Hello, my name is Jessica and I am an awkward falang!

During our first weeks in this new country, we four young women who were new to Laos became an informal support group for each other, a safe place to vent about our cultural blunders and questions. Though we are still very much falangs (foreigners) we are no longer feeling quite so awkward, nor do we so each other all that often.
Occasionally, however, I do find myself slipping back into the awkward category. I am now that strange, white girl who jogs around my neighbourhood at dawn. As it turns out, although running here in Laos is perfectly culturally appropriate, it’s still extremely rare to see. But as I dodge chickens and potholes, speeding up to avoid mangy dogs and slowing down to let a herd of cattle pass, I catch glimpses of my neighbours lives as well.
I call out “Sa bai dee!” and I press my palms together and bow a little as I run by and they call out whichever word or two of English they happen to know, looking up from their cooking fires to grin at me. Their smiles widen as I call back in my increasingly less broken Lao. These 10 second encounters often set the tone of my day. And there is more. In the middle of November the “Lao Disabled Women’s Development Centre”, an MCC assisted project, is sponsoring a half marathon, a 10K and a 5K run to raise awareness of disability issues in Laos. I’m not quite up for that half marathon just yet, but we SALTers have made a pact to run that 5K.
There is one small obstacle. I have never really been a runner before, at least not since my 10 minutes of track and field fame in elementary school. But I look at the whole situation like this: two months ago I couldn’t read or write Lao and now, in the simplest sense of the words, I can. In comparison to that, how difficult can running be? I think it’s a challenge I’m ready to take on.

A Day in My Life

After my lengthy series of disconnected stories, have you ever wondered what it is I actually do in a day? Every day is quite different, but yesterday, my day looked something like this.

6:00 a.m. –I drag myself out of bed and then out into the cool air for my morning run.

6:40 a.m.-My chore for the morning is to sweep and mop the floor.

7:15 a.m.-After my first bucket bath of the day and some serious ironing, I’m neatly dressed, coiffed and sitting down to a breakfast of stir fried tofu and leafy greens over rice.

8:05 a.m. –I pull into the MCC office compound, only slightly late, after weaving my way through an army of motorcycles, bicycle drawn carts and a few luxury SUVs. Today’s projects include working on a newsletter for MCC’s ethnic minority teacher education program and reorganizing the office library.

12:00 p.m.-I eat lunch with my Lao colleagues at “MCC Restaurant” (so called because one of MCC’s long term employees has eaten there every day for the last seventeen years). In this open air, road side shop, our rice noodle and beef soup (feuh) is cooked over an open fire and then topped with green onions, bean sprouts, lime and mint.

2:00 p.m.-After a long Lao style lunch break, My English classes begin at Ponsinuane Primary School. My co-teacher, Happy, recently spent a year in British Columbia volunteering with MCC and so we teach Canadian English.

3:00p.m.-While the other children run and shout and play, it is the grade 3’s turn to visit the school’s little library. A group of girls crowds around, and we take turns reading aloud from Lao story books. When it’s my turn they shriek with laughter and call out the corrections to my frequent mistakes, fully enjoying the opportunity to correct a teacher.

5:00p.m.-After the adventure of my drive home, it’s time for bucket shower number two. I’m on babysitting duty today, and so I scoop up baby Joshua, and Isaac runs ahead excitedly, and we head outside for a walk. We’ve soon collected a small crowd of curious children and even the adults can’t help but stare at the foreigner and her Lao children as they pass.

7:00p.m.-Supper tonight is spicy, green papaya salad, bits of grilled pork and sticky rice, all eaten with our hands of course. Dragon fruit makes a nice dessert. I practice my Lao with my sisters as we clean up together and we laugh so hard that the aunt next door comes over to see what’s wrong.

8:30p.m.-I study Lao and help my sister with her English homework while endless Thai soap operas play in the background. The children come and go, as do a steady stream of neighbours and relatives who stop by to chat or drop off a bunch of sweet bananas.

