On Thursday night Seamus drove Jacque, Kelly, Steve and myself out to Ban Si Kaeo, a rural village near Roi Et. One of the Thai professors, Ooey, had been working on a project, creating a documentary of native life there, for the past two years. On this day she would present her documentary to the people of the village.

At first we got very lost but it was a most enjoyable ride - rice paddies, water buffalo, farmers working their fields, tumble down houses, wild dogs, beautiful children - just a slice of life in general in the small rural villages of Thailand .

At one point, Jacque, a French professor, stopped, called Ooey on the phone and handed the phone to a lady alongside the road so that Ooey could give her directions. It was great fun to imagine what the conversation involved (it went on forever) and at one point the lady went inside with Jacque's phone - I think she called Australia. Another time, Jacque informed Ooey that we were near some rice fields, which had us all laughing out loud - duh! -there's nothing BUT rice fields here.

But finally we arrived at the temple. The people were so gracious! Just like I remembered my friends in Phanat Nikom. They kept feeding us - some green banana salad type food, some sickeningly sweet tea. They gave us tiny balloons, I have no idea why.

There were beautiful Thai girls with tons of makeup dancing with fingers bent backwards almost to their wrists. There were boys playing ethnic instruments . Some man talked so long I didn't think there were any words left to say. At one point absolutely everyone had wandered off except for the 7 of us farangs (being of the polite persuasion) and he still kept on talking - totally in Thai of course. Did he not notice the only people left in the audience didn't have a clue what he was saying? And what WAS he saying anyway?

There was a lovely shadow puppet show about the Ramayana, a very very long epic tale from India - something about a green monkey. It is so long (50,000 lines) that they only ever do parts of it at any one time. The shadow puppets are beautifully, intricately cut from buffalo hide and moved by sticks and strings behind a white sheet.

I took pictures and mothers posed their beautiful babies for me. Some children peeked at me from over the top of their chairs and one cried when I came near him.

Finally, Ooey showed her project - a 6 part documentary about life in the village. One section was on the making of a Khaen, a sort of pan-flute type instrument , another about medicinal herbs, another interview with a monk, one about sustainable agriculture. The goal is to keep the children and future generations from losing touch with their heritage. It was excellently done, and looked for all the world like any documentary that you have seen on National Geographic.

They hope to build a small museum someday. The temple/monument is very old and the largest of its kind. It was built in the same style as a famous one in Laos, I believe. So that is why this particular village was chosen for the project. All in all, it was a great insight into village life.