Lao cooking school on Saturday

Four hours of cooking and you are not seeing dessert! On Saturday, we took a tuk tuk several miles out of town to attend a Lao cooking school taught by a young chef from a local restaurant. What I am displaying with such enthusiasm includes sticky rice with smokey eggplant dipping sauce, chicken-stuffed lemon grass, fish wrapped in banana leaves and a buffalo (water) gratin. This was all cooked over a charcoal-fueled brazier. Some of it was steamed (the fish and the sticky rice). The rest was cooked over open coals either directly or in a pan.

For a bit of perspective -- in the tribal villages, most Lao subsist on a diet of sticky rice and dipping sauce. About 60 percent of Lao live in these rural villages.

Dropping off children at the local primary school

Most parents and older siblings use motorcycles when dropping the young children off at the local primary school. I believe education is now compulsory for children in Laos. Parents are very eager to have their children educated and most value the ability to speak English, which they see as a means to well-paying jobs.

Teachers are respected. Most are required to work the first year without pay, however, and salaries are low by Lao standards.

Our low tech but highly functional resource room

All of the nineteen volunteers teaching English at Luang Prabang use the resource room several times a day. Here, we develop lesson plans, hear how teaching is progressing for everyone and get to know one another.

The volunteers who are here currently come from Canada, the United States, Columbia, Mexico, Scotland, England, Austria, Germany and Australia. Volunteers range in age from 18 to 71. The majority are women; five are men.

Despite our differences, we get along well and are uniformly looking forward to this weekend!

Teaching at Wat Mano

I teach at Wat Mano four days a week. These photos were taken yesterday. The class is small --- six novices and the wat school manager's son (who is in the white shirt). Global Vision International (GVI) volunteers have been teaching here for several years though my class is new to English. Loa enjoy fun and play so much of our teaching involves games and activities.

GVI has a new tablet so, in the lower photo, one of our volunteers, Anissa, works individually with students using fun software where the students can see, hear, and practice the alphabet and numbers.

One of the small challenges of teaching novices is to follow the guideline of not touching them directly at any time.

My local Starbucks

"Book and Tea" beats Starbucks by  a mile and is one of the pleasures of Luang Prabang. I've been in training for two days and start teaching tomorrow. I'll teach two classes -- one of young adults and the other of early grade school age.

Splendor on the road to Luang Prabang

I traveled yesterday to Luang Prabang where I will be living and volunteering for the next six weeks.  The trip was breath-taking - limestone mountains, hill tribe villages, the mighty, muddy Mekong River. Today I move to the guesthouse I will be living in while here and meet the other volunteers. I am so glad I came. 

Are we there yet?

To get from Sherwood, Oregon to Vientiane Laos, I:
*took five flights lasting a total of 22 hours
*spent 17 hours in airports waiting between flights including an over-night stay in Saigon where I "slept" on a bench
*enjoyed every minute of it

Trip highlights so far include:
*learning that the best way to manage a 14.5 hour flight is to take a sleeping pill
*appreciating the kindness of the Saigon airport employees who found me a quiet place in the airport to rest
*being serenaded by my Vientiane guest house manager who plays guitar and likes old Carpenter songs

I took the photo below at Wat Si Saket in Vientiane, one of the most beautiful Buddhist  temples I've ever visited.

Last day in the garden

I am doing what I can to get the garden ready for winter in Oregon. It's in the 90's in Laos now.

At the beginning

A thousand - or more - miles starts with a single step. I will go down this road in Oregon Monday morning on my way to Laos. Flying standby is always a little nerve-racking, but if all goes well I should be in Laos October 15. San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Ho Chi Minh City are my lay overs - airports only.