a lot of people from the way i'm from all over the world there are lots of from from germany my dad's here my sister it's been an amazing ride i thank you guys so much for coming out. and just remind us the top story we're following for you here today on d w news israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu looks set to secure a victory in the country's general election with most of the votes counted he is running neck and neck with his main challenger benny gantz but ness and others in the struggle to form a coalition. thanks for. your first clue listen. or as grand moment arrives. join the ranks cheering on her journey back to freedom. in our interactive documentary during an orangutan returns home on t w don't come to tanks.

a remote village in laos high above the clouds the people here speak their own language. time seems almost to have stood still. we meet a family that is holding fast to the old traditions while also making small steps out into the wider world.

today is a special day a photographer has come to the village. well i go a little bit on. the father how caring has wanted a family photo like this for a long time. he wants to put it in a golden frame and hang it up at home. with. his youngest son is only rarely here he's been living on his own since he was eleven when he moved to a town in the valley to attend school. the girls of the family will probably spend their lives here on the mountain like their older brothers.

the family have pinned their hopes and can launch the youngest son as their best hope for a different and easier life for the younger generation. for the women of the family the day begins with starting a fire cooking and feeding the pigs. you. yeah. yeah yeah but you gotta look at them on a shelf to. talk to much of clashing sometimes they sell a pig to a neighbor to bring in a bit of money. that goes to help support the youngest son. apart from that the family are subsistence farmers. one of the neighbor's pigs has snuck into their yard. so.

has plenty of time to relax. his wife your choice has chores that keep her busy from dawn to dusk. and. among the arc up people of the mountains of laos fetching wood is women's work. for the women of the family walking without carrying a heavy load on their back is too leisurely so they spin cotton along the way. in the past aka women were not supposed to wear shoes and your choice still prefers it this way. never.

was hard. i went to school until three then my father died and i had to work with my mother so. i had to do all the men's work such as chopping down big trees. i built myself a letter out of branches so i could reach them. i worked very hard as hard as i possibly could and we still didn't have enough rice to last the family the entire year. long after my mother's. i married my husband he's rather old but he said that if i married him he would take care of me and my younger sister. he's twelve years older than me he now he now. how.

you choice is fifty nine years old. i can't wait. to mourn me when i had my first daughter when i was twenty three my second when i was twenty four and my third at twenty five. after that i had a child every year fifteen pregnancies in all. because i had so many children i looked much older than my age almost like you knew i had to work very hard because i didn't want my children to go hungry. while in life. that you might. if you. never want to. go let me. put one of them hard on.

her. and her. to. her for not a. bit her. former. lover. one of her daughters in law has stayed home to cook

a midday meal for the family. gets me to do it with them i got away because what i. do is. to do mom and then my one on. my head all the clothes. all the muscles that you want to fund. the whole idea of. every meal includes vegetables and rice breakfast lunch and dinner sometimes there are eggs and rarely some meat. the lauzon family eat in the kitchen. the parents and the oldest son said it one table. you have a little bit on the other son the daughters in law and the grandchildren sit at the other. twelve people live in this house and all. that. much of life is governed by custom and tradition from the seating

arrangements of meals to the women's dress to the work they do their daily routine and their festivals. up to the top. how can keeps a close eye on things and. he's a member of the village council of elders and a former village chief. and although no one says so directly he's also the shah men. meaning this is a fortune teller. put it not if someone is old and very sick that i can know the day of their death by looking at this. mayhem. it's fine that i can make these predictions but he would not be good for me to tell someone else that

bad luck is coming their way they would be. out with a. neighbor comes to fetch him a child is sick with a high fever and the family says the boy was frightened in the forest and his soul left him. now the spirits are trying to lay claim to him they want the shah meant to prevent this. instead of entering the child the spiritual be lured into a doll made of paper goal tobacco and rice will entice the evil spirits. into good food. the soul of the baby chick is supposed to enter the child.

