I smell a RAT

How many of you saw the movie Ratatouille? How many of you thought Disney made a cute rat character? Wait, keep your hands up. Look to your left and right, everyone with their hands up has never had a rat in their house.

In October of 2007 Mirinda and I moved out of the sprawling metropolis of Vientiane (pop. 600,000) and into a small village close to the University where I teach. Some of the drawbacks from this decision have been: long commutes into town, neighbors who have never seen a foreigner, dirt roads that turn into swamps during the rainy season, and rats. Lots and lots of rats. I had never dealt with a rat before moving here, even in the States all I had seen were little house mice. Observe exhibit A:












Today I want to share some of my exciting rat stories with you all. We'll start with our first rat experience. I was sitting in the living room on a vinyl couch when I heard something thumping below me. Curious, I turn the couch over and was looking through a hole that had been chewed when...bam! Flying out of the hole at my face a huge rat! I almost fell backwards and Mirinda screamed as the rat ran through the house and into the kitchen where he disappeared. After this harrowing experience we bought a pile of glue traps and have been baiting them non-stop since.

My second note-worthy experience was after we came back from a conference in Thailand. We had been gone about four weeks and the person who was taking care of our house had accidentally locked the office door. Unfortunately we didn't have a key to that door. When we finally managed to get the door open, we noticed an unusual odor, but it wasn't very strong so we ignored it. A few hours later, we thought it was getting stronger, so we let the dog in to pinpoint the source. Underneath a chair lay the rotting carcass of a long dead rat. Disturbing the body made the whole room stink worse and we were bleaching and airing it out for weeks.

Finally, when my parents where visiting this past December, Mirinda heard some activity in a closet under the stairs. I grabbed a flashlight and a broom stick, set two glue traps across the door, and went in to flush the thing out. I was pulling out boxes and making noise to get the rat to run out the door. All of a sudden I picked up a box and (again!) a rat jumped out towards my face. I almost hit my head on the ceiling, but my plan worked and the rat got caught on the trap. Unfortunately, as soon as we cleaned him up another one ran out and got away. Only 50% that night.

Participation

Two of my distinguished classmates; Aaron and Brad.




For the past three years I have been working on my Masters in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of other Languages). The classes have been part-time, twice a year in January and July since 2006. Usually we have 2-4 weeks where we complete around 4-8 credit hours of class. These have been some of the most stressful times of my life. One of the ways that I cope with the pressure is by talking a lot in class.
Some of you have never had a class with me, but the former statement probably doesn’t surprise you because you know that I talk a lot out of class, so why would I talk less in class? I would like to say that I only share relevant things that I think everyone can benefit from in our discussions, but the truth is, I think that I’m really smart and I like the sound of my own voice.
This past January we had a class called “Intercultural Communication.” I was practically salivating at the thought of participating in these discussions, and Dr. Moreau did not disappoint. There was another student in the class named Ben who works in China. Now Ben is not like me, because he actually is smart and the other students enjoy hearing his insights. One day a group of my friends decided to place bets on which one of us would talk more in the next day’s class. Every comment translated into a tally mark and at the end of the class, the man with the most tallies wins. I guess it was a close race, I got off to a slow start and Ben pulled ahead. Around 3/4’s into the class though I came roaring back and took the lead. We were neck and neck at the finish, with me up by one tally when...

Ben asked a final clarification question about the homework and took the crown.

I guess real life doesn’t always have happy endings.

Tiger Kingdom

Remember Zoobooks? It was a magazine that came out in the early 90’s about animals.

My parents bought a subscription and so every month a new magazine would arrive packed with pictures and information. There were three issues that I looked at so many times the pages fell out. Lions, Tigers, and Big Cats. I have been obsessed with lions and tigers since childhood. And on January 18th, 2009, I got to fulfill a boyhood dream of touching a live tiger.
The location: Tiger Kingdom, Chiang Mai Thailand. Yes Thailand, they would never allow something like this in the U.S. The premise: there are dozens of tigers in enclosures, and because they are nocturnal creatures, visitors can pay to touch, lay on, and take pictures with these beautiful cats during the day while they are resting. I know, this is just a “When Animals Attack” episode waiting to happen, but I had to gamble on the chance I wouldn’t make the highlight reel. For fifteen dollars our group got to spend about an hour in the cages with the tigers. We spent twenty minutes with the 3-6 month olds, and forty minutes with the adult tigers.
If I had to rate the greatest days of my life so far, I think it would be: Tiger kingdom, my wedding, and then the birth of my son. If you don’t know that I’m kidding, you should stop reading now and navigate to a new site.





