The Market, Visiting Compeng, Lao Superstition

I've been trying to convince So to do some yoga stretches in the morning to regulate and boost her energy. Today when we wake up I get So, Ramsey and Gong to do some yoga. I'm probably being irresponsible and instructing them all wrong since I am neither a yoga teacher, or even a dedicated yoga practitioner, but I have been doing it on and off (mostly off) for the last three years. Gong is naturally strong, flexible and has good balance. His athletic body is achieved simply with his rural active lifestyle. No gyms, sports or diets...no need to make time for exercise. Most of the men here seem to have some variation of this fit, lean, slightly cut and athletic body. (Adi, if you're still in your Asian men phase, I think you would be in heaven.) Ramsey has been complaining that he's getting a bit of belly fat for the first time in his life as of this year, though So tells him not to worry and that it's cute and that he's sexy - oh the ego maintaining duties of a wife...but I think she actually believes what she says...ah love. We just hang around and relax on the front porch before starting our day.

After these morning shenanigans Gong takes me to the market on the back of the motorbike. I realize that I will have to touch him to hang on but So assures me that he will understand because I am a foreigner not used to motorbikes. I wonder what Gong must be thinking as I hold on to his shoulders...how many times has he been touched by a female non-family member since he's reached adolescence? What will the other Lao people think? The market is in another province called Salavane and it is full of farmed fish and snails, as well as vegetables and fruits of all kinds and many convenience stores bordering the market.

I've been eating mostly an organic diet since the farmers in this area don't use pesticides and only some use synthetic fertilizers. None of this stuff is GMO either. The local meat - chickens on the school site which are allowed to naturally forage, as well as beef which naturally grazes on grass - is not fed corn (or other cows - dead stock as it's called) as most livestock is fed in Canada. Great. At the market we buy salt, chilis, fruits, vegetables, fish, and of course...

MSG! (Gong holding up a sample)

In the market: one motorbike, three little kids, one dad, no helmets, no fears, no one telling him to do otherwise.

The landscape to and from the market is beautiful. (This inspiring sight has me thinking of Shireen and wishing she were here to experience this with me. It reminds me of how she and I had such a great time being out in the wilderness together during our camping canoe trip last summer to Algonquin. Of all the people I know, Shireen would be the most appreciative.)

Gong points out the polycultures off the roadside. Polycultures are agricultural lands dedicated to a diverse array of crops which are planted amongst one another. This is a traditional way of farming in Laos. We're so used to seeing vast monocultures in Ontario, I think most people would look at these polycultures and think that they aren't farms...just overgrown areas full of weeds (in the negative sense). This one farm grows rice, cassava, coffee, pineapple, sunflowers, bananas, coconuts etc all mixed in together.

Polycultures keeps the soil healthier, prevents pests (and therefore reduces the need for pesticides), and provides the farmers with food they don't have to buy...which makes total economic sense for subsistence farming. This method is much more ecologically and economically sustainable than the methods used in the majority of the West, a large part of Laos, and in large parts of other developing nations. One of the goals of So and Ramsey's school is to promote the idea that the traditional Lao knowledge, methods and practices of farming are valuable, and should be maintained instead of "progressing" to more industrial agriculture. A big misconception is the idea that slash and burn agriculture is harmful.

Ramsey points out (actually types out) that "Slash and burn is often the only sustainable land use option for small scale farmers dealing with the compounded pressures of increased weed infestation and declining soil fertility. When used in a planned rotational system, slash and burn can actually increase biodiversity by multiplying the number of ecotones in a region. Farmers rarely slash large forested areas near their villages, which they maintain for food sources such as animals and mushrooms, fuel wood and religious activities. This is why, despite slash and burn being the dominant form of agriculture in Laos' mountainous areas, these areas have remained over half primary forest cover until just a decade or two ago. The rotational system guarantees that by the time the farmer returns to a previously slashed area, the soil fertility has replenished itself during the fallow period and the weed seeds that had proliferated during the opening of the land have all disappeared from the regenerated system's soil. Industry and governments push reforestation as an environmental alternative to slash and burn but their reasons are primarily that of profit. By invalidating the local form of knowledge and displacing the local peoples from their land and context, industries can set up massive eucalyptus, rubber, acacia and other tropical forest trees all intended as cash crops. The villagers are often converted from being independent stewards of a complex and fascinating landscape into workers of multinational pulp and paper or auto part industries. What's more, through faultily conceived measures to combat global warming, such initiatives are often subsidized by "carbon offsets" and "carbon trading" measures that define these massive land use conversions as "reforestation of degraded lands"."

