Happy (Splush) New (Glug glug) Year is finally over and I have to admit I'm glad. One was charmed at first, but being blindsided by a bucket of icy water whilst riding pillion on a small motorbike attempting a steep curve on a mountain road, is just plain scary.
We were on our way in convoy to Kwang Si waterfall, and it was a lovely ride, under a cool overcast sky through the rapidly greening countryside, (except for the water chuckers in every village) and I thought it would be a great way to get away from all the hoo-hah, but apparently it's a very popular thing to go out there at New Years and splash about in the waterfall, cleanse one's soul and then get drunk, so there were thouands of people there before us! So, yeah, it was fun but spending the day in wet clothing, and never knowing when someone is going to race up and throw water, or daub one with flour, or coloured powder or sump oil gets dreary after a while.
However, one was beguiled by the sweet ceremony of pouring water on the Pha Bang, the small silvery standing Buddha that is the symbol of Lao Buddhism, (there are rumours that it's a copy, but who knows?). The statue is taken out of its usual place in the Royal Palace (Ooops! The National Museum, to you capitalist running dogs) and stands in a temple courtyard in a glass case lit by a ghostly white flourescent tube for three days to be ritually washed by the faithful, this being a water festival and a time of cleansing.
One climbs up a short set of stairs to the tail end of one of the 5 metre-long carved river dragon aquaducts, and pours holy water thick with flower petals into the square opening and the water travels down the naga''s back onto the Buddha. On a busy evening there is a constant sound of splashing and a constant stream of worshippers kneeling, praying, lighting incense and candles and laying flower bundles.
So beguiled was I, in fact, that I went twice. I had to be decked out in my long sin or lao style skirt with brocade hem (and ride sidesaddle on the motorbike like a good Lao lady) and pai, a scarf that one wears over the left shoulder. Mine is white and was a gift from the weaver of said cloth at the baci ceremony at which I was adopted by Sunlay, a village boy whose family has refused to pay for him to go to high school.
I can't remember if I've told this story already but here it is just in case...
All I did was help him contact an Aussie guy from Brisbane who had met him and offered to help, leaving his email address. I contacted the guy and he sent 200 bucks, via my account, which was great. Sunlay thought it was better than great. His little eyes went all shiny and he had trouble speaking.
He has already managed to scrape up another $300 from other kind foreigners through sheer determination and persistence, and now, at last, he knows he can continue his education, which is all he asks from life.
It wasn't easy, as he comes from a very poor and isolated village, poorer and more isolated than my adopted village and farther up the same muddy track. Sunlay has been going to primary school in a village called Lathane where he boards with a distant relative. In these villages there is no phone and no mobile service, and it's an eight-hour boat ride into town and eight hours back again every time. He has no idea how to use a computer and was deeply grateful when I took him to send a message to his benefactor in Brisbane. But he watched my every move and primly pointed out my typos on the screen as I tapped out the message.
Ok, that was a sidetrack.....but speaking of ceremonies, another bit of Pimai that I enjoyed was a huge do at Sommay's family house in the blacksmith village, Ban Had Thien.
Despite being terminally ill, and only just home from her latest stint in hospital, Sommay's tiny fragile mother orchestrated a massive gathering at her house, where a crowd of relatives and neighbors assembled on straw mats where a dozen or so monks from the temple offered lengthy chants to help the family celebrate the New Year and to honour the one son and two sons-in-law who were going into the monastery there for a week to honour the family and please Buddha. It's a thing one does to express thanks.
So these three guys shaved their heads, and dressed in full orange robes and the monks chanted beautifully for about an hour or more as the congregation prayed, chatted, sipped soft drinks, and stared at the large farang lady sitting with Sommay's mum in a place of honour.
She was frail but full of happiness at all the fuss as she and her sister and another son (she has raised 8 kids on her own for fifteen years) filled bags of gifts for the monks, (laundry powder, cigarettes, matches, an apple, money, sweets, rice crackers, incense, razors) and envelopes of money for the novices (boys who are getting an education at the temple and may go on to become monks).
It was a glorious day of clear skies and refreshing breezes, unusually cool for the time of year and quite exhilarating. After the monks had received their pressies and trotted back to the temple with the three newbies, there was ANOTHER ceremony, a baci to honour both of Sommay's mothers---his real one whose name is Me and me, whose name is Suzy. You get the idea.
