Lam Namtha Tribe

January 9-10, 2010

There are those wonderful times that make travel so addicting when you notice something that is so far outside your culture it fascinates you – for me this is the best thing about culture shock, the instant infatuation and the inability to look away. We were in a continuous culture shock on our overnight stay in the jungle with the Lam Nam Tha tribe. After trekking through the jungle for 6 hours we reached the end of our journey, just across a creek lay a dozen grass roofed huts. Tired and sweaty, we did what the locals do and got ready to clean ourselves up. As we all changed into our appropriate bathing attire a crowd of children began to materialize on the small hill on the other side of the creek. They could not take their eyes off of us. This was our first introduction to the Lam Namtha tribe, in a remote area of Northern Laos.

The village consisted of a chief, about 12 families (70 people) and lots of livestock. The children were amazing and animated. Apart from our spacey guide, we had no way of communicating with them, but that did not stop us from doing the Limbo and talking for hours through gestures by the campfire. For dinner we all sat on small stools and feasted on raw buffalo meat (well I passed that up), rice, morning glories and green beans. After star gazing for a couple hours the entire village went to sleep at 8 pm and we were each lead in pairs to separate huts. Our bed was a hard raised platform, with a thin mattress surrounded by a mosquito net. At 8:15 we watched in the most intense silence as the embers of the fire slowly died out.

The village lives in the utmost simplicity, owning very little. Even the clothes on their backs have been sewn and re-sewn countless times. There is a childlike quality to all of the villagers, a curiosity and fascination that is contagious. They are the most resourceful people. The children are not coddled over or overly protected. 2-year-olds run around with 12 inch knives and their faces are covered in dirt and snot because no one sees an importance of constantly cleaning them. Without overbearing parents they learn from those around them and at very young ages fall in line with the village tasks. After breakfast a five-year-old was teaching Alan how to make a harpoon used for fishing. The men are often the ones with babies tied to their sides in slings and everyone in the community helps take care of each other.

As in any country the universal edict is to ask permission before you take a photo of someone. For the first time it struck me as so odd that we so cavalierly snap photos, taking personal portraits of people who do not even own a family photo. Every day the always camera ready foreigner walks away with countless photos, keepsakes these people will never see. But what is most impressive is that they do not need them to remember what they saw.

-Mika

Al