Knitting, Baraka

I sleep badly. Even though I wasn't offered nearly as much strong tea or alcohol as Ramsey at the Su Kwan yesterday, I still end up having a restless night.

I go for a run to wake up. I pass by some students who all ask me what I'm up to. I say "run" and then make the universal running motion with two downturned wiggling fingers. This time I run in the opposite direction and preempt the entourage of barking dogs.

I return back to the library to find Ramsey and So attempting some Yoga. I try to teach a few more poses which So takes to, but which Ram says just hurts his bony body. Every time he can't do something physical he blames the inheritance of odd biomechanics. He goes to pains to explain how he's got less of an ability to grip with his feet than us Asians, because Asian toes can naturally spread while his are squished together in a way that is non-conducive to yoga. As well, he believes that women derive more enjoyment from sensual (and masochistic) experiences that stimulate the senses. Hence their enjoyment of Thai massages, painful yoga stretches, and in general, women have a greater enjoyment of food. I pointed out a red herring to his argument, that men seem to enjoy sensual experiences as well, but that they are mostly concentrated in one particular spot consisting of a very small surface area.

So teaches two business classes to the students today. The business classes are one day a week. She has also taken out her sewing machine to get them used to the way it works. She will teach them how to sew later on.

I end up in the hammock reading Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel. The back of the book says "This book answers the most obvious, the most important, yet the most difficult, questions about human history: why history unfolded so differently on different continents. Geography and biogeography, not race, molded the contrasting fates of Europeans, Asians, Native Americans, sub-Saharan Africans, and aboriginal Australians." It's is an information dense book, but written in an easy to read manner. I'm just 50 pages in, but so far it's been good and I'm looking forward to reading more. Even though the book isn't directly about Laos, I'm sure it will help frame my experience of Laos in an interesting way.

We have snails for lunch. Not something I was initially looking forward to, but they turn out to be really tasty. All you need is a sharp stick to get them out. You can go through 100 in a meal.

In the afternoon I see the kids milling around in between classes so I decide to see if any of them want to learn how to knit. With permission and blessing, I get a bag of So's yarn and needles and go to where a group of girls are talking outside of the girl's dorm. They seem excited when I take out the needles and yarn. I teach them to make a slip knot and cast on and this attracts a few of the boys who want to try it out too. A student named Fullmoon seems to catch on the fastest. I call him ahjan (teacher) and he seems pleased. He begins to explain in Lao to those who are having difficulty casting on and I hear "ahs" and "ohs" when the light bulbs turn on. Soon I have almost all of the students trying out knitting. It's been really productive and the language barrier has added a fun challenging element to the lesson, instead of making it frustrating. They all indicate that they want to make hats. Slowly grasshopper! I leave them with the homework of casting on twenty without looking.

I notice how studious, respectful, polite, and eager the Lao students are. They seem really appreciative when anyone wants to teach them stuff. There's higher buy-in of the learning/teaching situation. I wish my students were more like this. However, these kids are also less expressive, less confident, less critical of authority and maybe the world around them. It takes a lot more encouragement to get them to participate and warm up, and they would find self-directed education quite difficult I think. If enough time is invested, these barriers could be overcome...I see Ramsey doing it. Another thing I find difficult with the students is the way they communicate their understanding or lack thereof. Often I'll ask them a question and they will just look at me, or at each other, and then not answer and there is no indication of whether or not they've understood me. I think their cues for understanding, not understanding or acknowledging is very subtle - I'm not used to it yet and can't read it. Sometimes it's just a flick of the eyes or a twitch.

In the evening the kids gather in the library to watch at film. A laptop, projector and screen is all you need to create that home theatre experience in the middle of rural Laos. Baraka is on the menu tonight. It contains no dialogue, and is full of footage of different aspects of parts of the world, it's peoples and cultures. It is a photo essay and one of my favourite films. I'm sure some of the images must seem really strange, awe-inspiring and confusing to the students. So tells me that when she saw this movie before, the part showing the burning of the dead body in India really scared her.

At one point there is footage of a city from above...a forest of towering sky scrapers. I am surprised when So tells me that one of the students say that he wishes that he was Bin Laden. Fascinating, but I don't know what that means, and don't want to stop the movie to find out. Ramsey said that when he first came to Laos about eight years ago, there were lots of Lao people with Bin Laden t-shirts on. I guess it's a good thing Ramsey and I are Canadian and not American.

Ramsey's mom calls during the movie and all three of us get a chance to talk to her. She likes my blog. Hi Liz! The movie is only halfway through when we stop. It's 10pm and the students usually turn in at this time.

It's 2 am and I've been blogging for 3 hours. I feel really tired, I think I will wake up at an unprecedented 8am tomorrow instead of 5am.