Our shipments are not big enough to fill a container on a ship so we have been trying different methods of getting our handcrafted items safely to the U.S. In exploring freight costs and services, we decided to try the Lao Postal Service for a shipment of bamboo basket containers that we didn't need in the next month or two or three.

Bandith constructed a shipping box from two smaller boxes, filled it with the bamboo baskets and had the school van take him and the box (almost as tall as he is) to the post office in Vientiane. Less than a week later, the box showed up in our office in San Francisco, plastered in what I calculated to be $190 worth of beautiful Lao stamps.

Mark called Bandith that night to let him know that the box had surprisingly arrived (and in time that could give the U.S. Postal Service a run for it's money!) Bandith replied,  "Thanks the Gods!" with a big sigh of relief.

After 28 hours of travel to Vientiane I was rewarded with the intense experience of the That Luang Festival. On a full moon day in November there is a pilgrimage of thousands from all over Loas to the golden stupa for blessings and offerings of reverence to Buddha. The stupa, the national symbol of Laos, was built by King Sayasetthathilath in 1566.

This is a multi day event with worship at local Wats, then processions of wax “castles” festooned with Kip notes are brought to the stupa accompanied with traditional musicians. The worshipers circle slowly 3 times clockwise in a solemn sutra led by monks chanting the ancient words of Buddha.

To reach the inner court where the stupa is located you walk the mile through a gauntlet of food and offering vendors, and in recent years the loud music of the CD stalls and groups selling cheap Chinese clothing. Just a few years ago there was no commercial aspect to the festival to sully the atmosphere, but things are changing here.

There are stopping points along the way to offer prayers and acknowledgments to people and deities important to the Lao culture. The last gate allows entrance to the inner court where the music fades and the atmosphere become thick with reverence.

The next morning alms are given to the monks by such a crush of crowds, the older Loa are passed overhead through the gate into the temple. Unfortunately the jet lag from arriving the day before didn’t allow me to wake at 4am to see this part, so I’ll have to go back next year.

We were so excited to receive an email from Saoban, our partners in Laos, that the first Lao Fair Trade radio show was recently broadcast and already posted to Youtube! In the first show, the host explained the concept of Fair Trade and the benefits it can have for Lao producers.

Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaE8gpyLARw  

Part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW7kT_fyxpA

The show will be broadcast every Tuesday, in Lao, between 9:45am and 10:00am on Lao Army Radio (99.7FM). The airtime is being donated by Saoban, the handcraft division of the school in Laos.

Each week will bring an interview with a spokesperson from different Fair Trade companies. We'll let you know when Bandith's interview about Saoban's efforts supporting fair trade is scheduled!

The first time I met Takeo is was at the Lao festival in Sebastopol, CA. Over the next couple of days as we were exhibiting together I got to learn a bit of her background and the work she was doing to preserve Lao traditional weaving. As we packed up our booths Takeo offered to give me a tour of her weaving museum and house on my next visit to Vientiane. I was curious to see the old weavings she had rescued and the process she had developed to recreate these masterpieces.

A few month later I was dropped off in front of Takeo’s house and shop. The shop was loaded with precise duplicates of old traditional pieces and updates of patterns for scarves and wraps. The museum held the real masterpieces that inspire her work. Here is where Takeo began her story.

Saravan Province where she was born has always been known for it’s weavings of cotton and silk. Tribal groups created every stitch of clothing for the familes daily life, funerals and wedding dowry. Takeo’s father was a revered teacher who focused on raising the education level of the ethnic tribes in the region. He became well known and caught the eye of the Royal Government who brought him to Vientiane to become a member of Parliment representing Saravan.

Takeo’s mother was a known master weaver, and when she wore her handmade sinh skirts and blouses to Royal functions, everyone noticed and gave appreciation for her talent. Takeo had little interest in weaving at that time. She was focused on her education and living the lifestyle expected in a family considered well-to-do in Laos. She was looking to Paris and college for her next phase of life.

You can imagine the pleasure the French men had as young Takeo sauntered down the Champs-Elysees in her traditional Lao garments. She also embraced the mini skirts of the time and attended embassy parties in tradition attire and the nights on the town in her mini skirt. All was comfortable and exciting in Paris. Not so in Laos as the war was starting to grind in earnest, her life was about to change.

Takeo’s father had left the government before the real fighting had broken out. He was fortunate to not be put on the black list and pushed into exile or worse. The door shut quickly on Laos and Takeo had to struggle to get home to find and help her family.

Their house in Saravan was gone, burned to the ground, and all their possessions had been lost except for some books her father had buried. They had to flee with no money or posessions to Vientiane to eke out a new life from the ruins. Takeo started by raising chickens to sell and growing food in a plot next to their meager dwelling. With her background education in France she eventually found work teaching the children of administrators in the French embassy. This created enough revenue to feed the family, buy a small rice field and to build a modest house they could rent to visitors of the government. In 1982 she became a tour guide and noticed the attraction of foreigners to the woven Lao sinhs (skirts).

