I look at Adam, sitting cross-legged next to me. “I’ll eat your face if you drink my lao lao.”

He looks down at the boiled chicken head in his hands. “Deal.”

We are in Phayong village, the site of our second and third schools, celebrating their completion. To show their thanks, the village elders and provincial officials have invited us to participate in a basii ceremony, a traditional Lao offering of good luck and good health. Sok dii.

The room is dark and packed with village elders—their faces dark, stoic, smiling. We sit around a small table covered in cups of lao lao (homebrewed rice whisky) chicken pieces, bananas and sweet potatoes. As we hold out our hands, they speak in a low, melodic Lao and fill our palms with food.

The leader of the ceremony knows some English and translates bits for us. He says they are thanking us for the school and wishing us many blessing in all we do. He tells us to set down our food (a key opportunity to tuck away chicken heads), and motions to hold out hands at chest level, palms up.

The room fills with a slow murmur of Lao chanting. Though we don’t know the translation, the deeply felt tone fills us all. With hands out and palms up, the village elders reach for our wrists. They look in our eyes and offer their blessings. We are surrounded by them; our wrists pulling gently in every direction. Every elder ties a white string to each of our wrists while they speak with heads down and voices low.

The gratitude and intimacy of their voices, these strings, makes my breathing shallow and my heart beat quicken. I look at Adam, his face deep in absorption of this moment, and tell him I will need a huge hug when this is over.

When all the strings are gone and our wrists are covered, everyone sits to eat and we celebrate the new preschool and primary school of this village, for these compassionate and amazing people. My palms are sweating still from the intensity of it all.

We raise glasses of lao lao, look at one another, and cheers with each person. Good luck, sok dii.