.

The statue in front of Wat Si Muang is of King Sisavang Vong, king of the Kingdom of Luang Prabang and then Kingdom of Laos from 1904-1959.

When we were here in February, we saw mainly Buddhist Wats (temples) around the city. We didn’t get to see much else. Living here for two months allows us time to become much better acquainted with the city.

We often take early morning walks. Morning is the only time it is somewhat cool and is a good time to explore our area. The Mekong River is about a 10-15 minute walk from our house. There is a nice walk along the river which is frequented by other early morning exercisers. When we arrived the river was quite low. Recently there has been much rain over the entire Southeast Asia region and the river is very high. Fishing is done in this river.

We have enjoyed Lao food, sharing meals with staff in the office or at restaurants with friends or just the two of us. In fact, we could write a long blog just on food—but we won’t! Vientiane has an incredible array of good food at inexpensive prices (according to North American standards).

Markets intrigue us. There are a number of them around the city and we enjoy just browsing. It’s a great way to learn about Lao culture.

As we walk the streets there are many small vendors selling most anything one wants! We have noticed that empty sidewalks do not make any sense. Why waste the space if you need to park your car or if you need space to set up your outdoor café?

Other common sights? Busloads of tourists and many young backpackers. Construction everywhere in the city. Fascinating variety of building styles. And Wats (temples) everywhere.

our home

We have not mentioned much about where we have been living during these two months. We have a very nice house. We enjoy the many flowers; some are new to us but many we have seen elsewhere in the world. The woman who helps at the house is an incredible cook and often can prepare a meal for 15-20 in half a day with the help of just one person.

The MCC office is a short 2 minute walk down the road. Beside the office is another building housing the Mittapab office. Mittapab is a group organized by MCC to work at peace issues. Many young people are involved here and one weekend they “spruced up” the wall outside the office.

Every Monday morning we have an MCC staff meeting discussing what we will be doing the coming week. At noon the Lao staff often buy food and bring it to the office to eat together. We sometimes join them but usually prefer to get out of the office for a while at noon. Robin has been a big hit here in the office and provides many distractions. She is the 3-month old daughter of service workers. Her mother has just returned to work after maternity leave.

fruit for smoothies

The street is a mixture of homes and small businesses. A great fruit stand is just next door. She makes delicious fruit smoothies. A few doors farther along is one of our favorite lunch spots. They make a good “khao soi” – a type of noodle soup. A tall building is in the process of being built not far from us. The building across the street which had been a guesthouse when we arrived is being transformed into a restaurant. There are “grand” homes and there are very “simple” homes and there are “interesting” homes. There are large business buildings and there are small “home” businesses. The neighborhood Wat was shown in our blog about Buddhist Lent.

ready for the temple

Friday (31 July) is the beginning of Buddhist Lent—a religious holiday for most of the MCC staff. We were interested in learning more about the day and the activities surrounding it.

The day before Lent (Thursday) is also important. It falls on the full moon of the eighth lunar month (July). It was on this day that Buddha preached his sermon to followers after attaining enlightenment. The day is usually celebrated by merit-making, listening to a monk’s sermon, and joining a candle lit procession during the night.

Preparations for these two days began already Tuesday afternoon at the office. Banana leaves were cut from the resident banana plants, cut into squares and soaked in water. Rice also began soaking.

making khao tom

On Wednesday morning young coconuts were shredded. Rice was cooked with the coconut and taro bits and coconut water. At noon, and until completed, staff filled the banana leaf squares with a layer of rice mixture topped with either a mung bean paste or a slice of banana. The leaves were folded and closed in special way. Sally Jo tried making the squares. She was told she did well on the folding and closing of one end but they had to keep redoing the second end! These “khao tom” (steamed sweet sticky rice packets) were then steamed for about an hour.

