Time to update all those sweet people who eschewed dreary tasteless coffee mugs bearing jokes about menopause and sagging bosoms as presents at my recent Big Day to give me very generous donations for my one-person-with-lots-of-kind-friends campaign to help the deserving poor in Laos.
This, as I have said, is necessarily a somewhat ad hoc effort at the moment, as I can only deal with the cases I come in contact with, and cannot advertise or work with any agency on this.
But on the principle that ANYTHING is better than nothing in such a desperately poor place, and seeing that I can monitor what happens with what I hand out, I find that this works for now.
So, this is how your gifts did their bit....
Essentially, I like to concentrate on donations for educational purposes, given that people here both need and want education, desperately, at all levels, and the government doesn''t help beyond primary school. (sorry,my apostrophe doesn't work)
And I take it upon myself to assess the character and potential of my recipients, and tend to like to get to know them a bit before I hand anything over. I also usually ask for a detailed list of what they need the money for which is a useful exercise in itself.
OK. the bulk of the money was to pay off the timber and shipping thereof to Naxane village for the folks there to build 100 school desks for the kids in the new bamboo school.
Then there are small amounts that have been used to help young people pay their schoolfees, usually about $65 each.
One case is particularly wonderful, and that is the indomitable Sunlay, who I have mentioned below in earlier dispatches.
He has fought against all the odds and made down here to Luang Prabang from his tiny village, up the muddy trail, (milk chocolate) from Naxane. He phoned me shortly after I arrived back here and about a week later, I met up with him. He took me, wobbling on his borrowed motorbike, to his place, where he has a single room---no windows---in a concrete-block bottom half of a small house in a scrappy, but peaceful village past the markets. He gets free rent in return for keeping the place clean.
At the time he was doing the caretaking of the house, one job in the morning at a hotel, another at a restaurant from 7 to 10 at night AND teaching English classes in his own little schoolroom during the afternoons.
I was gobsmacked to see the neat, simple benches, the white board with the day''s homework written up, and walls covered in conjugated verbs. He has maybe half a dozen students from the surrounding houses, mainly those who can't afford to go to the big private colleges.
That is what I call enterprise. Peter would say he's got Character. Sunlay has essentially disowned his family because he says, "I want an education or I will die.", and he has done all this off his own bat, with only what he can earn and what people give him.
I, of course, was worried about his own education. But Mother, he said, I had to go to hospital for 5 days and so I do not have the money for the fees. (I think it was malaria)
So I gave him 130 bucks of your money for his fees, books and materials and now he is back at evening school, the same one where I will be teaching once I get my visa, called Pasabandith College. He regularly phones me for clarification of grammatical points and meanings of words. (Please, Mother. What is ''çondominium'?)
And then there's a sweet---(I know, they're all sweet to me!!!) ---schoolteacher and father of four who was moved to a different school and was having to walk an hour each way every day, dragging the youngest child as well, just to do his job, rain or shine. So I gave him a half-loan, half gift of $300 to buy a second hand motorbike and he cannot stop beaming with joy.
My friend Som was given his school fees and dormitory rent---he lives in one in a row of concrete block rooms that they use for dormitories for students from out of town. His rent is $200 per year and he sleep on a woven bamboo mat with a lino underlay. No mattress, no pillow, and showers outside in cold water.
So that's how it has gone. I pay for my own boys'' fees, food etc. as well as their wages. They are still waiting to hear if they will be admitted to university but they are both studying English for Tourism at the Teacher Training College as usual every night and spend most of their time doing homework, it seems.
But the need continues. Last night I thought I'd grab a tuk tuk to my usual watering hole and was quoted $1.50 which is highway robbery. They came down to $1, but even that was outrageous , so I strolled off saying that I'd rather walk.
Within a minute, one of the drivers puttered came up behind me and smiled and said, OK, sister, 50 cents, and I accepted, hopping into the front with him, where we had the usual conversation about how I live here and I am teaching and he told me how he has to keep his kids at home because he can't afford to send them to high school with what he earns in the borrowed tuk-tuk. Kids are aged 13 and 16, I think. So, yeah, I gave him my card and he gave me his and I said I'd see what I could do. He will bring the kids around for a chat and Sommay will help me interview them.
There are about 25,000 more stories like that in this dear little place, without even going out into the countryside, so I'll keep doling it out where I see a need and genuine potential.
