In 2019, I was in Laos for an internship at Lee 7 Farm – an organic rice farm run by a family that consists of seven siblings. Besides farming rice, the family hosts an eco-tourist project where visitors learn about the traditional ways of farming rice. The visitors also get to experience the entire process – from sowing, to standing with your knees high in the muddy rice paddy ploughing the field with a buffalo (named Pling in my time there), to kneading rice noodles. The experience ends with eating the most fresh and delicious rice noodle soup I have had until this day.
My internship consisted of helping out where I could and, with my anthropological and development studies background, seeing where the project could be improved. During the five weeks of my internship, I was welcomed into the family as if I was one of their own. One particular evening I was sitting on the wooden floor of a small house on the farm just outside of Luang Prabang. Together with at least ten family members we were sitting around big banana leaves with bowls with vegetables and soups. The pot with sticky rice was still on the fireplace inside the house and I had just witnessed two 12-year-old girls slid the neck of a chicken. The sun was setting and because there were no lights in the house it was already pretty dark. Outside there was only the sound of crickets and chickens strutting around. Once everyone was gathered and a moment was taken to appreciate and be grateful for the food, we started eating. Laut Lee, the man who speaks English very well that I usually communicated with was not there so no one spoke English except some of the children. The family members around me were talking and laughing while effortlessly forming the sticky rice in their hands into bowls to scoop up the vegetables and soups. I did not understand anything they were saying, but it felt as if I understood the situation. It felt familiar.
Without either of us understanding the other's language, these people welcomed me into their dinner space at home as if I were a part of the family.
In that moment, I wished I had a camera set up in the corner of the space. I simply wanted to record this dinner setting in a household in another country, on another continent, with such different people, various generations, all of them speaking another language than me, having different ways of eating, eating different foods. So many differences, yet essentially the experience was so familiar. The act of eating together, the act of eating dinner, the talking and the laughing were all familiar, similar. It reminded me of how we live in such different places and have such different perspectives on the world and on life, but we are also all human beings that do similar human things and have similar human experiences.
It took me three years and the push of having to do a final project in a cinematography class to actually set up a camera in a dinner space. The result is this short film/alternative documentary in which three different households do the same human thing: preparing dinner.
Many thanks to the households that welcomed two (almost) strangers into their home with a bunch of camera equipment, lights and microphones to then be asked to 'act natural'. These households allowed us to film them while cooking and all invited us to have dinner with them afterwards. It turned into a beautiful experience and a project that I am hoping to continue when traveling.
Subscribe to my newsletter if you want to stay updated (max. once a week) on my posts, and connect with me on instagram (@iam_allovertheplace) to follow my life as a slow travelling storyteller!
Comments