10:00p.m. Following bucket bath number three, my lights are out and I’m soon fast asleep.

Dressed for Work

If "MCC worker" is synonymous with a get up of birkenstocks and wrinkled cotton skirts, think again. In Laos everyone is expected to be extremely well dressed in most every setting. To work each day I wear a traditional Lao skirt (or sin) and a neatly ironed collared shirt. The large pleat at the waist makes the sin the clothing of choice for driving a motorcycle or sitting on the floor. Sins come in many beautiful colours and patterns, but the decorative strip (or tinsin) at the bottom of the skirt is what makes people take notice.

Peace in Translation

In an unexpected addition to my job description, I am now becoming highly involved in MCC LAOS’ team of young peace educators. This is a brand new initiative and so progress is slow, both in terms of waiting for funding to come through and in terms of defining who we are as a team, and what it is we’re setting out to accomplish. “What is peace?” is a question we wrestled with at a recent meeting. Language barriers aside, peace is a very flexible word and it must be put into context if it is to have any meaning at all. And so I launched into an explanation of “Negative Peace” as the absence of war and direct violence, and “Positive Peace” as the presence of justice and over all well being.

“Ahhh,” said the soft spoken young woman on my left, “then we must not tell the children that this is about peace, for in Lao we have only the word ‘Santiphab’, which means the absence of war. We must tell the children that this about happiness.” This idea made me anxious right away.

“Oh no!” I warned, in my calmest and most culturally appropriate tone of voice, “Happiness is not the same as peace. A person can be very happy themselves even though everyone around them is suffering!” Around the table eyebrows raised and people quickly looked away to hide their amused smiles. Someone reached out gently to touch my arm.

“To Buddhist people, it is not possible to be happy while others suffer needlessly. No one who is selfish can also be happy. The children will understand.”

I learned an important lesson about peace building across cultures that day. I also began to wonder: when did the idea (so prevalent in North America culture) come about, that one can be happy so long as their personal needs are met? Here in Laos, on the other side of the world, I am working for peace, but the need for peace builders back home is just as strong.

Souk's Story

Sixteen year old, Souk Khonmannee (a member of the Pho Noi ethnic group) has just started out on a very large adventure. Along with seven other young people of ethnic minority background, she has been sponsored by MCC to participate in a three year teacher training program, located in the town of Luang Nam Ta. Drawing students from all over the country, the training school is a two day journey from Souk's home in a small village.

Living so far away from everyone and everything she knows will certainly be difficult, but Souk knows what it means to persevere in the face of a challenge. When she was just nine years old, Souk’s mother passed away and her father remarried. Rejected by her stepmother, Souk was fortunate enough to be adopted by an uncle.

Though she speaks Lao, Pho Noi and Khmu (along with some very basic English) and is studying hard to become a teacher, Souk does not come from a highly literate family. While her father can read a little, her mother could not read at all.

It is Souk’s vision to work to counteract the low literacy rates, particularly among the ethnic minority groups. Unlike many young people in Laos today who flock to city centers, Souk dreams of becoming a teacher in a ban nok (remote village) because often times in such places, “there are no teachers”.

Issues of Ethnicity in Laos

Though South East Asia has a rich and ancient history, the country borders which appear on official maps are a relatively new creation. Many of these border lines were put in place by European colonizers, and they do not accurately reflect the people who live in this region. Millions of those who belong to the Lao ethnic group reside across the border in Thailand, and likewise Laos is home to many people who do not identify with the Lao ethnic group.

For this reason, when we talk of “Lao” culture and tradition, we are speaking only of the customs of approximately half of Laos’ population, those who identify with the Lao ethnic group. As for the other half of the population, they belong to well over a hundred different ethnic groups, which vary greatly in terms their diets, language, religion, traditional clothing, etc. The Hmong and the Khamu are two of the more populous ethnic minority groups.