So that's yer Annual Report, folks...Hope you are all feeling a warm glow from the beaming faces of these very grateful people. I wish I had a photo of Sunlay down on his knees, prostrating himself in a deep, forehead to floor bow of thanks, eyes shining with tears, when I gave him the money. I get all the fun....
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007
Fun Trip in a Tuk-Tuk in the Funtok
Some of you may be familiar with my weird phobia about half-dead balloons, but probably only a few are aware of my shopping phobia---especially Marion, who did 99% of our shopping, and my kids, who remember me ringing them up on my mobile, seeking counselling to get through the weekly grocery gathering at Coles.
I really hate trolling up and down the aisles trying to recall the list I left at home, getting more and more depressed by the screaming children, the Miserable Meanderers, the dreadful smells of all those room deoderants, and the squeaking, intransigent shopping trolleys.
But shopping here is another kettle of odiferous dried fish altogether. Mostly I rely on my maid Me, who picks up what we need in the markets on her way in in the morning, or Sommay who goes with me to the Chinese market and bargains ferociously and works economic miracles without a shadow of guilt. Sometimes, Joy is sent out for something, but the other day he came back with, inexplicably, thirty eggs in a plastic bag, many of which arrived unbroken after a wobbly ride in his bike basket, so we don't usually ask him to do that sort of thing any more.
So this past weekend, Joy was left here and Sommay and I went to the Big Smoke--Vientiane, where 234,000 of the 5.5 million strong Lao population lives for a shopping trip. The real destination, however, was Thailand, just over the Mekong, where I needed to renew my visa, and where one goes for shopping---much cheaper, better selection of goods, actual shopping centres.....We very much needed a new router to try and improve our sporadic internet coverage, and the odd wine glass and what-not.
This is a fairly routine trip for most folks; a 40 minute flight, a couple of nights in town bracketing a dash over the Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge to Nong Khai and a 90 minute bus ride down to Udon Thani for the aforementioned shopping.
For Sommay, however, it was a huge, spine-tingling, ear-to-ear-grin moment in his life, as he'd never been to Vientiane, never been on an airplane and never been to Thailand.
It was a delight to watch his little face light up and his eyes dart about as he discovered all the fun things about airplanes, saw the world from the air and landed in the big city for the first time.
The traffic was a real eye-opener, and novelties like traffic lights, which he'd never seen, and he often lost his sense of direction completely which is very unlike him, but to me it's a small, flat, dreary town and I knew it well enough so we got around fine.
We found a centrally located guesthouse for $6 a night each, but soon discovered why it was so cheap. so we moved to a great place reccommended by our taxi driver. Only $9 each and wonderful!
But the real mission was the trip to Thailand, so we got to the bus station early for the 10:30 bus, very comfy, sailed along to the border, and then came to a grinding halt in the thick throng of fellow-border-crossers all trying to thread our way through the undermanned exit and entrance to the two countries. It took three and a half hours to do the 90 minute journey, but it was great seeing Sommay's happy face as we drove across the Mekong and he was suddenly an international traveller for the first time.
He was blown away by the merchandise on offer and by the prices as he scurried about buying various bits and pieces for friends a relatives in his village. I was over come by the sheer volume of goods, people, noise, and the fragrance of buttery coconut waffles being made and sold at several stands in the shopping centre, permeating everything with a golden miasma of toasty-brown cholesterol.
Anyway, we GOT the router and I got some speakers and a couple of tops and Sommay got his phones and it all took forever, so we were starving and decided, rashly, to eat before we ducked back to the bus station to book our bus trip back to Vientiane.
The food was great---BBQ duck, lovely veggies in oyster sauce---and the restaurant was one of those where some bright spark has decided to improve on a good thing and feature dancing waiters...Yes, suddenly the music hit a particularly peppy note and all the staff took up positions in the aisles and boogied away to a smart set of coordinated dance steps, while customers hoed into their steaming hotpots. It was halfway between charming and bizarre.
Less charming, however was the fact that we managed to get back to the bus station shortly after they had sold the last seat on the last bus, so we blinked a few times and asked for a taxi. This is where the adventure began.
The fellow yelled, no, he bellowed across the bus station to another guy who led us to a rank of tuk-tuks. It took a minute to realise he was serious. A tuk-tuk is a far cry from a taxi and great for pottering around town, being basically a three-wheeled motorcycle with covered seating attached to the back, but for a 60 kilometre run...