I was intending to calculate the carbon footprint of my trip - air travel, bus, train, tuk tuk etc. - and then buy carbon offsets for it. But I'll have to really look into some of these offset companies and make sure that they aren't "reforesting" by taking away polycultures and planting vast monocultures of rubber plants. In fact a better way to offset would be to support any organization that I know is doing good works for the environment. Haha...donating to Ramsey some more? I see his plan - sneaky.

Gong has been practicing his English with me. On the motorbike ride back he asks me to sing a song for him in English. I tell him I will only do so if he sings one in Laos. He says okay and that he likes to sing. I usually have a problem singing solo in front of people, but this time I do it easily since the wind and the motorbike engine takes away half my voice and Gong is faced away from me. Summertime, The Rainbow Connection, a song from Oh Brother Where Art Thou, a lullaby and four Lao songs later, we find ourselves back at the school. Good times.

As I walk along the path of the school I see evidence of barefooted children having recently passed through. They have probably gone to the river to play and bathe. I come back to find So and Ramsey preparing food in their nightclothes in the kitchen. This informality is a luxury until the students come back this evening.

After lunch we go to visit Compeng at her house. Compeng is a student at the school as well as Gong's girlfriend (most likely future wife) - they have never even held hands. She's been feeling ill for about a month. The Lao are a very superstitious people and believe in spirits and ghosts (their form of animism), as well as Buddhism. Compeng's family thinks that there is a ghost that wants to marry her, so it is making her sick in order to hasten her transition into the afterlife so that it can be with her. Recently she's been feeling better and will come back to school tomorrow.

At her home, we are greeted by Compeng, her mother, grandmother and aunt. We all sit on the floor. Her grandmother is a hunched, thin, tiny woman of a hundred and one years of age.

So tells me her own great grandmother is over a hundred and ten years old. Ramsey says there are a lot of very old people in this country, ones that break the Guinness World Record for longevity, but it goes unrecorded in Laos. So says that her great grandmother thinks that the Laos of the younger generation are more unhealthy because of lack of exercise and because they "eat dirty". Meaning more fried and "chemical" food (pesticides and chemical fertilizers.) I can't argue with these sage notions though I'm sure the truth is more complex than that.

Compeng's family grows custard apples, logan, bananas, tamarind, coconuts and many more crops around their house. They present us with delicious logan and my new favourite fruit...custard apples!

The custard apple taste can't be described. It is about the size of a fist and the outside has large bumps and is sea foam green in colour. It is full of compartments of the palest yellow fruit flesh which enshroud large shiny black seeds. It is a pleasure to eat, not just because of its delicate and fragrant taste, but because the extraction of the flesh from the seeds is quite orally tactile as well as time consuming. This draws out the enjoyment. I eat two large custard apples (bigger than my fist) while everyone eats only one. Though I am genuinely encouraged to have as much as I want, I feel like I have to explain to the family that I can't get these in Canada, at least not fresh off the tree, so I have to eat it while I can. Seeing my appetite for their offering, they come out with more...it's a bit embarrassing. I can't eat any more, but I am told to take one with me which I happily do. I am relishing eating this delight tomorrow morning!

