Two Months

  As of tomorrow (May 21st), I will have only two more months before my I leave Laos and head to Akron for a re-entry retreat before flying again to Seattle.  What is it about human nature that it is always unsettled by the prospect of 
change?  
I am eager tobe with friends and family again, to see the mountains and the Sound, 
to welcome the sun (here the sun is just too hot- there's no such thing as a sunny day when you 
can also see your breath), to not feel muted by my inability to speak the language of everyone around me... But of course, I'm at the same time hesitant to say goodbye to the community I have been given here and the beauty and peace of this place.  
  In any case, life moves ahead without regard to how I'd like it to proceed or stop proceeding, so I go along with it.  There is but one more week at school for me and it will be taken up with Semester exams for the secondary classes (the primary classes had exams last week and I'm happy to say that some students seemed to have some grasp of some English; that's not a huge success but it is something worth smiling about) and then grading and compiling grades.  I won't play much of a part in all this but I'll be around.  That's kind of my preferred role, as I'm not a terribly good test-watcher or grade-compiler in this system, but do like to chat if someone has the desire to speak very slow Lao.  
   My evenings and weekends have been busy of late, going to dinners or birthday parties or other odd and assorted events with Lao co-workers or with expat friends in town.  For example, last Sunday I went to a Rocket Festival with several teachers.  At said festival, people brought huge rockets, up to 12 Kg or so I heard, and launched them into the sky above the village's rice fields.  In return, the sky will send down rain on these same rice fields, as it has indeed already started to do.  Not a drizzling rain, mind you, like Seattle often sees, but a pouring rain that you run from and watch from an overhang, that leaves lake-like puddles on the dirt roads and drips into your classrooms, that empties itself and then moves on.  I quite like the rain, but then it is only just the beginning of the rainy season.  I may yet change my mind the day I am out on my motorbike without a poncho or overhang to protect me.  
   My summer plans are a bit up in the air yet, although they will almost certainly still involve teaching English.  Maybe I will stay at Nita School or I may work at a language school in town.  I hope to travel a bit more around the country, if just to see a few friends who aren't 
living in Vientiane but maybe I will also have the chance to see a few more MCC projects in action.  I'll let you know when I know myself.
Peace,
Renee