All during this time Takeo saw many exceptional traditional weavings being sold on the street and in the market by destitute people trying to survive. Takeo started buying these traditional relecs and found a passion and a hold on some of her past memories of pre-war Laos.

She still had no knowledge of how to weave, but as her collection grew, she ran into weavers who had moved to Vientiane to escape the war that had the skill and dying knowledge to rebuild the patterns. This inspired Takeo to start her weaving gallery and textile preservation efforts in earnest, it was 1984.

Starting a business was not easy in Laos, the government forbid any private business ownership. Takeo was one of a few women entrepreneurs who started weaving groups that eventually changed the way the government viewed private enterprise and opened the path for others. Takeo traveled around Laos collecting information on old natural dying processes, recreating the colors she saw in her masterpieces and sometimes working all night long to get a certain color just right. She also built a group of weavers with the high level of skills needed to decipher the old patterns and recreate them. Her house is now stuffed with these re-usable patterns, some taking 1000 rods to create.

Today Takeo is world renowned. She travels to Europe and the US for exhibitions, and produces many woven products for Obis and other ceremonial garments for Japan. The collectors that flock to her museum and store are mainly from Asia and Europe where there is a higher appreciation for exceptional hand woven products.

When Takeo first showed the government officials what she was doing they offered no support or appreciation, now years later they are pleased she had the fortitude to follow her passion to preserve the heritage of Laos.

On my initial visit in 2001 we took our first evening stroll along the Mekong to watch the sunset and goings on. There were a group of makeshift stalls serving various local foods and the ubiquitous Beer Lao. It was wonderful food, cheap, and with an ambiance that was otherworldly. Fishermen plied the Mekong, lumber boats heading South full of teak, monks chanting evening prayers from nearby temples and the lights of Thailand coming up on the other shore all accompanied with a golden, steamy sunset.

I learned later that the government would bulldoze these stalls every few years, it was still outside of the law to have a private business they didn’t approve of. But as the tourist trade started to increase they, officials saw the value and have let these businesses develop. The number of proprietors has increased from 6 or so options to over 50. Their structures are becoming more permanent and the fear of bulldozers have become a thing of the past. Today you wouldn’t call them food stalls with their wood floors and platforms, substantial kitchen improvements and running water. The menus are printed and the decorations there to stay.

My favorite meal is fresh Mekong tilapia, rolled in salt, stuffed with lemon grass and grilled over cocoanut husk charcoal. A side of spicy stir-fried morning glory and a watercress salad with dried buffalo make the meal complete. Beer Lao is still the beverage of choice and goes so well with that steamy sunset. A full meal and big Beer Lao is still less than $5US. Priceless.

Spirit City, as the Lao name Xieng Khuan infers, displays the fantasy and focus of Luang Pu Bunleua Sulilat, a Lao monk with a vision. Buddha Park, the name given by tourist guides is an easy excursion from Vientiane.

Luang Pu (Venerable Grandfather) was a priest-shaman who integrated Hinduism and Buddhism into his work. The 200 plus statues are made of cement and are ornate, and sometimes bizarre, in design. The statues appear to be centuries old, though they are not, the park was started in 1958. There are numerous sculptures of Buddha and characters of Hindu lore. There are also sculptures of humans, gods, animals and demons. One notable sculpture resembles a giant pumpkin. It has three stories representing three levels, Hell, Earth and Heaven. You enter the mouth and climb the staircase through the three levels and worlds. On top top, there is a vantage point where the entire park is visible. Another sculpture, an enormous 130ft high reclining Buddha is also a park attraction and muse. At one end of the park is the "Savan" or Heaven where the spirits of good Lao are known to reside and bring harmony to the land.

Any taxi or Tuk Tuk will take you there. It’s around 30-40 minutes out of Vientiane along the Mekong. You’ll pass the Friendship Bridge to Thailand and go through some beautiful rice fields and small towns. The more adventuresome way to reach the park is to take bus number 14 from the main bus station from Talat Khoa Din next to Morning Market. Tell the driver where you are going and he will notify you at the right stop. Don’t be afraid to ask twice.

Luang Pu went on to other monuments and visions. With followers he fled from Laos to Thailand after the revolution of 1975. There he created another fanciful sculpture park, Sala Keoku in Nong Khai.

Ms Sang, age 34, weaver of Phiengdi Village, Bolikhan District
Interviewed by Shui-Meng of PADETC
Photos by Sombath and Shui-Meng

I came to Phiengdi Village together with Khampha, a relative of my husband, said Ms Sang, who now lives next door to Khampha. My village in Xam Tai district of Houa Phan province is even more difficult to reach than Khamphas village. There are no proper roads and there are no schools or clinics, Sang added. Married at 18 to Saitong, Sang wanted a better life and a better place to raise their children, and Phiengdi seemed to offer better prospects to the young family. Sang now has 4 children, the eldest is 14, while the youngest is 7. All attend school near the village.

Sang is a good weaver, a common trait among women of the Tai Deang ethnic group from Houa Phan who have been passing this ancient skill from mother to daughter for generations. All the girls in our village knew how to weave. I learned how to weave from my mother at age 5. My daughter now aged 9 already knows how to weave since age 6, Sang explained, showing off a beautiful skirt-border with deer and flower motif woven by her daughter Lah.