At some point I tell them that Gong has a beautiful voice and should sing to Compeng to make her feel better. Gong doesn't want to but I offer to sing them something first to encourage Gong to sing. Big Mistake. With everyone watching me, and no wind to muffle my voice, I suddenly feel a performance anxiety creep over me and I take forever to be able to sing. I have a few fits and starts, my throat dries up and I have to take water, I begin to heat up and sweat, and I keep on coughing and laughing nervously. Eventually I am able to squeak out the song So wants me to sing the most...Summertime...it sounds strained and thin to my ears and I don't like my rendition, but they seem to receive it alright. It's now Gong's turn and I think my psyche-out has kinda rubbed off on him. He is also unable to sing, also coughs and takes water, begins to sweat, turns red and looks truly uncomfortable. Eventually he sings - it is met with loud applause by all. There are long moments of silence between conversations among the guests and family, yet there doesn't seem to be any tension or pressure to fill the silence. I've noticed this among the students as well. It is a refreshing change.

After a while, we say our goodbyes and crouch out of the house...you must always crouch when walking by someone older...in this case the grandmother is sitting near the stairs. We go back to the school and all decide to forego dinner since we are so full of fruit.

Teaching Human Body Parts

At breakfast, I try to explain to some of the students Canadian greetings. That we would shake hands when first meeting strangers, and then greet friends...mu...and family..kop kuah with hugs. I demonstrate by shaking their hands. I then motion to Ramsey and we hug - but I stress that people who are only mu, and not boyfriends or girlfriends, would do this in Canada. I am told that friends here means people of your immediate peer group - same age or with no more than one or two years difference. Anyone slightly older or younger than that would be called "older sister/brother" or "younger sister/brother". I explain to the students that I have friends that are much younger and ones that are much older and they are all called mu. I wonder what they think about all this.

Ramsey taught the students ten parts of the face in English yesterday (eye, nose, mouth, teeth, cheek, chin, hair, ear, head and neck) and he asks me to teach other body parts today. He wants me to do it without either him or So present and just work through the language barrier. I decide to do this by getting them to draw a nude female body first. I don't know if this will be a bit scandalous or not, but I do it anyway. Then I ask each of them to choose a body part and I will tell them what it is and show them the spelling of it. Some boy finally picks vagina - with accompanying laughter of course - and so I teach them "va-gi-na" which they can only pronounce as "wa-gi-na". I also teach them "penis" which they have no problem with. A note on penis. The Lao word for "I" and the Lao word for "penis" sounds remarkably similar - coi -, and both So and Ramsey have been drilling into me the difference between the pronunciations of the words. I could get into some embarrassing trouble here. Ayah...it's so difficult for me to hear the difference...I'm a bit paranoid when saying "I". Try going throughout your day without saying "I", and you'll notice how often you refer to yourself. The Lao word for "tired" (which gets used fairly often here) is also similar to the word for "pubic hair". You can see the potential trouble when trying to say "I am tired" in Laos.

Along with pronouncing "v" as "w", the Lao people also have difficulty with "r" which they pronounce as "l". That's why everyone here calls Ramsey "Lemsee". The sound "th" is pronounced as "t" and "ch" as "s". That's why "thumb" and "thigh" are pronounced "tumb" and "tigh", and "cheek" and "chin" are pronounced as "seek" and "sin".

Along with body parts, I also teach the students some new colours in English to add to the ones they already know. They seem to have remarkable difficulty with distinguishing between yellow and orange - at least in English they do.

Two hours later I'm done my first teaching gig and go lie down on the hammock I've hung outside the library on the porch. My first chance on the sweet hammock. I intend to read, but the comfort and swinging action of the hammock makes me fall asleep. I wake up two hours later with the sun shining on my face and a headache. I don't feel well so I go lie on my mattress inside. The hammock is great and evil...much like Ramsey...just wait...you'll see.

I get up, drink a lot of water, eat lunch...yummy catfish...and feel much better and more energetic. I go with Ramsey to weed the gardens. We begin clearing the weeds among the taro plants that are bordered by these nasty unwanted thorny weeds. I get pricked a couple of times. [A note on the word weed: at the school, 'weed' is not used in a bad way as many of the weeds are very nutritious and/or medicinal and are a staple of the authentic Lao diet.] Ramsey tells me that greens of most plants are the most nutritious parts - not the pumpkin or the cucumber fruit, but the tender green shoots and leaves of the plant. He prefers to eat these. We've been eating a whole bunch of greens picked from the gardens on the school site, the majority of which I've never eaten and which taste bitter, spicy or sour. I like them.