the chick is also sacrificed to the evil spirits. to get. him. down there for the idea of. god or might you have thought or why he did it got to know you like you are now doing all that to. do. it. to get. the evil spirits are now inside the paper dog the shaman is removing her from the

village. because the sword will ensure that they remain banished from the village that afternoon the fever is gone and the child feels better he took a pill a fever reducing medication but as far as the villages are concerned that's an irrelevancy. more than thirty years ago power can pick this hilltop as the location for the village pelion song mine. three sacred trees marked the spot. we're not allowed to cut these trees. even the tiniest cut is forbidden no one can cut any of these trees and if you cut there you're also cutting here. what you want to be treated sacred. if someone cuts them

somebody in the village will get sick but tigers will come from the forest to eat or kill our animals. there's no electricity running water roads or neighbors. the arca have maintained their traditions over centuries. but perking also experienced a different way of life when he served in the military. and he hoped. i thought in the vietnam war for this country and for the people of laos for sixteen years. my phone for the night before to liberate the country in the people being on my home i was a soldier fighting our enemies mali when i was at the loc a company shut down six airplanes. over there behind the hamilton that's where i was when the planes arrived i thought. my

who we are not. is. i thought harder than anyone in the province. want to. go if i hadn't returned to the village. i'd be a government official by now was i me. man. how can a second son has just become a father again it's his fifth child he lives next door. because it did your wife give birth already. knows how much how long is the baby crying a lot why the car is she in the baby a well. that's

it about why they. also. must learn after the harvest the rice needs to dry under the sun every day at night put back into the sacks. when the women work the men take care of the youngest children.

women move to their husbands village when they marry. they begin wearing the

traditional dress and start adding to its decoration. and. that's. going to. detroit had to sew each of our three daughters in law a full custom. job or i. like that people on earth do they. think do what. i did. my mother in law is old so she doesn't want to wear bright colors like us she doesn't want to outshine her daughters in law. when you don't have. a father that we can't take off the headdress even when we go

to sleep. to lead them like that and we can't comb our hair or wash it when we want to only on certain days when they're out back on. the most forbidden day is the birthday of our parents and our parents in law. that would mean they wished for their deaths. and i met a lot of young women have a lot of work i can't even listed all. i had to go to the rice fields cut firewood carry water do the washing. feed all the animals. there's no set bedtime who just go to bed when we finished all our work that night whether you think. that also includes their highly skilled production of textiles. they make dyes for their clothing out of wild indigo plants and slike line.

during the day one of the women is always at the wooden machine to separate the cotton from its seeds then comes the spinning weaving and dying every family in the village produces their own clothes and. often we can't find the white limes so we have to buy from someone else and we make our clothing out of cotton fabric the fabrics have to be hung to dry for more than twelve months before we can make clothing out of them but get. them. in a. good shape and her husband have five children. the youngest is two the oldest ten. i can't remember the first time i went to have billets. until

i married when i was twenty two years old. she was twenty one. and i first met her at the new year. but we shouldn't talk about such things. when our parents are around it's not good to talk about things like this. it's embarrassing. even sitting next to each other in front of the parents is considered unseemly. they've been living in this house as a married couple for eleven years. now king and you choi two of their sons their wives and six grandchildren live in this house. make up. we are the parents. we can sleep in the same room but others have to be in separate rooms nor know how many will call in folks after that. and then

a cooking and cooking my first daughter in law sleeps over there separate from my son this is the room of our first son's wife she sleeps beside the kitchen. those who put in the second son doesn't live here anymore. the third son his wife sleeps here and he sleeps over then. you have. to pick on him and i know daughter in law may sleep on this site is not allowed my you know. how king has sent his sons out to look for a location for a new rice field. after

three years the soil is depleted. then the old rice field is abandoned and forest is cleared for a new one. the men also have a task to do when they head out on a longer mission. they hunt for wild animals and birds. their brother in law was accidently shot while he was out hunting. thank. you they found a spot for the new rice field how king told them they need to start clearing the

