Monsoon season

This is a beautiful time of the year. I can't believe that after eleven years in Lao that I can still get so excited by the beauty of rice fields - but every day, it's like waking up fresh to the world.

Unfortunately, we feel climate change here. When I first moved here in 1996, the month of August was agony - rain all the time towards the end of the monsoon. My road was ankle deep in mud and I couldn't go anywhere without getting soaking wet. And nothing ever dried.

For the past few years, the rain might start really early before stopping in northern Lao. These past two weeks, it's been hot during the day with a thunderstorm every other day which threatens to tear up the rice plants from the field.

Paddy rice was cultivated in water because it keeps the pests down and has higher yield than rice planted on the hillsides in the mountains. With the water low, the worms and other bugs can get at the roots of the plants, decreasing the yield. If it floods, the rice plants can't survive if they are submerged for more than a day.

The life of a rice farmer is difficult at best, even without the new extremes in weather.

Rainy season

This past week has been the usual frenzy, drove from Salavan to Vientiane on Saturday. Yesterday, I ran around trying to do some laundry, house cleaning and exercise. Did spend an hour at the health club though did not go swimming - too many kids in the pool. Today, I spent a wild morning in the office - although I had a plan about what I would do in the few hours, my boss called a meeting. Final rush to get to the airport where I fly up to Xieng Khouang with a training team who will be doing a workshop on livelihoods development over the next few days.

Once I got home, I walked in circles. And then laid down for a nap most of the late afternoon. Good to be back up north.

It's been raining a lot in Salavan - everything is every shade of green. This picture is from the front porch of my house where I spent the few hours after work on Thursday, reading and gazing at the raindrops.

No pitchurs today

It seemed that every time I stepped out of the house, the rain would zero in on me. I tried to go for a run in the morning - that lasted about five minutes before I ran back home. It continued thunderstorming for a few hours. Later in the afternoon, I brought my umbrella (which usually guarantees that it will not rain) and checked in all visible directions for rain before leaving the house. The sheet of rain sailed in from the direction hidden behind my neighbor's trees.

I continued walking in the rain, pretty much getting soaked. After walking 3 kms. I went back to the house as the sun was peeping out. At the end of the runway, I saw some familiar forms so stopped to talk with a German couple who are running a farm in Salavan. Meanwhile, they let their kids loose on the tarmac - they ran into every puddle and churned up mud with their bikes so that in the ten minutes I talked with the parents, the kids managed to cover themselves with mud. I felt clean in comparison.

Because it was raining so much, I didn't take any pictures. And I think I've taken even monsoon pictures for the year anyway. Or at least that's what I'm thinking today.

Anyway, it's been kind of a diddly weekend. We went into Pakse yesterday and interviewed some job applicants at a restaurant. Had lunch while waiting for the last person to show up (he left Attapeu at 6 am and finally arrived at 3 pm). I finished Harry Potter and the Whatever; pretty enjoyable. I appreciated some of the craft of writing - writing of action scenes, some nifty plot twists and filling in background for non-Potter fans (like myself) with a sentence or two rather than engaging in infodumps.

I also read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled HOsseini. I liked this book better than The Kite Runner. Well, I liked the first 2/3 of the The Kite Runner for the same reason I liked A Thousand Splendid Suns - both books make Afghani history and culture come alive against the background of the political events. What I didn't like about The Kite Runner was the the bizarre events surrounding the return to Afghanistan at the end of the book - it was too unreal. But A Thousand Splendid Suns sticks with the real situations and how the constant war affected people, bringing out the worst as well as the best. The friendship between Laila and Mariam is well written and heartbreaking. The only weak points of the book is that sometimes the insertion of what was happening was a little rough and kinda didactic.

Moving bamboo

The first time I stayed in Chang Khan, Thailand, I remember the darkness on the Lao side of the river. At night, there was only the tree line against the field of stars. I asked the friend I was staying with why there were not even the lights of cars in the town. "Very few people in Laos have cars and there aren't any roads. Most of the towns on the river use the river."

Things have changed - there are still the slow boats that go up and down the river, sunk low in the water because of the weight of whatever they're transporting. And bamboo is cut up river and floated down to Vientiane, where groups of people working together haul them up on the levee and made furniture, baskets, matting and fencing from the bamboo.