But, when the devil drives.... Actually, far from being a devil, the driver was a big cheerful solid-looking bloke who was willing, for just under $20 bucks, to drive us the 60-odd kilometres to the border and it was either that or walk....
So in we hopped, cheerfully thinking that it would be a bit of a lark, if a bit juddery. Until we looked in the direction we were headed and saw the blackest sky I've ever seen, getting blacker....
The driver pointed at the doomsday scene ahead and laughed and we joined in, but after the first 15 or twenty k's, it started. Just a fine spray at first, then a proper rain, followed by a deluge, a short period of fine mist and then back to pouring....
There is a roof on these vehicles and plastic curtains along the sides of the seating area, but they tended to flap uselessly under the onslaught of the rain, the splash from the larger vehicles and huge double-trailered trucks that hurtled past us in the dark.
Sommay got a good position right behind the driver and bore up stoically despite wearing only jeans and a T-shirt, so I had to do the same, with only a large plastic carrier bag to protect the side of me that faced the torrents.
At first it was actually refreshing and kind of fun, but gradually the water turned icy because of the speed we were travelling and began to trickle down my back, and I was, for the first time in the entire month I've been back in Asia, chilled to the bone. Also soaking wet.
I kept seeing road signs with the mileage, but soon decided to ignore them as it seemed to get longer between kilometres as we went along and even with only 16 ks to go, it wasn't a lot of comfort. Finally we slowed down as we got into Nong Khai, and it was at this point that we discovered that the driver had no idea how to ge to the bridge. After trundling down several dirt lanes and stopping to holler for directions from people sheltering under trees and roofs, he decided to follow the very obvious signs and we ended up at the bridge, feeling like refugees under the eerie orange halogen lights.
We slopped wetly through the routine of customs, departure, over the bridge, and then through the apply-for-a-visa and wait and then got through immigration and collapsed happily into a nice comfy minivan that took us, shivering in the air-con, the last 25 k into town and up and down several dark wet streets before we finally found our hotel and our nice warm showers and warm dry beds.
The next day was sightseeing and more shopping at a huge traditional market and at ITECC, a Lao style shopping mall, which was basically just a market but inside a brand new exhibition centre just outside of town. We got there after a lot of searching and adventures like running out of petrol on the lousy motorbike that we rented from the hotel and which Sommay distrusted deeply. You actually have to wear helmets in Vientiane so I had to do a lot of hollering in his ear to navigate , but it was a pretty good day, visiting the vast golden That Luang temple and the big lump of concrete that is Patuxai Arch with its fancy dancing fountains.
The best bit of the trip, beside watching the dear lad's delighted face, was getting home, where we celebrated with big bowls of noodles from our favourite (non-dog) restaurant across the road.
I really hate trolling up and down the aisles trying to recall the list I left at home, getting more and more depressed by the screaming children, the Miserable Meanderers, the dreadful smells of all those room deoderants, and the squeaking, intransigent shopping trolleys.
But shopping here is another kettle of odiferous dried fish altogether. Mostly I rely on my maid Me, who picks up what we need in the markets on her way in in the morning, or Sommay who goes with me to the Chinese market and bargains ferociously and works economic miracles without a shadow of guilt. Sometimes, Joy is sent out for something, but the other day he came back with, inexplicably, thirty eggs in a plastic bag, many of which arrived unbroken after a wobbly ride in his bike basket, so we don't usually ask him to do that sort of thing any more.
So this past weekend, Joy was left here and Sommay and I went to the Big Smoke--Vientiane, where 234,000 of the 5.5 million strong Lao population lives for a shopping trip. The real destination, however, was Thailand, just over the Mekong, where I needed to renew my visa, and where one goes for shopping---much cheaper, better selection of goods, actual shopping centres.....We very much needed a new router to try and improve our sporadic internet coverage, and the odd wine glass and what-not.
This is a fairly routine trip for most folks; a 40 minute flight, a couple of nights in town bracketing a dash over the Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge to Nong Khai and a 90 minute bus ride down to Udon Thani for the aforementioned shopping.
For Sommay, however, it was a huge, spine-tingling, ear-to-ear-grin moment in his life, as he'd never been to Vientiane, never been on an airplane and never been to Thailand.