ground straight away. not yet you what day is it and i know that i know the day is the day of the pig which is a good day and that's why we need to start clearing now we want to start on a good day. and that they will come back in about two or three days' time to start clearing properly. it was. it will take twenty days to finish clearing this field homu of many millions you know. until i don't think it's enough time you know. they'll clear all the way to the crest of the hill as soon as the rice is growing

well they will conduct a sacrifice to the spirits. of all but there how when the rice plants have grown to about fifty centimeters we slaughter for chicken skin all for the ceremony one will have to be a white chicken like chickens to feed the spirits in this area the second chicken is for the hot in the field the chicken is for all the animals around the field and the fourth for all the plants in the trees. they all need horses and cows to bring the harvest in later in the year. this year our rice field will be closer to the village last year was over there this year it's here this year's harvest brought us more than one hundred bags of rice but it takes around one to two hours to get them up there. by you know.

before they head home the brothers put markers down. that way the other villagers will know that their family is now farming this section of land. thanks. for. the family's youngest son eighteen year old ken long has come for a visit. he brought with him some t. shirts jackets and trousers which people from the town of funk gave him.

or. to celebrate the visit the women are making a large meal out today they were in the kitchen. only in that. job but they will sit in the limo but from phone survey and they have a flat tire on the way they look once they reach park song village i bought a new one from an old bama trying to get it but i'll have no carriage so i have to change myself yet. but he has a bit too and they get out a little bit one of. his best childhood friend has come over him and. he wants the same haircut. kenya is one of only three boys who left the village of three hundred residents to continue their studies after finishing

primary school. a space holo place and we would like him to go to university but we don't have money for that he'll finish high school this year when many here i don't want him to come home i want him to work for the government to help you with a head to head and i used to work for the government but i gave that up to come back to the village need be so i want my youngest son to continue what i began. patting him cornel west and poke me. with. money i used to be in love with a girl from the uk i don't know any more than they love you but you might live in forms of it well there are many different ethnic groups do you know lou. i'm not

just limited to the aca. the news pulse of and they know. how. and. i don't want american girl i'm mainly in films of me and the women of beautiful there. now know. my limits in town that he can choose whether to follow our culture or not that's fine for him but not for us for us older ones we can't stop living according to our tradition. to be you in the future if my parents are still alive only invite him to live in time with me i'll take care of them once have a job and earn some money and they know they have years of. their behavior to known before call well i don't know what i'll think they will move to turn over to

you but i'm not sure of my brother's will go to bite my lip and i'm going to before . i know what. the question of who might want to move away is a hot topic in the village. every three months a medical student visits the village to carry out vaccinations and to distribute vitamin a and medications against worms. the village is remote far from any hospital or doctor. when someone is seriously ill and the path is impassable due to heavy rain there's no way to get medical help . that's why the village chief wants to have the village

relocated further down the mountainside. they would have access to a paved road as well as electricity and running water. thirty families live in the village not all of them want to move some because they don't have the money. others because they fear that they will lose touch with their culture and traditions. in the name calling on. the governor said there is really chief accountant who leaves the village we have to move together. if it will move on my own i would have done that already at. all and could go no way if they want to move by we have enough to stay here if they go they'll go but we'll stay so calm

while the chief isn't here anymore and we'll just keep living here and. they hold fast to their traditions the ceremonies the sacrifices of animals to ward off bad luck and their relationship to the spirits and to their ancestors. the full. moon. or go to. the biggest taboo in our culture is one that they are not permitted to mention within the confines of the village. it is.

