Forty Miles of Bad Road

I feel like a solo performer on a stage in a vast, nearly empty theatre wondering if there's anybody out there since I haven't posted anything in so long, but this is to let you know that I'm still here in Laos and still loving it.

Weather is, at the moment, hideously hot when the sun is out, and nicer, but still humid, when it's not. Yesterday it was 45 degrees C. out on my front patio. That's nearly 110 F. Oof...

Work is fairly all-consuming, but still very rewarding. Training for the hotel continues as opening day approaches. I think I am learning as much as they are---possibly more.

The big news is that my friends and I are opening our own school soon. This was, of course, my original idea when I came here so it's quite thrilling. Actually I am joining forces with my friend Claus, who started his own school a few years ago, added another teacher, Marcel, and then created quite simply the best little two room school in town, despite not being native speakers, and not being able to award Government-recognised certificates. People come to Claus' school despite this because they actually WANT to learn.

(I should explain that many people here go to English language schools for the govt. certificate so they can get a government job but only a small percentage actually learn any English. That's why it has been so frustrating teaching at Pasabandith. Only a few of my students make any effort to learn anything.....You've heard my rants.)

Anyway, we're going to usher in a new era in language teaching with two of our Lao friends, one of whom is taking over the business end of things so we can get on with what we do. Claus will teach beginners and train new teachers, Marcel will teach beginners and intermediates, and I will teach advanced classes in job English and public speaking. We will no longer have to sweat over our visas as we will issue our own!

Right now we're looking for funding and organising the license. We'll stay at Claus' little school for the first year and then look at renovating a bigger building. We hope to be operating by September, by which time I'll have left PasaBandith and the wily Ping. The hope is that he will have paid me what he owes me by then. More on this as it progresses....

What have I been doing?

OK, it's been full on since the Xmas/New Years parties ended, teaching at the hotel and at P-Bandith, and I am actually geting pretty tired, but there have been a few lovely excursions and adventures to liven things up.

In February Sommay and I and our friend Gabriel went off to Sainyaburi for the annual Elephant Festival. It's a weekend of elephant viewing, photographing, riding and information, which draws huge crowds from all over the country, many of whom pay little attention to the actual ellies, spending most of their time getting together with family, shopping in the huge outdoor market, eating at numerous food stands and watching the rock bands and other entertainers.

There are almost no guest houses or hotels in Sainyaburi so they have a system of billetting people in private houses, but we arranged to stay with the family of a friend of Sommay's, who treated us royally.

Gabriel and I steeped ourselves in elephant lore, rode a lovely big creature called Balloo, inspected the feeding stations, hung around with the ellies and mahouts and enjoyed ourselves. We also had fun running into people from Luang Prabang.

The amazing thing to me was that people---regular folks, not rich tourists----were willing to travel immense distances for this occasion. There is basically only one road north and south here and only a very few east and west. There is only one road into Sainyburi province and while it's a great road, it's not paved. So for much of the three hours on that road we drove in a blinding dust storm; not a lot of fun for us, but bloody awful for the people in the villages along the way and those trudging along carrying piles of wood and small children. Most people travel by motorbike, bus or truck which is not hugely comfortable, but they came in their thousands nonetheless.

The road crosses the Mekong at one point by ferry, which caused a massive bottleneck and delays of up to seven hours!!!! We waited for 5 hours to get across on the way back, got to know our fellow drivers well and learned new meanings for the word patience. Also a few for indignation as we saw a group of Farang fool the police into thinking that one of them had a serious illness and had to be allowed to go to the head of the queue. Arrgh...

Wedding!!!!!!! Yes, another wedding....but this one was special because it was that of Sommay's next older sister Nang, who is beautiful and delightful and has had rotten luck in her life so far, but has finally found a sweet guy who loves her. She and the bridegroom's family all came up from Vientiane on the overnight bus and we had a fabulous time. I had to be the mother of the bride and stand in the reception line at the party and everything.

It was hellishly hot during the ceremony but the party in the evening was grand, held in the vast school yard in the village with lots of balloons and a really good band. We danced and carried on until a magnificent thunderstorm broke over our heads and brought it all to an exciting close. I will TRY to get the photos posted but the last time I tried, it simply didn't work.

Water, water, everywhere Festival Ah, yes, then there was Pimai Lao, the annual water throwing mayhem, that many farang like to avoid altogether....We did so in a sense by getting out of town. My boy Joy wanted us to visit his family and since this is a big time for going home to one's village, we decided to take him up on the invitation.

