The other night, I woke up in the middle of the night and saw 3 shooting stars! One fizzled for a while, directly overhead just next to the Milky Way.
I couldn't fall back asleep, so a few hours later I went to see the village just after sunrise.
The biggest thing I didn't expect to see were all the families huddled around a small fire in their... yards. And women fetching water in a pair of buckets suspended from a stick across their shoulders. And loud music- but not really pop. Sorta... instrumental, and vaguely country. Lao (or Thai) fiddlin'. Why not? People were squatting, warming themselves, eating sticky rice out of small woven baskets, others were washing their babies with a bucket of water. Then I saw boys on bikes riding to the elementary school. And a girl in her sin and a white blouse, something of a school uniform. You could see her in class and never imagine she lives in a wooden shack on stilts with a large ceramic pot for water, and a short hike to the nearest bathing spot.
In my favorite part of the marsh there were no buffalo, just a few people plying their barques in the grass. Women were squatting in the low, rising sun. I heard a lot of chitchat, but no singing.
I walked back through the smokey village.
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