It was a delight to watch his little face light up and his eyes dart about as he discovered all the fun things about airplanes, saw the world from the air and landed in the big city for the first time.
The traffic was a real eye-opener, and novelties like traffic lights, which he'd never seen, and he often lost his sense of direction completely which is very unlike him, but to me it's a small, flat, dreary town and I knew it well enough so we got around fine.
We found a centrally located guesthouse for $6 a night each, but soon discovered why it was so cheap. so we moved to a great place reccommended by our taxi driver. Only $9 each and wonderful!
But the real mission was the trip to Thailand, so we got to the bus station early for the 10:30 bus, very comfy, sailed along to the border, and then came to a grinding halt in the thick throng of fellow-border-crossers all trying to thread our way through the undermanned exit and entrance to the two countries. It took three and a half hours to do the 90 minute journey, but it was great seeing Sommay's happy face as we drove across the Mekong and he was suddenly an international traveller for the first time.
He was blown away by the merchandise on offer and by the prices as he scurried about buying various bits and pieces for friends a relatives in his village. I was over come by the sheer volume of goods, people, noise, and the fragrance of buttery coconut waffles being made and sold at several stands in the shopping centre, permeating everything with a golden miasma of toasty-brown cholesterol.
Anyway, we GOT the router and I got some speakers and a couple of tops and Sommay got his phones and it all took forever, so we were starving and decided, rashly, to eat before we ducked back to the bus station to book our bus trip back to Vientiane.
The food was great---BBQ duck, lovely veggies in oyster sauce---and the restaurant was one of those where some bright spark has decided to improve on a good thing and feature dancing waiters...Yes, suddenly the music hit a particularly peppy note and all the staff took up positions in the aisles and boogied away to a smart set of coordinated dance steps, while customers hoed into their steaming hotpots. It was halfway between charming and bizarre.
Less charming, however was the fact that we managed to get back to the bus station shortly after they had sold the last seat on the last bus, so we blinked a few times and asked for a taxi. This is where the adventure began.
The fellow yelled, no, he bellowed across the bus station to another guy who led us to a rank of tuk-tuks. It took a minute to realise he was serious. A tuk-tuk is a far cry from a taxi and great for pottering around town, being basically a three-wheeled motorcycle with covered seating attached to the back, but for a 60 kilometre run...
But, when the devil drives.... Actually, far from being a devil, the driver was a big cheerful solid-looking bloke who was willing, for just under $20 bucks, to drive us the 60-odd kilometres to the border and it was either that or walk....
So in we hopped, cheerfully thinking that it would be a bit of a lark, if a bit juddery. Until we looked in the direction we were headed and saw the blackest sky I've ever seen, getting blacker....
The driver pointed at the doomsday scene ahead and laughed and we joined in, but after the first 15 or twenty k's, it started. Just a fine spray at first, then a proper rain, followed by a deluge, a short period of fine mist and then back to pouring....
There is a roof on these vehicles and plastic curtains along the sides of the seating area, but they tended to flap uselessly under the onslaught of the rain, the splash from the larger vehicles and huge double-trailered trucks that hurtled past us in the dark.
Sommay got a good position right behind the driver and bore up stoically despite wearing only jeans and a T-shirt, so I had to do the same, with only a large plastic carrier bag to protect the side of me that faced the torrents.
At first it was actually refreshing and kind of fun, but gradually the water turned icy because of the speed we were travelling and began to trickle down my back, and I was, for the first time in the entire month I've been back in Asia, chilled to the bone. Also soaking wet.
I kept seeing road signs with the mileage, but soon decided to ignore them as it seemed to get longer between kilometres as we went along and even with only 16 ks to go, it wasn't a lot of comfort. Finally we slowed down as we got into Nong Khai, and it was at this point that we discovered that the driver had no idea how to ge to the bridge. After trundling down several dirt lanes and stopping to holler for directions from people sheltering under trees and roofs, he decided to follow the very obvious signs and we ended up at the bridge, feeling like refugees under the eerie orange halogen lights.
We slopped wetly through the routine of customs, departure, over the bridge, and then through the apply-for-a-visa and wait and then got through immigration and collapsed happily into a nice comfy minivan that took us, shivering in the air-con, the last 25 k into town and up and down several dark wet streets before we finally found our hotel and our nice warm showers and warm dry beds.