But it was interesting that I was smiling bigger in my “tiger” pictures then in my “newly reunited with my wife and son” pictures.



I know that you are all insanely jealous of me and wish that you had this life experience, but not everyone can be that cool...

Advice

Because Mir and I have a new baby, people everywhere feel the need to give us advice on raising him. Normally I don’t mind at all, in fact, I welcome the advice. I know I have a lot to learn about being a father and I don’t want my pride to get in the way of caring for my boy.
But it’s is a little more complicated when the advice comes from Lao people. Now, I am not saying that Lao people don’t know how to raise children, obviously thousands of children are born here every year and they go on to become happy, successful adults. But our methods definitely conflict at times.
Here are a few of our favorite nuggets of wisdom.

“Don’t put him in diapers when he’s at home. He’ll be bow-legged when he grows up. When you go out, fine, use diapers, but not at home. Just let him pee on the floor and clean it up.” (Ewww)

Referring to his cradle cap: “Lots of people from the country get this because they never bathe their babies. (Ouch!) If you just wash his head every day and use lots of Vaseline it will go away.”

“He’s too hot, take the blankets off him!”
<--------(These two happen interchangeably)
“He’s too cold, wrap him up!”

“If you hold him over your shoulder like that he’ll have a hunchback when he grows up.”

Every time he hiccups: “Give him some water to drink, don’t give him milk!”

“If you pinch his cheeks like that he won’t want to eat food.”

“You shouldn’t dress him in onesies like this, it’s too tight on his neck. He should wear loose fitting clothes.” (I swear Lao babies only wear blankets for the first year of their life.)

My Classroom

As an English teacher, the title of this post might be somewhat of a misnomer. I don’t mean my literal open air, blackboard, complete with chickens and goats, classroom. I mean the stage of life the Father has us in to grow us into his son’s likeness. This isn’t an original “Doug” idea, I borrowed it from our country director’s wife, Corky. I love the perspective it gives on life though.
So, what is my classroom? Right now my wife and I just started the adoption process for our son Jonathan in a country where there have been two, yes two, previous adoptions to Americans. Each adoption has been decided on a case by case basis and at any time our request might be denied by either the Lao or U.S. government.
Our visas have been expired for five days now (as of January 5, 2009) even though the paperwork has been sitting in the administration office since October. For three months there have been serious doubts about whether they would even be extended, all this at a time when we need to be in Laos more than ever to work on the adoption. But recently there has been good news that they will be processed soon, though now that our old visas have expired it becomes slightly more complicated.
Finally, our financial situation has been tenuous recently. It seems like our organization is constantly adding more expenses to our profile, and with the recession at home many people have stopped giving to our account. Couple that with a falling dollar and rising inflation and you have a very stressful situation for the “provider” of the family. At times I have wondered which would send us back to the States first, lack of visas or lack of money. All of this again becomes more complicated when we consider the unknown costs of the adoption and starting our family.
Well, as best as I can tell, my classroom is faith that the Father is in control even though my life is clearly out of control. Any one of those three events would be enough to keep a person up at night, and all three together have given me plenty of chances to worry and fret. But we are not called to worry, we are called to trust. And I cannot waste my time and energy today fretting about tomorrow. I feel blessed because every morning I can wake up and trust that everything is in the Father’s hands and he cares for me. And even if the unthinkable happens today, this life is only a vapor and soon I will be in my Father’s arms.
Lessons like these make my phonetics classes look like a joke. How about a little audience participation? See if anyone even reads these notes. What is your classroom? Try to be CG (Communication Guidelines while in Asia) friendly, follow my example as best you can.

The only thing worse...

