Sunday, September 12, 2010

News from the infirmary....






You may notice a trend here. I only seem to blog when I am sick and incapable of anything else, but please don't take it as an indication of the priority I attach to staying in touch with the world.

Yeah, sick again, but, as in everything, you can't have ups without downs, and this is probably my penance for having had such a great time...

I know I have burbled on about the boat racing festival here before and could probably post the same pix and you wouldn't know it, but I have just had one of those quintessentially Lao days when I am reminded of how lovely and surprising and heartbreaking life is here...all over again.

We have boatracing every year to celebrate the climax of the rainy season and to placate the mythical river serpent, the Naga. As you do. Apparently, one year they failed to do it and things went horribly wrong, so it's a dead-set annual event now.

But it is close to my heart because the best team comes from Ban Had Yien, the blacksmith village, and this tough bunch of paddlers is captained by Bounlay, my Lao son Sommay's brother, and includes Sommay himself and his two nephews so it's a bit of a family gig.

I've told you about powerful little Sommay and his irrepressible energy and enthusiasm, backed by near-obsessive sporting prowess, and his brother is the same, only bigger, solider and quieter. I call him Captain Everything.

Any team he's on, he's the captain. Soccer, petanque, boat racing....because he has that steady, sure, strong character that makes you feel you're in good hands. (He's also a policeman, which is jolly handy at times.) He was there when I got really sick a few years ago and he was like a rock, carrying me to the car, lifting me into the hospital bed, taking me to the toilet, fer crying out loud, and handing me the paper, then lying on the floor all night by my bed with Sommay on just a thin staw mat. The man has character to burn...

And this year the challenge was huge. The team, sponsored by a rapacious and cynical hotel owner who makes a bundle every year by gambling on these boys but passes on very little to them, was under threat.

Other teams, trying to end "our" three year winning streak, had bought big new boats and imported paddlers from Vientiane and coaches from Thailand, so training was tough. Sommay would limp home every day, displaying his blisters and and calluses, saying, 'It's tough, Mummy...We trained so hard today...'

They had a new strategy, a faster paddling rate, which was very demanding, but basically they just threw themselves into it for the honour of their village.

They easily won a few races in other villages and their two smaller boats took first and third in their class, but the big race in Luang Prabang was tough.

The day started, as days in Laos do, very early. "Are you awake, Mummy?" came the phone call from Sommay at 5:45 AM. Somehow I got up, put on my Lao lady oufit, stumbled out the door clutching a cup of tea and got to the village in plenty of time for the special Tak Bat, the giving of alms at the temple and the launching of the boat.

The night before, I had been to an extremely soigne evening of exquisite Lao classical music seated in splendour by the Amantaka pool, and now here I was in the muddy village, surrounded by throngs of chattering village women in their best clothes, shiny synthetic 'sin', the Lao skirt, and all manner of blouses, in every colour there is, but never matching, and everything form rubber flip flops to high heeled jewelled slippers, each carrying the requisite container, supposedly a handsome silver bowl with classical scenes beaten into the surface, but usually an aluminium imitation or just a soup bowl piled with sticky rice, candies, cakes in packets, money and banana leaf-wrapped parcels of sweet sticky rice. I brought lots of garish green-dyed cakes which my little 'grandson', Ai had his eye on from the start.

Everyone squatted and chatted and waited, the paddlers appeared from time to time bearing bits of equipment, all decked out in their flouro-yellow-green outfits while we waited. A few of the village 'poor kids' scuttled about trying to grab treats from the spots around the temple where people had already left offerings, but were loudly shouted down by the good wives of the village.

Every now and again we would all raise our hands in prayer and then raise our offering bowls and then our hands again, but I have no idea how they knew when to do this as there was no audible or visible sign, but at last, everyone was down on their knees as the procession approached; the abbot, a small, spare, upright man with a permanently furrowed brow who always looks as if he has huge responsibilities weighing on him, and then the novices, all 6 of them, each one tinier than the next, with their big brass bowls into each of which we deposited a portion of our offerings---a bit of rice, a cake, and banana-leaf parcel or three, slowing only to dump the overflow rather unceremoniously into a big basket or empty feedbag carried by a person from the village for this purpose. The abbot had a neatly-dressed older man, but the novices were attended by kids from the village.

