Life in Phana: Visitor Week in Phana

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24 January 2010

Visitor Week in Phana

This has been a week of visitors for us in Phana. Last Sunday I picked up Darunee and Adam and their three children from the airport in Ubon. After a breakfast with Lao coffee in Dao Coffee shop we made the trip back to Phana. It was the first time for little Polly, who is just 15 months old. Everyone else’s last visit was two years ago. Esme was still the right size for her bicycle but Anna’s tricycle was passed down to Polly and Anna was the lucky girl to get a brand new bike. That doesn’t often happen if you are the second child.

All three girls really enjoyed exploring our garden, fearless of scorpions and snakes. The adults, though, crossed their fingers and hoped for the best. And everything was fine. The girls especially liked playing with water and love a game they call “ants in your pants” which meant they took off all their clothes and hosed each other down.

On Monday we found two monkeys working in the coconut orchard opposite the house. The men had come from Roi Et, as had the younger (3-year-old) monkey. The older monkey was 7 years old and had come originally from Laos. He cost 200,000 Baht, so his owner said. Like most itinerant vendors and workers, they were staying in a local temple for the week they were offering their services in and around Phana.

On Tuesday we were visited by a new friend, a kiwi, who I had met for the first time in Ubon last Saturday, though we had 'met' originally on this blog. Then on Wednesday Phana was positively invaded by farangs when the Director of Project Trust and the Desk Officer responsible for volunteers in Thailand came to visit the project here. They watched the girls teaching at Samarkee School and stayed overnight at the Phana Garden Resort. We all had a very enjoyable evening at a little restaurant called "Uncle Moustache" after the owner's most obvious feature. The menu: duck laab, fried fish, stir-fried mixed vegetables, omelette, pork and tofu soup, fried sun-dried beef, sticky rice and som tum. The following day the Project Trust visitors were officially welcomed by Tetsaban Phana before going to the volunteers' other two schools. Then after a big lunch with the Tetsaban, they were picked up by people from Tetsaban Loeng Nok Ta where they were going to visit another project there.

Naturally, Ingrid and Nadia were taken to meet some of the monkeys in Don Chao Poo forest.

And they saw how much the two volunteers, Lauren (on the right) and Sarah, are loved by the children in Primary 1 class.

At some point in the week this plant vendor appeared at the gate. She showed Pensri what the plants would look like when they flowered and we ended up with another 10 plants to put somewhere in the garden.

Then twice we were visited by this rather eccentric monk who gave me three round seeds from a large tree. He said I could either plant them and get three tall trees or eat them and be impervious to bullets. I think I'll pass them on to Pensri to see if she wants to use them in the garden.

So the week has ended. The monk is still in Phana (I drove him 'home' to Wat Burapa) but everyone else has left. Not to worry: on Monday Pensri's two older sisters are coming up from Bangkok. They are being driven by P'Saisawarth's eldest son Jeab, and of course he and his wife are bringing Mono. So we won't be feeling lonely or forgotten out here in the sticks.

Comments

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Lawrence you got the post title right as you have had quite a lot of visitors. I'd love to see the monkeys in action, I'm presuming they climb the trees and throw the coconuts down. Perhaps you should have passed the monk's bullet dodging seeds onto the monkeys owners, protection against falling coconuts would be a godsend in that business.

I noticed you have changed your font size, I think I preferred the old style. The font here looks a little too big. Only my opinion of course.

Posted by: Martyn | 24 January 2010 at 03:35 AM

Thanks for the helpful comment, Martyn. I had experimented with pasting from a word doc but they seem to have a different idea of font size. Have edited now, and that proved quite tricky ... it didn't want to be messed around.

The monkeys are very efficeient coconut harvesters. They mostly break the nuts off with their teeth, then throw them down. They and their owners are very gentle with each other but the monkeys are very aggressive towards everyone else. The owners kept warning me to get further back when I was taking pics.

Posted by: Lawrence | 24 January 2010 at 08:34 AM