Surprise - Not Done With The Funeral

Since Phai's mother was cremated yesterday about 3:30 PM and feeding everyone continued all afternoon and evening I figured everything was done. Then about 8:30 pm they brought in an entire freshly slaughtered pig and the men began chopping it up. I came over to the restaurant and was having a FaceTime chat with my father when the entire village went dark. I have to tell you, it was pitch black. Luckily my iPad was fully charged so I used the iPad screen to light my way so I could walk to Phai's mother's house. They were breaking out candles and flashlights and about 10 men were all gathered around a table, each with a chopping block in front of them, big meat cleavers and trying to work with candle light. I used my iPad to go to our house and got my LED Movie light I had with me, put 6 new AA batteries in and took it to them. The awning above them was white so we propped up the light shining on the ceiling which reelected a good amount of light down onto the work area. They were just finishing up and had been bagging the pork as they went and putting it in the big ice cube storage bins to keep it cold when the power came back on. 

I realized why so much more food was needed when Phai told me this thing would last a total of 10 days. I walked down to the house this morning and there were about 40 women all eating and getting readily to make something out of banana leaves. Thank goodness by that time a decision had been made to shorten this to 6 days because this weekend is the big parade and rocket festival. The monks will come again tonight and then a final time tomorrow morning. Phai's is purchasing a special monument and her mother's ashes will be placed inside and the monks will decide where on the temple grounds it gets placed. A cement pad will be poured and it will be secured to it.  If I understand correctly that will be the final event tomorrow. 

Phai finally had a few minutes to talk this morning and bring me up to date so I have better information to put on the site in the section dedicated to here mother. There is so much that has taken place the past few days, a lot of which I do understand completely so she does her best to explain it to me in her limited english. 

While it was cooler because of the rain in the afternoon it was still hot and muggy in the house and wasn't looking forward to sleeping with no fans. Instead we got a good nights sleep. 

I will share with you the before the power failure when I came back to call my father it was very dark. I unlocked the back door of the restaurant, took my shoes off and felt my way to the light switch with is mounted on a wall about 15 feet from the back door. I flipped the switch and when the light came on and I looked down there was an 8 inch long millipede two inches from my foot. I used the iPad to take a photo before sweeping him out the back door. 

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Big and 2 inches from my bare foot when I turned on the lights. YIKES.

Guess who will no longer remove his shoes before entering a dark room?

Yesterday it poured during the funeral and today it is raining again now. Thank goodness the rains are finally arriving. They usually do not last very long but come down very hard when it does rain. Today it was sunny in the morning but poured this afternoon and stayed cloudy and cool all day. Unfortunately, it is 7:30 pm now and I have been ill since about 4 pm. I have had severe diarrhea. I am empty now, took medicine and slept for a couple of hours. I just came to the restaurant to upload this, eat some yogurt for my stomach and call my father. Hopefully tomorrow will allow my some more time to work on the site.


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