All this stuff, cakes, candies, rice, and money was simply jumbled in together and sorted later, first to feed the abbott and his lads and then given to the poor people, for whom this is obviously a banner day, as they get to pillage the offerings after the ceremony.

Finally, the boat was launched, the lads climbed aboard and churned up and down a few times uttering their synchronised war chants in harsh, urgent voices in time to their feverish paddle strokes and I went home for a nap to fortify myself for the real festivities to come...

In the early afternoon I wandered---OK, fought my way---down to the Nam Khan river bank through the impossible throngs of spectators, mainly locals and those who had teams from neighbouring villages, but many who just love a crowd, which is very Lao. Hundreds of people with no particular connection to the racing can always be counted on to make their way, usually in the back of someoné's big truck to the city with children in tow, to mill about, buy cheap clothing and toys, chuck darts at balloons, drink sweet fizzy stuff and lots of beer and simply love the whole experience despite the heat, the noise, the congestion and all that stuff that I hate.

Despite which, I was there and began the event, as usual, in the very elegant confines of a cafe owned by friend Matthieu, usually a quiet retreat for a special meal but today the epicentre of the action, being at the midpoint of the race. There I got into the spirit of things gently along with a passing parade of some of my dear friends from the farang crowd here, Anthony from Honkers, Thomas from Germany via Honkers, darling Brian, Francis I (there are two) from France and Daniel, a newcomer. Fortified, I slipped into the crowd and sat on the river wall with my rapidly warming Chardonnay next to a tiny woman complete with 18 month-old baby. They were having a whale of a time watching the proceedings, the baby having a treat of a stolen packet of non-dairy creamer and mum feasting on half a grapefruit, which are plentiful just now.

She was a gas, laughing and chatting away at me in Hmong while another viewer, a small man who I think was very drunk, clung to a palm tree and watched everything as if it were a deadly serious proceeding which would determine his own fate. He was interesting because he had double earlobes.

I digress.

Soon I knew I had to get nearer to the finish line in case the lads really did win as I was entrusted with the task of taking the official photos of the winners. But I ran into a group of my former students and dear friends, staff from Amantaka and lately members of my football team so I HAD to stop and buy a few beers (OK, a case) and celebrate with them and finally the BIG race was on and they streaked past in a flash of flouro against a flash of red in a dead heat and suddenly the world---well, MY world---stood still while my friends listened to the chaotic commentary on the loudspeakers as the finish was declared first a tie, then awaiting photo confirmation, then, hurrah! We Won!!!!

I strode through the crowds to the finish line and in the gathering dusk, watched as a sinuous line of 52 flouro-yellow-green paddlers snaked up from the bank, wet and tired but grinning from ear to ear as only Lao people can. Photos and hugs and jubilation ensued and I had my proud moment of walking through the streets with my lads, wearing the snake green headscarf around my neck to show that I was the mother/auntie of the team and feeling simply great.

After a block or two, I peeled off to let them enjoy their triumph and was congratulated at the wine bar where I had dinner and drinks and then tried to go home but got waylaid briefly by another group of kids that I know for a dance and a drink and finally headed down to my car, only to discover, at my friend Toui's restaurant, (he is also a Ban Had Yien person and one of my oldest friends in Laos) the solid figure of Bounlay, at last able to smile and relax after driving his boys to victory against rising odds, and now relatively pissed, I am pleased to say.

Also present was Toui's brother and Toui's girlfriend's leprechaun father and brother so I had to tell Dad what an excellent student his daughter had been in my class---this is a SMALL town--- and we all shared a drink and revelled in the warm bonhomie of the evening, a very Lao moment.

