Laos. The time is certainly going fast, and I'm trying to make the
most out of it. Here's a brief rundown of the past months.
The rain finally died out in the middle of October and then the
weather cooled down for a couple weeks (70s) but now it's back to warm
and sunny.
I've enjoyed working with the new service workers who have been here
for a few months already. Over the past few months, I spent a fair
amount of time helping them buy things and making sure details for
them were taken care of. But now, they are already pretty
well-adjusted and on their own.
I'm currently staying in the MCC guesthouse which has had a number of
guests over the past few months. Sometimes they're Lao and sometimes
foreigners, but it's been fun to have a variety of visitors with
different backgrounds.
It's been a little different not being teaching at school this fall,
but I still run into students and teachers from time to time. I've
also enjoyed going to one teacher's house for supper every so often.
He generously invites me over when he's "made too much food". He's
very good at explaining things in ways that I can understand and we've
talked about a wide variety of subjects including Lao cooking,
traditional medicines, stories of his father fighting in the war and
cultural differences. His talkative preschooler makes sure the house
is never too quiet.
I've found I still have plenty of things to learn, some of it less
positive than before. Recently I've heard more frustrations about
"poor management" in schools and the government. Of course, these
things are rarely talked about openly, especially with the ones who
are criticized.
As I mentioned briefly before, I've been able to catch up with the
IVEPers from last year. They were a part of MCC's program to serve in
North America while I was here in Laos. We met at orientation a year
ago, so it's been great to reconnect with the people who gave me my
first true taste of Laos. They are all wonderful people to get to know
and share with about cross-cultural things because they have also had
a major cross-cultural experience.
This past week was the First Meeting of States Parties to the
Convention on Cluster Munitions. It sounds like quite the name but
it's really just a meeting for countries to work toward legislation
towards banning the use of cluster bombs. Naturally Laos is a good
location considering it has experienced the effects of cluster bombs
for more than 30 years, and it was cool Laos could host the
conference. It was explained to me that roughly half of the world's
countries have signed the treaty, but none of the major cluster bomb
users have signed the agreement. The U.S. has not even banned its use
of land mines yet. The last day of the convention, the newspaper ran
an article and graphic pictures of a 10 year-old girl who was killed
the previous day. Her older sister had told her what the colorful
bombie was soon after the girl picked it up. The young girl threw it
away, but it exploded, killing her and significantly wounding the
older sister (probably in more ways than just physically).
This weekend is busy with a national holiday combined with a
celebration of the 450th anniversary of Vientiane.
Justin