Joy comes from a small Lu village (one of the larger ethnic minorities in Laos) way the hell up north in Phongsali Province near the Chinese border. It's actually surrounded by China on three sides, so there are lots of Chinese people up here. This is also a place where one sees a lot of other smaller ethnic groups like the Phu Noi, (the women wear white strap-on leggings) and the Akka, ( short black skirts with pleated backs and interesting silver-bedecked head-dresses.)

It was an epic drive of about 7.5 hours up to Pak Mong, Oudomxai, and then up a fabulous river valley of thick jungles on a twisting dirt road, good, but a bone rattler.

The family were wonderful with Mum, five brothers and three sisters all gathered for the occasion. The whole village turned out to greet us and everybody had to have a look at the farang who looks after Joy, especially after the dancing started later that evening....Yee Ha!

This is the one time of year when these folks stop working like buggery and instead throw themselves with equal vigour into enjoying themselves. I never saw them stop preparing food, eating, drinking, dancing, clearing up after the meals, creating special ceremonial flag poles hung with money and various worldly goods to place at the temple, carrying water from the creek, sweeping, singing, firing off rockets and stopping for innumerable baths in the same creek.

(They run amazingly efficient households despite having no running water and fairly iffy electricity. Food is cooked over an open fire in the house with a very clever venting system for the smoke.)

I came to a complete halt for a day or so there after joining the communal bath one evening (maybe it was the duck water) and thereby contracting some sort of violent flu which kept me up all night and down with a fever the next day. But I snapped to in time for the final few parties. One night we had dinner in two different houses!

We spent one day driving up to the actual town of Phongsali, but the drive was the most entertaining thing about it. It's not an exciting place except for the location up high on several mountain peaks. 100 K up and back!

After a week, of this non-stop fun and interesting food, (some good, some just interesting, like fish poo soup)...a lot of meat and salt and chillis and a lot of it was very cooked and somewhat unrecognisable by the time it was presented. There was the usual dismemberment of a large buffalo to share among all the villagers. The blood is especially prized and they prepare it by carefully stirring in (with a finger) a bit of water from the creek. Yes, the same one where they bathe, wash clothes, brush teeth and keep ducks.

Drinking is a big deal at Pimai and most people feel obliged to get fairly legless at least once or twice during the week, but they don't have much in the way of beer, just the local Lao-lao or rice whisky. It's famous in Laos and now I know why. Most Lao-lao is not very good, but the Phongsali stuff is beyond awful. Give me furniture polish any day!

Finally it was time to go. In addition to the three girls we brought up with us, there were three more, plus all their goods and chattels and a massive amount of stuff that the family wanted us to have, big bags of rice, beautiful handwoven coolie hats, chillis, pumpkins, weavings, tea and about ten huge watermelons. As we hugged everybody goodbye, more stuff kept appearing, and I was seriously worried about the tyres. I made Sommay give away half of the watermelons to road crews along the way, and we got back without a problem---8 hours later.

There was nary a peep about the crowding in the back, probably because they are very well-brought up and anyway they were all too busy quietly bringing up their lunches into specially purchased plastic bags, as they did on the way up and the way to and from Phongsali.

As the driver I had no such problem and just gloried in the great scenery, the fascinating little villages and the challenge of dealing with the potholes and puddles and landslips and buses and pigs and general disastrous road conditions. Mano a mano.....

So now it's back to the workaday world again, but we have entered the low season, which will probably be even lower due to the ructions in Thailand and the financial crisis. Selfishly, I don't mind as it's more peaceful without a lot of tourists, but folks here will suffer.

Happily, the rains seem to have started so things will cool down a bit. This is an awful time of year in some ways, but the flowers are quite wonderful just now and one can actually start gardening now that we're no longer bathing in dry-season dust...

OK, that's my cue to get outside with a hoe and start digging...More sometime, I promise......

Rudolph the red-nosed buffalo...

You will no doubt be relieved to know that I have decided that I will no longer open my posts with elaborate apologies for the paucity of my reports from up here, but simply glide serenely into the latest news...

First, the weather...

Up here on the misty Mekong, the big, dry teak leaves are falling with their usual clumsy clatter, the restaurants continue their wild serenade of completely different music played at the same time. But not so loudly that I can't sit out here on my little balcony in the balmy air that passes for a wintry afternoon in these parts, before the evening chill sets in. (Early mornings are bloody cold, and all we have in the way of actual winter.)

The rains have abruptly ceased, the roads are rutted and dusty instead of rutted and muddy, and the rivers are falling, but still fairly big, with no trace yet of the massive sandbank that usually appears outside our house every year.

How am I?