Then I ended the day as I began it, driving out the lumpy road oast the airport to Ban Had Yien to take Captain Everything home to his tiny, quiet village, where everyone was already asleep, resting up for the reality of the next day when they would once again be just another little hardscrabble village in the back of beyond, but with very sore muscles.

But now, a few days later, even before the euphoria of victory has drifted away with the cooking fire smoke, a goodly proportion of the team has already succumbed to fever, sore throat, chills, coughs and colds, including the seemingly bullet-proof Sommay.

They'll go to work anyway, sweating and straining and banging out knives and tools at the forge, as they've already lost income by spending so much time training and competing. Their poor bodies are simply worn out, not surprising when you consider the demands of the competition versus the poverty of their diet---rice, vegetables and only occasionally, a bit of meat, eggs or fish. The kids in the village all seem to have those rich, deep coughs that signal a deep infection. Malaria and dengue are everywhere this year. No wonder people get old so quickly here.

I think that next year I will consult a nutritionist and I will supply vitamins, huge amounts of drinking water and rehydration drinks. They never think to drink enough when they're out there training in the broiling heat, combining dehydration with borderline malnutrition, so it's a bittersweet scenario of sickness and celebrations. Welcome to the Third World...

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Glub glub glub


That's a picture of me emerging from a wall of scarves--45% Pashmina and 65% silk !!!for 3 bucks, they're a steal!! And the title is the sound of me emerging from the watery depths of the rainy season, at last, with another report from the land of lotus and larceny, the most maddening and endearing place I have ever lived where I discover every day just how much there is to learn about these fabulous, frustrating folks----and about myself.

WEATHER...Lovely. Lovely rain now falls almost every day, sometimes at night, sometimes a gentle drizzle, sometimes an all-out bang-bang storm but always cooling and sweet and wonderful---right up to when it dries up and the searing sun comes out to steam us all into submission and the septic tanks fill up and seep their sickly smell into the heavy air.

The good thing, of course, is how everything grows like crazy. You can almost see it, I swear. My garden of pots out front is a lush tangle of ginger, coleus, bamboo, alternanthera, maranta, orchids, ctnanthe, gomphrena, lilies, bougainvillea, hibiscus, ferns, bromeliads and lots of things I don't know the names of...Also, of course slugs and slaters and snails and scale and ants and the odd cat. My hibiscus hedges are vast walls of green, dotted with brilliant red, that need pruning pretty much every week and the Bougainvillea that almost ate Luang Prabang needs daily snipping.

I have water pots and ponds with water plants and lilies growing in them and a few fish. I really want pretty orange and black fish, but Joy keeps bringing home bloody catfish that grow alarmingly fast. He doesn't see the point of fish one can't eat so he pretends he doesn't understand what I want. One of my big hotels, however, has lots of interesting fish in their ponds and seems willing to let me have some so it will be interesting to see how they get along with the monster catfish.

WORK...Yah, it's been busy. This being low season for tourists, it's high season for me. I've been flat out with two big contracts at big hotels, teaching staff and overseeing teachers from our school who've been teaching the beginners.

I would love to talk endlessly about the daily lessons I am learning about teaching, but I know the teachers out there would just roll their eyes and the rest of you would tune out, but let me just say that there is a lot more to this gig than verbs and nouns and lessons and all that.

The psychology, the strategies, the cultural awareness, the extraordinary devices I need to get things into my students' minds are probably worth a Phd or two. Attitudes to learning are extremely complex here where some parts of society actually fear and mistrust learning. Many people are so overwhelmed by how different English is that they just give up and others have never actually learned their own grammar very well, if at all. Lots of people have learned both Lao and English on the fly, just by listening and picking it up, so just raising the ugly head of grammar fills them with fear. The idea of a correct way to spell things is considered quite quaint here where there are several versions of the Lao alphabet. And given that there are no forms like ours for different tenses, I have to try to introduce the idea that words can take different forms to perform different functions. This is hard.

