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...