Anyway, it was, as bacis are, very moving and I was overwhelmed with little white strings that are ritually tied around one's wrists at these things by everyone at the ceremony. My wrists were already festooned from a New Years baci dinner at my friend Mr Thongdy's house, the boatman or captainboat as he calls himself, but by the time THIS baci was over I was swaddled halfway to my elbows in fluffy white cotton strings, like heavy duty tennis sweatbands.
Then there was the regulation sing-song with traditional instruments---ancient ebony stringed things and the empty plastic bucket or drum---where the elderly ladies again take centre stage and carry on high. very village seems to have a few drummers, and every one I have seen is a solid, cheerful and usually very entertaining woman who knows all the songs.
This is all lubricated by oceans of BeerLao, which is drunk Lao-style. This means that one person does pouring duty and takes a glass around the room, (shuffling on their knees, as everybody sits on the floor) half fills it and offers it to each person in turn. One has to polish it off, pronto, and pass the glass back, and refusals are not accepted. It is considered very funny to fill the glass right up, or to add a bit of filthy tasting rice whisky to the beer, but luckily this was avoided.
After all this we went home and passed out for a few hours.
CAREER UPDATE
I am now about to be set up as the first Tourism and Hospitality teacher in Luang Prabang and there are hopes that this will expand from a few classes at Claus'school to a much larger operation. I have a friend called Vanh with not only a teacher's license, but also a license to run a travel business, as she and her husband each run a travel agency. She is a lovely person, quiet but intelligent and determined and we get on well. She is hugely enthusiastic about the dea and will be my director and I will pay her a small amount to go through the process of setting me up with permission and a visa, and then I will be able to live in my house and work here, which I would not have been able to do on a tourist visa.
Claus will let me use his classrooms for a share of his monthy rent and I will apply to Australian Business Volunteers for startup money and airfare. I have met an Aussie girl here who also works with ABV and we get together to drink cold white wine and network, which so far has been hugely to my benefit, she having put me on to Claus.
If this all works as it should, and there is no reason why it shouldn't, Ill be back here in September witha full-time job teaching English for Tourism and developing specific courses in separate disciplines lke tour guiding, waitressing, bartending etc. Vanh thinks we should also try to get a contract for me to teach the immigration and customs people and so on. It's all good.
But I am very much looking forward to coming home to Oz for a few months to see all my loved ones and eat smoked salmon and cheese, ah, I remember it well.....and getting away from this weather for a bit.
That's yer lot for the moment as I've been sitting on a small cane stool for hours here in this internet place (air conditioned! Mmmmm..) and I can't feel my legs any more.
Bob the builder and his boys have been hard at work in the 36 degree heat---that's inside the thick brick walls of my house!---and I want to go and inspect their progress. And MY boys have gone fishing with a special home-made spear gun so there may be a nice dinner waiting.
Warmest Wishes to you all.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Latest Laotian Apologies
Brickdust, Brumbrums, and Brickbats
SO SORRY to take so long to write anything and at the same time SO gratified by the number of urgent requests I have received for more posts. (Thanks Mum!) I am horrified to realise that it's been a month, but the usual litany of excuses applies.
Most of them have to do with the woeful computer facilities up here where you can tap away for fifteen minutes on something really punchy and then the computer blithely informs you that it hasn't been listening to a word you've said for 12 minutes, so one has to either put one's foot through the screen or start again, which same doesn't usually work.
So, yeah, a lot of postponing has been going on....and then there's the HOUSE.
Well, the builders have started and the work has gone painfully slowly because they've been painstakingly putting tiles on the bathroom walls, kitchen walls, kitchen bench, bathroom, kitchen and dining room floors, mixing every bit of cement by hand---doing everythng by hand without even a proper level---they use a bit of tubing with water in it. Every tile is cut with a little hand cutter thingie and every bit of material has to be bought and brought home by me and Sommay, us on his motorbike and the stuff travelling by tuk-tuk. ( The little darling is a mean bargainer and always gets us a better price, especially in the Chinese market)
You may have noticed I said that they're tiling the kitchen bench. THAT was a surprise. Came in to find this strange brick concoction rising in the darkest corner of the kitchen, made darker by the years of open fire cooking that has been done there over the years. Wall is Black with thick soot. Everything here tends to be done on the floor so there was no bench, no sink, no fridge, no ceiling, no nuffink. So it all has to be bought and}orbuilt and usually with rendered brick covered in tiles.