Like Khampha, Sangs life in Phiengdi village revolves mainly helping her husband grow rice and other food crops mainly for subsistence. To earn cash for daily expenses, she depends on the sale of her woven products.

Two years ago, she joined the weaving group headed by Khampha. Joining the group was a good thing. We share weaving knowledge and marketing information. We also learn to help and support one another, Sang explained. Another benefit is that we get training on use of natural dyes and about designs and colors which are in demand. We now understand the importance of making sure that the quality of the weaving is good and consistent, she added.

Sangs income from weaving has increased since joining the weaving group. In the past I cannot make much money from weaving because there are not many buyers nearby. After joining the weavers group led by Khampha, things have become better, Sang said. We have more places to sell our weaving. This is because PADETC links us to more buyers and we now get more orders, Sang continued. With her income now averaging about 900,000 kip per month, Sang is hopeful that she can keep all her children until they finish high school and have good jobs. I hope their lives will be easier than mine, sighed Sang. Her next wish is that she can build a new house. Looking around her modest house made mainly of woven bamboo, she badly wants to build a bigger and better house.

Sang is already working hard to make her dream come true. Pointing to a pile of wooden planks under her house, Sang said, I am slowly accumulating wood and I hope that in another two years, we will be able to build a better house, she said. To this, her husband Saithong sitting nearby nodded in agreement.

Laos has always been a country and culture of the river. The mother river, the Mekong, flows from the top to bottom of Laos fed by the snow of the Himalayas, passing through the rice lands of China, touching Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and finally Vietnam on the way to the gulf. Trading has gone on for centuries by boat and till recently, was the main mode of transportation. Just 10 years ago the main roads were sketchy, railroads non-existent, and air travel in Laos limited 3 aging planes and some prayers.

Today there are paved toads to the main cities and larger towns. International flights are touching down in Vientiane and Luang Prabang. But the river is still the focus of movement and life in Laos by the tribes and villages in the countryside. There are tribal villages up some of the small rivers off the Mekong and are still untouched by the outside world. We hope they continue to hold out for awhile longer.

A short float on the river, and you’ll get a vision of the past and present. Old teak long boats carrying goods and people, large log carriers loaded by elephants heading to Thailand and China. Fisherman in their small long boats checking traps, and the ubiquitous overloaded water taxi taking nervous passengers across to their villages, or down stream to visit relatives or markets are everywhere in sight. Tourists are seen going to the Pac Ou caves.

Besides tourists, some other changes have come about; steel hulls for the long boats, for example. This just started 5 years ago. The Lao are still keep their traditional shape, long and narrow. As they learned long ago, it’s the best way to navigate a strong current.

Laos for young children is a bit of pristine wonder and tragedy, such as life. The wonder comes from days romping through a beautiful natural environment. Diving into the river, bonding with the family of water buffaloes, or enjoying the easy fishing with an uncle. The family structure is fully intact, and every child has a deep layer of family and community of adults who watch and care for them. They are treated as a precious gift, cherished by the family. You’ll see them running through every village path playing with whatever suits their fancy. No video games needed or safety requirements for their toys. Children are taught the cultural traditions of weaving and handcrafts at a young age and the joys of being industrious in the fields and village. All hands are needed in supporting the family and these skills make them a valuable entity to future partners and to the community at large. You see the smiling faces and warm greetings and try hard to forget that 25% of the children you see in the high land villages will not live to be an adult. Malaria and other health related issues take a toll on the young ones. Education and healthcare can be hours away by steep mud trails through the jungle. It has always been that way in the tribal areas and the lowland parts of Laos that lack paved roads. We’re working with PADETC to help change this fact with the villages in our group. Just $2 extra income a month for a family to afford a child’s education. Healthcare is improving with the infrastructure. It will be a good day when we watch the children play without considering the potential peril they face.

On another trip to the Bolikhan villages, I spent some time in one of the larger settlements. I was there for an introduction to the womens weaving group in their communal lodge. There were 30 or so women who took the day off from their labors to show the traditional hospitality of a shared lunch and discussion.  For these women, this was sort of an event for someone to visit them and time for a bit of celebration. Lunch was accompanied by a fresh bottle of Lao Lao, the local rice whiskey. Not exactly Jack Daniels…more like moonshine. It was fairly smooth with a good kick. The conversations became quite animated with a spirited discussion on colors, patterns and hopeful opportunities in the future. It is always interesting to try to figure out who are the “personalities” at the table. There’s the jokester, the leader and the followers just like you see anywhere else, but with a local flavor that adds a new dimension to the experience. Part of my work is to help the villagers understand the uniqueness of what they create, and how to adapt it to Western tastes without losing the pure Lao essence and culture.  We’re moving them away from the bright chemical dyes, back to the more subtle natural dyes that are their true heritage; the Loa have been weaving for centuries with natural dyes. I tell them of the Western consumer mentality and the forces that drive fashion here. They listen closely with lots of whys, trying to understand what our consumers must be thinking, and shaking their heads at some of the conclusions.