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!

Reunited . . .

. . . and it feels so good! Yes, I'm back in Laos again with my 'muzh' (that's husband in Russian). I don't think I ever mentioned how many people I run into in Laos who know Russian . . . most of them studied in the former Soviet Union. Laos had tight connections with the Soviets and the Russians still maintain an active embassy here that has it's own Russian school. Just the other day I was attending one of Joe's workshops; after chatting with the Lao counterpart from the US Embassy, I found that he had studied Russian. I whipped out my language book and he started reading the cyrillic out loud. He admitted that it had been a while since he had used it.

So, I made it back to Laos without a glitch except that the first leg of my flight from Dnipropetrovsk to Vienna was canceled when I got to the airport. Apparently, the "owner of the airport refuses to let Austrian Air land on his airstrip due to political reasons" according to an Austrian Airlines representative. So, after quickly downing a Kwell's (motion sickness pill), I boarded a mini-bus for Zaparozhye, the place I had visited with the students and teachers the weekend before. After quick goodbyes to my new friends Irina and Natalie, the mini-bus kicked into gear to shuttle to the airport where the flight was really taking off from. I had some good conversation with my bus companions, engineers from Washington, DC who were contracting the manufacture of rockets in Dnipropetrovsk (DP). DP had been completely closed until only 15 years ago due to it's nuclear, weapons, and space research and manufacture. Now the US Government contractors are getting much of their design and assembly done here due to the long-standing Ukrainian expertise and low prices. The guys I met were manufacturing rockets to be sent to repair space shuttles (you scientists out there, please correct me if I got that wrong!). Anyhow, it was interesting to hear about something totally foreign to my usual topics of conversation.

Now back in Laos, where Beer Lao is the most successful product manufactured, we are still waiting for the big rains. We are due to go back to the US in less than a month, and as it always happens, the "signs" are starting to pop up that our stay is coming to an end: our favorite restaurant, Vong's, has mysteriously closed a day after raising their prices, someone helped themselves to our bicycles that were sitting on our front porch one Sunday afternoon, my Russian conversation partner has gone back to Uzbekistan for the summer, the fan in our house exploded, and the aircondioner keeps flipping the breaker because it's too hot outside. But the upside is that we got tickets on the same dates on the same flights which is a whole other drawn out story! AND . . . my friend Krissy is coming in a couple of weeks to do some volunteer teaching. I hope to go on a photographic mission with her to get an album of parting shots of Laos.  In the meantime, we are trying to sort, donate, and organize the stuff we're taking back home. It's amazing what you can collect in less than a year!

Monsoon? What Monsoon?

In this part of the world, the monsoon rains mean everything. This is an agrarian culture, and the seasonal rains provide the sustenance for the rice crop and everything else that renews life in Laos . I'm not scientist enough to play the global warming card in this instance, but the monsoon is late this year, the heat is oppressive, and people are suffering from it.

It has been over 100 degrees pretty much every day for weeks and weeks. It's hotter than hell with no respite. I was talking to one of my students this week about the situation.We were sitting outside and chatting before class at 7:50 in the morning...I was mopping my face like Brother Love after a Salvation Show, and beads of sweat stood out on Bounleuam's forehead.

"My parent are farmers. It's terrible for them. Without rain there is nothing."

I can only imagine. Working in a rice field or herding buffalo, I'd be clinically dead in 90 minutes, tops. The humidity climbs each day without any corresponding drop in temperature. Han lai...freaking hot, dude.

Today it rained a bit in the afternoon and when I went down the street to eat dinner this evening, it was sprinkling gently, and the air was remarkably cool and fresh.
Hallelujah! I was taking in huge gulps of air and waving my arms joyfully - it felt wonderful.

The monsoon is not here yet because we haven't had a kickass, barnburning, streetflooding storm yet - not even close. I ask the locals, "When is it going to start raining?"

"June", they muse.

"July, maybe".

I really hope it's tomorrow.