Anyway, this was how I learned about Lao kitchen benches and my builder, whose name I think is Somphet and who I call Bob, found outALL about asking the client what she wants before erecting a permanent monument to the all too common male ailment of knowing nothing about kitchens and workspace comprising more than two square feet.
"So is this Bob's kitchen?" I ranted "No, it's Suzy's kitchen, isn't it. So why don't we ask Suzy what she wants? Maybe Bob likes tiny little cement benches with only two cupboard doors all smeared with grouting and cement, but SUZY SURE DOESN'T, now does she? So just ASK Suzy, why don't we. Here I am, larger than life, with a fulltime paid translator standing by at all times, so..."
You get the picture. And I have a much extended bench, built for giants. Bathroom basin is also Brobdignagian.
Then the workmen Bob brought in from some faraway province to do the tiling---and they're not bad at it for guys who live in bamboo huts, ---have been living in the house, much to the horror of my boys who live there, too. There being only one room at present they all have to share.
Unfortunately, these country guys are a little rough around the edges and shared their loud voices, stories about prostitutes, heavy drinking, general mess and then affably shared the visible evidence of their syphilis which was all a bit tooo much for my Sommay, he being a straightarrow not long out of the monastery.
So more diplomacy was required and applied before all was pally again and finally fond farewells were said as the country boys headed off to the bush for the holidays, leaving a brand new kitchen ceiling leaking every time it rains and a thick layer of red brick dust over everything from the (hand) sanding job on the floor. But we have a functioning farang style toilet and a hot shower!
Today I bought a Chinese Hoover and showed Sommay how it worked and he fell in love with it immediately, being a demon cleaner-upper.
Yesterday he and Joy cleaned the whole place, eradicating all traces of the naughty boys from up north, and then rang me up and said coyly, Are you coming to visit us today? We're making fish soup for lunch. Of course I was coming over (I'm still in a Guest House until my quarters are ready) and Oh, you should have seen their little shining faces as they showed me all the work they'd done and then served up the soup. Sommay had gone out and bought new bolts for all the windows and installed them, barking orders at Joy, who sweetly complies, with never a word of demur.
And today we fixed up a temporary room for me upstairs in the house so I can sleep peacefully away from the loud parties with wailing karaoke that goes on until late in my new guesthouse's neighbourhood. I look forward to waking up with a view of the Mekong and the sounds of birds and chickens and ducks, rather than the brummmmbrum of the neighbour's tuk tuk, the slamming of doors and hollering from house to house that fills the air in the otherwise charming little lane where I stay.
It's not strictly legal for me to do this as I am still on a tourist visa, but plans are afoot to change that....
Which brings me to....
My Beautiful New Career
I've been going on about teaching, helping, writing, researching, volunteering, travelling---you've heard it all---- in reponse to questions about what I am doing up here, so now I can tell you that aside from hoovering red dust off every surface of my future living space, I have been busy talking to a number of people about something more specific.
I need a job to have a business visa, and there are a number of ways to get one. One would be to work for one of the Lao-run English schools here, which may or may not be willing to pay for the visa, will certainly pay me fairly badly and pretty much totally limit my choice of teaching materials to their own.
Or I can apply to various NGOs for a job but these things take forever, require specific degrees, and may not be in Luang Prabang, where my heart is, not to mention the house for which I have just paid five years rent. So what do you do in this situation? I go straight to Keo's bar, the Pack Luck (no I have no idea what that means) and chat and hang out with various expats there.
There I met Aussie Marissa who is up here teaching marketing techniqes to upmarket boutiques and who put me on to Claus who has an English School. The fact that he is German and his English is not perfect (not to mention his strong German accent) makes no difference---his school is very popular and successful.
So we talked and in the end he offered me a job, as long as I pay for the visa, (No, you don't want to know how much) and then he'll give me an advanced class and the students will pay me directly. Great little old building buried in a tropical garden.
Then he had a think about my ideas for teaching hospitality and tourism English and trainng kids for such jobs and offered me the chance to start my own series of courses.