As citizens of one of the world’s most impoverished countries, young people in Laos are faced with many challenges as they work their way through the education system and find a place for themselves in the working world. For those young people who belong to one of Laos’ many ethnic minority groups, issues of language, culture and discrimination are added to the usual obstacles. In an effort to reduce some of these obstacles, MCC has chosen to assist in the training of ethnic minority teachers in Laos. Having teachers who belong to the same ethnic minority group as their student will not only allow for the education of non-native Lao speakers, it will also increase the likelihood that the teachers stay on in their placements long term, thus providing stability for their students.

The Ride Home from Sangthong

As Katelin and I pile into the back of a very crowded pick up truck, we can hardly believe that this is our mode of transportation all the way back to the city. We sit on the middle bench of the three wobbling wooden benches and so the journey home is a balancing act, clinging to the makeshift roof with one hand and our backpacks with the other. In this public “bus” the many rules of Lao social etiquette seem to be thrown out the window. We bump along, occasionally ending up in each others laps after a particularly large pothole.

After four solid days of rain (our portion of Vietnam’s typhoon), the road is a mess, sometimes washed out completely. We plow on, weaving our way along the Mekong River (to the right) at the base of jungle covered mountains (to the left). Mercifully, despite the fresh duck’s blood and other strange delicacies I have recently eaten, the combination of medicinal ginger and fresh air keeps my nausea at bay. Sometimes we pass through tiny villages, mere collections of rice paddies and huts, but more often the road dirt road is the only sign that any member of the human race has ever set foot in this place.

The woman sitting across from me is beautiful. Her posture is as elegant as her hair, swept into a sleek spool on top of her head. Her facial features and the weave of her traditional skirt tell me that she is not Lao in the fullest sense of the word, but rather a member of one of Laos’ many ethnic minority groups. A small child sleeps, strapped to her front and another sits beside her. The man next to this tiny girl has a gun strapped to his backpack. No one seems concerned and so, after 20 minutes of “Hotel Rwanda” like scenarios running through my head, I come to accept this as just another reality of life in Laos and I relax. On we fly, red mud splashing up at every dip and turn.

First Impressions of Lao Rural Life

The Laos I am experiencing here in Sangthong district does indeed feel like another world. Just when I thought I was grasping the language and lifestyles of the people of Laos, I visited this not so far off village, and discovered that the only culture I am really learning is that of Vientiane. Life in Sangthong works differently.

For one thing I know that the people in this district do not have nearly as many resources as my friends in Vientiane. Heidi and Micah (the MCC workers I am visiting here) are introducing me to this new Laos. This is a place where 80% of the population does not have access to electricity. This is a place where wealth is measured in rice. This is a place where meals consist of whatever can be foraged in the woods after the rice crop has been sold off to pay a medical bill. Most families are one expensive illness away from lifelong debt. Or starvation.

I’ve often wondered since my arrival in Laos why I haven’t yet experienced extreme culture shock. I know now that if I lived in Sangthong as Heidi and Micah do, I most definitely would experience that shock and confusion. It’s easy to romanticize the lives of this genuine and passionate MCC couple in their rustic bamboo house on stilts, but I don’t envy them the challenging cultural issues they must confront on a daily basis, as the only foreigners in the entire district. What should we feed the 10 children in our house so that we can eat or breakfast without being rude? Which neighbour did we offend by forgetting to invite them to our little girl’s birthday party? I’ve realized my journey in learning about Laos has just barely begun.

The Freedoms and Limitations of Youth

I’ve made the acquaintance of a very distinguished woman tonight. Meh Tuu (great grandmother to Isaac and Joshua) is the latest addition to this very full house. Even as I begin to write about her just now, she comes and sits down beside me on my bed, flipping through my little photo album and commenting duly on my young looking mother and handsome boyfriend. When I put down my pen she takes the opportunity to have a (mostly one sided) conversation.