Am I still happy? I ask myself that question on a daily basis, and the answer is still a resounding YES!!! The tourists slowed down a bit during the Bangkok Airport Unpleasantness, and are taking a while to build up again, but as long as one stays out of the little tourist strip, life goes on unchanged.

Teaching

I am unconscionably busy with teaching and training, but loving it. At last count, I'm up to 37.5 contact hours per week, (between Amantaka Resort and Pasabandith College) which probably accounts for that stunned feeling and the baggy eyes that are my usual mien these days. My New Year's resolution is to bring some sanity to that regime, by cutting teaching hours to allow for some preparation time, currently minimal, due to the need to eat, sleep and take the odd shower. The upside of this timetable, of course, is that I spend far less time in Bacchanalian pursuits with my friends at the wine bar, some of you will be happy to hear.

But my lovely students make everything allright, even the recalcitrant ones who refuse to remember what a verb is and still say ge how instead of guest house. Recently, we held a massive Exorcism ceremony---Amanataka is being built on the old hospital site and is positively reeking with bad spirits and threats to one's composure---which involved two hours of chanting, no fewer than 22 monks and the entire staff of the hotel, plus management and guests. At one point I turned around and saw all 126 of my trainees smiling at me and it was a wonderful moment that I will never forget.

As far as my employment goes, Ping is as wily as ever. I am waiting until he renews my visa before I start hassling him about various sources of discontent, but I know he needs me far more than I need him.

My students there are learning Writing and English for Everyday Activities. The first is made difficult by the fact that no one has told them about sentences, punctuation, parts of speech and little things like that so I have to start from the beginning again. The EEA class is learning how to talk about catching a bus, using shaving cream, using a toaster, none of which they will probably ever need to do and know nothing about. Never mind, as I keep saying, they are all gorgeous and I love every minute of my teaching time.

I have the first few volunteer teachers starting soon, despite Ping's attempt to ignore my efforts to set up a co=teaching project. Had a great and unexpected trial run with this when Brisbane teacher Susan Whiting showed up the other day saying that two friends had told her to look me up here. We had a great time over dinner and a bottle of wine and then I enveigled her into taking two of my classes that I couldn't do due to work at the hotel and she did a great job! The students were delighted to hear another voice and Ping was no doubt tickled pink that he didn't have to PAY anyone to take my classes.

Amantaka Resort is still a building site with Opening Day receding steadily into the distant future. (Probably March). I am actually pleased as it gives me more time to prepare my charges for their jobs.

It's a huge task. From security guards to sous-chefs they all have different challenges, levels, vocabulary, etc. many have never used a knife and fork or seen a French fry, and now they are being trained to handle silver service and to know their croutons from their choucroute. And all of it has to come out of my head...

Monk-y business....

Recently I sponsored my maid, Mimi's, son Thep to go into the temple as a novice. He seemed a bit lost, with three sisters, the two little ones very bright and the older one very capable and poised, so I suggested the idea and he leaped at it. This meant that Mimi and I went along and spoke to the abbot of the temple I had chosen for him---the best in town---- and happily, we got him in!!!

Then we went out and bought all the orange bits and pieces he will need, robes, bag, umbrella plus bedding, bowl and spoon, begging bowl, etc. Then an auspicious day was chosen and we had a great ceremony, starting with a procession from their house; twelve year-old Thep --all in white robes---and his father going first, Dad Keo with his hand on the lad's shoulders and an umbrella over his head, followed by me carrying his robes, and then the elderly ladies of the village, lustily singing wailing, traditional songs and clapping, then Mimi and guests carrying various things, especially my young friend Phone, who kindly volunteered to mastermind the whole thing with two of his friends.

At the temple we presented gifts to all the monks and novices and there was an elaborate ceremony in which I had to sit at the front and ceremonially hand him his orange get-up, and there was lots of chanting and tossing of rice and lollies. At some point Thep went off with some older novices and they dressed him in his orange robes for the first time and he came out beaming from ear to ear. The old monk doing the ceremony was stone deaf and very ancient so he kept forgetting his prayers and chants. The village elders running the show had to keep reminding him what to say and do and everyone had a good-natured laugh about it all.

I paid for it as his parents couldn't, but it means I get a lot of merit for my next life. Now we take it in turns to take food to the temple every day and I've paid for him to have a special English course, so his parents are especially delighted. It's basically for the 5 years of high school, so he gets a good education.

Christmas in a Buddhist Climate

Now the next celebration is Christmas, which up here consists of shops decorated with masses of multicoloured tinsel and lights, waiters in Santa hats and expats retreating to restaurants for dinners and parties, although I'll be working every day anyway, I imagine.

