Lao Voices

Many villages in Champassak Province would celebrate Boun Ban or Village Festival on an annual basis if they could. When they is a village festival, the people would make khao phoon and would feed anyone that would make a visit to a home. Usually when one village will have a boun and then the next village would host one. But all the villages near by would come to the one hosting the boun. These visitors would be welcome into the homes and be fed with khao phoon. Then the next boun, they would play host to near by villages. At the temple, there would be food, music, dancing, games, and of course the Morning Alms Giving and teaching session, where poeple would gather and listen to the Buddhist teachings from the elder Monks. Such festival is not something you can find in the big city like Vientiane. This is something unique to the people of Champassak.

Below are the photos from Boun Ban at Wat Phonsikay, my Grand-Mama’s village and home to one of our book box library.

A side note for Dallas: The planting of the flowers, taking care of the ground, and even the construction works are done by the monks. For example, the concrete ground at the entrance and the main area was made possible by donations but the manual work were done by the monks themselves. Doing manual labor around the temple is typical for most temples that I have seen in Laos. The monks would do these tasks during their free time, when they are not studying or mediating. Even some elder monks would be helping with the painting and doing light manual work.