Goodbye, Lao

Our Lao adventure has come to an end.

Tomorrow we’ll get on a plane in Vientiane, fly to Bangkok where we’ll overnite, then fly Saturday morning to Tokyo, Salt Lake City and finally, Albuquerque. A long, long trip.

I really hate goodbyes, but they are inevitable when you have 65 students who are losing their teacher in the middle of the semester. The past couple of days, Jen has gone with me up to the university in Dong Dok to be the official photographer documenting the "final classes". Lots of photo ops, gifts, songs, speeches…

I love my students, but I hate goodbyes.

But it’s goodbye to Lao. Ten months in the calmest, friendliest, hottest country we’ve ever lived in. Goodbye to eating in restaurants twice a day (farewell, sticky rice!), to gliding monks swathed in orange, to packs of howling dogs, to five people on a motorbike, to gorgeous flame-colored trees and graceful palms and rice paddies, to bouncing along in tuk-tuks and songthaews crammed with fifteen people…

Goodbye to the gang of neighborhood tuk-tuk drivers we’ve come to know. Schumann (so-named because he repairs shoes when he’s not driving), Chiclets, Mittens, Bon Jovi…
We gifted Schumann with a ton of good stuff this week (including some pairs of shoes). He must think we’re crazy to be giving him sacks of clothes and kitchen goods.

Goodbye to sweating gallons every day and to worshipping air-conditioners. Goodbye to dust and dirt and fumes and giant ants falling from trees. Finally, goodbye to Beer Lao – I’m really going to miss you!

It’s been a good ten months for us. We experienced Lao culture and Lao people and have been greatly enriched by them. We saw some beautiful sights and ate great food and stayed relatively healthy.

I’m going to try not to freak out when I get back to the States. Laos, even living here in the capital city, is incredibly understimulating in terms of Western-style “excitement”. Outside of an occasional festival, little ever “happens”. There is no shopping mall. There is no movie theater. People drive slowly. There is no road rage. People don’t act out in public. My God, I’m going to miss the complete lack of public aggression and bad behavior. Time to steel myself for the inevitable return to “Western values” and the accompanying stress levels. Sigh.

And so, goodbye, Lao.

Our own backyard

It's "high time" that I produce another entry for this blog! Joe has been doing more trainings at the US Embassy and at the National University. The teachers are always responsive to his style and get a big kick out of practicing the teaching techniques with each other. His last week is coming up in which his students will be giving presentations; they are all looking forward to that.

Joe and I were recently treated with a visit from one of my friends (some of you know her!), Krissy. She is volunteering in Thailand for the summer and took a break to see the sights in Laos. Her first stop was Vientiane where we spent two days seeing as much as we could: Patuxay (a tall cement structure that has stairs to a birds eye view of the capital), Talat Sao (the morning market), and our favorite restaurants Joma and Makphet. We squeezed in some temples too: Wat Sisangvone, Wat Phonxaysetthathirath (really!) , That Luang, and Wat Ha Phra Keo. It was a sweaty endeavor, but we managed to keep hydrated and even shop silk weavings till we found the most beautiful one in town which will be hanging on Krissy's living room wall later this summer :)

Unfortunately, Joe was laid up with a badly banged ankle; he slipped getting out of the tuk-tuk on the way to work, and a tender part of his ankle met metal with force. A lot of greenish blusish swelling came out of it, but we don't think it's broken as it has been improving. That being said, he was off the hook for the aforemtnetioned intense trekking excursion.

It's great to have visitors so that you can see the sights! Although Joe and I have seen many together, sometimes the ones right under your nose go unnoticed because they are so familiar. Everywhere we went, in classic Lao style, the people were very friendly. The monks at the temples practiced their English with us, the kids posed for pictures, the vendors smiled at us even when we didn't buy anything, and the sun occasionally cooperated by going behind a cloud (or was it the clouds that covered the sun?). Thank you Krissy for getting me out and about to see some new things, taste some new fruits, find new ATMs, and for teaching me more about Buddhism all in my own backyard!