Tonight I'm off to an opening of my friend Thep's (different one) latest paintings and tomorrow to my friend Ric's baci ceremony to bless his new house with dinner for 12. Then on Christamas Eve, our little coterie of Lao/French/Canadian friends are having dinner at LÉlephant, followed by a private party hosted by our friend Keo at his wine bar. And that doesn't even include Christmas Day! So one's social life is still active which is very gratifying and jolly.

Help!!!!!!!!!

But, jolly as we are, this year as usual, I am appealing to everyone I know to help me to help people up here. As I mentioned in my last post, I need people to help me send Phone, a promising young man, to medical school on Vientiane. I have paid his first term fees, but I am hoping that everyone who is able will help me with this as he needs living expenses as well and it's a long course! It will cost about $150 Usd per month, so it's a big ask, but I'm hoping that a little bit from a number of people will do the trick......

On the Home Front...

The boys and I are still getting on famously and our little house is a very happy one, except for the recent trauma of losing our darling doggie Dam-dam under the wheels of a truck, followed by the loss of little Buster, one of our replacement puppies only a few weeks later. Now we cling to the gorgeous Milo, a fluffy caramel and white all-breed, with lovely smudgy eyes and a delightful personality, despite a tendency to poop in inconvenient places.

So despite deeply missing my family and friends, you can see that I am FINE and thriving. I hope you all are, too and that you will have an excellent Christmas Holiday and New Year !

Now to fashion a Christmas tree out of banana leaves.....

Umm....Dig Deep....

Just a quick report on doings here.....The house over the river is almost finished and looks great. The family is camping nearby under a plastic tarpaulin and waiting with shining eyes to move in with their little bags and bundles. On Sunday the monks will come and we will have a baci to celebrate and to bless the house. Just in time as the brief dry spell is over and we are in the last rainy time before the weather gets cold again.

Meanwhile, I am hoping that anyone who can will find some spare cash to help me pay for all this. The whole thing was around $2500 USd. Soon I will have an arrangement for US contributors to give tax free, but who knows how long it will be until I can afford to do it in Oz. May have to wait until Dan is a practicing lawyer to get a good rate....

(I know I should have raised the money first, but the rains were falling and there was no time to waste.)

Got to run, as I have two classes tonight and then a HUGE party that we have organised for my new boss Gary. Tomorrow I teach all morning and then have a dinner party here and Sunday I teach, do the baci and next week I start my Amantaka staff classes in the mornings and continue with the Pasabandith ones at night. Whew!! And everybody says this is a serene lotus-eating existence!

Hugs o you all!!

The Little Forest Family and other stories

Once upon a time there was a little man called Lit and his wife Pheng who lived in a forest glade with their five small children. They lived on forest foods, a veggie patch and fish from a pond. They were Khmu people, one of the Lao tribal groups who have traditionally been the bottom of the pecking order in Laos.

But then the children began to grow up and soon the Ngaai Baan, the village chief from the village nearby said that they could not live in the forest any more because the children had to go to school and the government did not want little tribal groups living in the forest with no services or medical care.

So the little family trudged into the big village, where they also had no services and no medical care and no money for school supplies, uniforms or fees. At some point Lit began to drink and rapidly became a helpless alcoholic, spending all his meagre earnings as a porter for people bringing cargo over the river to and from the village.

So Pheng worked harder than ever, walking back into the forest every day to gather food and tend her veggie patch and then crossing the river to the town to sell her produce in the streets. When she wasn't busy doing this she was hugging and loving and playing with her kids, still full of patience and love and smiles for her babies, despite her hard life.

The family lived on a little wooden platform covered with a grass roof, perched precariously on the edge of the Mekong River. As the rainy season grew more intense, the roof leaked copiously on the little family as they huddled in their hut, no bigger than the average vestibule.

The other villagers, not exactly flush with funds themselves, watched this and were worried. They talked amongst themselves and finally told their friend, Phone, from the town. He told me and we bought them tarpaulins and mosquito nets and blankets and began to talk with the NgaaiBaan about where else they could live.

Then the rain began to fall heavily and the river began to rise and soon the family had to dismantle their sodden hut and climb up to live on somebody's porch as the flood waters swept away their foundations.

The upshot is that I am now building them a house on a nice high spot that belongs to the village and has a great view of the mountains to the north. It's high and dry, with nice neighbours, plenty of trees, water supply nearby.

The father sits and stares dully, his clouded eyes full of pain---or is it simply an alcoholic haze?, but the children smile and laugh and their mother smiles and holds my hands tightly. The kids are all kitted out with everything they need for school and have started the year already.

