reflection and voices

reflection, originally uploaded by c_p_lew.

We had a wild trip to get out to Ta-Oi District but after all the activity of the day, requiring that I keep up a constant stream of explanation for our guests, I got a chance to slip away and listen to my own voice. By being quiet and still for a little while, I found the voice in my heart.

Often when people come out to a remote area like this, they're at first charmed by the natural beauty and they talk about the simplicity of life. Well, it's true but spend a few days and things don't seem so perfect. People tell the same stories over and over again and the youth complain about no jobs, no action and no fun. They turn their backs on the scenery and watch satellite TV. And then a visitor might want to hate it.

Bouncing back and forth between these two extremes, one arrives at the middle. Life is changing but people are still in poverty. One of our trainers explained about the number of children he saw with malnutrition. But people persevere - they struggle to make their lives better for their children. They maintain the customs and stories that give that struggle a meaning.

I thought about that, and more as I watch the shadow in the water, and the man being tugged along behind it. There are no easy answers in the world, only the effort to make sense of the questions.

Voice #15 - loss of voice

Too much work this week. Some of my staff are acting clueless, and it's taking a combination on sitting on them and being supported to get any work done. The big problem today was trying to teach math to one staff member - who is a doctor.

I hated my voice when I talked to him today. I felt full of irritation and I felt my words in Lao were not beautiful, the tones too strong, rather than the soft fluid tones that make up the language. I took him through the few steps of the activity that he is supposed to follow-up on and sent him on some errands, related to the work. And made myself calm down.

My tones were much more relaxed in the evening. One of the things about Laos is that you can't stay frustrated for too long - the culture radiates peace and putting things in perspective.

This post was originally about catching up on blog posts - and now that is done for the month. So far, at the halfway point, there are a lot of things to consider about voice.

Voices #14 - Old house

Most of the houses in the district towns used to look like this - made of teak, originally roofed with thatch but then upgraded to tin sheeting. Now, the tin roofing is starting to fall apart which leads people to start to think about a new house.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of logging being done for export, so wood for use inside Laos has gotten more expensive. And anyway, many people are more interested in living in concrete houses now.

I can imagine how the old house is groaning, and probably muttering to itself with the same muffled words of my land lady (who chews betel and is difficult to understand when she has a mouthful of the stuff). "Those humans are so foolish - always abandoning traditions."

Someone might respectfully said, "But logs are scarce and ants eat your legs."

"That's when you should repair something, rather than throw it out."

Maybe another thing is that the voices of old houses are so distinctive that people would rather not hear their demands all the time. Now they are tuning into to satellite TV.

Voice #12: Conversations between the mountains and clouds

The skies after thunderstorms can be so intense. The old mountains here extend from southern Laos through northern Cambodia and NE Thailand. The stones for monuments like Wat Phou and Angkor have been dug out of these hills - red laterite stone.

It seems like the clouds and mountains are always communicating. The voice of thunder shakes the hills, drenching them with water. But the hills don't cower and shake under the forces of weather. You can tell by their body language that they are not budging.

However, this mountain couldn't talk back to one force - the forces of man. During the 'Vietnam' War, a radar tower was built on the top of the mountain. It was eventually destroyed, though there are still remains. In spite of the sheer cliffs, the site is surrounded by barbed wire, old weapons and land mines. It would be nice to go up there for the air and the views - but no road and too dangerous!

Voices #11 - children's voices

While I was making dinner, I heard children before my house. I found it funny that even without looking out, you can tell children's voices from adult's voices, and even more amazing that Lao children have a certain quality of their voices which is different from European kids.

I listened for a while, trying to determine the difference. Kid's voices can be more shrill, definitely the tones are higher. Their words sound like peeps, like little chicks. It's a wonderful music.

The picture above is of the kids playing along the old air field. They come from the houses at the edge of the field and they wander around in small groups, usually with an older kid watching over them. They look for small animals and make up games in their own universe. There's a blog post called Wonderment , about how children are so amazed by seeing the world anew and how the world would be a better place if adults could see things as fresh as children can.