The next day was sightseeing and more shopping at a huge traditional market and at ITECC, a Lao style shopping mall, which was basically just a market but inside a brand new exhibition centre just outside of town. We got there after a lot of searching and adventures like running out of petrol on the lousy motorbike that we rented from the hotel and which Sommay distrusted deeply. You actually have to wear helmets in Vientiane so I had to do a lot of hollering in his ear to navigate , but it was a pretty good day, visiting the vast golden That Luang temple and the big lump of concrete that is Patuxai Arch with its fancy dancing fountains.
The best bit of the trip, beside watching the dear lad's delighted face, was getting home, where we celebrated with big bowls of noodles from our favourite (non-dog) restaurant across the road.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Action Woman is on the case of the Kanine Kitchen
I thought you'd like to know that after an agonising afternoon yesterday of listening to non-stop barking and howling and that harrowing doggie-type screaming that they do when being clouted unmercifully with a stick, during which I contemplated getting one of those stun guns (Good thinking, Stu, I was only one synapse-firing ahead of you) that humane slaughterpersons use, then moved on to plotting guerrilla action and letting all the poor pooches go under cover of darkness, and finally was about to storm over there like a wrathful Valkyrie and start shouting at the poor bastards, instead I stormed off to town for a curry and a drink with friends and lay more constructive plans......
Obviously, none of the above would actually represent a lasting solution nor would it endear me to the ladies who run these places. And they're not the forgiving types, given an altercation that raged during most of the afternoon between two of the lady proprietresses. Heated invective echoed back and forth across the street, fingers were pointed, barbecue tongs were brandished, fists were shaken.
So, today I went to see my friend Manivonh of the Magnificent Mammaries (Call me Vonnie, baby!). She's the daughter of a general and speaks Chinese, Lao, French, and pure Californian from years spent in San Diego. There I met her friend Mimi, (Off to Paris for a week, but when I get back, I'll be having an opening at the gallery---you must come) and held a conference with these two formidable ladies.
The upshot is that they emphatically endorsed the idea of visiting the headman of our village and politely, diplomatically voicing my concerns about the welfare of the dogs, the tone of the neighbourhood and the international reputation of Luang Prabang---Heritage City---if this were to be played up by some farang travel journo.....Now who would that be, I wonder....
They were horrified and said We are Buddhist we don't cause suffering to animals! They also pointed out that dog restaurants are illegal in Vientiane and while they may not be here, they should not be permitted to do the killing there on site.
So, tomorrow morning, I will kit myself up in my Lao clobber, that I affectionately call my sauna skirt, cos it's so hot to wear in this weather, and Sommay and I will go to see The Man. Let''s hope he will see us and will do something soon, but I no longer feel like a lone voice, crying petulantly in a wilderness of cruelty and feel that I can get on with my life.
Hope you all feel better, too. Thus endeth the lesson.
Obviously, none of the above would actually represent a lasting solution nor would it endear me to the ladies who run these places. And they're not the forgiving types, given an altercation that raged during most of the afternoon between two of the lady proprietresses. Heated invective echoed back and forth across the street, fingers were pointed, barbecue tongs were brandished, fists were shaken.
So, today I went to see my friend Manivonh of the Magnificent Mammaries (Call me Vonnie, baby!). She's the daughter of a general and speaks Chinese, Lao, French, and pure Californian from years spent in San Diego. There I met her friend Mimi, (Off to Paris for a week, but when I get back, I'll be having an opening at the gallery---you must come) and held a conference with these two formidable ladies.
The upshot is that they emphatically endorsed the idea of visiting the headman of our village and politely, diplomatically voicing my concerns about the welfare of the dogs, the tone of the neighbourhood and the international reputation of Luang Prabang---Heritage City---if this were to be played up by some farang travel journo.....Now who would that be, I wonder....
They were horrified and said We are Buddhist we don't cause suffering to animals! They also pointed out that dog restaurants are illegal in Vientiane and while they may not be here, they should not be permitted to do the killing there on site.
So, tomorrow morning, I will kit myself up in my Lao clobber, that I affectionately call my sauna skirt, cos it's so hot to wear in this weather, and Sommay and I will go to see The Man. Let''s hope he will see us and will do something soon, but I no longer feel like a lone voice, crying petulantly in a wilderness of cruelty and feel that I can get on with my life.
Hope you all feel better, too. Thus endeth the lesson.
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