I estimate that it will all cost a couple of thousand bucks to complete all this, including paying the builder and the locals who are working for him. I am hoping that some of you may find a few bob to send along to My Bamboo Village Foundation to help with this, as I have a few other projects that are taking my funds as well.
Contact my daughter Molly on 617 3368 2676 or piggysweetheart@yahoo.com.au She'll pop the money into the bank for me. No, I still don't have tax-free status as that costs thousands to arrange. But I have a logo and the website is in the works.


Project Number Two:
All this has been accomplished because of the remarkable Phonepasert. He comes from a village far to the north and lives here in LP with his aunt and uncle and his cousins, burly chaps of few words and sweet smiles. Phone is just finishing his nursing training and plans to move to Vientiane next year to train as a doctor.

He spent 4 years as a monk and has a sweet, kind, almost elderly demeanour, despite being only in his early twenties. He wanted to be an environmentalist but when his father fell ill, he decided that medicine was a more useful path.

Now I am looking for someone or several people who would like to sponsor him as he will need living expenses and fees to go to medical school. Please let me know if you want to know more about him and about helping him out.

He and I and my maid Mimi all share a love of plants and gardening and so he took us on a long jungle hike the other day gathering plants for my garden, orchids, vines, flowers, gingers, and herbs, guided by his mate, who knows the forest intimately, exactly where to find this or that plant, which of a maze of tiny paths to take, how to avoid the worst mud wallows, and can scamper up the tallest tree to pick fruit for large farang women with great ease.

It was an enchanting day. We started at the house site, had a lengthy conference with the builder and the gaggle of locals that always join in and contribute whenever anything is discussed, whether it has anything to do with them or not.

Then we set off on our walk, past ancient temples and relatively new ones, through Lit and Pheng's abandoned village site, past rice fields and veggie patches, fish ponds and buffalo paddocks, all shrouded in dense jungle.

Finally, loaded with plants and very muddy, we reached a village where Phone's friend lived and where we were invited to lunch. I was thinking they'd fix us a little something and we'd be on our way, but no.....

First we sat a spell and chatted. Mimi discovered that the lady of the house was in fact her cousin so they had a great time catching up. Then we went for a wander through the village, greeting old friends of Phone's and ending up at a house where they kept ducks, to purchase one for lunch. Well, when I say 'kept'---the ducks kind of wandered about in the general muddy area of the house and there was an all-family circus in progress to catch the thing by the time Phone and I continued our wander.

Finally we sat at a little table by the edge of the village and watched a column of dark silver rain as it advanced over a wide, fiercely green rice field. Three young women were laughing and picking fruit nearby and stopped to bring us a jug of cold water and glasses. Such hospitality...Finally the rain began to fall and we headed back to the house where we were served a delicious fish soup with rice. I assumed that the duck had eluded the chase and shortly after lunch wondered if we should be getting back, but no, out in the kitchen the duck was being dealt with as Mimi and her cousin chatted by the fire and chopped and pounded and prepared what turned out to be a fabulous meal of BBQ duck, with a sort of salad of duck blood and giblets, chillis, herbs, garlic and peanuts. Wonderful!

By now I had lost any sense of time or of thinking we should get back and accomplish something and soon the laolao appeared, plastic bags full of it from the local shop---home-distilled rice liquor. Filthy-tasting but very warming. One passes a glass around, refilling for each person and the jollification that ensues is always hearty indeed.

There was a short recital from one fellow who was once a doctor and is now a farmer and has a rich baritone voice, and the party really took off when the second baggie of laolao arrived. Finally, it really was time to leave because one needs to get across the Mekong before dark as the boats have no riding lights.

The village cultivator tractor was hired to get us back to Ban Xieng Maen, as we were several kilometres away. This is a two wheeled device that can plow a muddy field and also pull a small wagon and which is used for transport among the smaller villages. The journey was especially festive because our hosts, their grandson, the baritone, the forest guide, and Phoné's mate all insisted on coming with us, piling into the wagon with us, along with the rest of the laolao and the last plateful of BBQ duck as well, just to be sure we didn't get peckish on the way.

So off we chugged in the late afternoon sun, along the dirt road between rice fields and small farmhouses, drunkenly singing and clapping and laughing and hallooing, waving to the general populace, who just smiled and waved back. The glass of laolao continued to be passed amongst us and a snort was literally forced down the throat of the driver as he drove. The tiny grandson watched all this with round eyes, from his perch between Grannie's knees.

