Settling in. Musical Interlude.

From inside the library I hear the girls from the school house. They are laughing and squealing and yelling. I wonder what's happening; they don't usually cause a ruckus like this. I go outside and I see that they are playing. Yesterday I bought a whole bunch of elastic bands and got one of the girls to make a jumpsee rope from it. I asked them if they played it in Laos, and evidently they do, but only when they are little. I thought my offering was a bit of a bust in that respect. But now that I see them playing with it with such delight and joking and laughing...it makes me really happy. I haven't seen the girls so carefree and physically expressive before. I want to play too, but I know that I am so much taller than the girls it wouldn't be fair, on top of that, I've always been good at jumpsees. Okay girlfriends...when I get back, we're playing jumpsees…game on!

I teach the students how to knit in the round to make a hat today.

I'm setting into a groove, and each day seems to go by in this languid way. I never know what's really scheduled and that's okay with me. There always seems to be time for me to insert a lesson in the afternoon or evening when formal classes are done, and it's up to me when I want to do this. Ramsey and So have been really chillaxed about what I do here. I have gotten into the habit of being the last to sleep at night (11pm or 12am) and the first to wake (5am or 6am) and I take a 1 to 2 hour siesta in the afternoon. Sweet. I feel like I'm on vacation. Nothing much needs to happen and I'm content with the routine of the school. I have a lot of free time yet somehow it all manages to occupy itself in some relaxed way or another.

Even though I am in a sarong, and the streambed is slippery with rocks and the banks are muddy, I now look forward to my twice a day baths in the stream. I have also grown to enjoy squatting and the compost toilet. I am now a disciple of the squat - it is the most agreeable position for easeful voiding...and composting my humanure is a good reminder of my connection to ecological cycles. I really like gathering water from the well and filling the large metal barrel each day. It usually takes me 10 minutes and at least 15 pulls/buckets. I have well calluses on my hands now...it make me feel strong like bull! I've gotten into the pattern of washing the clothes I wear everyday to take maximum advantage of drying time and to minimize the red mud-dye damage. I also really like foraging for greens and eating them (the food I will miss the most when I leave Laos). This is the closest I've ever gotten to my homo sapien hunter-gatherer ancestry. Something primordial and familiar has clicked in and has begun to root.

It's almost time to turn in and I'm listening to Chopin's Nocturne For Violin and Piano. It's beautiful. Tonight is the first time I've listened to music in three weeks. I didn't bring an MP3 player on my trip with me, nor do I have any music on my net book. This evening So hooked up speakers to her laptop and I've been scrolling through her play list. I've been lying on my mattress on the floor for the last couple of hours and listening to Nirvana, Bob Marley, Coldplay, Roy Orbison, Sinead O’Conner, Radiohead, Leonard Cohen, John Lennon, Neil Young, Chopin and Beethoven, etc. and I've been really enjoying the experience. For those of you that don't know me very well, I don't listen to music, so for me, this is out of the ordinary...and very welcomed. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata is playing now and it seems appropriate that it is accompanied by the almost musical sounds of insects outside the library.

I’ll leave you with today’s sunset from the library porch.

Ratten Ball and Gender Politics.

So and Ramsey have hired a teacher to do workshops on mushroom growing with the students for the next two days. I wish I could understand because I would be interested in the topic as well.

After today’s workshop the boys play rattan ball. It employs a volleyball court set up but it uses a rattan ball (about 10 cm in diameter) which is hit with either the foot, off the knee, head or shoulder (almost like in hacky sac). It requires a lot of leg agility and flexibility for those high kicks.

Ramsey explains rattan ball. Wait for that wicked high kick at the end.

I immediately want to try, but only boys play this game (or any other aerobic games it seems), not girls. Even though I indicate that I'm interested, they don't encourage me to try. I tell Ramsey to play one side and I will play on the other, so that each team is equally handicapped with unskilled players. This is met with the boys saying that the court is full already. I see the deal. Ramsey also says that he doesn't want to play because he's not good at it and the rattan ball hurts his feet. Bah.

