Around Yasothon

Today was Constitution Day, so the school was closed, but Yasmin and Roya had home schooling anyway. Later in the afternoon, we biked over to the park and the girls played on the structures while Christina and I discussed the trip and upcoming destinations. The kids even met a dinosaur at the park, and were able to "talk" to him. They asked the dinosaur not to eat them because they are so famous and popular that they would be sorely missed, and the dinosaur agreed. Phew! It was a long bike ride on a warm winter day, so we had to stop for ice cream on the way back!

Two of the main roads in Yaso (the cool kids say "Yaso" for Yasothon) are separated by a temple, and people use the temple driveway as a throughfare between the main streets. In the evening, the trees in the temple grounds are alive with birds. They make so much noise you can hear them down the street. They only do this in the evenings though, not during the day. We stopped our bikes to try and look at them, but they were hidden in the branches and we could only hear their loud chirping.

We were invited to a spaghetti dinner at Goli's tonight, and that was lots of fun too. Yasmin and Roya even got to help make "som tam" - papaya salad. Contrary to the sweetness that the name suggests, this salad is actually quite hot. It is made with grated raw papaya, carrots, garlic, tomatoes, green beans, lime juice, peanuts, and lots of chilis, all mixed together in a big wooden bowl. They only put one chili in the salad tonight, but it was still quite hot. Those little chilis are small but mighty! The teachers at the school love this salad and have it every day, with lots of chilis. I tried it at the school once and it burned me up.

We had biked over to Goli's place, and it was dark by the time we came back. The streets were relatively well-lit and we cut through the temple grounds and listened to the birds again. There are a lot of stray dogs here too, and some of them like to bark and chase you when you get near their territory. Tonight they were all sleeping, so we quietly slipped past them!

NM