The daughter of a friend of mine missed one question on her final high school exam. The question was "What is the most important kind of wood and why?" She wrote "bamboo" and listed all the reasons why. The correct answer was "teak" because it's expensive and is exported (however, the profits from teak go to only a few). But bamboo - you can't go through a day without touching something made of bamboo, whether it's a floor mat, a sticky rice basket, the house you're living in, a fence made of bamboo where you're hanging your clothes to dry. It's an egalitarian kind of wood.

Bamboo on the shore. In both pictures, the city on the opposite bank is Sri Chiengmai in Nongkhai Province.

Weekends

Weekends never last long enough. I did have a good deal of quality time with house cleaning, organizing my house, washing and ironing. Yes, even in Paradise, we have to do all that. My landlady "helps" me when I'm out in the field. She feeds the cats, washes the dishes and gets into the main part of the house, insisting that she is cleaning. I can never find things after she has helped me. So this weekend, I found the return plane ticket that had gone missing from last year (now I can't even get a refund), half-read books that she had placed in shoe boxes and expired medicines.

Sigh. There's not much I can do other than contemplate beauty. So a few beautiful pictures of my bicycle trips on the weekend are in order.

It's the monsoon season and everyone's planting rice. It seems that people are planting later this year - I think because the nonirrigated fields are not getting enough rain. I've lived in Asia for fifteen years and have seen the cycle of rice that many times. I never get tired of the miracle of the brown hard laterite earth turning green with rice plants.

Happy Friday

I've been running around toooo much with most of my weekends fractured by long train or bus trips. But this weekend, I'm not going any where except to lie on the couch and finish reading the Harry Potter book, followed by as many of the other books in stacks that I can get my hands on and my eyes around.

Today was spent in office work. I try to avoid that as much as possible but it has to be done sometimes. In the afternoon, I visited the nurse trainer who organizing a nursing management course to work out the syllabus and the schedule with her. She's one of the most organized people I know and we've put together programs together for the past ten years so it was a pretty enjoyable visit. I left the hospital feeling satisfied that these nurses will learn things that they'll be able to use.

I wanted to take a picture of the Setthirath Hospital but my secretary who accompanied me, started having some contractions (she's 8.5 months along and having Braxton-Hicks contractions) so we just returned to the office. Later, I took this picture instead of exercising - I just ate dinner and returned home.


A funny, but great, craze that's been sweeping Lao and Thailand has been aerobics. When I first arrived in Lao, I'd go running in the mornings and most folks thought I was daft. "If you want exercise, feed some pigs." Of course, I was not about to buy some pigs but that didn't stop people rolling their eyes. But as the economy has gotten better, most professional people have transferred the farm chores and rice planting to their country relatives. And they have started to get tubby as a result. So a lot of hospitals and social groups have gotten into doing aerobics several times a week.

Around Phonsavanh

I haven't posted any pictures for a while, just haven't had the time when I've been near a fast internet connection. I took this picture when I went for a bicycle ride when I was in Xieng Khouang. At the start of the rainy season, it rains heavily for a short time then the sun comes out and the air is so clear. I like the way the bamboo springs out - the branches look like the tails of frisky young animals.

This picture only about an hour away from my house. The distant hills are about 20 kms away, to the west of Phonsavanh. There's a long of "progress" in Xieng Khouang but there still are quiet places. Ban Vieng, the last village I rode through didn't have electricity and although they had to carry their water from wells, there was water to carry. I stopped and talked to folks and finally had to beg off offers of meals and drinks.

One sobering thought is that later, as I was going though the UXO statistics over the past few years, I noticed that there had been several UXO incidents in Ban Vieng. Even though the war ended over thirty years ago, people's lives are still at risk.

Shadows and Light online

There's an interesting writing contest at the Clarity of Night website. I originally saw the notice at my favorite writing group, Musemuggers and thought I'd give it a go. My submission is here

What happened after the previous entry

I was so eloquent about the start of the Buddhist Lent in the previous entry that I was really shaken by what happened later on in the day.