When the boys' game is over, I take the ball and try some of the moves. I encourage some of the girls to try to play with me. Been and San show interest (they are the most adventurous and outgoing of the girls). Gong has been conscripted to teach us girls (and Ramsey) rattan ball. Been and San hike up their long Lao skirts into "diapers" and give it a go. We have a lot of fun. Later a volleyball is fished from the roof and we play that as well (I have bruises all up my forearm from this.)

Gong is a very encouraging and patient teacher. The ball gets stuck in the roof again and this time Ramsey attempts to climb the pillar to get the ball. He gets to the top,

but can't make it over.

Gong eventually rescues the ball with his monkey style limbgrip. Later on, Been and San tell me they are tired from having so much fun playing. Yes...girl power!

Roadkill and Big Tang Finding Little Pants

So and I go to Pakse to run some errands. We pay for a ride on one of the small trucks that transports people and their goods to the market in Pakse. So and I are lucky and get the front seats. This helps with So's car sickness. On the way there we see a pink baby pig on the roadside that walks out onto the road. As the truck approaches it begins running across the road. The driver doesn't slow down and I see the piglet disappear between the two front wheels. I think maybe it got lucky until I hear a squishy crunch and I feel the truck's back wheel go over the piglet. So and I are silent for a while. I feel a mixture of revulsion and pity. I ask if the loss of the pig will impact greatly on the family that owns it, she just responds, "for sure they're going to eat it." I guess when you don't have a lot of money, you can't afford to let a protein source go to waste. Most likely that pig was destined for market to earn the family some money. The families of the students at the school are too poor to eat chicken, eggs or fish, let alone pork or beef. They mainly catch small animals for protein, like lizards, mice, rats and insects and hunt for birds in the forest (hence the decimation of wild bird populations).

Other sights on the road. Two white guys on touring bikes asking for directions in the rain. I felt an immediate kinship towards them and was reminded of my bike touring in Cuba. I remember having to stop many times to ask for directions, often in the rain due to the summer wet season. I kinda wanted to catch their eye and give them an encouraging thumbs up, but the truck went by too quickly. I can understand why they would want to bike through Laos, the road we're on is only a couple of years old, in really good condition and the ride from the Salavane province to Pakse is really beautiful. I miss biking.

Rural Laos.

The more I travel, the more I value packing light. For my trip to Guatemala last summer I just brought one backpack, not even that big (less than 18 lbs when weighed at the airport). I have been priding myself on being a smarter traveler in that respect. This has backfired on me for my trip here. I have never had to hand wash and air dry all my clothes on a long summer vacation before. The mixture of weather, physical activities and long drying time for clothes has made it necessary to have more clothes than I brought with me. I've basically been cycling through the same pair of pants and a couple of pairs of shorts. So's sister gave me a pair of pajamas to add to my quick dry artillery, but now I've come to Pakse to buy at least another pair of pants. How does a giant like me by a pair of pants in Laos? It's not easy. Even the large is a bit tight on me, and stuff that is extra large is too big at the waist, but I still can't get the pant legs over my calves. Evidently the average Laos woman is not only very small, but has very spindly limbs, and if they gain weight, it doesn't seem to distribute into their legs. My legs are too muscular for Lao pants! So directs my attention to some Falang pants that she says all foreigners buy because they can't fit into anything else. It's these horrible cotton-lycra stretchy and baggy jogging pants that are cinched at the cuff and end mi-dcalf. Yuck. I see a few foreigners sporting these pants on the streets - they probably think it's cool.

Red Earth, Birth Control, and Twinkly Sky

After a twelve hour (overly air-conditioned bus ride that does nothing good for my cough) return trip from Vientiane, we're back at the school and it's a downpour. The dirt path leading to the school has been turned into a flood plane and there's red mud water everywhere. I wonder if the library has been flooded. Luckily it hasn't.