25 minutes later we poured out of the wagon and said a warm farewell to our hosts as we tumbled down the steep bank to our waiting boat and putted off across the golden river.

BUT WAIT....It doesn't end there. Once back on the Luang Prabang side of the river, Phone dropped me at my house where Sommay was in the shower, shouting, Hurry up, Mammy, we have to go soon!

Yes, his sister Nang, the one who had the grumpy husband and lost her only child to meningitis last year, was suddenly getting engaged and we had to be there for the betrothal ceremony. She is a delight and we are all very happy for her. She met the groom at her brother Xai's wedding in Vientiane only two months ago, and we all made the journey down there to celebrate the occasion. That's when I bought my car, but that's anoher story.

All the family, plus brother Xai, the groom-to-be's family, the elders of the villages, plus brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts, were all sitting on the floor at the family house in their village outside town, discussing the marriage contract, the bride price, the advisability of Nang remarrying, the procedures to be followed along with long perorations about marriage and the duties of each partner and how to have a sucessful union.

The highlight for me was when little Ai, the 3 year-old foster son of Sommay's brother, Bounlay, came into the house and chose my lap to sit on of all the assembled mob. Ah! A Grannie moment...

Then there was a baci ceremony and we tied strings and money around the wrists of the couple and then sat down to a large meal of laap, minced meat salad with herbs, rice and soup, washed down with lots of beer. I brought my usual cask of wine so as to avoid the gluten-rich brew, and we toasted and cheered and celebrated. Then the women started singing traditional jolly songs and soon somebody put on some music.

The women were pretty jolly by now and started to dance lao style and, of course, I had to join them and do my version and then it was on for one and all. We danced and danced till I was soaked with sweat and finally had to bail out and head home. What a night! What a day! What a life!!!

More soon.....

I'm Baa-aa-aa-ck!!

Incredibly, the internet saga that halted my blogging all those months ago had a few more twists and turns and I've been once again without Internet access until a few days ago!!!!

I am gibbering with relief at being back online and can only hope that you haven't totally given up on me. First our internet account ran out and they just simply unplugged us. No warning, no invitation to renew, nothing.

Then we tried three different routers and many days of fiddling and re-configuring and finally the thing worked. Well, not mine, only Sommay was able to connect. There was some sort of virus that sneaked into my computer via a USB and it took days and days to fix, once it was discovered, because my computer guy works at two jobs and has very little time.

Anyway, I won't go on as it's very boring and because there is so much more to tell you that isn't....

The JOB(s).....

My 'visa' job at Pasabandith has been totally undemanding for a bit as they were doing exams and then being graded and finally graduated in a big ceremony in the Provincial Administration Auditorium, which is conveniently only a few steps from my house. Very grand with lots of varnished panelling and furniture, all decorated in day-glo orange and white bunting at the back, red white and blue bunting near the front plus hideous plastic cherry blossom branches. The students were kitted out in black academic robes edged with traditional Lao woven design. The custom here is that everyone gets flowers for graduation and takes endless photos afterwards clutching their certificates and beaming.

But now I am teaching a 'summer' course in English for Office work in the Travel Industry. Only about eight students so I won't make more than pin money, but they're nice kids and it's not too demanding, but it's every evening for an hour and a half', so my days are long.

Soon the regular term will start and I'll teach in the evenings and teach the teachers in the afternoons. Not that we have very many, as most of them quit, pissed off with the Wily Ping because of his highhanded manner with them and the pitiful salaries he pays. They get 45 bucks a month!!!!!

And I have also got a contract job to teach a group of government employees how to report verbally and in writing to an aid group who are looking at setting up an agricultural improvement project. Again, not a lot of money but a worthwhile endeavour.

Then I'm going to set up some intensive seminars for the company that runs the airport--snack bar people, Xray screening, passenger services, to bring them up to a better standard of English and tourist interaction.
That will pay well.

But my big job, as education administrator for the newest Aman resort in the chain-to be called Amantaka, is fairly full-on just now. Two weeks ago I interviewed 700 job applicants in five days. I was screening for English levels and then sending them off to the various department heads. It was mammoth.

I also had to find translators and helpers for this enterprise and it was hot and sticky and utterly exhausting. One night I came home and fell asleep, completely missing my evening class.

Then this past week we did the Second Interview for which we called back about 300 people, and then had a two day Management Training Seminar, which entailed listening to hours of motivational gobbledygook and doing daft things in teams to develop team spirit and define our values. Or something. But I survived. And yes, we developed lots of rapport and bonded and all that.

