Faces of Laos

Thump. Thump. Thump.

In Namkong Village, you heard Ms. Vong Deuan before you saw her. The sound carried through the morning air. The sound was deep, steady, and unhurried. The wooden masher rose and fell into the rice like a drumbeat, a pulse running through the village.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

She stood over the rice with the quiet certainty of someone who has done this work thousands of times, and will likely do it thousands more. No wasted motion. No complaint. Just rhythm. The rhythm of her days.

She paused only for a moment . It was long enough for a photograph, a smile, a breath.

Then we asked her what it would mean if water came closer. To the village. To the home.

The masher fell still. And Ms. Vong Deuan lit up. There is no other way to say it. She spoke of washing her hands without a journey. Of a real toilet she could actually use. Of the hours and miles she would no longer have to surrender to the search for water.

The rice will still need pounding. The days will still need tending. But with water close by, the rhythm of her life could finally change.

That is what the Botstiber Water Projects is working toward. Not just pipes and tanks, but time returned, burdens lifted, and lives allowed to move to a different beat.

We took two photos. One stayed with her. We got one.

Even though this man had been up all night.

Nambo Village had just celebrated their New Year, and as chief, he had hosted it. Every toast, every song, every laugh that carried deep into the night (and well past it).

He was the last one responsible. And somehow, the first door we knocked on in the morning.

He answered with the best bedhead we have ever seen. Minutes earlier, he had been sound asleep. But the second his eyes opened, the chief was on. No warm-up. No coffee. No easing into the day. He reached straight for the Lao Lao, a local rice spirit with all the fire of moonshine and none of the mercy.

He poured. He raised his glass. He looked at us like there was simply no other way this morning was going to begin. So we toasted. And then, somewhat reluctantly, we drank.

He smiled the smile of a man who has hosted a thousand mornings. But beneath the laughter, beneath the generosity, beneath the man who jumps out of bed to welcome strangers with a toast, Nambo Village is still waiting for something essential.

Reliable water. Sustainable water. Water that does not have to be carried for miles on the backs of women and children every single day. That is why we were there.

For villages like Nambo. For leaders like him. For communities that welcome you with everything they have.

Meet Mrs. Zer.

We watched her climb a steep hill with her basket of water jugs and not slow down once.

At the top, Mrs. Zer stopped for a smoke. She was calm, composed, and completely unfazed . She gave us a few minutes before heading back down to do it all again.

There was something almost cinematic about the way she held that cigarette. A little Audrey Hepburn vibes, honestly.

But Mrs. Zer was not performing for anyone. This was not a style borrowed from a movie. Because she has never seen a movie. This was her own kind of poise from a life of doing what has to be done, again and again, without making much noise about it.

She told us, that she is the only one in her family who gets the water. No one to split the work with. No one to take the next trip.

Two to four trips a day. Every day.

That hill we watched her climb? She has climbed it thousands

Ms. Ba could not stop smiling. Or talking! She and our translator were chatting like old friends, filling the space with laughter and conversation. But here’s the thing that stopped our translator mid-sentence: this little girl, so young, already spoke multiple dialects. Not one, not two, but several. Our translator looked at us with wide eyes like he wanted to make sure we understood what we were hearing. In a region where villages sit close but languages shift across the mountains, she had quietly collected multiple.

She told us: “”I used to get water with my mom. But right now, and from now on, I don’t have to do it anymore. I am so happy there is water in my house.””

Water is now accessible at her home. Multiple languages already in her pocket. Ms. Ba is not waiting for the world to come to her. She is getting ready to go get it.

I took two photos. One stayed with her. One is coming home.

Mrs. Kut is standing with a basket on her back. Not a small basket. The kind that carries a day’s worth of everything. The kind the body learns to carry because there is no other choice.

She has eight children. Eight! And every drop of water those children drink, cook with, wash with, and grow from has had to be carried home by hand.

Every day.

But Mrs. Kut did not talk about the weight. She talked about what water would make possible.

