Monday, May 28 - Exploring the middle of nowhere

Jimmy is on the prowl for several snakes he saw in the house earlier - we found them later sneaking into a hole in the roof! Yikes!
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Today I slept in until 10am! I guess I was pretty tired. I had a late breakfast of mangosteen, lychee, omlette, cereal, yogurt, toast, fresh tangerine juice, and hot tea - yum! It appears, however, that this is fly season, because by the end of my meal, I was sharing the table with about a dozen flies. But hey, at least they didn't show up right away!

After breakfast, Lamai and I went out and visited the village school, which is just up the road from their house. The students had all just had lunch and were wrapping up their recess break. The youngest students were settling down for an hour-and-a-half nap (that's a long nap!), but first they recited some Buddhist chants. One class of girls was doing some Buddhist chants along with a video, and a bunch of classes downstairs were playing and walking around; apparently, their teachers had some meeting to attend elsewhere...very strange.

This is one of the main roads that goes through the village. Needless to say, all the roads in the village are dirt roads!
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A couple of the older classes were doing some work in their math workbooks, and I went in to check things out. I tried talking with a few of the girls, and they tried talking back to me. One of them was able to tell me her name and age.

It went something like this: "My name is *insert something unintelligible here.* I am eleven years old. How old are you?" It seems that those must be the key phrases they're taught in school, though it didn't sound like she'd had much practice with it, as she was rather 'punctuated' in her efforts at speaking English. Kudos to her for trying!

The neighbor has quite the collection of chickens and roosters, some of which woke me up this morning! But then, they crow about any time of day. A bit confused, I reckon!
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After we left the school, Lamai and I walked around the rest of the village - and it really is a village - so I could get an idea of what things are like there. While we were out, we stopped for a drink break at the village convenience store, where they sell soda, beer, crisps (chips), sunscreen, etc. I was surprised to see so many modern products being sold in this remote, traditional village!

As we enjoyed our drinks in the shade of a thatched roof, we saw a couple villagers walking down a dirt path toward us, one with a black kettle over her arm and the other carrying a long bamboo pole with a basket on the end.

These women are bundling the grasses that they'll later weave into grass mats. They use the grass mats for various purposes, but mostly I saw the villagers just sitting on them in the shade. :-)
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In the kettle were a mix of red ants, winged ants, and ant eggs all submerged in water (I think they do that to keep the ants "asleep" during the trip home). They had shaken this mix of ants from an ant nest in a tree, which is why they had that basket on the end of the bamboo pole - they lift the basket, place it beneath the nest, and shake, shake, shake! Lamai told me that they'll fry that up and eat it with rice, veggies, and sauce made from fermented fish! MMMM!!!

Remarkably, I still had an appetite after that, so we came back for a late lunch of stir-fried noodles, mushrooms, and carrots. I napped away the afternoon (yep, still tired), and then we went out for a meal of grilled pork and veggies, which we cooked on an upside-down slotted metal bowl above hot coals (very much like Bar-B-Q Plaza, for you Malaysians). The big highlight of Lizzie's day was stopping at 7-11 to stock up on chocolate. :-/  Can you say, "Cavities?" *sigh*

Tomorrow I get to go hunting for bugs. That'll make for an interesting day, for sure!!