it's a topic that the older people always told us we shouldn't talk about. only the elders can talk about it. well you who when there are pregnant women in the house they must never hear anything about this topic it's so terrible i mean people hate is as much as war made it through. pope paul wanted to calhoun it's always been this way. not if you give birth to twins the family can't stay in the village. and they can't move to another village either. and you know we know you wasn't in the old village had twins once and we took them away and carried out all the ceremonies he. might one of them or the parents who give birth to twins have to build a small hut in the forest next to a small stream and. even when we bring them food we can't look at or talk to them

we just say here is food for you. we're not allowed to say anything about their family when we bring them food. we talk as though we were talking to ourselves and to the trainees. not going up. almost trying to talk to us we're not allowed to respond. oh you know we'll talk to that's what we believe what they did i know i mustn't talk about this topic in the village it's forbidden . we can't raise twins even if someone wanted to force us to. hell that's our culture. of the island that they be. so many years ago that government officials came to not post sun village. they came to ask if we could change. i was told but even if the government requests this of us we can change this and it will now we can't raise twins we have to respect our

traditional culture a known that. a president otoh for all people are never allowed to step across the river where they buried the twins did it on mobile did gotcha come along like movie . did. not get an idea. from the parents of twins are permitted to return to the village after they have killed their newborn twins. their home is burned down and everything it contains comic for an entire year no one is permitted to speak to the couple. people believe that only animals can give birth to more than one baby at a time. in our lives when a woman gives birth to twins an evil spirit must be at work.

for. nothing and your choice cousin has died. a member of the family must attend the funeral which is being held in a billet on a nearby hill located partway to town hall at that point what can mum the youngest son is leaving. he won't visit again for a month. the

funeral ceremony began a week ago. the figure on the horse represents the deceased. on the second horse some of his belongings will accompany him on his final journey. the deceased rides into the forest where he will be buried and at night. the shaman must kill the water buffalo with a single stab of the spear as part of the ritual sacrifice. i'm going to. have. to make sure the family continues to prosper the head of the buffalo must be

noisily brought to the roof. the. more prosperous the deceased the longer the funeral ceremony lasts and the more animals are sacrificed. the. cut. plan. was. the the. whole. when i die i will have two horses to ride. and about six or seven cattle will be slaughtered sure about midnight so go here at me i've

done so much and i work for the government but so much so that my funeral isn't the biggest i won't rest well if. i want my funeral to be the biggest holiday yet maybe if i call would you know. the. general i'm still has a three hour drive ahead of him. he has to go into the valley and cross the lake in order to reach town. hall. peak and. it's a journey into another world a world he's been living in for seven years now in which he hopes to make his future.

king mum has some rice in his bags. to. every morning the residents of fung sally are woken by a news broadcast through the loudspeaker courtesy of the socialist government here . ken mum remembers how coming to live here on his own at age eleven was a bit frightening but also exciting. back then he found a grandmother an elderly woman without any family in town. she cooked for him sometimes and let him watch t.v. . he only comes to the market hall to shop on special occasions he can't afford most of what sold here.

he has the rice he brought from home and cooks meals for himself in his room in six months ken mum will finish his high school degree oh. god saying i'll do my best to get a high score on the leaving that day so that i can go to university to be hands on this i see that he says a full on. only the top three in his class will get a scholarship. thirty seven students are competing for king long doesn't want to disappoint his father a fine. young. man my dream is to study something about i t a he and yet but it might be become a police officer you have been but my father doesn't really support those ideas and only my own dog shit but you know there's a place in the end my financial situation will determine whether i can go to

university you'll note we don't have the money for it. you know and. he can't imagine returning to the village. after seven years in town he's left behind the customs and traditions of the village high above the clouds. gets up early every morning to exercise. the. top but it didn't work out of university then i say overcome a dry. however began and. what would that

mean for his family who have such high hopes for him. call coverlid bad. i was at work as a chauffeur to earn money to. you know i want to have money i'll buy a van and overwrite a shuttle service. is determined to earn a living. he and his friend from school are making plans for their future. returning to the village is no longer an option. even if he leaves the traditions of the aka people behind he'll have fulfilled his father's hopes. his life in town will certainly be easier than in the village above the clouds. the roof. moved.

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get britain's trees i'm a prepares to ask european leaders full and not to delay to bret's it if they refuse the u.k. .