Oh yeah, the red mud. The soil here is all red (lots of iron). And it gets everywhere, under your toenails and fingernails and in your clothes. No problem I thought, I'll just wash it out...erm...turns out that it doesn't work like that because the red soil is a dye as well. Given time, everything tends towards that terracotta colour. It takes some effort of scrubbing to get the colour off my skin, and even more effort for my clothes. It doesn't much help when you bathe and wash your clothes in a stream that is sand banked by this red earth. In a way, its pervasiveness is a constant reminder of the soil, and ultimately food production and ecosystems. Even as I fight against it, there is something reassuring about its presence.

Ramsey has been coughing and sniffling. He's stuffed up and blames me for making him sick. I feel fine for the most part and just have a bit of a cough, and no sneezing and congestion like he has. He still teaches however, but only one class today.

In the evening I ask the students how many children they would like in the future. Most said three children, and some said two. I was surprised by this, considering that some of them have seven or eight siblings and their parents probably even more. So taught them the connections between family size and economic and environmental sustainability. Most of these students are really poor, and doing the status quo - having a lot of kids - will just doom them to a cycle of continuing poverty. They are learning a lot at the school, but if there's one lesson that may have the greatest impact on their future wellbeinog, it may be this one. However, deciding to have fewer children, and being able to make that happen is another thing. At the end of the semester, So will teach them a sensitive subject, birth control and family planning. Education does work!

As I step outside the library to brush my teeth, I hear the now familiar orchestral hum of evening insects, and I see something that takes me a while to register. With the rainy season, the skies at night have been too clouded over for viewing stars, but now there's a brief reprieve and I see them...and they twinkle. Though I know stars are supposed to twinkle, I have never actually observed this before. I look for the big dipper, the only constellation I can always find. I can't find it, but then all of a sudden I see it! It escaped my search earlier because I was looking for something that was a lot smaller than what is before my eyes. It's the big dipper as I've never seen it before...it's gibungus! (No, this is not a chilli-induced trip.) It is the biggest I have ever seen the big dipper - it takes up a full quarter of the sky in my field of view. I geekily announce my finding to a lacklustre audience inside. I guess they're used to it here; I'm impressed however. It seems as if the sky has fallen closer to Earth, or else the Earth has ascended a little closer to the heavens. It's enchanting and impossible!

Goodnight.

Lao Crafts, Prostitutes and Culture

Today I went to a big market in Vientiane to get some textiles. The craftwork done in Laos is very diverse because of the ethnic groups here. I am amazed by the Lao weaving. It is very different in style to the Guatemalan weaving I saw last summer, which I also liked, but the Lao stuff is much more intricate, has a polished touched to it and an attention to detail which is unrivalled (though I like the Guatemalan colour palette better). I keep on thinking the weavers must have gone blind making such elaborate stuff. I only have an hour at the market and am overwhelmed by the vast ocean of woven textiles. This is why the quilting catches my eye. A few shops have crafts from an ethnic group called the Hmong. I don't often see quilting in Canada, but what I have seen has been all straight lines with geometrical shapes. The Hmong master quilters, quilt in intricate spirals and circles as well as straight lines. I've never seen this type of quilting before, all hand made. I buy several items of Hmong quilting as well as some Lao woven scarves. I wish I could have spent more time to look for a woven wall hanging.

Before we leave, So's dad makes something for Ramsey to take back to the school. It is some sort of neat tonic made up of this very bitter plant soaked in a bottle of honey. I suppose the honey is there to preserve it and make it more palatable. The plant is an anti-malarial, anti-diabetic and an overall longevity promoter. Of course, anything that good for you, must, and does taste horrible. I am sure the sweet ants will love the honey though...I hope Ramsey's not planning to keep that stuff in the library...I'm not sure how many more ant infestations I can deal with.