I am on the schedule to lead song time at our foreign fellowship here in Laos. Because we all take turns I only lead every couple of months. In November we started planning the adoption and ran into problems with the family asking for money. One Sunday morning we were finally able to meet with Jonny’s birth-mom and her family and explain very clearly why we could not give them any money. It was a long and stressful day and when we came home we relaxed and didn’t go to fellowship that night.

Fast forward one week. Our service starts at 5, but because we live out of town, we need to leave between 4:30 and 4:45. I was busy getting ready to go upstairs and at 4:15, I remembered I was on the schedule to lead sometime in early November. I raced downstairs and opened my email, praying that I didn’t have to lead in 20 minutes.

Let me ask you, what is the only thing worse than finding out you are supposed to lead w-ship in 20 minutes? Give up? Finding out that you were supposed to lead w-ship the week before and you forgot. I found out later that the speaker that night stood up and asked for the leader, and when no one came forward they did music a cappella. I was so embarrassed that we decided not to go to fellowship that night. I know, I know, I should have gone and fessed up, but no one is perfect.

The Dream

A few nights ago I was having a very intense dream. In my dream Jonny was screaming his head off because he had a wet diaper, and I was trying to change him and his onesy. I pulled and pulled, trying to get the onesy over his head and when it finally came off, I woke up. I found myself kneeling on the bed, with my pillow in one hand and my newly removed pillowcase in the other. I stared at both of them for a while, and decided it would be too much work to put the pillowcase back on so I went back to sleep.

The next morning Mir woke up, and her first words to me were: “What the heck did you do with your pillowcase?”

My Grossest Moment Ever

Warning! This blog entry is not for the faint of heart or for those who have recently eaten.

Mir at the MTV cafe, you can see the sign for the restroom behind her.

When we first came to Asia we had a four week stop-over in Hanoi, Vietnam. The purpose was to complete a TEFL certificate so that we could be certified EFL teachers in our respective countries. These were probably some of the worst four weeks of my life, and Mir would probably concur. We were jet lagged, living out of our suitcases in a cramped hotel room, sitting in classes for seven hours a day, and in a country where we didn’t like the food and didn’t speak the language. Because our classes were in our hotel, we rarely saw the outdoors except on the weekends. The one ray of sunshine was the MTV cafe. This was the restaurant next door that had free Wi-Fi, an English menu, decent food, and a very convenient location. In other words, we were there almost every night.

But in one moment, my perception of the MTV Cafe was changed forever. Having just arrived in Asia, my stomach was still on ropes and frequent trips to the bathroom were the norm. On one such occasion, I entered the bathroom, sat down... and then the toilet exploded onto me. I’m not joking, there was other peoples’ “business” splattered all over the walls, the floor, and of course me. When something like this happens, it takes a while for the gravity of the situation to sink in. My thoughts went more or less as follows:

“Did this really just happen?”

“Oh my gosh, I’m covered in $***!”

“How the heck am I going to get back to my room?”

(This series repeated several times.)

After collecting myself, I wiped off as much of the mess as I could, walked/ran through the restaurant, and booked it up to our hotel room. The next step was a long shower with all my clothes on, and then the disposal of said clothes in the trash can.

Sometimes I still can’t believe it...

Doug pre-grossest moment ever doing schoolwork.

Birthday SMS

Every year on my birthday some of my students send me a text message wishing me a happy birthday. This year’s haul was a little larger than in the past, and I thought I would share them with you. Most native English speakers cannot compose a grammatically correct or coherent text message, and so what hope do we have for English learners?

0:03

0:02

0:01

0:00

“(((((((BOOM)))))))”

“Happy Birthday”

“vo” “vo”


Happy birthday iwish you have successful in your life from class E6.

Happy birthday for the teacher.

Happy birth day to u i wish you successful in your life.

Happy birth day for you today and forever.

Morning, Happy Birthday to my teacher. I wish you very happy, healthy, have got a new baby and successful for everything in ur life. Love. (no name)

Happybirth day to you. I wish you to good health good luck and successful for your work.

I wish you happy in your birthday and successful for your work.

Happy birthday to you! I wish you have goodluck and healthy.