How I passed “Feis control”

 

 

 

Feis kontrol: a Russian klub colloquialism of the English words "face control." Your "face" is your level of wealth, beauty, power, social standing, and overall desirability. Feis kontrol is the power of the velvet rope, originally referring to the surly bouncers at the most exclusive Moscow klubs. It can literally refer to club door personnel, or it can be used figuratively to refer to some ideal social arbiter. (http://www.urbandictionary.com/)

 

From Laos to Ukraine is a pretty big jump . . . and although I’ve been here before, I find that the leap from the mellow land of smiles to the fast-paced oblasts of growing consumerism . . . well, “a leap”. Don’t get me wrong, it is great to be able to be here in Dnipropetrovsk (what some call Ukraine's second city next to Kyiv), go into a cosmetics store, supermarket, or clothing store and buy what you want (or at least approximately). Ironically, I am teaching university economics and management students – we are watching Michael Moore’s “Capitalism – A Love Story” as part of the course. In the three years since I’ve been here, I think Ukraine’s own love affair has become more passionate. Frequenting the 2 new-fangled malls, McDonald's, and "ahem" nightclubs is everpopular. The upside is that customer service has really improved, the post office has an English option on the automated take-a-number machine, the pizza restaurant is entirely non-smoking, and public drinking has been banned in the city center.

 

 

I’m here working on teacher development and content-based instruction at a university, but due to May holidays, I’ve been able to get out a lot. I have to admit that the teachers and students have seen to it that every moment of my time is spoken for. In the last 2 1/2 weeks I think I have done more than during any entire year of my life. It could be that my “little” Russian is going a “long” way. People open up to me, help me, and take care of me. I am amazed. For instance, I have:

 

• played tennis
• gone to the gym
• been to the art museum (where an elderly woman who worked there talked my ear off for 40 minutes before opening time - all in Russian!) and two galleries
• played air hockey (how did that fun a game ever go out of fashion?)
• taken a ride on a paddle boat (or a “pedal” boat)
• been on two walking tours (even one at 5:30 in the morning back to my dorm room)
• played Russian billiards (very small pockets!)
• gone bowling
• spent time at a "dacha" (country home)
• played basketball ("horse" - remember that one?)
• played chess (the 12-year-old kicked my butt twice)
• been ice skating (only fell once and it wasn't my fault)
• given food to a beggar
• had visitors from Kyiv take the 6 hour train ride to see me
• sketched in the park
• purchased collections of old Soviet movies (I love them!)
• seen a concert at the Philharmonic Theater (the conductor was something to see)
• had Russian lessons
• gotten locked out of my dorm room
• been stopped by the police (I’m sure it’s because I looked like a Lithuanian/Slovak Unabomber in my red hooded jacket and dark glasses)
• seen a guy sprayed with mace get arrested outside my window
• shot a BB gun
• eaten cotton candy
• bought a jacket with a fur collar (I didn’t realize it till after I paid; It dawned on me to ask the woman if the collar was real . . . she said, “Da, krolik (rabbit)” – I looked disappointed – she chuckled and said, “You greenpeace?” – I said, “Da”).
• been to a disco (oh yeah, I guess they are called “night clubs” now)

 

Which brings me to my story about getting into the club, or as much as I hate to say it: face control. They say you should "face" your fears . . . confront them. I guess I should be happy that I immediately passed "age control", i.e. they agreed I was over 18. When Katia (my friend from Kyiv) and I approached the door last Saturday night, the bouncer told us that we couldn't enter as we had worn "krossovki", a.k.a. tennis shoes. I could see that most women who were being allowed the privilege of entering were wearing metallic spandex and spiked heels; our striped Adidas were a giveaway that we hadn't thought ahead. So, as the students who had accompanied us all were "approved", Katia and I headed back to my "dorm room" to change into two pairs of "teacher shoes" (hey, it's all I had!). My brown pair was a roomy fit for Katia, but we wanted to get into this darn club and show them who's boss.

