The Knisely's: A New Sound in Town

Our landlord’s daughter came skipping down the path next to our house the other day, but a new sound issuing from our house stopped her in her tracks. She paused for several moments, looking up at our living room window, then in her childlike fashion picked up her heels and continued on her way.

I just chuckled from my viewpoint in our outdoor kitchen as I watched her ponderings. She probably had never heard flute music before. She probably wondered what would bring such foreign sounds to Tha Thom. Who? Only a very special visitor from America!

The beginning of September we were blessed by a visit from our sister (my good-sister!), Jyoti! Now it is already the end of September and she has continued on with the second leg of her journey. We had many special times these past three weeks… too many to recount in full, but here are some highlights of our times together.

Getting a Lao Hair-do!

MCC staff – We had special times with all of MCC’s staff here in Laos. From bowling with service workers, to eating papaya salad and playing UNO with Lao staff at our home, to meeting and hanging out with 'new-comers’ (YAMEN volunteer from Zimbabwe and SALT volunteer from America), to joining all MCC staff during the 4-Month Meeting held in Tha Thom.

Teaching UNO

A Local Lao Lunch

Supper with the Service Workers

Adventures while traveling – We covered a lot of ground this month and we joke with Jyoti that she sampled every kind of transportation Laos has to offer! We got to go shopping in Vientiane, touring in Phonsavahn, suffering through the 10 hr. journey to Tha Thom, and a final adventure of trying to get back to Vientiane. Our final journey started by riding sawngteo (the local public transportation which consists of two wooden benches in the back of a covered truck bed) in the spitting rain, getting on a boat only to have it break down an hour into the journey. It could have been bad, stuck in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, but thankfully we were going down stream! After paddling for a while we came to a place where the road came near to the river. We scrambled up the bank with our bags and sat next to the road to wait. What a blessing! Within five minutes a public sawngteo came along and took us to the next city/bus station an hour and a half down the road! There is only one sawngteo that travels that road a day, and we were fortunate enough to meet it… pretty amazing!

Smiling with Pattu Xai

'We might be stranded in the middle of the jungle, but we are still happy!'

Food! – Jyoti commented during her trip, ‘I feel like all we do together is eat!’ and that statement was quite true. Jeffrey and I had a busy month and had to spend full days at the office. It was during lunch breaks and evenings that we spent most of our time together. Jyoti also brought us a suitcase of food from the states, so between her contributions and our local produce, we had a lot of good food to feast on!