So I am well-chuffed over this and already devising lectures. Meanwhile, my landlord, Thomas the Thai, who is also my neighbour and a bit of a mate, is talking about hiring me as a consultant for some of his businesses here and maybe getting me a visa that way, and other people are talking about me teaching English to the doctors at the hospital---pronunciation mainly.
So, as Sommay has learned to say, It's all happening! I WILL keep you posted...
And that's not all...
Happy New Year!
Bit late, you say? Not a bit of it. Up here it's now, at the hottest time of year and is combined with a water festival. And it takes place over five days....It's all about washing the various Buddhas, cleaning one's house, wishing each other luck and involves ceremonies and parades and water. Lots of it. Mostly thrown on unsuspecting passersby by hysterically happy teenagers with buckets by the road, one's friends as they arrive at one's house, you name it. It used to involve decorated elephants, but they haven't been seen for a few years, so I haven't got my hopes up.
And, of course, drinking, which they do here with extraordinary fervour. They share a glass and each person has to chug a half a glass of beer, or a shot of Laolao (distilled from rice and disgusting) and keep on doing so until they fall over. Doesn't usually take long, but there are always new people joining and singing starts fairly early in the process along with drumming.If one is participating, it's a lot of fun; if not, it's pretty trying.
So tonight we're having a last meal at Nishas Indian resto as it is Francine's last night in Laos, and then who knows what might happen..Keo has invited me for a drink at his place and he's actually got cold Freixenet champagne in his wine fridge, so the celebrations could go on....I may be some time, but I promise to write sooner...There's lots more to tell.
NowI've got to find a way home that dodges the water-chuckers.....
SO SORRY to take so long to write anything and at the same time SO gratified by the number of urgent requests I have received for more posts. (Thanks Mum!) I am horrified to realise that it's been a month, but the usual litany of excuses applies.
Most of them have to do with the woeful computer facilities up here where you can tap away for fifteen minutes on something really punchy and then the computer blithely informs you that it hasn't been listening to a word you've said for 12 minutes, so one has to either put one's foot through the screen or start again, which same doesn't usually work.
So, yeah, a lot of postponing has been going on....and then there's the HOUSE.
Well, the builders have started and the work has gone painfully slowly because they've been painstakingly putting tiles on the bathroom walls, kitchen walls, kitchen bench, bathroom, kitchen and dining room floors, mixing every bit of cement by hand---doing everythng by hand without even a proper level---they use a bit of tubing with water in it. Every tile is cut with a little hand cutter thingie and every bit of material has to be bought and brought home by me and Sommay, us on his motorbike and the stuff travelling by tuk-tuk. ( The little darling is a mean bargainer and always gets us a better price, especially in the Chinese market)
You may have noticed I said that they're tiling the kitchen bench. THAT was a surprise. Came in to find this strange brick concoction rising in the darkest corner of the kitchen, made darker by the years of open fire cooking that has been done there over the years. Wall is Black with thick soot. Everything here tends to be done on the floor so there was no bench, no sink, no fridge, no ceiling, no nuffink. So it all has to be bought and}orbuilt and usually with rendered brick covered in tiles.
Anyway, this was how I learned about Lao kitchen benches and my builder, whose name I think is Somphet and who I call Bob, found outALL about asking the client what she wants before erecting a permanent monument to the all too common male ailment of knowing nothing about kitchens and workspace comprising more than two square feet.
"So is this Bob's kitchen?" I ranted "No, it's Suzy's kitchen, isn't it. So why don't we ask Suzy what she wants? Maybe Bob likes tiny little cement benches with only two cupboard doors all smeared with grouting and cement, but SUZY SURE DOESN'T, now does she? So just ASK Suzy, why don't we. Here I am, larger than life, with a fulltime paid translator standing by at all times, so..."
You get the picture. And I have a much extended bench, built for giants. Bathroom basin is also Brobdignagian.
Then the workmen Bob brought in from some faraway province to do the tiling---and they're not bad at it for guys who live in bamboo huts, ---have been living in the house, much to the horror of my boys who live there, too. There being only one room at present they all have to share.
Unfortunately, these country guys are a little rough around the edges and shared their loud voices, stories about prostitutes, heavy drinking, general mess and then affably shared the visible evidence of their syphilis which was all a bit tooo much for my Sommay, he being a straightarrow not long out of the monastery.