Happy birthday. I wish you happy and have a good thing.

happy birth day teacher DOUNG. I hope you successful on your work &good luck good health.

Nocturnal colloquy

Many a night I have entire conversations with Mirinda while asleep. Hilarity often ensues, but Mir almost always forgets the exact conversation by morning. Until last night when she had a pen and paper handy...

Me: (Rolling over and kissing her back) I’ll make this towel day one for you baby. (In a seductive voice.)
Mir: What does that mean?

Me: Five days, fifteen towels.

Mir: (Laughing) What? Do you know Jonathan?

Me: I know him better than you!

Mir: Doug, do you know Jonathan?

Me: I know him about as well as any other baby that age.


And then I roll over and am asleep again. Enjoy.

Introducing Baby Jonathan!

Some of you might have had a time in your life similar to what Mir and I experienced on Tuesday, December 15th at 11PM. The best way I can describe it is the collision of one of the happiest moments of your life with one of the worst.
After sitting all afternoon in a dirty Lao hospital, the doctors finally decided to do a Cesarian section on the birthmother at 9:30 in the evening. The C-section was preformed at around 10:30, and at eleven, our precious baby boy was brought through the swinging doors. Our joy turned to fear as we heard the nurses say there was a “little problem” and explain it to the grandmother in another room. After ten minutes of waiting we found out what the “little problem” was. Our new son was missing his right arm past the elbow.
Our hearts dropped through the floor when we heard the news. We were shocked, scared, and even had thoughts of running away. In that second we saw all of the pain, rejection, and hardship this little boy is going to face and knew that his pain would also fall on those who loved him. At the same time, however, the Father’s grace flooded our hearts and saw a vision of our little boy, facing all of the problems he will face but without the truth of knowing that he was fearfully and wonderfully made and not a mistake. That he is valuable to our Father and has worth beyond this life. Or worse, we saw a precious little boy abandoned in the hospital and left to die. This boy’s life is going to happen whether or not we are a part of it. How could we give up the opportunity to be this beautiful boy’s parents? I don’t want you to think that we are amazing people who never had a doubt about what to do. Somehow I feel that most “righteous” people are like us, sinners given special grace for that moment to make the right choice.
Don’t be afraid to grieve with us over Jonathan Phonesavanh Cole. As much as we are rejoicing over his life, we are mourning the troubles he will face because of his disability. But the longer we hold him and love on him, the more we see his possibilities instead of his disadvantages. I’ll leave you with a verse that the Father gave to me right before we heard about this adoption. “You are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the L...He will be filled with the H.S. even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the L their G.”

Jonny and his new daddy.

That Luang Festival (the State Fair for Laos)

First of all, That Luang is pronounced taht luang (or /ta:t lʊaŋ/ for those of you who can read IPA), not that. I didn't make the transliteration system here, I only use it. Blame the French, I do.

That Luang is a large golden stupa in our city Vientiane.

Every year there is a huge festival at the stupa during the full moon. I liken the experience to the Iowa State Fair, but with bad food and nothing to look at. Every night teenagers go to buy things from vendors in little tents. There are concerts, games, even a few carnival rides that were probably deemed unsafe in Russia so were sent here. Every few feet there is a lady with a table selling grilled chicken, sweet sticky rice, and my fav, grilled eggs. Lacking from the selection is anything deep fat fried. Grilled eggs? C'mon! Give me a fried snickers bar any day.

Somehow the eggs must really connect with Lao people though because the place is shoulder to shoulder packed every night. So, there you have the metaphor, it's like all of the bad parts of the State Fair with nothing delicious or interesting to redeem it.

The last morning of the Festival is special though. Monks from all over the country (and even some from Thailand and Burma) travel to Vientiane to collect alms from the people there. Monks are lined up across a massive parking lot, each with several hefty bags to carry their loot. People give alms from about 4am to 10 or 11 and by then the Monks are fully loaded with merit worthy gifts.

The funniest thing about this is that if a Lao person went to America and happened to go to the State Fair in Iowa, they would probably think the same thing as me. "This is kind've like That Luang only not fun. I mean, they don't even have grilled eggs! Funnel cakes, what?"

Big News!

