Other Week: Day 7

Original Post: Pétanque
Date: March 27, 2012 at 10:40 AM  

N18°11.664'
E104°38.346' 

A triptych of images from an ill-fated pétanque set in Lak Sao in which my team failed to score any points in three different games. Image above shows Bansa (see Training in Lak Sao) throwing out his first boule. [NOTE: Bansa is wearing a lovely Hawaiian shirt].

Boules aligned around the cochonnet, or jack. Note that the two engraved boules, belonging to the opposing team, are the closest to the jack.

Scorekeeper slides the opposing team's scale to 3 as the round finishes. My team is still at zero. We stayed at zero the whole game. [NOTE: It was not entirely my fault.]. 

Pétanque

N18°11.664'
E104°38.346' 

A triptych of images from an ill-fated pétanque set in Lak Sao in which my team failed to score any points in three different games. Image above shows Bansa (see Training in Lak Sao) throwing out his first boule. [NOTE: Bansa is wearing a lovely Hawaiian shirt].

Boules aligned around the cochonnet, or jack. Note that the two engraved boules, belonging to the opposing team, are the closest to the jack.

Scorekeeper slides the opposing team's scale to 3 as the round finishes. My team is still at zero. We stayed at zero the whole game. [NOTE: It was not entirely my fault.]. 

Training in Lak Sao

N18°11.664'
E104°58.346' 

Spent the first day in Lak Sao (see Management Planning II) giving a training workshop in the District Forestry office on the theory and application of sustainable rattan harvesting. Actually, I just provided "technical backstopping", and most of the lecturing was done in Lao by my WWF colleagues. The district forestry office, or DAFO, is an interesting venue.  As shown in the image above, most of the cavernous space is occupied by two regulation badminton courts; the conference room is confined to a little strip along the north wall. Also note the projection screen with the flip charts taped to it (we couldn't get the projector to work) and the beer advertisements adorning the walls.

Bows of gratitude to Mr. Bansa, shown below, for doing most of the lecturing during the workshop. Key data to note on the chart are the red 26.22 and 30.98 at the lower right.  This is the number of commericial rattan canes/hectare that can be harvested each year from the 5 meter and the 6+ meter size classes, respectively.

Most of the flip charts and the spreadsheet manipulations were done by Mr. Bounchanh, shown below discussing the relationship between stock and yield. He was definitely the numbers guy during this whole thing, and his contribution was invaluable (thx, Bounchanh). 

[NOTE: I have decided to start georeferencing the images in these posts when I have the coordinates. Don't know why anyone would ever be interested in these, but, if nothing else, it shows that I had a GPS with me at the time - and turned it on].