As we head for the bus station to take the twelve hour bus ride back to the school, Ramsey points to a bunch of storefronts on the street, he says that they are all prostitution dens. The way you can tell if a place is a brothel is if there are Christmas lights hanging outside. Since it's getting dark, Ramsey tells me to look for the lights. You will never see a working girl selling her assets on the streets - the modesty of the Laos would prevent that (a complete opposite of Thailand). Then someone tells us that the government outlawed the Christmas lights recently, but since the red light districts are set, there is no problem figuring out which places sell sex.

I have been resting on my laurels. Being with So and Ramsey in Laos has made the ins and outs of Laos so easy for me. I feel a bit sheepish to admit that I haven't even opened my guidebook until now. My guidebook for this part of my trip is a guide to Southeast Asia...Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and the Greater Mekong (which includes Thailand and the Yunnan Province of China). The book describes the Lao culture as being very different than either the Chinese or the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese and Chinese are described as entrepreneurial and intense, whereas the Lao are much less so, and really laid back. Ramsey confirms that Laos is laid back and thinks that Thailand falls into that category too. The Lao view toward life is that no intense passions should be stoked, but that all things are not worth doing unless they contain at least some element of fun. Ramsey breaks it down for me like this...if a Vietnamese person has a goal, she would try much harder than a Lao person to reach it, and be much more upset if she failed. Another difference is, if two Lao friends were to get into a big disagreement, they would never speak to one another again (versus risk further confrontation), whereas two fighting Vietnamese friends will get really angry, beat the crap out of each other, and then be found later laughing and reminiscing about old times over beers. I am half Vietnamese and half Chinese, ethnically I'm from more hot-headed stock, but most likely being raised in the West has been the greatest influence on my temperament, more so than ancestry at this point. How many of you have seen me angry? Though I have been known to be industrious sometimes - I may yet create that fresh soy milk empire in the West when all this is over.

Eating Dogs and Durian

So's family asks me if I'm willing to try new foods. I respond that I am willing to try most things at least once as long as I don't find it too objectionable. They tell me that the restaurant across the street from the house serves dog. Though I am intrigued, (because I just have this thing where I wonder what all living things taste like, even human babies...suckling, roasted and honey glazed...mmmm soylent...I'm told that humans tastes like horse, and horses have sweet tasting flesh...I know first hand) I don't think I'll be able to face Bryanna if I ate dog. This is especially the case here because so many pets go missing because of poverty and the "pet food" industry. The family's third black and white cat has been missing for two weeks and they assume him captured and eaten, but he turns up today to prove that he hasn't met his fate in a human gullet. The day So's sister's dog went missing (never to return) she went across the street and ate some dog. I told Ramsey at least she didn't eat her own dog, and he said that she probably did. No one seems too shocked by these proceedings here. I for one will not eat any dog while in Laos, I mean, I'm gustatorily adventurous, but I don't eat people's kidnapped pets. Ethically farmed dogs would deserve consideration however.

Instead of eating dog, the family serves me up something that some people find even more disgusting, but I find absolutely intoxicating and delicious. Durian fruit - the king of fruits! It's a fruit people either love or hate. (Half of the people I know in Canada who've tried it either don't like it or think it's vile.) If you're one of the haters, it can often be so noxious in smell that you want to throw up (it's been described by some like an open sewer). It is so offensive to some people, that the government in Singapore has banned the transport of Durian fruit on public trains and buses. I for one can't relate at all because I think it both smells great and tastes great. I think that there is a gene that regulates the olfactory reception of the fruit.The reason why I say olfactory is because the people who hate the smell of it, may be able to eat it, and even like it, if they plug their noses while eating. These people got one allele of the gene, and I, luckily got the other. I, like the orangutans of Borneo, can't get enough of the stuff.