But the biggest stumbling block is how badly they have been taught in the Lao system. The poor darlings get hit with all twelve English tenses in the first few months of most English courses, and none of them have the vaguest clue how to use any of them. Including most of the teachers.

Oh, I could go on....

Anyway, the school is good, but we are only just breaking even and are desperately searching for funding to train another batch of ten teachers. Any ideas will be gratefully received.

The demand for English speaking staff increases here exponentially and we are nowhere near able to supply the people they need. But I plod on, now preparing a new hospitality curriculum to use next year.

And I am working at the Agricultural College helping their teachers to create an English for Agriculture syllabus. Great fun, actually. It's a long drive along a harrowing road up there and back three days of the week, but I am loving it and learning a lot.

DRIVING...Probably shouldn't say too much about this as the fainthearted among my readership might find it worrying, (that's you, Pete) but my kids have driven all over the place with me while they were here and didn't actually rip my carkeeys out of my hands and hurl them into the Mekong to stop me ever driving again, so obviously I am coping.

It's very Mexican here. Roads too narrow, too many vehicles, many badly maintained and here, the road is considered part of the living space of the village. People dry chillies and park bicycles in the road even the major north-south highway. Which is pretty much the only road anyway. So massive logging trucks, Chinese semi-trailers, smoky old motorbikes, bicycles, guys pushing food vending carts, tuk-tuks carrying six families and the monthly shopping, muddy tractors, shiny vans packed with terrified tourists and pedestrians--small children, dogs, pigs and ancient crones--- all share the scant space and do so without any evidence of alarm,any idea of basic road rules or an appreciation of how much room one needs to get round them or to stop when one comes around a bend to find a guy sitting on a neatly folded blanket with his tools spread out while he tinkers with a recalcitrant engine right on the pavement.

I approach this challenge with white-knuckled concentration and a never-ending stream of invective, advice, sarcasm and occasionally, howls of sheer frustration when someone potters to a halt right in front of me with no signals or brakelights, usually a motorbike carrying several people including a tiny infant casually slung ina a carrying cloth knotted over the shoulder. Sometimes I use hand gestures to tell oncoming drivers to get back onto their own side of the road, but mostly I just shake my head theatrically and mutter.

In Luang Prabang in the evenings, in the dim, haphazard lighting, the favourite pasttime, especially of the young and silly, is to ride around town, very slowly, on squads of motorbikes or bicycles, usually several to a vehicle, in groups and pairs for socialising. There is a lot of giggling and meandering and texting and shrieking but absolutely no signalling or awareness of the REAL traffic trying to get somewhere. This evening cycle promenade goes on, all around town from dusk till nine-ish---boys pursuing girls, girls taunting boys---and somehow, no one gets knocked over, even by irate middle-aged farang ladies bent on dinner and a drink after a long hard day at the whiteboard.

Then there's the total disregard for one way streets, despite the occasional crackdowns by police, so that one has headlights beetling towards one when they shouldn't be, or unlit vehicles ditto.

And wearing motorcycle helmets, a law in force for months now is only occasionally observed, despite daily and now nightly police presence, lurking fairly obviously in the same places every day and whistling people over for document examination, a stern lecture and the exacting of a fine---no receipt, of course---and still folks drive around with no helmet, or simply carry one in the bike's basket and look so surprised when they are stopped. This is not just girls with elaborate hairdos or devil-may-care youth---this is grannies and bureaucrats and yea, verily, policemen, who, of course don't get stopped. Even when they wear helmets it's only the driver and not the passengers, babies et al, and often the helmet is not done up or it's just a construction worker's hardhat or some such flimsy item and not proper protection at all. Lao people, someone told me, are some of the stubbornest people in the world. Amen to that.

OK, that's yer lot for now as I have a dose of the rainy season fever. It's just a low grade temp plus heavy chest so I am curled up with a book and a new pet---a tiny, scrawny, mewling ginger tom who has apparently been abandoned on my doorstep. As long as he outgrows his revolting toilet habits he may stay to catch our mice. May call him Bowser....or Boris, as in Boom Boom.

