The Opposite of Dark

Now it's darkest February, and even little Laos has had its share of weird weather. We've had three days of unheard-of winter rain ---three days of the stuff, just bucketing down, and then a bit later, another fierce cold spell which sent tourists scuttling inside the warm farang bakery restaurants and the locals scurrying outside to gather round a smoky little fire. Don't know which worked better.

But tonight things are back to normal ---coolish--- and the locals are again thronging the little riverside restaurants, living it up to jaunty Lao folk music---infinitely preferable to those mewling Thai pop songs ----and the tourists are thronging the night market again.

And I am determined to tell you what's going on before it becomes too much to tell.

The other day in my class I was running a quick quiz on opposites and asked for the opposite of 'dark'. And the resounding answer came back--- 'Cat!' Of course. Ummmmmm....??? Yah, they heard dog and decided that any answer was better than none. Well, 'dark' and 'dog', ánd, for that matter, 'duck', all sound pretty much the same to them. We had a good laugh together in the lighthearted way that folks here have of finding fun in almost anything, despite the grim realities in their lives. Warms my heart, it does.

Today, I spent a great deal of time in class labouring through lots of descriptive words, finding opposites, pronouncing, explaining meanings and showing how they could be used in their upcoming, end-of-term piece de resistance, a little talk they must give for the class that all of them are dreading.

They sat in earnest silence the entire time, nodding and occasionally asking timorously, 'Teacher, can you spell that again?'' and smiling wanly when I did something silly to illustrate a point. They really are horrified by the thought of having to speak, even though that's why they are here.

But then we played The Game---I hold out a sheaf of paper slips with simple questions that they must read aloud and then someone must answer with a full sentence---and once they all cottoned on, it turned into a riot.

They suddenly became hugely animated and laughed and called out answers and then collapsed in giggles when I pretended not to hear because they hadn't made a proper sentence. They absolutely sparkled with joy when someone made a mistake or indeed when they made a mistake themselves, because it was another chance for merriment. They leaned over each other to read the slips in someone else's hand and hooted in disbelief when they got it right and competed like mad to be first with the answer.

Even the monks and novices joined right in and no-one minded when I recycled the questions, and they had to do it all over again. I laughed, too, of course and this is fairly unusual teacher behaviour, so they enjoyed that. Then they got cute and started changing the questions slightly to try and trick each other, and sometimes put together really elaborate answers, but that was great because it showed they were thinking as they went and using their heads, instead of just repeating. They were learning and loving it.

I do this a lot these days once I get through the main points of the lesson and it's clear that they relish the chance, not only to have fun, but to show off and compete and speak aloud.

They know an incredible amount of grammar and a fair bit of vocabulary but it's like a basketball team that's been in the locker room or on the sidelines for several years, learning all the plays and every fact there is about basketball and seeing it all happen, without ever getting out on the court. Mainly it's because their own teachers can't speak English either...

Games are great. There's another one where I go around the class and get them to stand up and say who they are and where they are from, and then do it again with My favourite colour or food, and again with What I do best is, or I would like to travel to... and so one with ever sillier questions and soon they start having fun with it and say things like, Hello my name is Crazy Boy and I live under the bridge and my favourite food is rocks....Or they say they want to travel to Australia and their favourite food is meat pies. (Most of them have never been as far as Vientiane)

And they keep coming back to my classes, even though I have days when I feel as if everything I am saying is bouncing off their brains like so many ping pong balls, so I am loving it. And they gather to offer me rides home from classes on their motorbikes. One devoted fellow shows up every evening to take me to school.

The hours are a little crazy, working seven days a week, with about 24 hours of actual standing up in front of classes and almost as much preparing. But that will change soon, now that I have put my foot down and said No More!! And I am have got much better at it, sometimes virtually winging a whole class off the top of my head. (can you do that??)

It was a big gamble for my boss, the Wily Ping, but he seems happy to have me around and has taken me to see the new school he is building for us. Wonderful new building with a great view, but a bit farther from my house than the dirty old wreck we're using now.

His is the biggest of the five private English schools in town and I think I am the only Farang on staff in town. Apparently I am a drawcard. There is an American guy at my school, of Japanese descent, but lives in New York and comes here to volunteer. He was apparently too pushy with the other teachers and then was deeply miffed when I was hired instead of him. He gamely shows up every day and helps the kids, which is a good thing, but he is certainly a living lesson in the value of people skills.

OK, so that's the school part of my life. Then there are the training gigs, which are wonderful. I have very small groups to train intensively for a few weeks preparing them for a specific job. It is hugely rewarding. (No, not in money terms---I only get 3 dollars per hour, per student and sometimes I just get a nice piece of artwork or something from their stock instead) but right now, for instance, I am teaching four young musicians who are learning the very difficult traditional Lao instruments from leathery old masters of the art. I am teaching them just what they need to be able to say to answer the questions that people ask at performances and to be able to introduce the pieces at a concert.

They are all training at a wonderful little house in town under the energetic and extraordinary Nith, who is actually a Lao prince and dedicates his life and his time when he is here to preserving, promoting and developing authentic Lao arts and culture. He lives in Paris part of the year and when he takes a break, the boys will be able to hold the fort for the brief spells when the public visits the house.

It's fabulous, what he does, and I am thrilled to be a part of it. He also wants me to train his director to write proposals and answer correspondence in English, which I think is a great idea, because the diector looks rather like a Lao Patrick Swayze.

The young musos are a real treat, only 17 to 20 years old and they come to my house three days a week for lessons, usually ending up in severe giggling fits when Kongle, the impish Hmong boy who is the class clown and the least proficient at English but one of the better musos, attempts too energetically to pronounce something difficult and inevitably fails. He laughs harder than the rest and we are usually in tears of laughter by the time the lesson is over, but they really do try hard.

Last night, the expats were all invited to a glittering benefit performance at Nith's, Puang Champa House, which means the Garland of Frangipani. It was to raise enough money to buy three beautiful traditional dancing masks, hand-made by old masters, and we each stumped up $20 for an evening of candles, wine, snacks and a performance of the very beautiful and difficult Homlong, a rarely performed masterpiece of traditional Lao music that is played to pay respect to the spirits. It must be played without stopping or making any mistakes, so it's a big deal.

We heard it played by the leathery old masters themselves, and then saw an exquisite performance by five beautiful young girls in their glittering red and gold and blue costumes, all handmade by the dancers. They wore traditional gold headdresses with high points on top and elaborate decoration. It was all quite fabulous, sitting there on little handwoven cushions in Nith's lush green garden, among the huge palms and glowing candles, enjoying this loveliness.

Then a bunch of us went out to a meal at the rather wonderful new Arisai restaurant, where they do beautiful little eggplant roll-ups with fresh salad and balsamic dressing and other Mediterranean specialities. Later, a drink at the wine bar with the usual suspects and then a lift home with my friend Sirivonh, the indomitable and irrepressible wonder woman that I hang out with sometimes, listening to Elvis on her car stereo---our great favourite.

What an evening, and rather typical, I am pleased to report. So you can see why I love it here---the blend of high culture and simple fun, the worldly international artists, colourful locals, idiosyncratic ex-pats, sweet, sweet people and a lot of fun, none of it terribly expensive, all of it interesting, some of it heartbreaking, but definitely the opposite of dark.