some more pics from maesot

it's been a long time (almost an embarrassing long time!) but i recently came upon some more pictures of my volunteer trip to share.

the buddhist water festival just happened to be during the time i was staying in maesot. this festival has turned into a nation-wide water fight. for 4 days you can't leave the confines of your house without getting wet......and i mean soaked. people are all over the towns and cities, at the ends of driveways, even in the backs of pickups, with water buckets, guns (you name it!).......anything that'll soak the next passerby. in the heat of thailand, it is a welcome relief for the first bit but by the end of the 4th day, you're about ready to kill the next person to throw water at you! (i wrote more details in a post from maesot in april 2006) anyway we made some traditional (and very yummy!) burmese treats that the burmese people eat during this time and here are the pictures:

in this picture the burmese women were rolling a dough made from rice flour into little balls.

this is the sweet, fudge-like center that you press into the rice dough ball and seal it.

the next step is to drop the tasty little morsels into boiling water and as soon as they rise to the top, they are done. we took them out and let them cool for a bit and the last step is to roll them in this coconut we scraped.

this is a picture of some burmese friends and i making some of the yummy traditional snack.