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.