As I was driving back from the health club, two teenagers on a motorbike rear-ended me. Fortunately, I was driving really slowly. One of these things I'll never forget is hearing the thud of the motorbike hitting the back of the car and looking up in the rear view mirror and seeing the driving of the motorbike hitting the top of the trunk.

Surprisingly, of all the possibilities present, the realities were not so bad. The kids only had cut lips, the police came quickly, followed by the kids' mother. And the insurance guy came to the site and declared the boys at fault for following too closely, a common Lao practice.

I was really shook up though. Since I've lived in Asia, I've seen so many horrible accidents and have lost friends to the flow of traffic. It really could have been much worse.

When I first visited Lao in 1994, Vientiane was a city of creaky one-speed bicycles. There were a few motorcycles then, but they were old and covered with rust and not capable of much speed. As years went on, the roads filled with motorcycles bumping over the rutted dirt roads. The city started to pave the roads which allowed bigger cars to start dominating the streets. The Volgas and Moscowitches gave way to newer used cars. Now, Landcruisers and sleeker modern cars create traffic jams - and when there's no traffic, they race along like maniacs.

The kids' motorcycle was of the new generation of bikes - cheap bikes from China. It disintegrated on the road. I was surprised that my car, a ten year old Korean knock-off, survived with its plastic bumpers.

Anyway, I hope that the rainy season retreat will really mean more mindful driving and fewer accidents.

Buddhist Lent

Tomorrow starts the season of the Buddhist Lent, called Khao Phansaa. During this season, everyone is supposed to be on their best behavior - no alcohol or drugs, no fooling around, no weddings or other loud parties. We had a happy hour at the office yesterday, so we started discussing what we were all going to abstain from over the next three months. For me, no alcohol and I'm going to go back on a high glycemic index diet, exercise daily and lose weight. I've done that before and both my glucose and cholesterol were in much better control. The only problem is in keeping it up - recently, between both work and travel, it's just been too crazy.

The rainy season is mainly a time for introspection. It follows the period of time when the rice has been planted, but people should not be traveling because they should be preparing for the coming year. Monks are supposed to stay at their home monasteries so they do not walk in the fields and kill the tiny animals by stepping on them.

Unfortunately, with modern times and development, the principles of the rainy season are not followed as carefully as before. People have parties and there are even weddings during this time. When I first came to Laos, everything grew quiet during the rainy season; there were few motor vehicle accidents because people stayed at home and did not drink. Now things continue much as before, with some of the elders following the principles of the Buddhist Lent.

Well, life is...

...still carrying me away. Don't have nearly enough time to do the things I have to do. And then there's the things I should do. And a small portion of the day devoted to what I want to do. Job satisfaction? Don't ask.

However, today we had an incredible preparation training for a workshop we're doing next week. The consultant is a good friend and we work well together. I could see the smoke coming out of people's ears, from having to think so much. But I know that it's good for them!

Change of seasons

It can get unbearably hot in Asia - but seems worse than usual this year. Thunderstorms raced across the country during the Lao New Year. A strong windstorm in Khammouane blew down over 100 houses. But after those atmospheric theatrics, the weather calmed.

And grew hotter. The headline story of the Vientiane Times reported on the heat wave, how afternoon school sessions may have to be cancelled for a week because the students were using their school books to fan themselves and they could not attend to lessons anyway.

This evening, the sky blackened and I rushed home. I often like to go to the gym and dawdle downtown afterwards to eat dinner, but tonight I decided I didn't want to drive in the mess. They've been repairing the streets so the danger of potholes on unlit roads is made worse by motorcycle drivers weaving between cars in traffic with their lights off, old men pushing wooden carts filled with scrap metal and plastic bottles, and people driving in shiny SUVS trying to push you off the road.

The storm arrived with high winds and lightening. But it lasted only a few minutes. The cool air lingered. I'll sleep well tonight for a change

A walk around town

Salavan is small - even smaller than Phonsavanh. And it feels small - like today, I went for a run in the late afternoon. In some places, it's very ugly - everything is new because the entire city had been destroyed, totally leveled during the war. Other places, the central part of the city and the areas by the Xedone River are nicer. Teak houses and meeting halls that were built right after the war.