Being in the presence of Meh Tuu is refreshing. As an 80 year old woman in a country where 45% of the population is under the age of 15, Meh Tuu has far surpassed an age where she is expected to conform to the many rules and social niceties of Lao culture. While most Lao woman sit primly on the floor with their legs positioned modestly beneath and their traditional skirts ever so carefully tucked around them, Meh Tuu can sit however she like, wear whatever she finds comfortable, and is not afraid to speak her mind. Through it all she somehow maintains inexplicable dignity and poise. There’s a mischievous twinkle in her eye which causes children to flock to her, climbing her like a tree and beckoning forth her gutsy, unbridled laughter. Despite the language barrier, Meh Tuu’s openness makes her a fascinating person to talk to.

As I began to reflect on the significance of age and more specifically on the freedoms and limitations which accompany various ages, I realized some interesting things about how my age impacts my life here and now. As most of you know, I am 19 years old. That, I know is very young, and for a long time I have seen my youth as only a limitation. I often feel that the world is full of things that I could or should be doing, if only I was older or more experienced. More over, whichever stage I happen to be at in life, I know I spend an excessive amount of time planning and anticipating (or more often worrying) about which ever stage I feel should come next. Since arriving in Laos, I am slowly beginning to see that these thought patterns are neither accurate nor healthy.

Firstly, although, unlike Meh Tuu, I am expected to comply with the many aspects of social etiquette common to all young women in Laos, I realize now that my youth also gives me some incredible advantages. My youth allows me to live as a part of a Lao family here and be seen as their daughter. My youth allows me to visit people in their homes without seeming intimidating or threatening. My youth allows me to work as one member of a larger team rather than always being expected to lead, teach and advise. I really believe that because I am young and lacking in power and status, I am allowed to experience many aspects of life in Laos, that would otherwise be kept hidden from me, and for that I am truly thankful.

Furthermore, living with a “what’s next?” mindset did not allow me to fully appreciate or experience moments as they unfolded. Living in the here and now is essential in Laos. Things are rarely planned in advance at all nor can I begin to predict what sort of unplanned events might occur, and so anticipation of the sort I dwell in at home is futile. It’s good to remind myself that I can’t measure time or productivity here in ways that are familiar to me. I am not all convinced that the time I take to complete the stack of paperwork on my desk is more "productive" than the time I spend sitting beside Meh Tuu, eating roasted yams as she stirs a bubbling pot of bamboo soup.

Gapgo

The appearance of a large lizard (or gapgo) in our outdoor kitchen added some life to after dinner cleanup this evening. If any of you are conjuring up images of the teaspoon sized geckos that frequent the walls of many tropical abodes, I invite you to make space for a new image. Pale green, spiky and the size of my forearm, this creature was every bit a full fledged lizard. As we crept close enough to snap a few photos, my sisters told me tales of leaping lizards (yes, the figure of speech is based on a reality). The only solid advice I could pry out of them on how to deal with a lizard which has attached itself to your arm was to scream run and peel off your clothing as fat as you could. I think I’ll work on the prevention side of things and try to avoid such scenarios altogether.

Every library book I so eagerly absorbed this spring before coming to Laos was filled with descriptions of Laos’ incredible eco-diversity. Everything from giant catfish to rare white tigers can supposedly be found in this country, but so far the only exotic creatures I have encountered are this lizard, some overgrown cockroaches and an excessive amount of geckos and ants. From all accounts, Vientiane (the capital of Laos and my home) seems a world apart from the rest of the country in many respects. Vientiane certainly does a good job of presenting an appealing face to the outside world, but I am excited to begin my travels into the countryside. The other world.

Tuk-Tuks and Temples

Tuk-Tuks (tiny colourful taxis) and Buddhist temples abound here in Vientiane. Tuk-Tuks are abundant and cheap but not particularily reliable. I learned the hard way that just because the driever agrees to take you some where, does not mean that they know where they are going! Although I was very late for my meeting, I did get a neat tour of the city.

Temples are a green and peaceful haven within the city, and are among the very few public gathering spaces. They often serve as schools, orphanages, funeral homes, fairgrounds and community centres as well as worship spaces. Their ornate architecture and rich colours stand in stark contrast to the surrounding neighbourhood.