============================================================== To reach ALL SJD members, please send to sjd@satjadham.net ... Do NOT include any other addresses when sending to the list... Include as LITTLE of the original messages as possible........ Message sent by: LanXang Siengkhene *** Announcement: *** Please send your member fee to Victor if you haven't done so. ============================================================== Sabaydii, Here is my next to last recollection about Savannakhet. After the next one, I will write about Thakek. ***** In Savannakhet, during those days, they had a bicycle race. That was fun lining up alongside the road in front of the post office to watch the bicyclists racing by.  I thought if I were older, I would sure take part in the event.  Just imagine dressing in a tightly colorful outfit and riding on a slim bike would make anyone’s heart pound faster.  What made the event more exciting was the blooming of  Dok Phal Deng by the road.  As one’s eyes fell on the red color this flower, one couldn’t help but being captivated by it.  Adding to the white and yellow color of DokChampa in front of the post office, the place looked like a heavenly lush garden. In some years, I even watched the bicycle race on the Champa tree.  Talking about the Champa tree, I and my old sister were kind of attached to it.  Standing proudly since the days we came to live in Savannakhet in 1960 to 1967 (the year we left Savannakhet), this Champa tree became our playground where we climbed, where we hung among its branches like a wild monkey and lastly where we hid our parents where we were upset with our parents.  There was one black and white picture featuring me perching on the Champa tree while my sister was kind of leaning on it in our family album some time ago.  I wonder if my mom still has it or not.  To say the least, every picture of the olden days carries lots of meaning to me. Oh! The time bygones you are very much part of me…   In our post office compound, there was a well.  Everyone in this little community made use of it to the fullest.  The water that we drank, washed clothes, bathed, and sprinkled onto the Buddha statue came from this well. As I witnessed, the men, no matter young or old, were always courteous to the women, also young or old. They  were the ones who pulled the bucket of water up the well for them.  Before the installing of the pulley, pulling water up the well was very tiring.  At times, it was dangerous as one had to poke one face down the well almost all the time.  The task of carrying the buckets of water back to the house was shared by both sexes. Still, the men carried lots of load and they seemed not to mind this kind of burden.  By the way, the well was a fun place to be especially during the evening as many people gathered (some came to bathe, some came to get water to use at home, and some just came to hang around).  Most of the time, the sound of laughter, joking and teasing pervaded the place.  Wonder where else could we find such a magical place like Muang Lao.  Talking about bathing, we kids found it very appealing.  Know what? The place we liked to station ourselves to watch  this fascinating act was the second story building of the hospital which stood above many of the backyard of the post office houses.  As you might realize, the backyard was the place where they had a big bowl to store water for various uses including bathing.  Most of the time, it were the young girls who took a bath there.  They might think it was more secluded from the eyes of the naughty opposite sex.  What they didn’t realize was that we kids didn’t spare any movement of their bodies especially when they shifted their Sinh around to soap or to let the water run through body freely.  We enjoyed this kind of spectacle for some time until the hospital staff chased us out for good.  Wonder if they monopolized the spectacular viewing for themselves or not.   My grandma, a very kind lady, liked to make Mumh - a liver stuff which she hung on the weaving machine (Houk).  I would have to say that it was very good.  A tiny piece of it would be enough to go with a handful of sticky rice.  That’s how good it was!  Sadly to say, my grandma passed away the very year we settled in Savannakhet.  Even she was no more, her Mumh was good to last for some years to come.  My mom told me that my sister next to me was born not long after my grandma had passed away.  And she recognized most of my grandma’s belonging! My mom loved this sister dearly and they were good friends until this very day. Talking about my mom, she was young and beautiful even with 6 kids of her own.  From the old picture, she was a darling of a high class society.  Maybe, to impress her high class friends, she collected a lot of Khanh (a bowl used to give alms to the monks).  As I remember, in one of the showcases, Khanh occupied the whole case.  Besides, she had lots of Sinh that I even got lost in her big closet.  Smart and rich as she was, I wondered why she didn’t invest in anything beside the land next to the airport.  Yes, when one was up, one didn’t think of being down so did my mom.  And all the treasures were lost as did the high class friends gone once we left Savannakhet to settle in Thakek, a town less glamorous and far from the center of power.  My brother, a T-28 pilot, didn’t relocate with us as there was no base for T-28 in Thakek.  I was kind of missing him dearly.  He was very much my hero - a handsome young man who was always on the move.  Wherever he went, he would bring us presents.  One time, he went to Hongkong, he bought a big case of red apples for us.  To say the least, eating the apple for the first was very yummy.  My brother was a big fan of Elvis Priestley.  He bought hundreds of Elvis records.  Sometimes, I wonder why a tender heart like him became a T-28 pilot whose only mission was to destroy. He told my dad that he bombed the XiengKhouang post office, a place we used to live.  Because of his courage and his intelligence, he rose up in the military rank to the second lieutenant in a very short time.  It was known that he was one of General Ma’s elite officers and likely to be very successful in his military career if not for the failed coup d’etat of General Ma in the later half of 1967. Nothing could explain the rising and demise of a great future than fate itself.  I would like to take this occasion to let him know that he was a man of great character whose fate dictated that he had to live outside his beloved country for the rest of his life.   It was funny that some post office employees called me "Koey". Literally, this word meant "greedy" or "take everything as one’s". Maybe, they thought when we had a Boun  and served food at our house, I swallowed everything down my throat without leaving anything pieces for them.  Or maybe, it carried some special meaning to Ajarn Koey who became a legend himself in Savannakhet folklore.  I don’t know. Whatever it was, nobody called me by that name again once my family moved to Thakek in 1967.  Before we left Savannakhet, my family went for a family picture featuring every member of the family (at that time, there 9 people including my parents and my adopted sister).  My parents thought that they were not going to have any more kids.  From Thakek to Vientiane, the members of our family were almost annually added: three more in Thakek and the other two in Vientiane.  That’s to say the family picture which we hung in the living room in respective towns showed a different face each year until there was no place to add anymore, and that’s when my parents decided to go for no more kids once and for all.   (to be continued) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! 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