I observe a moth with its proboscis gathering nectar from the flower of a male papaya tree growing outside the kitchen. It is very close up and I can see the hair on its brown and black body and watch its wing beat pattern as it hovers. It seems so intent. I feel like I'm in a David Attenborough nature documentary. It is beautiful.

Ramsey helps the students learn English words and pronunciation using songs that he writes (often with a nature theme).

Since it is Friday, the students will leave after classes to go back to their farms and help their families with the peanut harvest and farming. They will come back Sunday night. It will just be So, Ramsey, Gong and I for the next two days.

The "Dao" of the Village

In all of Laos, the richest person is a woman named Dao. She's a business woman that owns a lot of industries here. There is also a lady that has a store a little bit up the road from the school. The store is a cross between a convenience store, hardware store and cafe, that also happens to sells some groceries, live frogs and catfish.


The lady that runs the place is doing very well for herself in the village. So and I sit at the cafe portion of her establishment and get some refreshments and chips. Through So, I call her the "Dao" of the village and the owner is amused and please by this description. The "Dao" asks me if I'm married and I say no. Then she tells me that for a woman that's educated, well off and independent, it's better to be without a man because then you have your freedom to do whatever you want...to travel. She looks like a tough lady. I ask her if she's married and she says "yes". Then I ask her who is the boss in her household. She laughs and points to herself confidently. She says that to the people outside, it seems as if her husband is the boss, but in fact she is the boss.

As we relax at the cafe, I ask So to tell me her version of how she and Ramsey met. She warns me that it's a very long and weird story. I told her I had time. Two bags of chips later...well...let's just say, if you want to know all the interesting details, you will have to ask either Ramsey or So...on second thought, ask So, you'll be more assured of a response as well as a shocking plot-twist!

This year is the first full year for the school. While waiting for the Dao to serve us noodles, I also ask So what her proudest moment has been with building the school and this is what she has to say.

Breaking the Ice

Ramsey tells me that he wants the students to get comfortable with me by doing a formal icebreaker with them...something that will work with the language barrier. I first get them to make nametags for themselves so that I can get to know them better. Then I think that dancing will be a good idea to break the ice. Not much talking needed - and a chance for some slapstick. I ask the students to show me a cultural dance. They are super shy. I pick out boys and girls and they pair up (without touching of course) and dance for me as another super shy girl - Noi, who has a lovely voice - sings for the dancers. It's my turn so I try to teach them some "Western dance moves" as if I know such a thing. The recent death of Michael Jackson tempts me to demonstrate the moonwalk, but I have never been successful at that. Instead I teach them the "pimp walk" from blues dancing as well as that embarrassing move people bust out as a joke at the beginning or end of a dance party. You know, the one where you flap one hand behind your head, while the other hand grabs a foot from behind jerking it up and down while the only remaining free limb hops back and forth, all the while your torso flexes about like a fish caught and thrown onto the deck of a fishing boat. (This is Bryanna favourite move...classic.) It's funny seeing all these Laos student doing it. They are laughing and having a good time.

I decide to make it more interactive by getting us all into a big circle and getting each student to contribute a dance move that the other students would have to imitate. This goes quite well and some hilarity ensues. I am quite impressed with some of their dance moves - they are more creative, suaver and braver than their shy demeanor would have me initially believe. I am surprised by how sexualized some of the moves are. It's all that pent up sexual energy. At the end I teach them a team cheer, with everyone's hands in the middle and then yelling "Go team!" as their hands fly up into the air.

Ice...consider yourself broken.

Fat and Thin, Gender Politics

The Lao people have no problem telling you that you're fat - dui - or thin - joi - to your face. It's just a description. Like green or brown eyes. Fat here isn't a bad thing. You'll be called dui if you've got a bit of meat on you and this makes you look healthy and like you'd be a strong and capable worker in the fields. In fact, it's considered desirable to be "fat". The students call me dui and Ramsey said that my body type is considered quite attractive here. This makes me laugh.