I will now crawl back to my downy couch on the verandah, watch the sun burnish the Mekong and listen to the stirring, throaty chants of the boat racing teams training for the upcoming festival, wiry brown arms stabbing rhythmically at the river with fifty paddles in perfect unison.

Wonder if a G&T is an antidote for this malady....Perhaps some research is in order.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Great Balls of Fire....


Spring in Laos can be brutal. The mighty Mekhong has shrunk to a turgid shadow of itself, the sand bars have stretched to vast deserts and only the best boatmen can navigate the treacherous rocks and rapids that have appeared.

Ashore, the teak trees are bare, the leaves black and fallen, crunching bleakly underfoot, rice fields are hard baked clay, weeds and grey stubble and gardens are full of the grim scarecrows of last year's marigolds.

The sun is fiery red orb and the air is thick with smoke and ash from the extensive burning off of fields in the hills. Folks here still practice slash and burn agriculture, despite the government's attempts to stop it, and this is the worst I have ever experienced here. Everybody is sniffling and sneezing and coughing and spitting. People who normally wear contact lenses can't because of the smoke and the ash and also the dust which is everywhere. The car is constantly coated in a thin beige layer and washing it is fruitless and frustrating as there is such low water pressure that it can only be done late at night or by the river. Not really a fun time of year.

Many neighbourhoods have no water, sporadic water or very low pressure. The nursing school has no water most of the time in the student quarters, but they have discovered an office building where there is a tap, so these sturdy country kids gather there every morning and evening for their usual shrieking, singing, laughing communal cold water baths together. It's right behind my house so it sounds as if this wild carry-on is in my house.

But it brings home to me how cheerful and persevering these Lao youngsters are; far from their home villages, living in big dormitories equipped with triple-decker beds, washing their clothes by hand, cooking outside on little stoves made from a metal bucket and concrete but having a whale of a time. The conditions they live in are so basic and the weather so revolting----hot, hot, hot except at night and early morning, that they'd have every right to complain, but they simply carry on, planting little gardens to supplement the big bag of rice they've brought from home,laughing and playing guitars in the evening, playing boules and eating spicy papaya salad and just living life joyously and fully.

So I can't possibly complain, which is annoying, as I'd like to sometimes. The good thing is that some rain has fallen, just enough to wash the sky clean for a day or two and everything is starting to green up a bit. My glorious bougainvillea needs daily pruning or it will swallow up the entire neighbourhood, my new ginger garden is no longer a dirt box full of scrawny, limp cuttings, but already full and green.

In February, my footie team battled on bravely to the semis, but went down in a penalty shootout to a very badly behaved side, finishing fourth in the competition, but that's not bad for a new team of young players with very little chance to practice together. We were roundly congratulated by all and sundry and I thoroughly enjoyed my personal victory march across the vast pitch of the national stadium to receive the prize money of $50. The coach snaffled the framed certificate, of course, and I spent the money and a lot more on a post game celebration which was a classic of its kind. The four playoff teams all went to the same beer bar where the winners let us all drink beer out of their huge golden trophy and we all promised to come back next year for another crack at the championship. Great night. The food arrived after most had left, of course...

Our little property outside town shares the bleak dry look of the rest of the landscape, but it still manages to look great to me as Sommay has been living there for two months, overseeing the building of our little caretaker's house and the beefing up of our fences and the building of a boules court, complete with grass roofed hut with tables and chairs made of teak stumps and much much more.

We recently discovered that the wonderful Pheng was no longer so wonderful. Things were not getting done, he was drinking heavily and entertaining dubious women on the premises and then Sommay's sister, Pheng's somewhat estranged wife, admitted that he was beating her and had done so for years. He chose this moment to insist that he wanted a TV and a phone for the house and grumbled about being asked to work, and finally, he had to go.