What is normal anyway?

Since Mirinda and I got married, we have been doing things a little different. Everything from our engagement to our current life in Laos goes against the mainstream a little bit. Well, we’ve done it again.
Mirinda and I will be adopting a Lao newborn in early December. We heard about the mother from a friend and realized that if no one stepped in to adopt the baby, he/she would be abandoned in the hospital. In the hospital, abandoned babies are cared for and fed for ten days, and then they are left to die.
There are still many hurdles that we will be jumping through until the adoption is final and the process will be long and difficult. We already had some difficulty in explaining to the mother and her family why we are unable to give any money for the baby. The Father provided for us to meet this family and make our situation clear. It also opened up our hearts to the pain that they are experiencing and the difficult decision they are making. But what an amazing work the Father has been doing to bring this life to us. When we think about the work we are doing in Laos, this is the ultimate example of loving a Lao person into the Father’s arms. This little baby will have a chance to experience the TRUTH almost from birth instead of the lies and darkness he/she would have known. And what a picture of our relationship with him, rescuing us and giving our lives a new direction that is unrecognizable from the old.
Please be lifting us up continually, we covet your thoughts during this time. We are still in debt to ELIC and our debt is growing every month. The adoption itself could be as much as $5000 that we don’t have that right now. However, we know that this is the Father’s will and so we can trust in him to provide.
Like I said before, nothing in our lives seems to be normal, but I would not trade this kind of dependence for anything. If we had a normal house and a normal job and a normal family, I know that I would not depend on the Father nearly as much as I do now so I’m thankful. “I will boast only in my weakness, because in my weakness He is strong.”
So here is to the next adventure, the next time our Father calls us to do something we know is beyond our ability or resources. It will be wonderful watching Him provide again.

One Sweet Halloween

Our friend and teammate Kat had a birthday party last night (Oct 31). It was a costume party, and yours truly won the prize for best costume. In all honesty I need to share the prize with Mir because it wouldn't have been nearly as good alone. Anyway, there is a picture of us so you can judge for yourself.

Strange enough, it was not my awesome costume that made this party so unforgettable, but the fact that in the course of one evening I helped push three cars out of the mud. Stacy, Melissa, and Kat live on the worst street in Laos. For those of you in America, that means the worst street in the world. Here is a photo after a recent rainstorm, courtesy of Kat.

So, towards the end of the night our co-teachers arrived in a van and told us that they were stuck outside. No problem we thought, there are several men here, we can have your van out in no time. But they were stuck, really, really stuck. Finally, we admitted defeat and started to ask people who had trucks to help pull us out. The truck was on the way when we noticed another van stuck down the road, blocking the only way in. So we walked down and helped push that van out. The truck made it, and we were able to pull the van out without major incident.

Then, at 11 o'clock we were on our way home when we noticed our co-teacher friends standing on the side of the road. Another truck had gotten stuck when she tried to pass them on the narrow road. The two passenger side tires were now securely in the drainage ditch and our friends felt responsible. The group helping decided that the only way to get it out would be to jack the truck up as high as possible, then push it off the jack and hope it landed on the road again. Luckily I was out of harms when the truck hit the dirt, and amazingly the plan worked. So at around midnight we were finally able to make it home.

At least I looked sweet when I was working.

The lock

Last weekend we gave my keys to a friend so she could watch our house while we were out of town. We forgot that the garage key was on that set and so for three or four days we couldn't get into our garage. It wasn't a big deal, the only things in the garage are the motorbike and our bicycles.

Fast forward two days.

I thought I was brilliant because when we got the keys back I put the garage key on the motorbike key chain. I thought to myself, "Doug, why didn't you think of this sooner. You only use the garage when you want the motorbike. Genius."

Fast forward to this morning.

Me: "Mir, where are motorbike keys?"

Mir: "I don't know, did you take them out of the motorbike?"