I started off from behind our staff house/ office, off the road into the bushes. A few moments later, I was on the strip of the old airport - small planes used to land here until Lao Aviation cut off the road. Now, it's a place to fly kites and to play badminton.

I ran to the end and past the house that I plan to rent. A few steps later, I ran into (almost literally) into Dr. K, who owns the house. We talked for a few moments about when they'll have the house fixed up and I can move in. I'm very happy about that, because the nightclub next to the office is not endearing itself to me.

A few more steps and my cell phone rang, so I talked, in Lao, with my friend while all the neighborhood kids gathered around to look at a foreigner talking on a cell phone.

I continued onward, deciding to stop in the market to get a phone card. While there, I meet one of the people from the Dept of Education - haven't seen him for a year at least, but he said that he's seen me running. He told me that our education staff were in town, which I hadn't known.

I left the market before someone else recognized me and stopped at a pharmacy to get some aspirin. The woman at the pharmacy asked me if I lived in Salavan and I started talking about our project; turned out she was Dr. K's wife.

Onward - I passed a house which turned out being R's new house. He's one of education staff and he and the drivers were sitting outside so I had to sit with them for a moment. By now, it was starting to get dark so I left. The last mile of my run was in the dark, which is a little scarey because there are no street lamps and I wasn't sure if someone would run me over or whether I'd end up in a ditch.

The folks who went into Pakxe today returned with Indian food. Yummy - better than frogs or deep fried crickets any day!

Nightclubs in the Wilderness

Until I rent my own house here in Salavan, I'm staying with my staff in the combination staff house/ office. So I'm living in the same play where I work, with the people I work with. Don't have to commute far - it's kinda like telecommuting without the tele. Except for television - the guys love to watch the Thai soap operas at night, which give me a headache. But after a hard day at work which involves organizing training, editing training handbooks, and cutting through red tape, they're entitled to watching stories about the fast life in Bangkok.

Our house is just a little out of town - right in a short strip of nightclubs. The one next door is a shack with woven bamboo walls - which do nothing to cut down the constant pop music, mostly Thai. While they do play some songs that I like, from Carabao and Caravan (Thai alternative rock groups), I do prefer to hear the songs only once or twice... and my real preference is to be able to chose my own music.

Fortunately, they stop around 10 pm by which time I'm usually asleep with ear plugs in place. A few weekends ago, they started up the music and really cranked it up at 6 am. The only music that starts that early and plays that loud is for funerals; my staff though that was pretty funny and told the owner of the nightclub. Since then, they decided they would not start up so loud so early.

When I mention the music, my staff go "What music?" Since they all come from large families, I guess that noise is reassuring rather than a problem.

A Dark Night, Stormadly

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

A Dark Night, Stormadly

It was a dark and stormy night, filling the zombie's heart with glee, which even though, as everyone knows, zombies don't have hearts, or at least hearts which don't work in their assigned function of enriching the cells of our bodies, the space in the zombie's chest which once had housed a heart, had been an open pit of hunger and despair. Zombies are night owls and they don't beat around the bush when the sun does down.

The endless rain continued. And continued. As the moon rose, but the endless rain held back the romantic rays of the moonlight. The zombie continued with its mission, filled with glee but also thankful for the freezing temperature, the bite of the cold as sharp as a knife. It did not wish to putrefy any further until its mission was complete.

"Who's there?" Another dark form stood awkwardly by a sodden wall, The zombie floated by. In another life, it would have pounced on the human and would have done what zombies do to humans.

The zombie merged with the shadows. "If you don't come out, I'll shoot."

The zombie laughed and all the dogs in the neighborhood howled in response. "There's nothing you can do to me."

"That's good," the voice said. "I only have a banana for a gun."

Now the zombie shivered with fear, but laughed again to hide its despair. Bananas were good for humans, but were poisonous to zombies. He could just make out the form of the holder of the banana – smallish for a human, and bent-over in an odd posture.

The zombie said, "Just watch out. I'm a zombie, and you know what zombies do to humans."

"Oh, yeah," said the form. "Well, have I got news for you. I'm an aardvark, so how do you like those pickles." The aardvark threw the banana at the zombie, who fled, screamingly away but was not nimble enough on its feet. The banana hit the zombie's back, the potassium reacting with its flesh. For a moment, the dark of the underworld was lit with a flare that make all the shadow creatures run for cover.

