Moo Lai

These past 2 weeks have gone by quickly, (though admittedly some of the days went by slowly), and the Lao word to describe these weeks either means "alot of friends" or "alot of pigs," depending on which tone you use (I mix up these tones often). I have come in contact with people who know about North Carolina, and have even lived there, and I even came across a UNC grad! It’s comforting to know that these people know where I’m coming from and share in some of my excitement, while understanding my frustrations.

The week of June 21-27 was largely uneventful, except for key events which helped both me and the community understand each other better. On that Tuesday, it rained, and because we are in monsoon season right now, when it rains, IT POURS, to the point where we have to yell to understand each other, and constant leakage into my room. And when it pours, no one does anything. One of my newfound friends has coined the term “so Lao” to refer to anything that had Lao tendencies, aka laid back, even lazy at times. And the tradition of doing nothing when it rains is so Lao. I barely had any students that day, but for those who came, we had a "meu muan," a fun day. As a treat, the majority of the day was spent doing the three things they ALWAYS want to do: sing, color, and talk quickly in Lao to me, expecting me to understand every word. That is the curse of finally being able to pick up the basics of the language; if I ask a somewhat complicated question, I am given a response that is 10 times faster and more complicated. Even worse, I can’t fake it, because there is no Lao word for yes. Instead, they respond by repeating the verb. For instance, if I say “Will you go to school?” They say “Go.” So when trying to understand others, I simply pick one of the words they said, hope it’s a verb, and either get a smile or laughter (the majority of the time).

That week I also bought my first Lao music video DVD (they don’t have CD players, just DVD), not because I necessarily enjoy the music, but because every morning after the rooster crows at 5:15, the music is turned on, which can be heard from about a 90-foot radius. And it is the same music, every day. I “generously” let them use my DVD to mix things up, because if I had heard the Lao girl sing about her lovely hairless boyfriend one more time, I might have had to break something. Local ice cream was another first time for me, because before I had gotten the packaged stuff. But this ice cream, probably made from rice like everything else, had a bitter taste, and for 1000 kip (12 cents) I could get 2 scoops. Expensive, I know.

Last weekend was packed with research. I forgot to mention, but I edited the English and gave input on the structure of a bilingual Lao-English children’s book that SEDA is sponsoring and distributing, and met with some people to finalize the words, pictures, and design. I also contacted representatives from Room to Read, started by the Microsoft CEO. These people are the ones who set up the Library which I gladly organized. Their goal is to encourage the locals to write, edit, translate, produce, and distribute books to students, as well as hiring locals to teach English, but the English is not correct, with an uninteresting, sporadic storyline. I found that the HR director graduated from UNC, and because I did not have her direct e-mail, I did the next best thing – I Facebooked her. Hopefully, we can improve this program to distribute better, more correctly written books.

This week school started, which I was unaware of until 8am on Wednesday, when I came in my checkered-shorts, only to find everyone in white uniforms and black slacks/skirts. I had a hunch when the first two days they had seemingly random people running around at the school, preparing for the school year. I was sent to the principal’s office to sleep (what they would gladly do for the majority of the day, and talk about often), but, itching to do something, opened a closet to find heaps of old, torn, unorganized books, papers, and other materials. So without asking, I organized the closet as well. This took 2 days, considering book repair and trying to find which book had a picture of a pig on page 27, because that was the first page of the torn book I would be holding. With that out of the way, I was ready to start teaching again. The government decided last week to start school on July 1 this year because Vientiane is hosting the SouthEast Asia (SEA) Games, a mini-Olympics, in December. Everyone is pumped, because this is the first time they have hosted it, and it hopefully can be a boost to the economy, which is one of the lowest in all of Asia. I have found this frustrating, because after making leaps and bounds with my summer students during the first 5 weeks, I had to start all over with “Repeat: ‘What is your name?’” and counting from one to ten. Now I have structure classes, teaching 2 classes of older students in the morning (supposedly from 8-9:45 and 10:15-11:30, but actually from 8:15-9:40 and 10:30-11:30… so Lao) and one class of younger students, from 1:30-3:30, with a break in between. This schedule was settled yesterday. From 5-7pm I teach my cousin (Mom’s sister’s daughter), not because I want to, but because she was brought to the house at 5, and my mom said “teach.”

While going on the bus (aka pick-up truck with a bench) to Vientiane yesterday, I met a foreigner from Australia who does Eco-work in a government building near my village, through a program similar to the Peace Corps. After talking for a while, she invited me to her and her friends’ house; we ate pizza, and discussed everything from Australian football to the Lao language. I was invited to a July 4th/housewarming/birthday/I-just-want-to-party party tonight, which should be exciting. I think I’ll go over to the American Ambassador’s Residence today – apparently he is having an open house for people with an American passport. Hopefully I can get in without a personal invite!

Hope everyone is tanning, cooking out, and preparing for fireworks today!

Stayin’ busy (and hot),

Will