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March 16, 2006
bitter bamboo and international women's day
hey folks- i know you're shocked to see yet another new entry so soon...don't get used to it. last night dorian and i accidentally discovered that when our friends have asked how to exclaim things they enjoy saying in english (such as "indeed" in the case of alex, mittens, chaim and paul, and "oh, sure" on dozza's side of things) we've both introduced our loved ones to a favorite (not favourite) all-purpose lao phrase: men leeeeeo.
onward to a description of the photos. IUCN ran a cool project related to non-timber forest products/improving marketing systems for bitter bamboo a while ago, and the office has been revisiting the field sites this year to gather some lessons/feedback from the experience on what worked and what didn't. a few weeks ago, i received my very own bag of bitter bamboo from the field team - the folks who work at our favorite friday post-work watering hole were quite interested in what in the world was in that bag, and in fact, asked, "what you got in that bag?" (for you, chaim. let's see you throw that into regular conversation) because bitter bamboo is a delicacy in vientiane.
after boiling the bamboo for about 40 minutes, peeling all of the layers off, and attempting to eat the wrong parts, i think we got it right - and it was pretty good - but definitely bitter. here are some photos:
we spent international women's day (8 March) celebrating, as elona, keeley (who was visiting from chiang mai) and i are all clearly international women. dorian and nik did their best to honor us on our special day. we traveled twenty something km outside vientiane to the buddha park to explore the sculptures and toss around a disc.
amy struggling to escape through the mouth of hell
elona smooching buddha
tossing a disc near the mekong, much to the amusement of everyone else at the buddha park
elona, our yoga teacher, mid pose
that's all for now! happy st. patrick's day!
Posted by ames at March 16, 2006 04:15 PM
Comments
woohoo! toss a bee! you're the best ames.
love,
josh
Posted by: josh champ at March 16, 2006 06:19 PM