When Lao people are dating, they don't touch or kiss or hold hands, not until they're married - pre-martial sex is forbidden. When they hit prepubescence, girls and boys stop touching each other all together and the touch becomes something taboo between the sexes. Inter-gender touching is considered sacred at this point. This naturally has the effect of increasing the sexual tension between the sexes. However, touching amongst members of the same gender is fine, and indeed, among the Lao boys and men, there is more freedom of physical affection than there is in the West without fear of being considered gay. As well, the attitude towards homosexuality in Laos is fairly liberal. So shows me some subtle hand gestures that indicate that people want to have sex with one another. A girl will hold a guy's hand with her middle finger pressed into his palm. A guy will indicate his intentions by rubbing her thumb with his finger.

Both these gestures are illicit and are done in the city among some of the youth. I now fear that giving Ramsey a playful punch in the arm might brand me a brazen woman. No wonder why Ramsey's hugs have become so horrible...oh wait...they've always been bad.

First Full Day at the School

I wake up at 5am. I've slept for seven uninterrupted hours! I feel rested and alert and the sun is beginning to rise. I decide to go for a bit of a stroll and familiarize myself with the school site and surroundings. As the beautiful green outdoors greets me I feel positive and curious. Twenty or more dragonflies buzz about the front yard of the library, butterflies do their funny inefficient dance among the flowers and the sound of birds, insects and lizards greet me. The smell of plant life and the never-ending music of the babbling stream surrounds me. I decide to retrace the long pathway into the school and end up at the entrance to the school from the road. A sign for the school has been painted by So, Ramsey, Joren (a childhood friend of Ramsey's that visited last year), and Gong (a paid employee of the school and Ramsey's right hand man).

To the left of the sign is the "cow bridge" that leads to the school.

Ramsey explains the purpose of the school.

I walk back down the pathway towards the kitchen. I find some of the students cooking and try to communicate with them.

They are extremely shy and only know a few English words and I don't speak the Lao language. After unsuccessfully trying to convey a few things, I go back to the library to fetch some things I hope will help. I bring paper, pencil crayons and markers over and I also bring a hammock. Oh yeah...I should explain the hammocks.

Before I left, Ramsey told me the school had one hammock, and the students clamber over it all the time. It has the warm allure of a campfire. As a gift to the school, I have brought over three more hammocks. I got them in Guatemala last year, and now they're here with me in Laos. The carbon footprint on these things is a bit laughable. I wonder if my intended gift of relaxation will turn into a curse of slack and increased inefficiency. I can’t help it though - everyone should have access to a hammock. They feel awesome and they help slow down time, though I have heard from Ramsey that Laos doesn’t need any help with that. In Ramsey's first year in Laos he emailed me describing Laos time...that in Laos, time as not linear, or even traversing along a spiral, it is merely a point. It will be interesting to experience this singularity.

So I bring the stuff over to the students and this allows me to draw pictures to help me communicate with them. As they gather around me, I am aware that I'm truly a giant here. I am by far the tallest woman here and am taller than most of the men as well. Chalk it up to an Asian growing up on nutrient dense foods and hormones in the meat and dairy. At 5'4" I tower over most of them. Ramsey is 6'2", and they'll meet Nick in four weeks and he's almost 6'4". All us Canadians will be Gullivers and the student the Laollaputians. They like the hammock and begin to draw on the paper. A bit of ice has been broken.

I continue my self-directed tour of the school and make a mental map of the place. One kitchen (the centre of all non-school activity), one school, one girl's dorm, one boy's dorm, one beehive toilet facility, one library/So and Ramsey's house, one employee house/Gong's house, and one mushroom house under construction (they will grow mushrooms on site once the building is completed) all embedded within garden/farming land and cupped by a flowing stream. There is no internet for miles around. No land lines, and just recently (few months) they've begun to receive a cell phone signal. It's funny to see farmers wearing worn clothes while talking on their cellular. The whole land line thing has skipped most recently developing nations. Telecommunications has gone straight to cell phones because it's cheaper than setting up the lines. The school's electricity is supplied by solar panels.

