Our first Three Elephants

Chicken larp
Originally uploaded by blowingbubbles.

The day begins at the market, us dutifully following behind Ruth, our Lao-Australian guide explaining and expounding on what 'the Lao' love to eat. Not a bit of an animal is spared, she tells us, and as if on cue, a pig's face appears on the butcher's table before us. I sneak a wide-eyed, gluttonous glance at the others as we pass overflowing piles of rambutans, mangosteens, lichees. As we walk, she picks up a few carrots here, a few mangoes there and hands them to Leng, who adds them to the bag slung over his shoulder.

It's the first part of our full-day Lao cooking class at the Three Elephants Cooking School in Luang Prabang. Our teachers are Neng and Leng, both who have been trained at Tamnak Lao, Ruth's affiliated restaurant. Over many hours, we watch, we taste, we try, and we eat. On a more minute level, we chop, we peel, we slice, we blend, we pound, we grind, and we stirfry. Again and again. The result? Seven dishes between two work stations and three very satisfied bellies.

As we eat, we also listen. Neng tells us about life in his Hmong village, a two-day journey from the city. There, they grow both steamed and sticky rice -- the one in paddies, the other in soil. He tells us about his eight other siblings and how he came to the city as an alternative to the hard life of the farmers. He is studying at the teacher training college and taking extra classes at an English language school, run by Ruth's friend. He tells us with humble gratitude that Ruth and her friend are like parents to him. They help him with rent, with lessons and the chance to cook and teach about making Lao food. He tells us he'd like to take what he's learned back to his village and let them taste this Lao food, so unlike Hmong food in their village. He tells us about getting sick when he was young; the visions he saw in his sleep and the sickness that has slowed him down ever since. He tells us about the computer classes he's taking and about typing emails to his uncle in Wisconsin, one finger at a time. He asks us excitedly if we have email and carefully writes down his address to exchange.

As I listen, again, I'm impressed with the openness with which he shares his life with us. He talks freely, unassumedly. His stories carry a hopefulness -- of being in the city, of studying and learning, of working hard to pursue a goal -- of what the future holds. What a contrast it seems to some of the tired and disillusioned comments we heard earlier that day...