Day 64, Laos, Nam Ha NPA
My third trekking day started from the Opium village, towards a rice whisky addicted village and ended up in a modern tribe village. I had strong stomach pains after breakfast and therefore a taff day. Even if some tribe villages are very close, they do not interact with each other. Tribes have different origins. The Opium addicted one was a Lanta tribe, which is originary from Tibet and speaks therefore a completely different language than the second tribe village, which has it's origins from the Khmers (Cambodia). Tribes usually have two big problems. One is the fact that a lot of people are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Especially heavy drugs are an issue. The second problem is that they do not use the modern medicine. They do not go to hospitals when they are ill, even if the government tries to encourage them to do so. They have two important personalities in the village. One is the Chief of the village, he is the only authority and solves all problems they have within the tribe or with other tribes. The second one is the Shaiman. He is like the medicine man or the doctor of the village. Tribes often believe in spirits. Bad ones and good ones. If somebody is ill their interpretation is that he has a bad spirit in his soul. They bring him to the Shaiman. The wise man reads from the spirit book and later on they use to sacrifice animals to catch the bad spirit from the soul of the ill person. Fact is that tribes have an average life expectancy of 51 years. Another issue is the education. The government has installed in all small villages a school. The school is facultative. As Laos is a communist country, only the Lao is accepted as language. The other 47 languages of the tribes are not accepted. That means that the school is completely in Laos. A language which most of the tribe people are not able to speak (or in an only very limited way). Therefore parents prefer to send their children to work than to school.
My third trekking day started from the Opium village, towards a rice whisky addicted village and ended up in a modern tribe village. I had strong stomach pains after breakfast and therefore a taff day. Even if some tribe villages are very close, they do not interact with each other. Tribes have different origins. The Opium addicted one was a Lanta tribe, which is originary from Tibet and speaks therefore a completely different language than the second tribe village, which has it's origins from the Khmers (Cambodia). Tribes usually have two big problems. One is the fact that a lot of people are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Especially heavy drugs are an issue. The second problem is that they do not use the modern medicine. They do not go to hospitals when they are ill, even if the government tries to encourage them to do so. They have two important personalities in the village. One is the Chief of the village, he is the only authority and solves all problems they have within the tribe or with other tribes. The second one is the Shaiman. He is like the medicine man or the doctor of the village. Tribes often believe in spirits. Bad ones and good ones. If somebody is ill their interpretation is that he has a bad spirit in his soul. They bring him to the Shaiman. The wise man reads from the spirit book and later on they use to sacrifice animals to catch the bad spirit from the soul of the ill person. Fact is that tribes have an average life expectancy of 51 years. Another issue is the education. The government has installed in all small villages a school. The school is facultative. As Laos is a communist country, only the Lao is accepted as language. The other 47 languages of the tribes are not accepted. That means that the school is completely in Laos. A language which most of the tribe people are not able to speak (or in an only very limited way). Therefore parents prefer to send their children to work than to school.
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