I fly home in a month!!!

It’s November 5. I leave Bangkok and arrive home a month today (the international date line is a wonderous thing). Knowing that my time here more than half over is an odd feeling-I’ve started thinking of all the things I still want to do, and my mind turns sometimes to what awaits me at home. I know it will be just wonderful to see my babies and my friends again. However, the economic situation has me somewhat frightened. I’m hoping it is not as bad as it seems from out here. In the last week, I have heard that Korea is or will soon be bankrupt. I do know there is an incredible push to acquire and hold onto US dollars. When I arrived here, no one cared if you paid in kip or $US. Now, some places won’t take kip, and other places are quoting an exchange rate of about 50% above the bank rate-e.g. they don’t want kip. And, no one except the banks will take travelers cheques. The banks give only kip, of course. Luckily, I am not in major shopping mode, so this is of little consequence to me personally, but it is an indicator, I think, of how nasty things are. I have been told that it is very hard to get US$ in Thailand-many of the banks do not have any. And, anyone who can is having friends or business colleagues bring cash into them.

I am so very grateful for my good health so far on this trip. (not sure I should be writing this...perhaps I will jinx myself..). I have been very, very careful what I eat..no street food, no cook buffalo skin, nothing weird or exotic. Many others are far more adventuresome than I. Of course, I have had many of the long term ex-pats tell me that one of the things they most enjoy about going “Stateside” is having a real pooh-living out here, they forget their is a natural difference in the consistency of number 1 and number 2 . Enough said.

Lao tend to be ill quite a lot-I think some of is in their heads, but some of it is real tummy troubles, head aches etc., brought on, I do believe, by the unhealthy diet.

Also, I have heard too many tales of folks coming down ill after eating at the Novotel at the Bangkok airport. Think I will stick to bread and water while I'm there, or something close to that.

As to work: this has been a weird week. After the book party last Monday (as per earlier blog), most of the BBM staff continued on for the rest of the week. When the are not in the office, I miss them. They are, by and large, the life of BBM. The office staff is more quiet, but they are starting to warm up, so some progress there.

I guess last week was a bit of a landing week-explaining the same sentence four or five times to one person, three days in a row started to loose its humour. And, I really wanted to do an adaptation of a story of a magic hat, turning the magic hat into a magic umbrella-umbrellas being far more common in Laos. It is going to be much, much, MUCH harder than I expected, and perhaps impossible. Can’t really teach humour and whimsy..it is either there, or it is not. You can explain “tender,””mountain stream”, even concepts, like “work ethic” and, I can even do most idioms, but not humour or whimsy. Not too good if you have to keep saying: “it’s supposed to be funny”,and then having to explain funny-funny makes you laugh, you know, laugh...and then trying to explain magic......it’s such a simple story, but it is way, way harder than Beatrice Potter, for sure.

Vong, the chap who worked on the Benjamin Bunny story is off for a week, helping his family with the rice harvest. The Flopsy Bunnies await his return. He is worried we will not finish before I leave. If it seems too much, perhaps we will switch to Jeremy Fisher (he is a frog)-that story is much shorter. We will see.

On Saturday I went on another book party that turned into a bit of a fiasco. The drive was really, really, REALLY long, and by the time we arrived, the book party was over. The sponsors were very gracious, and the head of the village put on a lunch, and was great company, so the day was not a total loss. But, it was a long, long, LONG day. And, we were way, way high, so it was actaully very chilly.

On the way back from the book party, we stopped in this town, and the staff jumped out to go to the market. I stayed in the van. I was looking out the window, at the rain, and noticed there were falang walking down the street. I though to myself, this reminds me of last year in Lao, when I went out in the rain, after lunch, to be a rain coat for Lue (one of my friends from the Eldertek trip). Then, I turned around the other way, and realized I was in exactly the same place...seriously, we were parking in same spot as our bus parked at little less than a year ago, and it was still raining....strange feeling, indeed. The staff bought masses and masses of these green things that they said were curry plants. I had never heard of them, but Elizabeth (book party sponsor) said she had seen them in a garden in California. They must be good, cause they bought bunches and bunches.

On Sunday, I played tourist and visited more temples. They are truly wonderful and so very lovely. Well, most of them. One I saw on Sunday was built by the Vietnamese community, as their worship centre. It is truly ugly, with no grace, no dignity. Just lots of doo-dads and icky stuff. Such a contrast to the other temples. One of the others I visited is very, very, very old-say 900 A.D.,around. For centuries, it was the place of the burial ceremonies for the kings, and the flat lands surrounding the temple was the funeral pyre site. Temple has, thankfully, been saved. The surrounding lands are now, in part, occupied by a nursery (I think that is what it is) and a Shell station.

Still hot here in Luang Prabang, though lots of rain the past few days. The temperature dips a little during the rain, but then things just turn into a steam bath.

Today one of the staff from BBM took me to the big market and told me what the things were that I had NO idea. The one thing I thought that looked o.k.to eat is, in fact, some kind of special fire wood, so what do I know. I bought a dragon fruit, some tamarind and ginger tea. Have not yet tried the ginger tea.

This staff person, I call him Jack Sparrow-he came up with the name when I remarked that his name is hard to pronounce for a falang-it sounds like You Pooh. Anyway, he is the one who wants to go to university in the States or Australia and is a bit older than the others..he is 28. He teaches English in the evenings, so I went along to class this evening. After their initial shyness, the students seemed to enjoy having a real-live mother-tongue English speaker to listen to and mimic. The text book they have is British. It is accompanied by a tape. They are supposed to listen to the tape and then practice the words and then figure out which words the person on the tape is saying. So, the story is about these people who are dancing out on the grass, in the dark, and how amused their friends are...banal and stupid, in the extreme. "Oh Margaret, look, Martin and Margaret are dancing in the dark on the grass", Meridith said, as she put her drink down on the bar..... No wonder they look at falang funny. When they started the vocab exercises on the tape, I could not understand what the narrator was saying, so I knew, without a doubt, that noone in the class had a clue. So, Jack Sparrow and I read the little scene out instead. The class seemed to enjoy it, though they did not know quite what to make of a falang in their midst. After class, several of them came up and asked me if I was coming back, so I guess that is a good sign.

Did not have a chance to go to the market today, so could not make dinner. Went around the corner, to a little place I have never tried before. I had seen the menu, and planned on the cashew chicken, but they have a great breakfast menu, and said I could order from that. So, I had pancakes for dinner..two large, fluffy pancakes, with butter(unsalted) and maple syrup(yup, real maple syrup) for just under $2.00 US. Of course, my large glass of o.j. cost the same as the pancakes..oh well, I can handle a $4.00 dinner. Girls and I used to sometimes have breakfast for dinner,when we were tired out, so I missed them alot, but it was still a good dinner.

Tomorrow, I will practice Jack Sparrow's name until I have it down enough that he will allow me to use his Lao name. Wish me luck!

More later.

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