Bugs, Snacks, Boils and Oral Sex

There is this cool iridescent blue bug I am fascinated by here. Evidently it's very common, but I still can't help examining it closely and being excited. It's very beautiful and cute. Look at its multi-sectioned foot pads!

So and Ramsey have paid for a five day workshop for the students. This whole week they will be taught how to prepare and make eighteen different snacks. This is something they can prepare in their own village for sale.

At night Gong limps into the kitchen, his face looks tight and he doesn't have his usual smile. He shows us his toe. It is swollen, and throbbing and hot. I think it's full of pus and it’s headed for a lancing. Gong is very afraid of this suggestion and quickly limps away. He then sits back down and lets us examine it more closely. It is very tender and painful. He said it's been hurting for about a week but has gotten really bad today. I am worried and afraid it might go septic. Then everyone in the room tells stories of how they have had similar things. Evidently boils, or something like boils, are commonplace here. Even Ramsey's had some. They all seem to swell and burst on their own or just subside after a while. No one goes to the doctor. San said she had one on her foot that caused her to cry in pain for three days. Shitty. My fingers are crossed I don’t end up with one.
In the evening So, Ramsey and I hang out on the floor of the library. We talk about sex and Lao culture (which is many different cultures because of all the ethnic groups). But in general, though Lao culture is conservative regarding male-female touching before marriage, they joke about sex a lot. There’s almost a slight undercurrent of male conquistador machismo here. So's mom has talked about sex to her children and is not shy about talking about it with friends...I'm not sure if that's just her mom's openness or if this comfort with sex talk would extend to more Lao people. So says that she will teach the students the following method of birth control: sex is allowed during a woman's period and for the week after, then no sex for ten days, then sex again. This formula is a bit crude, but if followed, it should be effective in cutting down eleven children households to two or three - which would be a huge improvement on quality of life. Many women in the surrounding village have expressed a desire to learn this method, but they are too shy to come to the school. I think it may be good idea for So to go to the villages and do workshops for the women there.

So says that this method of birth control is difficult for couples to follow because of the men. It's a culture where men dominate sexually. I tell her to tell the students that though they can't have sex during the ten days, they can "do other things" that don't lead to babies. She says she can't do that. I ask her why not and she says she can't "teach" them these "other things" as options. I found this odd. Then this funny thought occurred to me and I asked. "Do Lao people have oral sex?" I felt a little foolish asking that question because I had assumed all cultures would have that as a part of the sexual repertoire and psyche. After talking for a while, I got the impression that oral sex isn't that common, and only with the infusion of Western media have the city youth begun talking of oral sex, anal sex (only among homosexuals), or even foreplay. Ramsey points out, that they never joke about these aspects of sex though they do about others. I'm still left wondering if Lao people just don't talk about oral sex, or if it just doesn't happen much.

Many of the men in Lao are not very faithful. Both Ramsey and So feel that Western men actually trump Lao men in faithfulness. It seems par for the course that Lao men will visit prostitutes before as well as after they're married. So says that a few of her female friends just accept that this is what naturally happens. It also seems common that men will leave their families to take on second wives and have more children with them. Two of the students, Wen and Compeng, both have fathers who have left their families to set up new households. This is such a weird additional misfortune to the cycles of poverty in rural (and urban?) Laos.