So Many Stories, So Little Time

Moving in with a new family and starting a new job anywhere can give you lots of things to share, but especially in a place where the story is so unfamiliar to the western world. To be honest, I had not heard much about Laos before I came and I still have a lot to learn.
I'll tell you about the school where I'm at. It is a private school, so the families pay a small fee to go there. There are about 600 students there from kindergarten to middle school, all of whom are entertained by having a foreign teacher at the school. I'll be teaching to just about all the classes (all except kindergarten), which is what the other english teachers have been doing so far. They actually did not study to be teachers, like me, so they are a bit over their heads. So are the kids, apparently. We had end-of-the-month exams last week which I helped to oversee (gave up trying to prevent communal exam taking as that was frustrating and not how I wanted my first interaction with the kids to be). I did not see the scores for other subjects but there is a bit of work to be done in English. That's why I'm here, though, right?
That's the visa-earning reason and I'll try to do my part. But another important reason is to hear stories like Dtoi's. He is teaching english, just his second year out of college. He earns $50 a month doing so, but $45 of that goes to rent and another $45 a month for food, I understood. He does some more teaching on the side, but I'm not sure how he makes ends meet. And I'm not sure what to think of the fact that that is more than government workers make here ($30) and less than I am making as a volunteer ($66 a month for personal use). Why is some of the world so materially rich and why am I blessed enough to be part of that rich world?

A New Home

Here's a photo of my new bedroom decorated to make it feel homey. And the bathroom just down the hall where I "shower" (with a dipper from the bucket) and, on the rare occasion, get maliciously or accidently attacked by cockroaches. Whatever the intent, I don't like it. They only come out at night, so I can avoid them if I drink less at dinner. And the kitchen-- no stove but an electric wok, rice steamer, and hot plate. All you need to make rice and accompanying sauces.

Moving On Up

...to the other side of Vientiane because I moved in with my host family, an exciting and slightly anxious occasion. But the first day/night was wonderful in spite of our limited communication, a hinderance that will change with time-- I've already been taught many new words, although I can't recall them all at this moment. But my family, Nafone (10/F), Got (12/M), A (16/F), Lack (the mother), and Ket (the father), has already been gracious about speaking slowly, repeating things, and salvaging what I make of the Lao phrases that I know, so I'm sure they will remind me when the time comes. The house is spacious with a large garden in which a puppy runs around (handily, I think this puppy and I can live symbiotically as he must like meat, although I spotted him snacking on rice the other day, and I, while I'm eating it, could use a bit of help). I have my own room, which I've settled into quite nicely, although my sticky-tack keeps getting too warm and my wall hangings keep displaying themselves from the floor. I've taken some pictures but forgotten my cord and hope to post them soon.
I start teaching tomorrow, another adventure since I have a lot of students (five classes worth), 21 hours in class per week, and no idea what level everyone is at. I'm looking forward to getting going as waiting lends itself to needless anxiety for God doesn't give us more than we can handle. Thanks for all of your love, prayers, and email.

The Chemistry of Change

I don't remember much chemistry; it's kind of like Chaos theory in that way, I studied it and then forgot about most of it. But maybe we just study so we have more to draw on when we are making analogies about life. That said, I was thinking the other day about change-- how people change. There was a line in a book I read that said something like "that changed me" and I thought, that small of an incident? Do small every day things change us? Or are we only changed by a move around the world?
Or, to compare it to chemistry, is personal change (or maybe societal and other kinds of change as well) like a precipitation where you add one last chemical and all of a sudden you have a bright orange, anenome-like solid (this happened in one of the better ochem labs) or is it like a titration where you add something drop by drop and the color of your solution goes from clear through a variety of colors and ends up blue (some titrations change color all of a sudden, but I'm not talking about those ones...)?
I'm not sure. Maybe it depends on the person or the situation or maybe it happens both ways. But I've found that I only look for the bright-orange precipitates to appear in my life and that seems more rare. I should rather be looking for the drops that change me-- an unexpectedly thoughtful Americorps workshop here, a ride on a motorbike there, a conversation that I had, or a rainstorm that I watched (can a rainstorm change how you think or who you are?).
I saw this bird in the village yesterday that flutters its wings half the time and closes its wings and drops a bit, then flaps again. It was white and black and striking in the way it moved. And it made me think of something someone had said about there not being many birds near the villages because people eat them (what other source of protein do they have? not many). Thinking about that seems like it could change you a bit, maybe just a shade. Anyway, I'll keep my eyes open for drips of change.

Odds and Ends

The title refers to what I've been up to of late (a little of this and a little of that) and what was in my noodle soup yesterday (a little pork's blood (congealed so I could remove it without too much trouble!), a little beef and chicken and turkey and squid, and some meatballs and bologna that are made of whatever bologna is made of, who really knows?). Strangely enough, it was good soup. I just avoided most of the animal bits and enjoyed the noodles, broth, and bean sprouts. Anyway, next time you have pho, think of me.
I had this meal yesterday in the midst of visiting several villages where MCC has "Global Family" projects. Instead of one-on-one sponsorship, MCC supports villages, which means supplying school uniforms, school kits (paper and pens, etc.), health kits (toothbrushes, soap, etc.), and occasionally bicycles (the secondary schools can be too far away to walk so kids need bikes if they want to keep studying, and even with a bike the school can be an hour-long, bumpy ride away). I was glad to get to go along for the delivery of some of these gifts; to ride along potholed roads, walk over a make-shift bridge (and through some muddy water when the bridge ended), to grasp at the few Lao words I could make out (numbers, occupations, and the word school is about all I got), and to see how quickly life becomes more rural and disconnected from certain resources as you move away from the city.
Strangely, when I came back yesterday, I had plans to go swimming and to a yoga class at a fancy gym near the office. It was lovely but also strange knowing that the pool, etc. was a world so far removed from the lives of the people I met. How blessed that I can lead a double life, meeting people of a different culture and livlihood than me but also able to experience the luxuries of "home."

Chaos Theory

I don't remember much of what I learned about chaos theory, when I studied it briefly in school, but I remember getting the idea that even within apparent randomness there is a bit of order. The way that smoke rises is the only truly patternless event, I seem to remember. So, with everything save smoke, you just need to watch for a time and a pattern will emerge.
After three weeks of watching here, some of the randomness is showing signs of order. For example, the tones on the words in Lao are not random, PTL. On the contrary, there are nice rules that govern which group of letters (a word) has which tone. True, there are seven tones, I still have a struggle identifying some of the letters (if you don't know your letters, the laws governing them are moot), and even when all is clear my brain may slip in a "dog"-- ma with a low rising tone-- rather than "come"-- ma with a high rising tone--, but I am overjoyed by my colorful tone chart. I was told it was the biologist in me, who likes to classify things. If it helps me speak, classification is a gift.
Also, I've been out on the road more-- walking a bit, bicycling a bit, catching a lift in a classmate's car, taking a tuk-tuk (a motorbike with a carriage behind it-- not a romantic carriage mind you, but one with a low roof, vinyl seats (occasionally wet in spite of the roof), and diesel fumes), and occasionally riding on the back of a motorcycle. I've had lessons so I may soon be on a motorcycle of my own, helmet happily in place, no worries. As I travel, I'm slowly seeing that while there is flexibility in terms of traffic laws, there is a pattern that governs the way cars, trucks, tuk-tuks, and bike interact. This seems to be it: that the person going, gets to go. Simple enough. Right-away belongs to the person who either clearly has it or most clearly claims it. And red lights and stop signs are to be noticed and generally followed. These rules and my defensive driving skills (several classes of them) should get me safely everywhere I need to go.