A toilet. Bathing her children. Farming. She could already see the glass full.

Before the water arrived, before she could taste it or feel it in her hands, she was already imagining what it would give back to her family.

Eight children. A basket on her back. And still, her first thought was not about what she would be free from, but what she would finally be able to give.

That is what water means here. Not convenience. Not comfort. It means a mother of eight gets to put the basket down.

We took two photos. One stayed with Mrs. Kut. One is coming home with us.

They asked to have their picture taken in front of their home. Not beside the road. Not in the center of the celebration. Here. In front of the place where they built a life together.

It was New Year in Nambo Village, and the whole village was alive with music, laughter, food, and celebration. But for Mrs. Nase and Mr. Chase, the day carried another meaning too.

It was their anniversary.

So they stood together in their traditional clothing, side by side, in front of their home. Quietly. Proudly. Together. There was something beautiful about the simplicity of it.

A couple. A home. Their new year. Another year of marriage.

That is what this project keeps teaching us. Sometimes the story is not dramatic. Sometimes it is two people, dressed for celebration, standing in front of the home they share, asking for one photograph to mark the day.

We took two. One stayed with them. One is coming home with us.

If we were building a Hollywood set for a film set in Laos, we would start with this building. We wouldn’t change the wood. We wouldn’t touch a nail, a beam, or the way the late-morning light falls across it. It is worn smooth in all the right places, its grain carrying decades of stress, weather, and time.

We wouldn’t change the way it sits in the landscape, either. Like it wasn’t built, but more like it grew there.

And if we were directing the scene, we would place two children in front of it: a boy and a girl leaning against the wall the way children do when they are completely at home. But we didn’t need to direct anything. Ms. Jatoc and Mr. Van were already there, exactly as they were.

There is only one thing we would change about this building. Water. Accessible water. Close water.

Not down a mountain path. Not a stream that may run dry in the dry season. Water that comes to this home, instead of this home having to go find it. That is the only missing piece. And it matters more than anything a set designer could ever add.

Until then, the Botstiber Water Projects and CARE Laos keep pushing, village by village, pipe by pipe, as we continue working toward solutions for homes like this one that deserve to be complete.

A ladder only matters when there is something worth climbing toward.

Meet Mrs. Kham. Behind her, a ladder rests against the village’s newly built water storage tank. It is easy to overlook, but it says something important.

A ladder is just pieces of wood until someone uses it to reach higher

That is what is happening here. One rung, one project, one village at a time.

In her own words: “I am so happy to have access to clean water. I use it to wash dishes, wash clothes, and take showers.”

These are things many of us rarely think twice about. For Mrs. Kham, each one is worth saying out loud.

One photo stays with her. The other comes with us.

Vorkmork Village 

The sun is different up here. At the top of a mountain there is nothing between you and it. No tall buildings. Few trees. Nowhere for the light to break and soften. It comes down straight and hard.

That is the life up here too.

There is no shade from the hard things. No cover from the long walk to the river. No shelter from the work, the heat, the weight of a day. The mountain does not soften anything.

Look at Ms. Jorpa in the doorway. The light comes across her like a blade . Half of her lit, half of her lost to shadow.

That is the thing about harsh light. It does not flatter. It shows you what is really there. And what was really there was a girl who has learned to stand in the hard light and not look away.

One photo stayed with Ms. Jorpa. One came home.

Meet Porjeng.

We asked him about water. He answered, but what he really wanted us to know about was his music.

We caught him playing the Kaen Lao, a traditional wooden pipe instrument, as part of the New Year celebration happening in the village that day. The whole village had gathered for the event. It was Kin Chiang, the Lahu New Year. And I was right in the middle of it, and Porjeng was playing the same songs that have marked this celebration for generations.

The instrument looked like nothing we’d seen before. The sound it made was even more unexpected, melodic, sweet, unhurried, completely disarming.

We came asking about water. We left thinking about that sound.