Fruit, Tightie-Whities, My Own Su Kwan

The morning conversation is about the corruption in Laos. Every government official, police officer, tax collector (they go door by door collecting the actual money), and teacher is corrupt. Teacher? Now it's personal...they tell me that you can pay to get good marks, and are often forced to pay to move up academically. I tell them about the time I was earnestly offered $2000 from a rich student to pass her on her final exam. I laughed and told the student that she should keep her money and concentrate her efforts on studying. Lucky girl got a 52% on the exam...if you call that lucky. So's family tells me there's no way any teacher here would have passed up that bribe. Corruption is omnipresent in countries where people have so little money or power.

So's mom, sister, and So and Ramsey take me out to see some sights in Vientiane. I see their version of the Arc de Triomphe. The informational caption has Ramsey and I in stitches.

Ramsey and I have a Titanic inspired argument over whether or not diamonds can be blue...a first.

I end up buying three big bags of fruit - mangosteen, rambutan and logan - which together cost me only $8. This would have cost me at least $40 in Canada.

A note on the marvelous mangosteen. It is this perfect balance of sweet and sour - a complex taste wrapped in a springy purple package that contrasts against the white juicy sectioned flesh inside. The little flat flower structure on the bottom of the fruit has the same number of petals as the number of fruit sections inside. You can find these in Toronto's Chinatown, but of course they won't be as fresh and will cost you a pretty loonie.
The day is sweltering - the hottest one on my vacation so far. Everyone is feeling it and melting. It's a good day for a haircut - my hair reaches my lower back. I go to get it cut and end up with the worst haircut I've ever had, you know, the kind where you feel like you end up with MORE hair than you had before. I feel like an upside-down broom. Something about me, vacations and haircuts. Last summer in Guatemala, I got these horrible cornrows done (long story) and then I hated them so much and got so desperate to remove them, that I cut them off two days later with a some guy's army knife. I lost about six inches of hair, but even that was better than the haircut I have now. No accompanying picture of this monstrosity will be forthcoming. I guess you get what you pay for when you go and get an el cheapo buck fiddy haircut. Luckily it's still long enough to clip back in my usual updo. I will have to rectify this situation as soon as I can find a hairdresser that speaks English.

Tightie-whities, sex drives and population booms. How are all these connected you ask? You know the idea that tightie-whities keep the testes too close to the core and therefore heats the sperm to a temperature that decreases fertility...well...the men in Laos only wear tightie-whities, and yet eleven children households are common. What's with that? Ramsey has a theory that the tighties prevent the free movement and accompanying desensitization that boxers promote...this keeps the testes restricted and in a state of heightened sensitivity which plays out in a more vigorous expression of sex drive...ahem...bada bing, bada bang...eleven children.

Back at So's family house I smell what I identify as some strong incense in the air. It turns out to be burning plastic. Many of the Lao start their stove fires by burning plastic bags (which are everywhere). They don't know about the health and environmental hazards of this, they just know that it burns fast and is effective at starting fires.

I am told by Ramsey that the family is planning a Su Kwan for me this evening. This is in honour of me being a guest here and Ramsey's friend. This ceremony is intended to give me good luck for my trip and life. I am honoured but have no clothes appropriate to the situation. I am the tallest and biggest woman on site, so So's mom fashions me with some of her traditional and formal clothes. The top is really ill-fitting and this isn't much rectified by a strategically placed clothespin. Luckily I'm sitting down on the ground throughout the entire ceremony so the ill-fitting clothes don't factor much, especially after I get the sash put on me. So's mom does the speech. She looks right at me and I don't know what she's saying, but her soulful brown eyes and gentle smile make me feel like the words are special. I feel a bit sentimental, as well as extremely warm and sweaty in so many layers of clothes.

After dinner, So's older sister asks me if I live alone in Canada. I say yes and she asks me if I ever get lonely. I say no, I like living alone because I always get to see my friends and family anyhow. Ramsey's reply to the same question is that when he's lived alone in the past, he's never been lonely, he's always had his books...then he laughs.

Tuckered.