Sommay, being an overachiever at everything he tries, has done more in two months than Pheng did in two years, so the place is great! We have a new caretaker, who seems pretty good and when we have some money, we'll do more to make it a little peaceful retreat to get away to.

We spent International Women's Day out there having a massive fish barbecue with friends, mainly brother Bounlay's co-workers from the police department.

Sommay's foray to Thailand ended up being a fizzer, but he is now hotly pursuing a new course of action designed to get him to law school in Vientiane in September. So he is back home with me for now, being a whirlwind of accomplishment around the house.

Sadly, my other lad, Joy, is exhibiting a bit of halo slippage and we don't know what to do. He's showing a nasty, stubborn, sneaky streak that is making life very unhappy for us and he may just have to leave my employ if he doesn't shape up. He has, in fact, started a job elsewhere so I no longer pay him a salary, but he refuses to speak to Sommay or to apologise for his bad behaviour, denying that is ever happened, despite the fact that it is undeniable.

This is the last thing I need, with the culmination of preparation for my Low Season Teaching Program taking every minute and every ounce of thought and worry I can spare. Not to mention that I will be off to Florida soon to visit The World's Most Amazing Mother for two weeks before the hard work starts.

The school goes from strength to strength, but it's still a drama as to whether we will break even every month and be able to pay salaries. It's exciting, though, and we are very pleased with ourselves.

Various of my expat friends are already gone or going soon as we get closer to Lao new year in mid April. I am also decamping for two weeks in Florida. Here in Luang Prabang, there will be few students coming to class--not just for the three official days, but for the entire two week window---and a lot of mayhem about town with all the drunken parties, so it's a good time to get out.

OK, not an inspired piece of verbiage, but that's yer lot for now as work calls. The good thing about this horrid dry time of year is that it is watermelon season and we are awash in them---big round red juicy things that slake the thirst nicely as we watch the big red round sun drop into the Mekhong every evening.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

There's something happening here...

What it is ain't exactly clear...Remember that song?

Anyway,some things are happening here and it's high time I told you about it all....

For one thing, it's raining!! That DOES NOT happen in Luang Prabang in January. And it's raining quite heavily, in fact, after many days of very oddly warm weather, so I guess climate change has well and truly found this place, along with the greater mass of tourists from around the world.

So what else is happening? Well, some of it is weird and unprecedented, like the rain and the fact that I made my own breakfast today. I guess it's all just progress in the life here that I have come to love, but not to expect, because what I love most here is the surprises and the unexpected stuff, the daily discoveries and new possibilities as well as the unanticipated quirks and irritations and disasters, all of which are part of the deal.

Enough waffling. I can hear Peter saying ...And your point is....?!?

One change is that I have three months off from the hotel job as they go into their high season and need all hands on deck to handle a fairly full house. Staff are having their eyes opened as to what work really means. I pop back from time to time and am gratified by the warm reception and earnest entreaties for my return that I get from all the staff. Take note: If you want to feel good about yourself---be a teacher in Laos. Students are deeply respectful of teachers and have a very sweet disposition as well so you can't miss in the warm and fuzzy department.

Having time off is a pain in the finances, but is giving me time to concentrate on the usual enhanced social life of this time of year. Yesterday the Froggie segment of the expat community plus many non-Frog of us gathered for the annual 12th Night or l'Epiphanie celebrations chez our friend Francis, co-hosted by Gilles and Yannick of the famous LÉlephant restaurant empire who laid on the nosh. This means several things. One is the gorgeous gallette de Roi and other pastries they served (Yah, I had to nibble at the fillings and leave the crusts) as Yannick is a premier pastry chef. Another is the chance to be in Francis' wonderful house, an old French colonial building in soft mustardy yellow with a sweet little garden outside and many beautiful antique pieces inside. He is extremely knowledgable about Buddhist history and practice, especially Lao Buddhism, as well as being an expert on botanical matters. He's been here for years and is a charming fellow.

