While having dinner at Just for the Fun of It, a small local eatery in Vientiane, I happened to notice a young boy behind the retaining wall just to the side of my table. Holding some sort of blue tubing in front of his face, I found this boy to be quite interesting, so I took the liberty of taking several pictures of him. Sensing that the young lad was probably hungry, I asked the young waitress to ask him if he’d like to have something to eat. The boy shyly smiled and nodded yes, so I invited him to join me at my table and to select anything on the menu to eat.

Using the waitress as interpreter, I was able to piece together a mini life story of this young boy who was probably about 8 years old. His name was Sa - he recently came to Vientiane from the rural countryside, having lost both of his parents and was living in a center for homeless kids. His father was an alcoholic and drank himself to death, and his mother, saddened by the loss of her husband, apparently died shortly thereafter. I am guessing she committed suicide. Anyhow, poor Sa was alone in the big city and now he meets a farang by the name of Hanumann having dinner in downtown Vientiane. Apparently, the facility where Sa stays only provides the children with lunch - a dish of fried rice with vegetables- but no breakfast or dinner.

As soon as we finished dinner, I waved goodbye to Sa as we went our separate ways - I returned to my comfortable hotel and Sa returned to ‘the orphanage”.

Please note that at no time did Sa beg for money or for food.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 15th, 2006 at 8:56 am and is filed under laos, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.