Me: "(Expletive)"

So then I drove the car to class and when I got home I set to the task of somehow getting the garage open. At first I pretended I could pick the lock with a paper clip, and it took an embarrassingly long time before I gave up. Then I realized that there was a gap under the door and I might be able to hook the keys. But that didn't work because I couldn't see what I was doing. Finally I noticed that there were small slots at the top of the garage door so I combined some shelving brackets and coat hangers and went fishing for the keys. Perched on the ladder I could see them sitting there, laughing at me, along with everyone in the neighborhood. After several tries I hooked the keys and pulled, nothing, these keys would not come out of the ignition. I'm not kidding I spent a full hour tugging and pulling on those keys trying to get them out. At one point I turned the bike on and, luckily, was able to turn it off again. In the end though, I did prevail, and the door was unlocked. And now the key is safely back on the original key chain.

Car Accident

I know this is a diversion from my usual subject material, but I thought I really needed to say something about the car accident we just had.
We were picking up some fellow teachers (Melissa, Kat, and Sarah P) last Friday for our final team training session. We were out on the road in front of our university and it was about 8:15. The car in front of us braked hard and came to a complete stop so I braked hard and stopped behind him. The truck behind me did not brake at all and slammed into us. Thankfully no one in the car was seriously injured. We have a little Rav4 and the car that hit us was a big Toyota SUV. It's bumper hit our rear spare tire and pushed it into the back door and window. The other driver was a young guy, a student, and his mom and uncle showed up just after the police. The uncle drove an expensive car with official government plates and I got really nervous when I saw him.
Now, I want to explain something. In Laos, whenever someone has an accident, the fault is decided by the insurance companies or the police. Unless the accident involves a foreigner, in that case the fault is almost always the foreigner's. I knew this, and I have always figured that in the event of an accident, best case scenario I don't have to pay to fix the other guy's car and I only have to pay to fix mine. I have heard stories of people hitting foreigner's cars that are parked in front of restaurants and the foreigners being forced to pay for the repairs.
So you can understand why I was nervous when I saw this important man get out of the car and walk towards us. However, he smiled at me and asked me what happened, then he said:

"Why don't we just take your car to a repair shop and we'll get an estimate and I can just pay for everything right there."

I was blown away, so the driver's mother got in our car (which thankfully was still drivable) and we drove to a body shop guy that I knew. He had done some work on our car already and knew who I was, and he was only five minutes from where the accident happened.
Well, the end of the story is that the following Tuesday we picked up our car and it looks like new! They did an amazing job by any standards and you wouldn't even know it had been in an accident. Until I picked the car up I was nervous that I would get short-changed somehow, but our Father was watching out for us. I didn't pay a single penny. I still can't believe it. No one that I've talked to here in the ex-pat community has ever heard of an accident ending up like this. PTL!!

Warning Signs

There are countless differences between the U.S. and Laos, but one that has become crystallized in my mind the past few days has been the difference in warning signs.

Roadways in America always put safety first, there could be a pebble in the road and there would be orange cones and flashing lights galore. Sometimes we even pay a person to stand on the side of the road holding a sign that says "Slow Down." And these are union guys so you know that isn't cheap. But it just shows how much our government care about traffic safety.

In Laos, however, they take a different approach to danger in the road. On our drive to Luang Prabang we reached a section of the road that had fallen down the side of the mountain and the only thing warning us of immanent disaster was a pile of dirt and ONE dusty orange cone. The picture illustrates the scene.

My personal favorite is the usual marking for dangerous potholes in the road or a parking lot. I have seen potholes resembling the pit of despair and the only thing alerting a motorist to its presence is an upright stick with a plastic bag tied to the top. I mean, how could anyone miss that brightly colored clear plastic bag?

I guess sometimes it's the little things that make you miss home the most...

Flat tires and potholes

Today Mir and I just concluded our first ever road trip in Laos. We spent the week in Luang Prabang, which is about 240 miles north of Vientiane. Because of the amazing infrastructure of Laos the drive took us over 9 hours. Well, I won't put all the blame on the roads, the mountains make it slow going too.

It was my bright idea to take this trip in the middle of the rainy season, thinking that it would cut down on the number of tourists and we could get the off-peak rate at hotels. What I forgot is that during the rainy season the roads in Laos stop being roads and become one continuous pothole covered in mud. The trip to L.P. was fairly uneventful, I went pretty slow and enjoyed the scenery. However, on the ride home we had some bad luck. About 80 km from Vientiane we got a flat tire. Luckily I was prepared. I pulled out the jack, the lug wrench, and our portable air compressor and set to work.

