This morning we went to a small Red Dzao village a short distance from Sa Pa. When we arrived we were greeted by a group of about a dozen women dressed in traditional garb, who walked with us as we went up to take a look at one of the more prosperous houses of the village. Some of the women had walked two hours to come and sell their wares to us. Most of them spoke some English all of which they had learned from other tourist. Most of them were 24-26 although one woman named Ley Mai that I befriended by giving her my glasses, was 52. They chattered away about their names and their kids and where they lived. When we arrived at the house we were offered tea, which I accepted (probably not to smart) because I did not want to offend them. The home belonged to one of the girls who was smarter than the rest and told us about the home and the fifteen people lived there, all related. I was actually amazed at how disorderly it was and dirty and dingy. They did have electricity and a TV and DVD player, something most Viet Namese we have been told (in the city I imagine) have. Other than that they didn’t have much and it gets cold up here in the winter. As we were sitting talking about life in their village Ley Mai redid her headdress and I got a great series of pics of her doing it. Just a note ladies if you are thinking of adopting such a beautiful style, it weighs about 5 kilos (that’s 11 pounds). The younger women when asked said they weren’t going to wear them as they were to uncomfortable when they worked, they had the simple light weight version of just one piece of cloth. i have included a pic of Ley Mai and her head dress for you, the whole series is priceless. that is her standing next to me on my left in the group photo.
They all pulled out their wares for us to see and we picked some things out. Neither Greg nor I knew this was going to happen so we had not brought our money with us. I had tried to pick out something from each of the ladies who I walked up there with. We told them we would pay them back at the car, so they all walked back with us. When I looked in my wallet I realized I did not have as much as I thought I did and a near riot ensued as we tried to pick out what we had money for. Quyet had to dicker with them and I don’t think they were all happy with the results. It would have been much better if Quyet had warned us before hand what we were getting into.
The cross-stitch work they do on their clothing is very amazing work, and they do not have any cross-stitch canvas to help them keep their stitches straight. It takes them a year of work to do all the cross stitch that covers their costume. One woman showed me some work she was doing that she was only using one DMC thread to do the crosses; I don’t even know how she could see what she was doing. I hope someone somewhere has made a record in pictures of the amazing work these women do.
you may well ask are these the outfits these women pull out for the tourist or to go to market where they typicaly meet their future spouse? And the answer is no, these are the everyday wear of these people. Amazing!!
I asked Ley Mai who as I said was 52, if she could still see well and handed her my glasses to try. She got so excited when she looked at some of the finer work and she could actually see it again. So I told her I was giving her a gift from my heart and gave her the glasses, which she carefully tucked into her blouse. She then gave me a small bag to hang around my neck (something they wear) and a bracelet. When we were walking back to the car hand in hand, I told her we were friends now, she said if I come back in a year or so she would have a gift for me, some fine work she had done.
It is mind boggling to me that when these people have money they spend it on a TV. We could go into a huge discussion about that and all the other things they could have spent the money on, but we won’t. I will just let you ponder everything you have in your life that you take for granted and how much each one of us lives in the lap of luxury. Not having possessions doesn’t bother me, but the fact these people lack any form of cleanliness does. One of the vendors had a two-year-old baby she was carrying on her back that had sores all over his body and she was giving him a packaged “donut” for a snack. Many of the mothers carry their babies when they are trying to sell you something to touch your heart and make you feel for them as a mother. As Greg said you can’t buy enough stuff from them to fix it for them all.
No comments:
Post a Comment