So more diplomacy was required and applied before all was pally again and finally fond farewells were said as the country boys headed off to the bush for the holidays, leaving a brand new kitchen ceiling leaking every time it rains and a thick layer of red brick dust over everything from the (hand) sanding job on the floor. But we have a functioning farang style toilet and a hot shower!
Today I bought a Chinese Hoover and showed Sommay how it worked and he fell in love with it immediately, being a demon cleaner-upper.
Yesterday he and Joy cleaned the whole place, eradicating all traces of the naughty boys from up north, and then rang me up and said coyly, Are you coming to visit us today? We're making fish soup for lunch. Of course I was coming over (I'm still in a Guest House until my quarters are ready) and Oh, you should have seen their little shining faces as they showed me all the work they'd done and then served up the soup. Sommay had gone out and bought new bolts for all the windows and installed them, barking orders at Joy, who sweetly complies, with never a word of demur.
And today we fixed up a temporary room for me upstairs in the house so I can sleep peacefully away from the loud parties with wailing karaoke that goes on until late in my new guesthouse's neighbourhood. I look forward to waking up with a view of the Mekong and the sounds of birds and chickens and ducks, rather than the brummmmbrum of the neighbour's tuk tuk, the slamming of doors and hollering from house to house that fills the air in the otherwise charming little lane where I stay.
It's not strictly legal for me to do this as I am still on a tourist visa, but plans are afoot to change that....
Which brings me to....
My Beautiful New Career
I've been going on about teaching, helping, writing, researching, volunteering, travelling---you've heard it all---- in reponse to questions about what I am doing up here, so now I can tell you that aside from hoovering red dust off every surface of my future living space, I have been busy talking to a number of people about something more specific.
I need a job to have a business visa, and there are a number of ways to get one. One would be to work for one of the Lao-run English schools here, which may or may not be willing to pay for the visa, will certainly pay me fairly badly and pretty much totally limit my choice of teaching materials to their own.
Or I can apply to various NGOs for a job but these things take forever, require specific degrees, and may not be in Luang Prabang, where my heart is, not to mention the house for which I have just paid five years rent. So what do you do in this situation? I go straight to Keo's bar, the Pack Luck (no I have no idea what that means) and chat and hang out with various expats there.
There I met Aussie Marissa who is up here teaching marketing techniqes to upmarket boutiques and who put me on to Claus who has an English School. The fact that he is German and his English is not perfect (not to mention his strong German accent) makes no difference---his school is very popular and successful.
So we talked and in the end he offered me a job, as long as I pay for the visa, (No, you don't want to know how much) and then he'll give me an advanced class and the students will pay me directly. Great little old building buried in a tropical garden.
Then he had a think about my ideas for teaching hospitality and tourism English and trainng kids for such jobs and offered me the chance to start my own series of courses.
So I am well-chuffed over this and already devising lectures. Meanwhile, my landlord, Thomas the Thai, who is also my neighbour and a bit of a mate, is talking about hiring me as a consultant for some of his businesses here and maybe getting me a visa that way, and other people are talking about me teaching English to the doctors at the hospital---pronunciation mainly.
So, as Sommay has learned to say, It's all happening! I WILL keep you posted...
And that's not all...
Happy New Year!
Bit late, you say? Not a bit of it. Up here it's now, at the hottest time of year and is combined with a water festival. And it takes place over five days....It's all about washing the various Buddhas, cleaning one's house, wishing each other luck and involves ceremonies and parades and water. Lots of it. Mostly thrown on unsuspecting passersby by hysterically happy teenagers with buckets by the road, one's friends as they arrive at one's house, you name it. It used to involve decorated elephants, but they haven't been seen for a few years, so I haven't got my hopes up.
And, of course, drinking, which they do here with extraordinary fervour. They share a glass and each person has to chug a half a glass of beer, or a shot of Laolao (distilled from rice and disgusting) and keep on doing so until they fall over. Doesn't usually take long, but there are always new people joining and singing starts fairly early in the process along with drumming.If one is participating, it's a lot of fun; if not, it's pretty trying.
So tonight we're having a last meal at Nishas Indian resto as it is Francine's last night in Laos, and then who knows what might happen..Keo has invited me for a drink at his place and he's actually got cold Freixenet champagne in his wine fridge, so the celebrations could go on....I may be some time, but I promise to write sooner...There's lots more to tell.
NowI've got to find a way home that dodges the water-chuckers.....
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