 

We taxied back to the club where our friends were waiting for us. The bouncer decided that the entrance was now closed to women. What the $%@*#!? Aren't nightclubs eager to get as many broads in the door as possible. Hey, Katia is like 21 or something - let her and her "mom" in, would you? So, needless to say, some spindle-y waifs traipsed to the "velvet rope" and were allowed admittance. Time to practice your Russian Jen: Pachemu? (Why?) Ya dumala shto eta vhod bila zakrita dlya devushki? (I thought this entrance was closed to women?) . . . no response, just an effort to fix his view somewhere in the distance to denote surliness as per the urbandictionary definition. Our exasperated friends phoned to the "inside". Contact was made with . . . behold a student who had been at my Friday workshop was a cocktail waitress . . . her chair had collapsed during the seminar and I had helped her back up. Yes - she was our ticket! Ina then called her contact: Mr. Security Man who somehow contacted the thugs at the "rope" and suddenly a heavily accented voice said: You are welcome. After I got over my fit of "that's not fair" . . . I enjoyed a bit of dancing, talking, and drinking a magically appearing free drink from Ina. Thanks Ina for getting me in and allowing me to announce that: I passed "Feis control"!

The B-Word

To a teacher, or to any creative person or performer (and I would put “teacher” in that category), the most dreaded word, when applied to your work, is “boring”. When Jen and I taught in Indonesia many years ago, the privileged rich kids we had as students had been allowed to get into the habit of spitting out the word “boring” whenever something didn’t suit them. Well, a few whacks with a bamboo rod fixed that problem (just kidding - it wasn’t like we were in Singapore!). Ever since then, I am loathe to use that word in connection with my own life, and I try never to describe myself as being “bored”.

Well, as we have shared our experiences here in Vientiane, I think we’ve managed to convey the peaceful, slow-paced, easy-going nature of the place and its people. Therein lies its charm and attractiveness to someone seeking a life of tranquility. Once you’ve settled in, seen the sights, and established a workaday routine, however, this town probably ranks in the lower percentiles on the urban “thrill-o-meter”, the occasional festival notwithstanding. This is not a problem as long as I am accompanied by my trusty sidekick, Jennie, who, as some of you may be aware, is a one-woman action sequence of non-stop chills, spills, and thrills. Boring, this girl ain’t.

Eleven days ago, I said a tearful (OK, I didn’t really cry) good-bye to my mitad de naranja at Vientiane’s Wattay Airport. Jennifer had places to go, things to do, and people to see in the former Soviet Union (watch for the next installment on this blog: Jen Does Dnipropetrovsk!) Almost immediately, a feeling of ennui began to seep into my consciousness. According to Wikipedia, ennui can be defined as “general lack of interest…it may also refer to oppressive boredom”. Within hours, I was wandering around our apartment talking to myself. It’s a good thing I’m a scintillating conversationalist.

I don’t want to beat this buffalo too hard, but suffice it to say that the excitement level in my day to day life has taken a precipitous drop. When before I looked forward to going out to dinner every night, now it’s just too much trouble to put on some clothes and walk down the street. I have started eating scrambled eggs and tunafish rather than dine out alone. I’m spending hours in front of the A/C reading detective novels (did I ever mention how hot it is here?). I’ve watched several crappy movies (sorry Clive Owen, but you suck). It’s just kind of b*ring going through the ol’ daily routines without a fun & funny partner to share them with.

However, as the disco diva once sang, I will survive. I am compensating by exercising more and eating less, resulting in a svelter (“It’s sveltering in here! Turn on the fan!”) profile. I’m spending less money on restaurants. I’m catching up on my correspondence (slowly). So "it’s all good", as they say. This Skype thing is very cool. I get to have conversations with my girlie frequently (I can see her, but she can’t see me, haha). I’m not sad or lonely. Things are just a little, you know...the b-word.

Sabaidee Pi Mai Lao!

"Happy Lao New Year"! The Lao calendar puts new year celebrations on April 14, 15, and 16 this year . . . with the festivities spilling over into the weekend. We went back to Luang Prabang in the northern part of Laos (Joe had given workshops up there in November). Luang Prabang is famous for their "Pi Mai" madness . . . which involves a whole lotta water!

