hoooooooooooooooot

It's a little on the warm side. The walls are radiating heat, the floors are radiating heat - even the sheets on the bed are radiating heat. I think the physical temperature has been more, but it must be the build up - I made many many visits to the shower - dive in, cold water blast (or as cold as it can get in this heat), twirl around, and lie back dripping wet under the fan trying to find the perfect spot that's cold enough to sleep!

Finally ventured out by myself - on wheels that is. Driving on the 'wrong side' was remarkably simple, avoiding the potholes less so - thank goodness for four wheel driving.

Urban skimming and bags of frogs

John wanted some photos for his article so we decided to get together for a combination of urban and traditional stoneskimming photos. Puddles, the sludge of the dug up roads, and drains were all skimmed and photoed. A novice monk joined in and then we headed down to the Mekong for something a touch more traditional.

The pics are on flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jolidbetter/sets/72157600238818620/

Heading over there I shared a tuk tuk with one woman, one policeman and several rice sacks. As I got in she gently moved the bags to one side. I figured that as they had something in she didn't want damaged, I'd just sit with my feet out. They started moving. She told me what they had in them but I knew I must have misunderstood - they didn't contain shoes - must work more on the Laos! So she opened them up. Some of the frogs had swollen up to the size of a cricket ball, others just crawled over their 'mates' gasping for breath. She offered me a discount on a kilo. urgh.

Movies and holidays

I was asked to be in a movie yesterday. I have no idea what it's about. A friend of mine is making it and wants a foreigner in it as that's what they do in Thailand - they normally have stunning foreigners that they've headhunted (head and body hunted???) so not exactly crying out for me but hey - I've been on telly - why not a movie - it'll be an experience.

I'm almost certainly taking a group of Laos bods to Australia later this year. If it goes well and we enjoy the experience we'll do more. Got some other business things going on now too and so I've cut back on the teaching to try to make some of them take off. Hopefully it'll all be fun.

I've borrowed a jeep. It's fabulously being mobile - so easy to get out of the city. Seeing fishermen casting their nets, women washing clothes in the riverr, children bent over legs and arms straight and on the ground, bottom high in the air, as the mother cleans their bottom with a stick. Delightful??!!??

Hooray - radio 4

I'm having speakers fitted - which means that along with the computer and the broadband connection, I can now listen to radio 4 streamed live all the time, everywhere in the house. So happy!

Animal tales

My classroom was filled with weird flying fat maggotty things with huge lacy yellow wings today. They were divebombing me and the students and losing their wings. As the class finished one of the students turned to me and announced, as she left the room, that these insects, delicious.

Downstairs another two students told me the same thing.

Turns out the snail wasn't popular - it makes you really ill if you eat it. I carried it outside myself then left the gate ajar for it to make it's escape in it's own slow time.

And my neighbours have cut down most of my plants in the garden. Apparently some snakes were living in them and they were worried about their daughter.

All's well but busy.

More soon

Jo

Slimy house guests

I've got a visitor. A snail has arrived in my house. Now this wouldn't normally be remarkable except it's enormous. The shell is about 5 inches long and 3 inches wide. The sluggy bit's scary. How does a snail that big sneak into the house - dash in while I'm not looking? Mosquitoes struggle to get into my house yet........ I'm fascinated. And revolted - you can't keep something leaving that much slime in the house so in a minute I've got to go and remove the cardboard box. But I have a theory. I can't believe anything that large isn't snacked upon - so I'm going to get the neighbours round - wussy and generous and mean to snails all in one action.

I've found out my cow's having twins. Hooray.

Anyway, snails to deal with......................................

The amazing short tamarind tree

So the major tourist attraction for the area is the short tamarind tree. Monk, mother, sister, granny and I set off early in the morning – I’d been woken up early again as we had to get an early start. I have to admit that as tourist attractions go it didn’t quite have the oomph of the blue lagoon and caves in Vang Vieng, or 2000 islands in the south but they were all keen to get there.

We caught a songthaew for around half an hour, Then walked for another half hour. We got to a house where the whole village gathered to stare at me. No one spoke. No one. Not one person would say anything at all to me. They just stared. After a while we resumed our journey to the short tamarind tree. We walked through paddy fields – now just dry stumps, as the hot season was well underway, along the ridges between each section, the earth cracked and dry. I would guess it hadn’t rained for months. We passed buffalo. Not the black variety I had seen elsewhere – these were pink – somehow they looked naked. Elephants were ridden past us heading for the logging fields further along. A few turkeys on a wander looking for grasshoppers and frogs glanced briefly at us then continued on their way.

I was so tired. The lack of sleep was really affecting me now. I just wanted to sleep. The heat was relentless as we walked through the open fields. My head was feeling heavier and heavier. They wanted me to speed up – I wanted to take in everything and talk to people I passed. Eventually we arrived – the short tamarind tree. Except that it wasn’t short. Looked a little like an oak tree. It was lovely. Old and knarled. A fabulous climbing tree but not, in any way, short.

Odd.