Kitchen
School
View of the Stream from the School

Well
Solar Panels
Flora - pretty yellow flowers, and a papaya tree!

I help So make breakfast by making a Laos chili dip that will go with the sticky rice and fried egg breakfast. Inside a large earthen mortar and pestle, I mash up roasted chilis, roasted garlic and salt into a rough smashed mixture. Charcoal-fire barbequing is an important technique in Laos cooking. So adds a little bit of soy sauce to the paste at the very end. A chili sauce of some sort is made with almost every meal. I am enamored with the mortar and pestle - it's a great tool. I will get one for myself to take back with me to Canada. So, Ramsey, Gong and I sit down for breakfast. I really like the sticky rice and this time I avoid picking up any chilis while I dip into the paste. The paste is delicious and painful, but I keep on eating it. So and Ramsey tell me there's this Laos term - bach ve - for people who eat so much chili that their lips go red and puffy and the redness begins to extend beyond the borders of their lips (I imagine Ronald McDonald). They tell me I'm not puffy yet, but all of a sudden I feel faint and high, much like I did that first time in Pakse. My brain is a bit confused and Ramsey tells me I'm repeating myself. I feel dizzy and need to lie down so I carefully walk to the school and lie down on one of the benches until the body buzz passes and I feel a bit steadier. I come back to the kitchen to be greeted with admonishments from So about my chili consumption. Ramsey says he wants me to have as much of an authentic experience here as possible. The Laos people must have some of the hottest foods on the planet, seriously - what will I eat here without dying?!

Fruit? Ah yes. At lunch I eat rambutan, logan, custard apple and mangosteen. All super fresh and delicious. I am content and more comfortable. The fantasy of a vacation in paradise begins to return and transition into reality.

On a small motorbike, So takes me to see the village chief and the police to make my stay here official. I see the chief, but the police are not in. The bureaucracy here is high. Last year when Joren visited, Ramsey and So didn't take him to the proper officials soon enough, so the officials took it upon themselves to come to the school once they heard there was a new falang (Western foreigner in Lao) in the district. Ramsey doesn't want a repeat of this experience with me. I don't quite understand the ins and outs of the Laos government here, but it's taken a lot for Ramsey to convince the government that his intentions for the school are not ones that will subvert the norms of their society. Foreigners always pose a potential threat of this.

There are sixteen students at the school, seven boys and nine girls. They are all from farming families and don't have a lot of money for schooling. The school provides poor Laos youth with an opportunity for more education and for a chance to learn some English. Only three of the students are actually Laos, the rest are from the diverse ethnic groups that make up 40% of the population of Laos, but they can all speak the common Lao language. The youngest is sixteen years old and the oldest is twenty-three. They seem younger than that somehow. It's partially their small stature, but as well, their shyness. Most of them have had only limited or truncated schooling. They are very nice and polite. If only my students were as nice!

The student's daily routine at the school involves:
5 am - wake up, gardening/farming/food prep and cooking, washing in the river,
7:30 am - breakfast
8:30 am - morning class
11 am - food prep and cooking, lunch
1 pm - afternoon class
4 pm - more gardening/farming/food prep and cooking,
7/8 pm - dinner, free time
9-10 pm - sleep

We Arrive at the School!

In Pakse, we wait for a bus to take us to Ramsey and So's school. Waiting...waiting.

After waiting for a long time and the bus not arriving, we decide to take a tuk tuk to the school site instead. In the tuk tuk there is an old Lao woman who says that one of her grandchildren is a student at Ramsey's school. She shows us a piece of fabric around her neck and indicates that she weaved it herself. She is old and nearly blind these days. I think she's lovely and the fabric is nice so I ask to take a picture of her with it.

Scenery from tuk tuk.