So even though the playground is a lot, I also heard the exclamation points of surprise and wonder as the children called to each other. "I found a flower." "Look at this stone!"

Voice #10 - what kind of voice would flame trees have?

flame trees 10 may, originally uploaded by c_p_lew.

The flame trees just get gawdier and gawdier. With the gray of the rainy season, they stand out against the background. When our gray truck is parked under them, the flowers fall on the truck, making it look like it's all decked out for a wedding.

If they could talk, they would have a voice that yells, "Gotcha! Can't get more obnoxious than me!" and it would be hoarse, and loud and full of life.

Voice #8 - An innocent conversation?

trafficking poster, originally uploaded by c_p_lew.

A young man chatting up some young women at the bus station.It's probably just an innocent conversation. While waiting for the bus, there's really not much else to do.

"Where are you from?" the young man whispered.

The two sisters look at each other before shyly answering. "From Ban Nawk." Noy tried not to look at his face but his eyes seemed to drew out something in her.

"Have you been traveling long? You must be hungry." And he drew out some cakes from a bag he was carrying. "My mother packed so many things for me to eat on the bus. You know how mothers are."

The sisters laughed and they both decided that he couldn't be a bad man. He was so nice.

On the wall behind them is a sign warning about the dangers of people being too friendly, offering jobs for high pay for unskilled work. When the young man casually said that he knew of some jobs, the two sisters got up and thanked him and got on their bus.

Was it a close call or not? Was he just trying to be friendly?

Voices #6

Still feeling under the weather but the trend is progressing in a positive direction. I don't have a television so when I don't feel well, I listen to audiobooks. In fact I list to the spoken word on my iPod, or sometimes my computer, quite a lot. Takes the boredom out of long bus rides, and I exercise while listening to a book I've been meaning to read.

Last night, I listened to the "Adventures of Tom Sawyer." The narrator, Patrick Fraley, is a delight to listen to. Every character has a distinctive voice and manner of speaking. He's one of the few readers who can pull off a Southern accent, the voice of a drunk, the voice of a young boy - and amazing enough - sounds natural both as Becky Thatcher and Aunt Polly. Often, audiobook readers just can't do women - but Patrick Fraley can 'do' anyone!

Outside of the ease of integrating reading into other activities, I like audiobooks for other reasons. Stories were really made to be told out loud, maybe around a fire. I know a few families who read together, which becomes more difficult as children get older. But stories are made to be listened to and acted out. In lieu of having a fire and a tribe, I listen to the stories on my own.

The way that people read also give meaning to stories. On the Classic Tales podcast, B.J.Harrison has a beautiful voice which can sound very evil, setting the scene for the remoteness and mystery of the jungle in his reading of The Heart of Darkness.

So, last night, I listened to Tom's telling of the 'dream' he had of Aunt Polly when he, Joe Harper and Huckleberry Finn had hidden on the island, having gone away to play at being pirates. Or Indians. Or boys in their prime.

Voices #4

The monthly challenge for Nablopomo is "voices," interrupted however you want. There are the voices we hear, the conversations we have with ourselves, and conversations. "To give voice" also means to empower someone, making that person's voice heard, to move them from the margin to center stage. One of the upsides of globalization - and the internet - is the ability to communicate with people, or learn about other people, through this media. Anyway, here are a few links to some blogs where this happens.

Some links related to voices:

Voices of Youth - This looks like an incredible site. UNICEF has been promoting the Millennium Development Goals and this page presents both information about the MDG but also the voices of those who are affected by poverty, conflict and disability in different regions of the world.

Global Voices Online - one of my favorite blog aggregators. There are links to many blogs across the globe. Every day, they focus on a few blogs, and it can be about anything - how different bloggers react to something that has occurred in another country, or daily things that makes us understand the other more.

Voices from the Gaps - This website features international women artists and writers of color. Looks very interesting.

Voices for American Children - Advocacy for children's health and education.