Shortly after this gracious gathering in the soft afternoon sun, I changed pace completely and headed out to a small grassy field in a farming area on the outskirts of town for the penultimate pre-semifinal practice of Suzy's Superstars, my premier soccer team.

This may be just about the biggest point of the competition, bar the finals, but it's only our first meeting with one of our new players from Vientiane, late of the national team, thanks very much. Another one arrives today for literally ONE training session before Friday's BIG one at the stadium. Talk about last minute...

Fingers crossed that we win this one and can then go on to the final in two weeks. When my manager isn't on hand, I can only actually communicate with one or two of the players and that in a fairly rudimentary fashion, so it's a fun time for us all making gestures and hilarious attempts at each others' languages. Crowds of small would-be Superstars hang around to gawp and giggle at the players and the farang lady.

The coach is a big lump of a fellow with not a skerrick of social graces and a voice that could skin a pig at a hundred paces, but the lads seem to like him and he's getting good results. He occasionally smiles but not usually until post game drinks are well under way. The late and casual arrivals of our star players makes us look pretty unprofessional, but I will say that we only have a big piss-up after matches and not after training, which is regarded as a mark of serious sportspeople in this town. I supply cold drinks at practice instead or take them all out for fruit shakes.

There's more that is changing and moving....The school is up and running for real now and we are half-way through our teacher training course, with three of our trainees already exceeding expecations and the other three not far behind. They will soon move from assisting in the classrooms to teaching under supervision and this means we can start several new beginners classes next month which will mean that we are finally making some money to cover our expenses, but so far only stuff like loo paper and lightbulbs and
maybe a phone.

I am preparing my roster of advanced classes in speaking and writing and will try a course in understanding what foreigners eat. Then in May, I will be flat out with Amantaka and other places as they go into low season and staff have time to study. The idea is that I will use two of our trainees as my assistants so can cover more than one hotel at a time. So lots of planning to do....

And lots to learn. It's fascinating how difficult it is to teach expressive language, idioms and nuances of meaning to people whose own language has none of these. They stare wide-eyed when I tell them about the different ways there are to say things with different sounds, references, impacts etc. I tell them that trying to learn English is like learning to juggle live fish, but even that image takes a lot of explaining and some fairly ungainly mime work to get across.

The biggest excitement is that the first of my darling children has finally made it up here and seen that Mummy is not actually running a brothel or living on rotten rice and snake meat in some hovel. It's been glorious having her and Alistair here, but much too short, of course.

They arrived on Christmas Eve in Vientiane, where I had an ex-student pick them up and whisk them to the bus station, not because they are not capable world travellers and grown up people, but because my student was so keen to help and because I wanted them out of Vientiane and on their way to ME as soon as possible!!! They came by bus to Vang Vieng,(a beautiful place currently being destroyed by yahoo tourists), where I met them, having driven down with my dear friend Mario, who had lived in Vang Vieng on an organic farm/community outreach centre there for 6 months and wanted to visit.

The drive down was lovely and the drive back was too, as it is almost all mountain roads with breathtaking views, hairy switchback turns, and roadside villages full of wandering -pigs and adorable naked children and people doing what they do despite the occasional semi-trailers or double-decker buses thundering through, inches from their front doors.

We stopped to join a Hmong New Year party of kids decked out in their beaded, pleated, multi-coloured finery playing a traditional courting game of tossing a ball back and forth----sounds simple, but is actually rather fun.

Later we stopped at another village where I have spent some time and where I had toilets installed in honour of Alice and Andy's wedding. There the headman and his family welcomed us with open arms and presented me with a stunning gift of a Khen---a traditional Hmong musical instrument about four feet long that looks a bit like a cross between an oboe and a crossbow and is played while dancing to its music, which is a somewhat doleful flutey sound. Along with that came a simpler bamboo flute and a small but beautiful mouth organ/jew's harp in it's own case. A full Hmong orchestra---I nearly wept at their generosity. Alistair being a musical wunderkind was able to play the flute and will no doubt master the Khen, given a bit of time.

