While having dinner (after I took some time to walk around the hill-tribe village we were staying in) I asked my guides how much the average family income was for farmers, and for those with livestock (i.e. pigs, chickens, roosters, turkey's, etc.)
They told me a family with livestock generally earns four or five million kip (i.e. 500-620 Canadian dollars). A family the just farms earns two or three million kip. That means the poorer families in the village are running on under a dollar a day, and the better off families are mostly under two dollars a day.
This surprised me, because the people generally seemed to be in such great spirits. There was a marked difference between the people I met here and those I met in Sudan (at least those in the internally displaced persons camp I visited). I have a few ideas as to why this is (starting with the obvious fact that Laos has a much more benevolent government than the Sudanese).
Unfortunately I don't have time to get much more in depth at the moment, but I wrote down some thoughts on paper during the riverboat journey I just took, and will post them when I get back from the Gibbon Experience.
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