I must have misheard. Our enemies?
We follow a dirt path crowded with pigs, chickens and mangy dogs. Women watch us from outside wooden huts, which are interspersed with animal pens fashioned from bamboo. The women give us hesitant black smiles, teeth and lips stained from chewing beetle nut. The Akha village sunbakes on top of three dusty hills, surrounded by rainforest, and open only to the pastel-blue sky above. An apparatus made of four tree branches balances together on the top of the first hill like the shell of a tepee,a rope hanging from its apex. A toddler looks at us, curious, before he flees down the hill to the heart of the village.
As we wander into the heart of the village, a band of men use machetes to hack at roughly cut beams of timber. One looks up at us through protective eye goggles, which seem out of place “Halloooh,” he calls. Dust cakes his trousers from the knees down, his maroon shirt unbuttoned and darkened with sweat.. After some reciprocal gesticulating, my girlfriend finds the machete in her hands. She hacks at the timber in the same style as the village men and displays, to my relief, the same level of dexterity. Her efforts are rewarded with smiles, excited chatter and temporary possession of the eye-goggles.
Across the path, a villager wanders out from his hut holding a knife and something resembling a passionfruit. He slices the fruit in quarters and holds it out to me in the same hand as the knife. My cheek muscles contract with the sourness of the fruit. He laughs at my involuntary reaction and invites us into his hut where a selection of seasonings are laid out in stone bowls. I recognise one as salt and one as crushed chillies. We duck under the dried palm fronds that keep the heat off his verandah and sit on dwarf-sized stools. He talks in an animated manner, and I think I learn Lao for: “you like?”
Just now, a group of school children, the eldest no more than six, race down from the other hill, a cloud of dust in their wake. A couple of them sport round black knitted headwear and all carry identical hessian satchels around their necks. They stop in their tracks when they reach us. My girlfriend, a school teacher at home, spontaneously claps and starts dancing a little jig. The children giggle and, forgetting their initial shyness, join in the dancing. As the sun sets over the three hills in Nam Tha province, we join our guide. I have to ask. “Why are the Akha people our enemies?” 
Kham pauses. His expression is deadpan. “They anamees. They worship animal spirits.” A knowing smile comes across my face as I understand the confused pronunciation. The Akha people are animists – pagans – and not our enemies. The evidence finally stacks up.
