Dinner With Purb's Family

After photographing Purb's family 2 times (wish I would have had more loaded film holders and better light for those shoots!), I was invited to dinner. We sat at a small table outside in the night air next to the small family home which slept 9. Dinner consisted of fried seaweed, sticky rice, a salad with a great dressing, some fried eggs and desert stuff I had brought. Purb's family is very poor but they went all out for me, setting the table with a table cloth and providing everyone with green cloth napkins. Dinner was at about 730pm but it was very dark, it gets dark in Muang Noi Laos about 6pm. We ate under a single light bulb hanging from a small rope, the light attracted dozens of buzzing insects.

As I have said before the poorest people are often the most generous and hospitable, this was proven true again tonight.  I ended up giving some money to the family at the end of the meal, hopefully some day I can return with the photos or I might try to forward them to Purb via an Australian friend of theirs that travels to Laos often.

I often think back to eating under that light in Laos (this blog was written when I returned to Canada), my life in Canada is so different, than that meal that night.

What are Purb and his family doing now? What has changed in their lives?