The aardvark walked over to the smear decorating the sidewalk. "There goes a good banana," it mused. "I hope this zombie is really dead this time." He pulled out a cell phone, disguised as an apple and pressed a few wormholes. "I suppose we'll have to get an electroencephalogram just to be sure."

Another form trotted up to the aardvark. "Hey, Boss, waddhaya think the zombie was after?"

Fluffy the cat could be so dense, thought the aardvark. "I suspect the jewelry in the castle. That's what they're always after. Not very imaginative."

"You don't think this one's a decoy." The aardvark had not idea what Fluffy was getting at and wished that he would just go back to sleep.

"Decoy." The aardvark said slowly.

"Meow. You know, maybe the real thief is at the castle right now."

"That's why we should be going there right now, you idiot. What are you waiting for?"

Fluffy sighed and lay down so the aardvark could climb on his back. Fluffy ran like lightening.

They did not glance back at the zombie. Once the dark had descended again and the sounds of silence echoed loudly in the alley, the zombies fingers started to move. They dragged themselves away from the rotting arms, looked at each other, reached out with the pinky fingers to give a hi-five then scurried off after the aardvark and Fluffy.

It would be a long and rainy night, but at the end the forces of good would prevail. And the aardvark would find a name.

Flash Fiction Contest #2

Totems

They floated above her, translucent white shapes which undulated at the edges; they floated and they moved closer to her. Seos felt that the orange spot at the bottom of their forms could sense her; they seemed curious. For a long moment, she and the creatures who inhabited this planet, regarded each other.

"I come in peace," Seos whispered, trying to fill her mind with love. She could sense that they understood her, and the colors on their surface changed. She wanted to go with them.

"Go away!" Jasot yelled, running towards her. The shapes rose, like balloons and a moment later, they had disappeared beyond the forest of purple trees.

Jasot panted as he grabbed Seos's hand. "Are you all right?" She nodded, still staring in the direction the creatures had gone. Not creatures; they seemed very spiritual. They were Priests, she decided.

Jasot swore. "I bet they're sentient. There goes our commission." He shook her arm. "Did you hear me?"

She turned to face him. "Yes. They were beautiful." She felt embarrassed that the Priests had seen Jasot. They must think that she lied to them.

He turned and kicked out at a piece of metal scrap. Seos left him alone. They had been exploring this planet for six months and it was obviously too long for their relationship.

They avoided each other for the next few weeks. Jasot only informed her of power and food usage; they had only a limited time to make their fortune. And that did not look like it was going to happen. Benda was a beautiful world, a near Earth environment which could only be exploited if it were proved that no intelligent life lived on it.

The Priests had made their lives more complicated; she wanted to find them so she could explain.

#

When Seos returned from her latest exploration trip, Jasot was in a good mood. That immediately made her suspicious.

"Let me show you something." He reached for her hand but she moved away. "It's OK. We'll make our money back."

"What?" She gasped, feeling afraid. She could imagine that he had trapped one of the Priests and there would be no way she could apologize to them. Jasot led her into the cargo hold of the ship. A few weeks ago, it had been nearly empty and held only a few last cases of nutrient powder.

Now, a shape filled it. It looked organic, as if it had grown into this twisted shape on its own, but as Seos looked at it longer, she realized that three terrifying forms had been carved into the surface. Though they seemed to have wings, hands and faces, the combination was made by an alien mind.

"What have you done?" She turned on Jasot, raising her hands to strike his face but he pushed her away. She fell against the shape; the surface felt smooth and warm, like skin. She got to her feet slowly, staring at Jasot.

"What's wrong now? It's only a statue." He smiled; she imagined that he was calculating his profit.

"I think it was… is an icon, of religious significance to the natives on this world."

He laughed. "I've been thinking of those creatures we saw. How could they build anything like this? They haven't tried to communicate with us; I don't think they can be that smart."

"A court will have to determine that."

"That would take up precious time, and in the meantime, we could sell this, keep us going until we have our claim here." He wrapped his arms around her. "It will be all right. I know what I'm doing."