Because I am a man, changing a tire gives me a feeling of enormous satisfaction. But there is always that one lug nut that makes you almost break down and start crying. You're thinking two things simultaneously; "Who the heck tightened this last time?" and, "If I don't get this lug nut off I will lose my manhood." So I sat there for 30 minutes or so, pulling and jumping on the wrench to get that final lug nut off.

And the end result...

I am still a man.

Awesomeness beginning.

Awesomeness continuing.

Awesomeness sweating...a lot.

Awesomeness complete.

I have now changed a flat tire by myself, in a 100+ degree heat, in a third world country.

The Team

I feel like children say the most interesting things here. Adult conversation seems bland and repetitive, but the kids are always saying cute amusing things. Maybe part of it is that hearing them speak in another language makes them seem so smart. Its so easy for them and such a struggle for me, I think it garners instant respect.

The other day I was having dinner at the "Supper Club" (another note for another day) with my teammate Kenton and our friend Christian and some boys who spend a lot of time at Kenton's house. It was a special night for the boys to be invited to supper club, and they were on their best behavior. As we adults chatted away in English about boring subjects, I would sneak a listen every few minutes at what the boys were talking about with each other. Here is a little snippet of conversation that I heard:

Boy 1: "Look, there are three of us drinking pepsi and three of us drinking water, its equal!"

Boy 2: "You're right!"

Boy 3: (Who had been drinking Pepsi) "Can I have some water?"

Me: "But then we won't be equal, there will be four people drinking Water and only two drinking Pepsi."

Boy 3: (With a big smile) "I'm changing teams."


THE END

The Doll

I am helping a Lao co-teacher do research for her Masters degree in TESOL. Because her project is on teaching pronunciation and I teach phonetics we have been working together a lot. She is a wonderful older lady who has never married and is full of energy. One day when Mirinda and I were eating lunch with her and the following conversation took place. It was in Lao, but this is how I understood it in my head, which made it especially funny for me.

Teacher: Doug, you only ate a little food, eat more!

Me: I'm full already, I'm a small person so I don't eat a lot of food.

Teacher: You look like a doll with your white skin and blue eyes. I want to take you home and put you on a shelf or on my bed so I can look at you all day.

Me: (uncomfortable laughing)

Mir: (laughs really hard, might have shot some Pepsi through her nose)

THE END

Which one is better?

These notes are not supposed to put people down, but sometimes it is funny how a person from one culture interprets the conversations and opinions of a person from another. This is one example that happened this past weekend.

The story: Our friends Jonathon and Lisa, their twin boys Samuel and SIlas, their house helper, and their house helper's sister stayed with us for a few days this past week. It was a blast and this is a conversation Bin and Lamphay had with Mirinda one afternoon.

All three are playing with the twin boys.

Mir: This is the perfect size baby. (While holding Silas)

Lamphay: So Samuel's not the perfect size?

Mir: No, well they're about the same size. This is the perfect age for the baby.

Bin: Oh, ok. Which boy is cuter?

Mir: They're both cute.

Lamphay: But which one would you like to take home with you?

Mir: Either one. I like them both!

Bin: I like Samuel more.

Lamphay: I would take Silas home with me. Samuel's naughty.

Mir smiles and thinks "uhhh...ok."

THE END

Catfight

aos is a country where you don't show your emotions. In fact during the ancient Lang Xang kingdom raising your voice in public was punishable by imprisonment. The highest human quality is to be "jai yen" or cool headed, and this has created a culture that looks down on emotional outbursts.

So imagine our surprise last night when a full fledged chick-fight erupted at the restaurant where we were eating. There was a crash and suddenly we saw our waitress lunging at another waitress, scratching and pulling her hair. Several employees jumped into action and pulled the two apart, but then one of the girls got free and attacked again. After an uncomfortably long time they were separated and stopped fighting.