Then it started raining. The dry cracks filled with water then mud as the heavy water soaked deep below the surface. We sat in the shelter of the not short tamarind tree. Then the thunder and lightening started so they said we had to go to one of the little bamboo shelters that dot the fields. We squelched through the mud, ran and slipped and reached the shelter. I wanted to sleep there – I was so tired and it looked like it would rain for a long time. The noise of the heavy rain hitting the bamboo matting of the shelter was soothing. I felt I was being sung to sleep. Then the sister started banging a nail in with her shoe. I lay there so sleepy but unable to rest. Then suddenly I was told we had to continue. It was still raining. I couldn’t understand the rush, but..... We started walking. After around 45 minutes we passed a noodle stand. A little bamboo shed with a roof that stopped about three feet off the floor. We went in but as I ducked down to get under the roof my head scraped a nail that hung down. Blood poured from my head. Everything pixelated. I sat down heavily. Touching the wound. I couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t think. I just wanted to sleep. I was so tired. Tears started pouring down my face. I couldn’t stop. I sat under that bamboo roof in the rain, surrounded by the monk’s family and I bawled. I couldn’t stop.

We got back to the house and I slept.

I slept for about 15 minutes until once again little girls sat over me giggling. I gave up. It was a tiring visit.

I can't crouch with my feet flat

How can I put this delicately???

I can’t crouch with my feet flat. The loos here are meant for people who can. And something about the resulting angle I’m in means that I’m having a problem going. The return to Vientiane (after one week away) was a huge relief to my insides. I hadn’t been at all. Got to do something about the Achilles tendon to lengthen it so I can crouch better.

I came out of the loo at the end of the garden with a stomach ache as I’d still not succeeded in going. Everyone else I know gets the opposite problem in Asia. I think I prefer it this way round but a week of not going is just ridiculous. I don’t think the enormous resident spider helps though. I’ve been assured it’s not poisonous but it’s huge so I’m a little wary of it – and if you are going to be bitten you at least want it to be somewhere like your arm.

Still at the monks family I was having sleeping problems. I’d been tired since we arrived as the monk had called me at 4.30 am to see if I was up yet. I wasn’t. The first night I’d been told that the granny would be sharing my mosquito net with me. I’m used to having the whole house to myself so the idea of sharing not just a bedroom, but a mosquito net with someone wasn’t a plan I exactly relished – but figured that there must be a shortage of mosquito nets so offered to go and buy one the following day – oops. There wasn’t. It had been a friendly gesture – she liked me and was fascinated by this weird woman who couldn’t even crouch properly, didn’t like sheat fish (as the recipe book of traditional Laos food had called the contents of the bowel which is a very popular ingredient in cooking here (when we open up fish to eat the monks will generally exclaim their disappointment on realizing that this one is depriving us of the delicacy by announcing to the others that there isn’t any fish poo today)), and didn’t know how to do the simplest thing to do with living. And I’d rejected her. She didn’t seem to mind, but I felt a bit bad.

The woman looked ancient - I was so shocked to discover she was just 60 - I'd have guessed at least 80 - probably closer to 100. And she had a horrible habit - often she went around in just a bra - weirdly I realised that these huge bras that are often on show here have an additional part under the boobs whereby money etc. can be stored in a zipped pouch. And then again she often found wearing the bra just too much effort - breasts of that age are not something I'm overly keen on being able to see that much. I was still staying at the monk’s family home and things were starting to become a little frustrating. Such lovely lovely people but the clash of cultures can be hard.

The old lady couldn't quite grasp why I hadn't spoken to her at all the first time I'd visited and why I was now speaking really badly and couldn't understand a lot of what she was saying. She had met almost no one who didn't speak Lao as a mother tongue and couldn't understand the concept. She spent a long time telling me a story - the gist of which I think I understood (but I couldn't be sure as the idea of slowing down or using simpler words wasn’t grasped at all). Basically I was better than the last foreigners that she had met. However, as she went on to tell me that they were the French colonialists who had been shooting at her this somehow wasn’t that great a compliment!
Anyway so that first night I’d had a mosquito net to myself, but I’d gone to sleep with dreadful Thai movies playing at full volume and a little row of around 6 small girls who’d all gathered to watch the weird white woman. They sat crosslegged immediately outside my mosquito net, discussing my strangeness amongst themselves as I tried to get to sleep. The fan was switched off. They were worried that I was cold. I wasn’t.

I’d love to claim that I was woken by one of the chickens that kept popping their heads into the room but it was the cat running over my hand – the chicken would have made a better story though.

I tried to get back to sleep. Then the granny came in. 5 am is obviously a perfect time to start sorting out all the pans and other noisy metal objects that were dotted around the sacks full of rice in the ‘bedroom’. I thought I’d try to ignore her. It wasn’t easy. Then a motorbike revved up right by my head – I had to be dreaming this. No. The bike was brought in for safekeeping purposes every night so that cloud of exhaust fumes noisily penetrating the mosquito net were real. I was determined not to give in. I was so tired from the trip and they would be gone in a minute. They were. But by now it was nearly 5.30 am so everyone was up and about. My diminutive audience was back. And because I was ignoring them the TV was turned up louder…..and louder…..and louder. You know how well meaning Aunties want to wake a new born baby buy know that they shouldn’t so just sabotage it’s sleep instead? I was that new born baby.