She couldn't find the words to express herself, so she stayed silent. Maybe once they returned to their world, she would be able to speak up against him, but now. They had only each other.

#

The time to leave crept up on her slowly and on the final day, everything went too fast. They were sitting in their couches going through the systems check when Jasot started flipping switches.

"What's going on?" He yelled at the monitor, then slammed it. Seos moved the cover off the observation port and saw them.

The Priests swirled around the ship, moving closer and closer. Seos felt thrilled to see them, but suddenly felt a deep despair. They were grieving over something.

"Strap up again," Jasot said. "I'm going to take off through them, if they're not going to get out of the way."

"No." She surprised herself. "They are probably more intelligent than we are. Hurt them and you could get tried for murder."

Jasot leaned back. "So what are we going to do?"

"Return the icon." Jasot started to take a breath then nodded. Seos jumped up to open the hatch again, and return the icon. She thought that Jasot had probably done the calculations and realized that theft and murder were not cost-effective.

As she attached the antigrav lifters to the statue, Jasot followed her. She was about to engaged the lift mode when he shoved her out of the way. "It's not attached right," he said. "Might have fallen on you."

They returned to the edge of the forest and stood it upright as it had rested for thousands of years. As they returned to the ship, the Priests drifted around them. Seos felt they had finally done the right thing.

gems as a second language

I've mined some Gems as a Second Language materials from a new magazine; however, I don't have it here with me. Instead, I received an e-mail from my doctor's office:

Please accept our apology, this is to inform you that Dr. S. will not able come to see all appointments on 3rd September 2006 due to the urgently thing requests.

Sounds serious. Shudder. They gave me an appointment for Monday, when - I hope - the Thing will not make any requests.

Heading back north

It's been a gorgeous day here, and we've gotten a lot accomplished. The training in Salavan is going well, just had a good meeting with the Champassak Dept of Health. Seems like the sun is shining everywhere...

Except I just talked to my boss in Vientiane. He said that it's been raining like crazy up north, and in Louang Prabang, the Mekong has risen 3 meters and looks like it might go over the levee in Vientiane. Groan. Some of the areas that the bus will have to go through tonight are low so I hope the road is not flooded.

Salavan update

It's been a good week so far. We've started our first project management workshop. My staff have been doing the workshop pretty much on their own. The Deputy Director of the Dept. of Health stopped by for a while and we ended up talking in the back of the room. He said he was pretty impressed by the content and the confidence of my staff (especially the female staff) in running the workshop.

Most of the hospital and health dept. folks are ethnic minorities. Salavan province has about 30 ethnic groups and the common language is Lao (fortunately). I've been spending time at the workshop, talking to everyone so they can get used to my strangely accented Lao. In fact, because Lao is a second language, we tend to talk more clearly and use fewer slang words so I can understand them pretty well and they can understand me.

Last thing - it's the end of the rainy season but the rains still come down heavy and for long periods of time. Tried to go for a run at the old airport this afternoon, and got soaked.

In Ruins

In Ruins

Seeing the tombs for the first time, feeling that surprise of discovery, could never be repeated. Marlene felt changed as she walked out of the forest, the sounds of birds and insects silence by the fog cover. The ground sloped towards the ancient courtyard, partially obscured by the mist until a breeze swept it away.

Marlene breathed, filling her lungs with moisture and decay. The tombs had been asleep for centuries, hiding secrets within their vaults. She would not be able to explore them for long, but even knowing the futility of her desire, she entered.

The carefully manicured path led her through a cherry orchard and around a lake. She knew that each view had been chosen carefully to illustrate both the beauty and impermanence of nature. The fog returned, swallowing the sounds of her footsteps, leaving her alone with her thoughts. She felt alien to herself, to be in this land, without reference.

Her watched chimed, reminding her to return to the entrance. "Tee-shirt, mister?" The skinny youth stood at the gate, carrying a closet's worth of clothing on his arms. She tried to recapture the silence of her walk but the motorcycle-taxi drivers gunned their engines and she breathed in exhaust.

She found her driver and sat on the back of the motorcycle. They passed through the kaleidoscope of vendors selling soft drinks and posters along the road. Marlene left the park, and the descendants of the emperors who had built these ruins.