Weekend in Parkvang

This weekend I went with the youth at Naxai church to Ban Parkvang, which is about two hours away from Vientiane. We left on Friday afternoon at about three and I got to go in the car with Yang, Youa, Tang and Mao. It of course was enjoyable spending time with these wonderful people. Eating Lao snacks and sing and going to markets the two hour drive felt like twenty minutes. We arrived at about 6:30 and started a church service at about 7. I helped make dinner which was sticky rice, bamboo with eggs, chicken soup, fried morning glory, bamboo soup, steamed bamboo and laap. We at a whole lot and even had left overs, Bee a friend from Naxai and also my teacher at language school is a very good cook and taught me how to make fried morning glory which is my favorite Lao food. The village has very strict regulations on foreigners  in their town and so we weren't able to stay at the church and had to stay at a guest house up the road. Youa, Bee, Rachel and I all slept in the same room. I was so tired that it didn't even matter where we slept which by the means of the guest house was a good thing. The other girls stayed up talking while I feel asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. In the morning the girls told me that I was the one that stayed up talking. I was angrily sleep talking all night! We woke up early in the morning and went to a market to by some things and then drove back to the church. We were split up into groups and then started the with worship and games. Green, pink, blue and yellow all competed against each other. In one game you're group was tried together and you had to walk to get bible verses in trees and so whoever got the verses the fastest won. In another game you had to blow flour to get a treasure and whoever got the treasure first won. The last game you had to pop balloons from the other teams side while protecting your own. In the end team green won! I was on green team and for the prize we got cookies and pepsi! The weekend was so great. Being able to meet many new  people and learn more Lao and get to know more of the Naxai youth made me feel like I was settling in and really fitting in, in Laos.