Then last night we had a gala night out for just the ten of us with beautiful Lao food and music and dancing and a Baci ceremony to celebrate our bondedness. Afterwards a few of us went out and had a lot of fun getting roaring drunk. So now we're all well-bonded and rather hungover.

So, work-wise, I am very busy and in much demand. In about two weeks I'll start teaching the Amantaka employees and I'll learn the real meaning of the word 'work'.

Right now I am going to re-define the meaning of sleep, as I've been gardening all day and am utterly pooped. So tired in fact that I had to turn down an invitation to eat with Sommay's family tonight. They ran over a snake on the way back from the Pak Ou boat-racing festival (Sommay's brother Bounlay captained the winning team!!!) and were having a feast of snake soup. Cheers!

Helllooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

Is anybody still out there?

Well, I wouldn't blame you for giving up on me, since it's been so long. I can explain.....but do you really want me to?? I can see Peter shaking his head violently as he rocks to and fro, moaning, no, no....!

Well, many of you know that my internet has been busted since about april 1 when we had the grandaddy of all electrical storms up here, and it's been agonising getting something done about it, and you know that I have to schlepp around to various hot sweaty little internet shops when I have a spare moment to write and then there are the usual signal-dropping-out-just as one has produced a lovely long screed and the whole thing gets lost, or the urgent Mum-where's-the-Medicare-card type messages to answer and, yada yada....And I was back in Oz for most of April whichwas lovely, but hardly newsy....

Well, now here I am in the second-sweatiest internet shop, but the fan at this end of the shop is broken and the German family next to me enthusiastically writing to Grossmutti have only very recently removed their feet from sweaty trainers so I am already swooning from the heady mix that this produces and probaby won't last long.

Mainly I just wanted to let you know I'm OK, I am still deeply in love with this town, and now have an unexpected but thoroughly welcome new lock on solvency, having signed a one year contract to be the chief educational officer for the newest, poshest and most expensive hotel in town, still under construction. They offered about four times what I thought I'd try and ask for so I'm not quibbling. My new boss--(well, sub-boss as the wily Ping is still my guarantor and nominal boss. He gets more nominal every day that passes that he hasn't paid me.) is an affable, capable, easy-going Australian called Gary Tyson who was told that I was THE go-to-girl here in Luang Prabang by my dear friend Brian---another Affable Aussie who is part of the architectural/project management team. Ex opal-dealer from Coober Pedy who once ran an opera company in St. Louis.

And well, it seemed like the next logical step was to buy a car. So I went down to Vientiane to check up on one of my ex-novices who is starting college there and met up with two guys. One is a waiter at Sticky Fingers Cafe called Vong, who is also a bit of a wheeler-dealer but has a heart of gold and plays rugby union (would you believe!) being fairly un-Lao in size. The other was Mike Murphy, a Newfie in coke-bottle glasses who's got a big garage in town and has lived there for twenty odd years when he wasn't being framed by his bejewelled and jealous exwife, chucked out of the country, going into business unwittingly with a conman who carried a suitcase full of dodgy passports, thrown into jail, getting vindicated and then re-framed, but does a nice line in used cars and trucks fro he vaious international mobs who come to twon.

I set them to looking for me and Vong came up trumps two weeks later with a Hyundai Starex mini-van with power everything, only a year or two old and got us all the way back up here to Luang Prabang on less than a tank of diesel without a murmur.

That might not sound like much unless you've seem Highway 13, which is either flat and potholed or stunningly steep and twisty. Either way it goes through tiny villages full of dogs and chickens and motorbikes and big trucks and small babies and herds of dozy, apparently deaf cows, all of whom share the road. Some times this is because the land drops away inches from the edge of the road, and sometimes because there are people cooking and chatting and picking their noses right at the edge of the road, seemingly unaware that the nation's biggest and most amazing highway runs through their living rooms.

It's only about 400 k's but took nine hours with lightning stops for pees and one 20 minute pause for food and I am happy to tell you that I had the brains to hire Vong to do the driving, sending him back by plane the next day, a matter of 35 minutes.....

"We" consisted of not only myself and my head boy Sommay, but most of his family---sister Jumalee, brother Bounlay, Uncle Peng, Auntie Ti, their year-old granddaughter Gai and Auntie Phaw. Another brother and sister were treated to a plane ride as I don't have it anywhere in my heart to make anyone take the bus. Ten hours of lurching....you know the drill....

We'd combined the car-buying trip with the wedding of another brother Xai, who was marrying a girl from just outside Vientiane and the wedding was a ripsnorter. Took about three days, but we couldn't let him face her family on his own and I am sort of their mother and family elder. Not to mention their own travelling side-show. Yes, I wore the Turquoise Trainstopper and yes, I danced.....Let a veil be drawn....