Kesone, our house helper, fixed baskets for us to take. In these baskets were little plastic packets of crackers/biscuits/candy. Some had 1000 kip bills (about 15 cents) also enclosed. There were “khao tom” packets, flowers, incense, and small bottles of water. She also ordered small baskets of sticky rice to be delivered to the house Thursday morning. Sally Jo was told to wear her “sinh” (Lao skirt) and both of us to wear a “sbai” (a long sash worn across the one shoulder).

At 7:00 Thursday morning one of the groundskeepers from the office came to take us to the temple and show us what to do. Four of us from MCC went. Our neighborhood temple is very near and many people were arriving—on foot and by car. It was the first time we had actually visited this temple. Under a large pavilion were two long tables with 20 or so pots on each table. These are the pots used by the monks when they come around in the morning collecting food. (We had photos of this when we were in Luang Prabang in February .)

giving food

We removed our shoes and then walked along one table putting a small ball of sticky rice in each pot and placing one of our packets of crackers/money in a basket in front of the pot. We placed our flowers and incense packets in a large basket. Afterwards we poured our small bottle of water on the plants as blessing to our loved ones.

Buddhist Lent is sometimes referred to as Buddhist Rain Retreat. It happens at the beginning of the rainy season and monks and novices are required to stay in their temple for 3 months. Buddha assigned Lent to all of his disciples because Buddhist monks used to travel in every season and, especially in the rainy season, they might accidentally step on young plants and insects. This is a time for serious contemplation and meditation for both monks and laymen alike.

Saturday we were able to travel outside the city. We went with three other MCCers to Nam Ngum Dam in Thalat district—about 100 km from Vientiane. The dam, first hydropower dam in Laos, was built 1968-1984 and subsequently formed the largest lake in Laos. It generates most of the electric power for Laos and creates enough to sell to Thailand also.

We first stopped at a roadside market to pick up a picnic lunch—grilled chicken, grilled fish, sticky rice, and papaya salad. Papaya salad is a spicy salad made from unripe shredded papaya and is extremely popular. Emily had also brought fruit—rambutan, bananas, and (ripe) papaya.

We rented a long narrow boat with driver. He slowly drove around a small part of the lake and stopped at two islands. At one island we climbed a steep “ladder” to see basketry displayed by hopeful sellers. At another island there was an unusual concrete structure with three levels. We climbed steep scary steps to the top to look out over the lake.

Most of the time we just enjoyed a quiet peaceful ride.

map

We were able to take a long weekend and make a trip to Vang Vieng. This is the first time we have been able to travel in the countryside of Lao. We travelled four hours by minibus north of Vientiane.

Vang Vieng is an old town from the 1300’s but it expanded during the Vietnam War, 1964-1973, when the US constructed an air force base and runway. The runway is still highly visible. It is known as a tourist town with many outdoor activities—tubing and kayaking on the river, trekking, rock climbing, and caving. We were not the typical tourist!

Since tourism is such a big thing here we had heard that it can get very noisy with partying; however, we stayed in a guest house on the quiet side of the Nam Song River. We had to cross the river by a wooden bridge every time we went to town. Our bungalow looked out over rice patties to the karst hills. (“Karst is a landscape formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks…. It is characterized by sinkholes, caves, and underground drainage systems.”[web]) They reminded us of the hills we saw in Halong Bay, Vietnam and are of the same geological formation.

One morning we hiked to a cave. This required walking along a very rough road, along and through a river to the cave. The first two times we had to cross the river, we took off our shoes; by the third time we left them on and just trudged through the water. It was very hot and humid and the water felt good. When we finally got there, it was difficult to locate the opening; besides, we had been told we would need to crawl through the cave. We weren’t interested in doing that so just enjoyed the hike.

Another morning we rented mountain bikes and biked for about two hours. The first half hour we had to ride along the same very rough road which also had a fair amount of traffic—motorbikes, cars, ATVs, cows, people. We then were able to turn off to a quieter and smoother road. We saw more rice fields and small villages. It was a very pleasant morning—except for one thing. It was very hot and humid! (While we were in Vang Vieng, the weather reminded us of our visit to the Amazon, only there was no breeze off the river.)

