Tying the houses together

I am back in Thailand after a difficult and sad time in Australia when my brother Andrew passed away from cancer.
The weather has been hot and humid but dry here in Ban Pho but at last a storm came and flooded all the dry rice fields. Since the monsoon has broken we have rain most afternoons. After the rain there was much fishing and many insects to eat. People here catch the insects overnight with florescent tubes over sheets of corrugated iron at an angle so the insects are directed into a container of water. In the morning they fry them up and during the day delicately eat the bodies taking off the wings. They even eat the termite nymphs which they collect in their thousands.

There has been great excitement as after a long hot dry period many small round mushrooms appeared. They are mainly underground and have no stem looking a bit like small round truffles. It’s quite unusual they tell me to have these delicacies and everybody has been eating them for several days. On the way to Phom Pisai we saw many people with baskets coming out of areas of bush carrying mushrooms they had collected.

Yesterday was a special temple day and all the houses in our section of Ban Pho (Moo 7) tied their houses together with the white ceremonial string I call magic string. Then late at night people and monks came around the houses and through earth on the roofs. Fantastic that the community should bind itself together with long continuous strands of string. Today Waree's mother sprinkled water which had come from the temple over us. We are very blessed and have good luck I am sure. A sort of miniature Thai New Year. Did I tell you about that? Well another time maybe.