We arrive at the school late as the sun is just about set, so I don't get a good look at the place. Some of Ramsey's students come out to quickly greet us and help us with our bags. I don't get a formal introduction since we are all tired. Ramsey told me earlier that the students are usually gregarious and natural with him and So because they are used to them, however, they will be very shy with me and this will cause a new extended shyness towards Ramsey since I am his (foreign) friend. He said I will have to do something quickly about that so that they will feel at ease with me, and (more importantly) him again...but right now I am too weary to worry about that - tomorrow I will cross that bridge.

My more pressing concern is finding a toilet. I've been holding it in for the last five hours! I semi-dread the character builder awaiting me...yep...figuring out how to use a raised squat compost toilet in absolute darkness while urgently needing to use the facilities. Ramsey hands me a very faint and malfunctioning flashlight with the instructions to bang the toilet about (toilet = two raised planks above a large plastic bucket) to dislodge any scorpions and centipedes that may have taken residence there during their one month absence from the school. He says it's the centipedes that are the worrisome ones. At this news I am a bit anxious but prepared for the challenge until I open the door and shine my fritzy flashlight into the toilet. I dimly see something moving inside the bucket on top of the compost corn husks. I take a closer look and it's two fairly large lizards stuck in the compost. They must have gotten trapped because they couldn't climb up the plastic sides once they had fallen in. I can't do my business on top of them...they're alive! Ramsey tells me to deal with them or remove them. I am unwilling to do either, so Ramsey comes and changes the compost for me. Then it's time to squat for the first time on my vacation. Yep, it's all about the squatting in Asia. I carefully alight the wobbly planks bordering the bucket. It's at this moment that I wonder if I've been so conditioned to need the amenities and comforts of home that the lack of them will compromise my enjoyment of my trip. I know I'm tired, and everything is strange and new, so I shake this unhappy thought aside and tell myself that I will get used to things.

In the dark we head down to the river to wash off our travel weary and dirty bodies. It's been over 30 hours since we left our inn in Khao San to get here. I gingerly shuffle my way along the nearly pitch-black and uneven dirt path heading downward toward the babbling stream that will be our bathing area. Ramsey and So seem to be able to find their footing without the aid of any light but Ramsey is using the dim fritzy flashlight out of consideration for my inability to navigate the darkness. Even in the dark I can tell that the river is beautiful and it cups the entire school site like a large horseshoe. I am looking forward to a nice dip in the river to cool down and get clean. As we get near the river, Ramsey and So make it clear to me that we will be washing with our clothes on, and that next time I can come wrapped (and remain wrapped) in a sarong. I am a bit dismayed. I was just planning to go skinny dip style...it was dark...but they say that the Laos culture is such that nudity or bathing in a bathing suit (let alone either of my bikinis) would be unacceptable. I can't believe it. We are in this natural gorgeous paradise, but I will have to bath in the most modest fashion ever. I have a dress and my underwear on, and yes, they stay on. The wilderness that surrounds me beckons me to be my animal self, without the trappings of clothes, but the Lao culture requires me to keep these trappings. I wade into the water over slippery and uneven rocks. I slip and fall in - I feel a strange disconnect and want to laugh out loud in half amusement half frustration. Ramsey tells me that a French girl came to visit before and in the middle of the day and in front of the passing villagers she bathed completely nude. It was scandalous.

Both using the compost toilet and showering in my clothes has left me a bit dismayed and worn out. Am I in the paradise I had envisioned? I'm too tired to eat so I decide to turn in.

A sleeping mattress has been placed for me in the first floor of the library and So and Ramsey get the second floor. A bug net has been provided above my mattress and So warns me to tuck the ends under when I'm inside. I ask why and get my answer when she crouches down quickly and points under the desk and says "scorpion!". I begin to look around my surroundings...ahem...I don't see a scorpion but I see a wasp nest hanging off the ceiling in the corner of the room. Wasps crawl lazily over it. I didn't think to bring my Epipen with me on this trip - bah...yes...I'm one of those people. I decide it is prudent to do as I'm told and tuck my net in under my mattress very carefully. I station the flashlight next to my head. Tomorrow will be better I assure myself. It's 10pm...I am finally exhausted and fall into a stone cold dreamless sleep.