We returned to our guest house just as the rain arrived. It then rained most of the time until we left. It was nice to sit on our verandah and watch the rain. We also watched the rice being planted—in the rain. The rains have been very late this year so everyone was rejoicing that they had finally arrived.

While it rained, we played a number of games of Canasta. However, the weather was so damp that the cards stuck together. When we returned to Vientiane, we spread the cards over our bed in the air-conditioned room to help dry them.

MCC has three young adult programs—IVEP, SALT, and YAMEN. IVEP participants are young people traveling TO North America and SALT participants are young people traveling FROM North America. YAMEN are young people, mainly from southern hemisphere countries, traveling to other southern hemisphere countries. YAMEN program is in conjunction with Mennonite World Conference. (We think this has been described before, but this is just to remind you!)

Laos has three IVEP and two YAMEN young people leaving Laos in a couple of weeks—two going to Canada, one going to U.S., one going to Indonesia, and one going to India. This means that we are working on four different visa applications with four different procedures! In addition we have never been involved this way before so the applications and procedures are new to us!

completing forms

Last week we worked closely with these young people. (They are dubbed YIVEP in order to make the term shorter.) Four of them were able to come to the office and we spent a morning working through many MCC forms that must be completed. Bee was there to help translate English words to Lao when the YIVEPers didn’t understand. Sally Jo was there to explain the English words when Bee didn’t understand. For example, one “legal” MCC document that needed to be signed, had this phrase: “In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand.” What do you mean “set your hand?” And they looked at their hands.

After completing the forms, they came to our house for lunch which was Lao food served American style. They need to learn that most North Americans pass food around the table and usually eat with a fork only—not spoon and chopsticks.

taxi to train

Sunday evening we, Bee, and the two YIVEP going to Canada went by train to Bangkok. Canada does not have an embassy/consulate yet in Laos and so they needed to do their medical checks with Canadian-approved doctors in Bangkok. Bee went because she is learning the procedures and we both went along to give support and because we needed to renew our own Laos visas.

Bangkok is about 10-11 hour train ride. We reserved 2nd class seats which are made into beds for the night. The coaches were air-conditioned and quite comfortable and some of us were able to sleep. In Bangkok we stayed at the Bangkok Christian Guest House which was clean, comfortable and convenient to transportation and to the hospital to which we needed to go. (We met missionaries there from several places who knew Mennonites via their own work in various countries.)

hospital lobby

All of us were awed by the hospital. The YIVEPers said it was like a 5-star hotel, and we agreed. The medical exams didn’t take long and we had time to do some exploring of the area. However, it was hot, so we were also happy to stay in our air-conditioned room most of the time! The next morning we went to the Canadian Visa Center so that the YIVEPers will know where it is. They will go there when they get permission from the embassy to have their biometrics (finger prints, photos, etc.) done.

All of this takes time! One day last week we spent nearly an entire day completing the U.S. visa application with the YIVEPer going to the U.S. The web site was slow and we weren’t familiar with it; so it took a lot of time. (It was also not particularly intuitive as to how to return to the application when we stopped to go for lunch and came back again.) This young person will be placed in Elkhart, Indiana, with the Seed-to-Feed program.

Today we spent all afternoon completing the India online application. For the most part, it went O.K. However, at one point we needed the “EFOP id number” of MCC in India! They had sent us a lot of papers but none of them had given this number. What to do? On a previous e-mail we found the telephone number of the India representatives. Ron called via Skype and got the rep travelling in a taxi on the streets of Kolkata! She was able to call her husband who then called us via Skype and provided the number! Fascinating world!

We hoped to go to the Indonesian embassy today to fill out their paper forms. However, they are closed because it is the end of Ramadan, and therefore, a holiday in Indonesia!

Such is life!