Time being precious, we hustled home ---it's a six hour drive---and had Xmas dinner with my friend Ric and his Parisian houseguests and other friends, and then spent several days trying to see and do everything here, but of course not having enough time to do it all. We hit some highlights---Kuang Xi waterfall, Mount Phousi, a walk in the jungle to the temples and the seven headed Naga statue buried in the trees on the other side of the Mekhong, a visit out to our land for a goat barbecue with the family and a swim in the Nam Khan River. And dinners out, shopping, and a trip to my old school for a guest teaching session. Then we launched ourselves on another marathon drive, this time up to Luang Nam Tha in the north.

The first bit of road is pretty good, especially along the Nam Ou River. Then we did battle with the appalling stretch from Pak Mong to Oudomsai which is redeemed by the fabuous views out over miles and miles of misty green-blue mountains and more cute bamboo huts/naked babies/wandering piglet villages before we stumbled through the really bad stuff beyond.

Finally, and quite mind-bogglingly, we hit the last 37 kilometres, recently completed as part of a corridor from China to Thailand and it was utterly surreal. One minute we're crawling over jagged rocks and steep drops and massive potholes and the next it's like a modern road in any well-developed country. Like driving on whipped cream and actually quite eerie. Drove in top gear for long stretches. People living on the road were probably awed by it to begin with but now they treat it like any other road---a good place to dry chillies, stop and chat and live their lives. Flat places are at a premium up here so they use the road as part of their living space and somehow they survive.

The kids took turns not feeling well, but after a night in Luang Nam Tha, we left them in reasonable spirits planning to meander back down to Luang Prabang via various buses and boats while Sommay and I drove the 7 hours back by road, most of it in daylight. The nighttime driving here is nothing short of harrowing as people still wander along and inhabit the road as they do in the daytime, but sans lights. They seem not to realise that they are invisible until the last minute in one's headlights and they often putter along on motorbikes and bicycles with NO lights at all. The big trucks and buses just scream on through (Liberal use of the horn is necessary as a warning)and somehow no one gets killed. At least to my knowledge.

One has to juggle steering, constant gear changes, very slow traffic as well as big fast vehicles and somehow keep enough lights on to see the road and this gets hairy, I can tell you. So I drove and manned the horn and the high beams while Sommay kept his thumb on the fog lights that are the only way to see pedestrians. In most there are no proper verges to pull onto and in many the verge is literally through someone's house, so it's a tricky business, but a great test of one's reflexes and driving skills. Never boring.

Sommay is a great co-pilot. Never gets nervous, even sleeps through the most hair-raising bits, but otherwise he is useful---in rainy season driving he gets out and wades ahead through puddles so I can see the depth, and he murmurs "Hmmm, exciting..." when we hit an unexpected bump or encounter some idiot coming at us around a hairpin bend on the wrong side of the road. Once we saw a motorbike approaching and duly dimmed all our lights, whereupon the approaching driver simply turned his off completely, rendering him completely invisible in the dark. We laughed a lot. We make a good team.

So, it is definitely a new era in our lives that he is going to go to Thailand soon to check out the possibility of being apprenticed in a mechanical shop, learning all about car detailing, painting and panelbeating as we call it in Oz. He's also interested in a law career, so we'll see which one wins out.

It will be odd without him as he may end up going for the better part of a year, but I am sufficiently local now to look after myself in most things and I still have Joy---oh, dear---- and a friend of ours called Xayngeun will take over Sommay's room and some of his roles in the house while S. is gone. Xay is an ex-student of mine and his English is much better than Joy's so I will be OK. (My potted palm has better English than Joy, of course...)

Enough already, as even here in lotus land there is stuff to be done. Happy Greetings to everyone for the new year and the new decade! Remember, if you know anyone who can help me support Phone, the wunderkind medical student that I sponsor, I will be deeply grateful, as will the population of Laos when he starts to practice in five years or so.