We arrived on the 10th so everything seemed pretty normal on the town front - morning fruit and veg market, evening craft market, French colonial architecture, manicures, pedicures, massages, happy Lao people, and a few tourists. On the 11th, we decided to head for a deluxe resort just outside the town for a relaxing day at the pool (Lao water experience #1 - heretoforth to be blogged as LWE). It was a beautiful setting with jungle plants all around. We were able to get there for free by hitching a ride with the sister resort's shuttle bus in town. However, we had to shell down about 7 bucks each for the actual pool privilege.

Our second LWE was on the 12th - we paid the 17 bucks to hire a "song teuw" - kinda like a big tuk-tuk to take us to the Kouangsi waterfall, wait for us, then bring us back. The scenery was pretty, but very smoky, on the 30 km ride. This time of year is prime time for burning debris for some reason. On the way we saw the coolest looking water buffalo - pink! I guess they were albinos . . . I would've loved to take a picture of them standing in the midst of their more traditional-looking buddies. However, we just marveled from our vehicle.

The waterfall was amazing with pool after pool of water safe for swimming. It was lovely and a little less hot due to the jungle canopy. Also, near the waterfall was a bear sanctuary - which my friend Melissa in England told us about! There were numerous, active, rescued Asiatic Black Bears that all seemed pretty comfortable in their Australian-sponsored compounds. Too bad we couldn't pet them :)

LWE #3 started on the 13th, when at 1pm locals started placing large plastic tubs near the side of the road and filling them with water. No one was spared. If you just wanted to walk down to the Internet cafe - splash-ola they got you! It was especially cute when the little kids tried to do it  . . . . so we just walked by them really slowly to be intentional easy targets. They were thrilled when they got a "falang" - and we were pleasantly cooled off! Joe's students had told him that the kids are told that they must ask before they pour water on "older people". We were happy to see that no one asked our permission!

LWE #4 - Well the 14th was really the radical first day when all the giant plastic water guns came out - not to mention so did all the tourists. International tourists as well as local villagers made their way to this little town to take place in the most creative and peaceful water fights ever (it was the "falang" who occasionally resorted to squirting directly in the face, heckling each other, and eventually using the f-word loudly in public . . . it's hard being one of them sometimes!). The water works started early - so the camera was left in the guest house along with the cell phone and anything that couldn't get soaked. Truckloads of teenagers playing loud music went round and round the city loaded with huge tubs of water, bowls for "flinging" the water at those on the sides of the street and at each other. Those standing on the street, also playing loud music, fought right back scooping and flinging at the passing vehicles. Tuk tuk drivers seemed to be the most fun as it often caused their carburetors to get wet, their vehicles to die, and the people to swarm and "dump" buckets of water on driver and anyone in the back!

LWE #5 - We escaped in our soaking clothes to sit on a short wall near the Mekong - which ironically is way lower than usual due to drought right now. A family of 4 villagers walked over and sat a bit further down the wall. Joe and I were slurping from our big bottle of mineral water. They smiled at us - we smiled at them - their kids were very cute. Then out of nowhere the man started talking to me . . . asking me something . . . pointing at our bottle of water . . . then pointing to his little boy. I said, "OK - here you go." How could we deny them a drink or two. Well, after the bottle made its way round the family unit - I indicated the he could keep it. He smiled, said Kup Chai, tipped the bottle down, and started filling his water gun.

Our flight was scheduled for 1 pm which was to be the time of the grand parade with the winner of Miss Luang Prabang riding "an animal" - at least that's what I was told. However, the melee was a bit too crazy for us and we decided not to postpone our departure. We got back to Vientiane where we had LWE #6 and #7  - revelers here splashed our taxi from the side of the road and then later nailed Joe hard as he left the house to buy some . . . water.

The reason all this water is a part of the celebration is because 1. In the buddhist religion water blesses you bringing long life and peace, 2. It's frickin' hot outside, 3. The new year marks the end of the dry season and the coming of the monsoons. So, like clockwork, last night we had a big rain storm, lightning, and thunder. LWE #8.