The fight was weird, but what happened after that was weirder. Our waitress went to the back, put her hair up, and came back out to serve us with a smile on her face. Mirinda wanted to take a picture during the fight, but we thought that would be in bad taste.

I'll bet the whole thing was about a boy...

THE END

The last day of class

My final day of class was supposed to be special, The students had already taken their final exam and I had finished their final grades in two days so that I could show them their scores before I left for the States. I was planning on having a quasi-party, I had some prizes and candy to hand out and was going to just sit around and chat with students until the class was over.

This was in June last year, at the beginning of the monsoon season here in Laos. When I woke up that morning it was pouring rain, so at 10:15 I decided to brave the elements and drive to school on my motorbike. Donning my poncho I pulled out of the driveway and started off. About ten minutes into the thirty minute drive the rain completely stopped and the sun came out. Because I was already late for my class I didn’t want to stop and take off my poncho, so I started to heat up as the dark blue nylon absorbed the sun. By the time I got to school, it was obvious that it had not rained a drop in that part of town, and I was getting some strange looks from the other motorists.

I went into my class, and I was dying from the heat and humidity. To make matters worse, I was wearing a light green shirt that showed every drop of sweat on my torso. As I called students up to my desk to show them their grades, I was getting hotter and hotter and sweating more and more. The ultimate low point was when I went to smooth out my shirt and left a wet handprint on my stomach. By now I could hear all my students snickering about the amount of sweat their teacher could produce. To salvage some self-dignity, when I had shown everyone their grades, instead of having the party, I wished the students luck and ended class.

THE END

Falang

Mir and I have lived in Laos now for 15 months. And for 15 months almost everyday a Lao person will stop what they are doing, look at me, point, and say "falang." For those of you who don't know Lao, falang technically means Frenchman, but is commonly used for any foreigner who is white.

I don't know why seeing me is so interesting to Lao people, maybe its because their TV is boring, but sometimes I feel like a circus freak in this country. Their reactions are even worse if I am doing something that they find even remotely unusual, like walking the dog, sweeping, breathing, etc. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't understand what they were saying, ignorance is bliss I suppose. This is a conversation I overheard the other day when I was walking my dog.

Old Lady 1: "Look, the foreigner is walking his dog! Hahahaha."

Old Lady 2: "Walking the dog, haha."

Old Lady 1 (to Old Lady 3): "Did you see the foreigner? He's walking his dog."

Old Lady 3: "He sure likes dogs."

(All laugh)

It goes on like this for several more minutes, but I'll spare you the rest of the conversation.

THE END

70%

For those of you who don't know, I teach English at the National University of Laos in Vientiane. My students are college students, some older than me, but often I feel like I am teaching high schoolers. This story is a short illustration of that.

Scene: Right after dismissing my Friday afternoon phonetics class I see a male and a female student who always seem to sit together walk away. In Laos it is terribly impolite for boys and girls to touch each other at all, but this creative couple had managed to get around that loophole. They were each carrying the end of a closed umbrella and swinging it between them. I turned to the students still hanging around the classroom.

Me (in Lao): Are those two dating?

Student A: No Teacher, they're just best friends.

(All the other students laugh)

Student B: They're almost a couple teacher...probably 70% now.

Maybe its just me, but I thought it was hilliarious that someone would use a percentage to classify this relationship. And I wonder how they chose 70%, does that mean you can sit next to each other at lunch but you still go on group dates? What does a 50% couple look like?

I'm planning on asking in another week if they're up to 80% yet.

Coke Floats

I have decided that life in Laos is too interesting for me to not record it somehow. And how better to capture these moments than to post them on Facebook.

This is actually an experience that happened to me in Thailand, not Laos when I was in Chiang Mai for school.

Me (walking into Burger King): Can I have a Coke float?

Employee: Ok, that is 50 baht.

Me: I don't want ice in the Coke float though, no ice.

Employee (with a look of terror in her eyes): Ummmm, just minute.
(She leaves to talk with her manager, then returns): We don't have Coke floats without ice.

Me: What? You don't have them?

Employee: We don't have.

Me: But how could you not have it? Its the absence of something.

Employee: We don't have.

Mirinda: Just take the ice Doug.

Me: Ok, whatever.

THE END