BBC page on regional dialects and accents. My dial-up connection is too slow to explore this page so I'll have to come back. Learning to listen and understand people even when the accent is different (and you're supposed to be speaking the same language) can challenge many people. Since I've been around people who speak English as a second language, I can pretty much understand anyone who speaks English in any which way. It really depends on patience, listening skills and the experience of talking and listening to many people.

Just to illustrate: when I was in school, I was in a required anatomy course taught by a brilliant German professor. She really put a lot of things together that made sense to me. My classmates focused on the thickness of her accent. "Why did they hire someone who couldn't speak English?" I think part of the problem was content of the course, and many of the students blaming her accent for their lack of study habits. But they mostly came from a mono-lingual English background, with little contact with people outside their worlds.

Voices #3

I don't always listen to my body, but today I allowed myself to sleep late. My brain did try to give my body a nudge. "Isn't it time to get up?"

My body groaned. "Turn down your electrical activity. I'm sleeping."

Brain makes my body pick up my cell phone. "It's 7:30 am. You're late for work."

Body turns over. "You're deranged and hallucinating. It's Saturday."

"But...."

I finally got up at 10 am, made coffee (which always makes Brain feel happy) and read. In the afternoon, I went downtown to the market and met up with the older sister of one of the people we've helped through our project. She sells freshly made tofu, for about 25 cents/ block. We chatted for a while and she invited me to their house. Still feeling tired, I asked for a rain check (easy enough in rainy season) and went to the office.

As I was working on the office computer, I suddenly got that feverish feeling - my body feels uncomfortable and my head felt hot. After shutting everything down, I went to a friend's store to buy juice and other staples for illness.

I dropped into bed after finding the thermometer. Body wanted to jump up and down and yell at Brain, "I told you so!" when I saw my temperature.

Brain knew enough to shut up. We'll probably hear more about it later.

Voices #2

A distant thunderstorm caused a power blackout for a few hours. It reminded me of the way things 'used to be,' as I sat on my back porch. When I first moved here in 1996, we had only a few hours of electricity in the evenings, provided by two 300 kW city generators. If one of them was out of commission, we had electricity every other night. We got 24 hour electricity in 2003.

Back before the chance, there was less reliance on TV and CD players for entertainment. We'd have dinner at each other's houses and tell stories. I think that's how I became so fluent in Lao. The stars are now obscured by the constant light pollution in the city.

As I sat in my back yard, I watched the fireflies move through the trees. A Hmong family lives behind my house. Even though they have relatives in the US, who probably send money to them, they have not left their old one-room brown house to build a concrete one. They still draw their water from the well, not being hooked up to the municipal water system.

I listened to their voices as they sat outside in the evening, speaking Hmong. I love the music of the language and could tell that they were enjoying the dark as much as I was, talking about whatever. Often, the neighbors are playing Lao music, so the softness of the tonal languages gets obscured.

The storm moved on, without leaving any rain on us. I watched the progress of the thunderheads, moving in from the west but passing more to the south of us.

By ten pm, the lights had come back on and the modern world resumed.

Voices #1 - discussions with a spider

Today was a holiday - other than the images of young maidens dancing around a May pole, most people in the world as International Worker's Day. When I first arrived in Laos, it was a big ceremonial holiday - parades and speeches - but now it's a time for people to rest and go shopping.

Since I'm still hobbling around on my bad foot, I decided to do mental and physical rest. I read the novel, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, for most of the day. Every so often I'd hear this little voice under the bed.

"Don't you want to get up?"

"No, I'm busy." I know that there's nothing under the bed except for this gigantic spider.

"I'll get up on the bed."

"Don't you dare. We have an agreement." That means, he (or she) has soul claim to the mosquitoes in the house and their territory. To further clarify - ceilings, walls, under the bed and the bathroom. Everywhere except for my bed.

"Well, it's for your own good."

"My good is to remain supine. And remember, I have a weapon." I held out the hard cover book.

End of conversation.