No, really, I'll tell you all about it soon, and even try to whack in the odd photo, but I've been here for nearly two hours and it's G&T time. Nice to be back in touch. More when the modem is up and running. I promise.......

Slice of my Lovely Lao Life

Let me tell you about yesterday.....

It was a beautiful rainy, cool morning but it didn't begin well. First, at 8 AM, I taught one of my 3rd-year classes-----Well, I went to school and stood in front of my 3rd year students and spoke for over an hour, but any teaching was pretty well imperceptible. They are some of the brightest and the best and they love my jokes, ask good questions, many of them seem to understand what I'm saying, and some actually make an effort to speak and demonstrate that they have picked up some crumb of knowledge.

But yesterday, nothing.

Just blank looks and yawns. OK, the monks get up at 3:45 AM so that's understandable. And some students work late. But there was no reason for it. You teachers out there will understand. Just one of THOSE days, when one thinks, "Allright-maybe I could get a job running a restaurant....or become a nun for a year, or ANYTHING, as I am clearly incapable of this.. ...

I moaned a bit to my fellow teachers at break time, but they just grinned and said..."Some students are very lazy." Small comfort.

So I trudged back up the filthy stairs to tackle the second years, usually an even motlier bunch, but while they didn't exactly sit up and hold an erudite discussion on the state of the world today, they were asking questions, answering questions, listening, trying to understand, speaking and showing real animation and enthusiasm. What a treat! Wow, I said to myself, What a great class....I'm obviously born to teach!

I had a quiet coffee at the Canadian bakery and reflected on how quickly one's reality can change. Then it was Game on! again.

After lunch, I helped Joy with a few questions, and then my tutees for the afternoon began arriving. First were two smart young almost-graduates from the University for another coaching session in how to be the MC's of a seminar they are organising about the challenges facing Luang Prabang in the areas of Investment, Human Resources and Tourism. It's a school assignment, but it involves a lot of speakers from the Uni and from Government Departments and will be attended by several hundred people.

In the midst of that, my boss, the Wily Ping, showed up with my invitation to the big opening ceremony of our new school building on Saturday, with the whole schmeer----speeches, a baci ceremony, monks chanting and a big piss-up lunch afterwards at the new school. I'll have to dust off my Lao lady outfit for that.

The emcees had no sooner left when the four musicians from Puang Champa House Cultural Centre arrived for their session. They are beginners but quite adorable. I do a lot of pantomiming and leaping about and so on to explain things to them, so it's fairly tiring, but a lot of fun. (Tomorrow is their last class so I'll take them out for a meal.)

Then after a break for a G&T and a bath and it was time to prepare another lesson, this time for Jauck, who came at seven, desperate to be able to improve his pronunciation so he can keep his new job at a posh hotel here and be able to take room service orders. He's really a maths teacher, but there's no money in it and he has a young family to support. The menus he has to try to work from are in French and badly translated English---some of it quite unfathomable, so the poor kid is up against it, but I'm having a go.

Afterwards he dropped me in town to meet my lovely friends Gabriel and Britney, two young travellers who are so taken with this place that they're staying as long as possible. I have found Britney a job and counselled her about whether she should take that one or another one which sounded fabulous but on closer examination was a worry, so we celebrated her accepting the one I found her.

Then they told me all about their trip to Cambodia and Vietnam. Great stories about how their tuktuk driver fell in love with Britney and sat outside her hotel room all night playing love songs at full volume on his phone and weeping. And how Gabriel had to almost fight off the physicaland emotional blandishments of his female guide on a trek to Hmong hill villages in Northern Vietnam! Hilarious evening.

Afterwards I dropped into the wine bar and saw some dear friends there for a glass or two of cold white, a bit of gossiping and planning for our various farewells and returns, and then a council of war over the Dog Problem, which has flared up again, this time with the heartbreaking disappearance of the beautiful Bounma, Nith's dog that we all look after and love.

So that's a picture of a day in my life. There were other things---we've discovered the origin of the awful smell at the back of the house, I've confirmed my ticket home in April, and started lining up farewell dinners and drinks, been out to the hospital for my latest ear infection, but I can't really tell you write any more now because they've just phoned to say that one of the speakers for the seminar has dropped out and would I give a talk and lead a discussion on Cultural Communication at the seminar tomorrow?! Another outing for the Lao lady costume.....

One of my emcees is picking me up at 7:30 tomorrow AM, ( !!!!!) so I'd better get busy writing my speech....Let's see now. How to begin..........Um, Gidday everyone!.....