So, iPhoto is a program I use on my Mac to sort and organize photos. Well, it has this great new function that searches my photos for faces and tries to categorize them. Basically, its a rudimentary face recognition built into the program.
Its kinda nice because once I label someone's face, iPhoto will try to guess at the rest of the faces and suggest other photos that person is in. Well, hilarity sometimes results as it guesses wrongly, or it thinks that someone's wrinkled pants are a face.
This is not one of those advertisement for Macs or their software; although, I'm kinda partial now to Macs since Windows Vista is haunting the compy world. This blog entry is about a great face that I found in my library. Priceless really. I get a kick out of this kid every time I see his picture:
I can't tell if he's mad or disgusted or about to cry or just passing gas...
Fun times for New Years here... one of my classes bought me a present for New Years!
New Years is a bigger holiday internationally and even in Laos its bigger than Christmas or any American holiday (we actually get New Year's Day off, but we hafta ask for Christmas off). They usually give presents and occasionally have bossi's to start the new year right (see previous post about bossis for more info on that whole ordeal).
Well, I think my students noticed that I only own about 8 dress shirts (about means exactly) and that I was in need of more diversity. Thus, for New Year's they bought me a shirt...here are the pics:
...and the girls who apparently organized the gift giving wanted a picture with me. Actually, I'm glad I got a picture with them because they really help translate my instructions and directions for the rest of the class when I can't explain something in Lao. Also, they really like getting a picture with them and the foreign teacher:
And of course, the peace sign that students love to give appears! The girl on my left side (to the right from our perspective) is probably the best student in that class.
Funny note... they always tell me that I look very handsome when I wear my glasses; funny because I think glasses are my "Today-is-a-rough-day" look. Some things like that are great around here! Maybe, just a little help on those days you feel out of it.
The shirt is great! I love the style of cut that is available here. When I first got it, I noticed it was a size large and I thought it would be too big on me. But sizes are different here in Asia... I think it ended up being just below of medium in the states.
Also, there is this great little logo on the shirt. I'm not sure what the brand is or what the logo stands for... but, as my tutor put it, its the same logo as the one for the bathroom signs:
Yes, I have a little man picture because my shirt is for a man apparently. Glad that whole picture scheme works out the gender question.
Honestly, love the shirt. Hate American style cuts now... So I will be packing an enormous suitcase of $7-9 dress shirts from Laos. Also, the jeans are great too; maybe not so hot on the durability end, but for the price! YES, Levis... you can take that $150 price tag per pair and smoke it in your scandalously-priced-clothing pipe (as I shake my fists at you)!
Yes, we continued our journey North on Road 13 toward WiengChan (also spelled 'Vientiane', the capital city of Laos). We looked for a place to eat and Saleumsai found one after about 30 minutes of looking. Its great. Some things in Laos just take a little getting used to since we just don't have that in the states... animals walking around EVERYWHERE!
Example at our restaurant:
After a while, you don't really notice it... unless a rooster is crowing underneath your table. But often there are cats, dogs, chickens, cows, or other random animals (like a bear at our Vietnamese restaurant next to my house) walking by your restaurant or table or under your table.
And... Saleumsai acting cool as we wait for food:
We had some good grilled beef and sticky rice with hot sauce (padeck... more on that in another post). It took another 40 minutes to drive back some of the road and turn off to get to the village. His village was located maybe 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) off the road, but we also had to cross a river to get there. There are two different villages on opposite sides of the river and we left the motorbike at a house on the shore and got on another boat to cross over.
The shores on both sides are steep, sandy banks dropping about 30 feet down to the river which will flood during the rainy season (which is not now obviously). The river at this point is only 200-300 feet across. When we arrived on the other side, Leum took me to his Uncle's house where I met the fam:
Back (L to R): Saleumsai, His Uncle, His cousin Front (L to R): His Aunt, His cousin who spoke English, His other two younger cousins.
Here is a quick panoramic clip of the house and surrounding area:
Leum gave me a short tour of the village, including the local temple (that every village has) and their primary and lower secondary schools with a kindergarten school under construction. The kindergarten school was extremely nice compared to everything else in the village. In fact, it was THE most modern looking part of the whole village. Apparently, there is an organization from Australia that is funding a kindergarten school program in rural Lao villages.
...and the kindergarten building modeled by local future kindergartener:
Complete with the latest in squatty-potty technology:
There is a large school yard where most of the school buildings are built within a fenced off area. Water buffalo roam around inside; they were way too scared of the foreigner to stay still for a picture (seriously, I tried taking their picture like 7 times and each time they looked at me and ran!). Here's my best shot before they bolted:
This is the older classroom that Saleumsai used when he was in primary school. It's no longer in use but looks cool:
And the NEW primary school (complete with grazing cattle):
This is the newer secondary school (with flagpole!):
...and the original school built ages awhile ago (its a storage place now...can you tell why):
Saleumsai's other Uncle spoke English fairly well and was fun to talk with. He also provided the kindergarten model for the earlier shots of the kindergarten building. I think this kid will go far as a model as long as pants are involved:
Also, I was met by some fairly extraordinary scenes of natural beauty.
And, some monks in the distance getting their wash done for the day:
Cool clouds:
...and me making a seriously funny pose (I think I am trying to scratch my butt and Saleumsai is not waiting till I am done):
There was so much to see and show at this village. I also saw the local temple and got a few shots of it. Temple and palace decorations in Laos are very ornate. They go all out for decoration when trying to please the spirits or gain favor/merit:
We left as the sun was setting and I finally feel like a cool photographer:
So, it was a fun day... long, full day... when we started back on the motorbike at about 6pm. Things were getting dark and we still had a 2 hour ride ahead of us. I was a little tired, but I wanted to get home faster. At the first gas station, I took over the wheel and we sped off making good time (I think I naturally have a lead hand on the motorbike). Whew! There was a lot to take in today and I feel like I saw the real Laos firsthand. This village would be the most typical look and feel to a Lao person's life here... VERY, very different from mine.
Here is a link to the rest of the pictures from the village:
I had an awesome opportunity to visit my tutor's home village in Salavanne province (pronounced 'Sah-lah-vahn' or sometimes 'Sah-rah-vahn' ... r's and l's are often interchanged here which can produce rearry funny resurts). Turns out, I would be the first foreigner to ever come to that village... So, I heard a lot of murmuring with 'Falang' (Lao word for foreigner) and got many stares with smiles. His village is about 2 hours away driving on a motorbike.
He also wanted to take me to see an electric generation dam on the way. This dam apparently generates enough electricity to sell some to Thailand. Its located off Road 13 about an hour north of Pakse (about 60 km... give or take... roughly 40 miles). We had to cross a river on a small platform boat (roughly 15x15ft) which Saleumsai drove my motorbike onto (and made me a little nervous about the whole stopping before ending in the river!). We crossed above the dam and drove down to it.
I was surprised because it felt a little like an American dam with a little park and manicured lawn/bushes surrounding the generator control station. This was definitely not normal Lao style (at least from what I've seen). There was a little stream that bypassed the dam and we crossed it to explore the bottom portion. Saleumsai unaware of my camera sneakiness...
Conquering the river with pure muscle .... flexation!
Power station:
We walked downstream a little and although there were numerous signs about not fishing (in English) apparently this doesn't stop some people...
We crossed back over to the power station and walked around to the man-made waterfall to the left of the generation station - very cool. We walked out on the massive concrete wall that protected the riverbed from erosion. Here is a fun video panorama of the area:
And some great pictures of us making Superman poses... reminiscent of the original 1981 movie:
Ok, maybe not 'exactly' superman poses...maybe more like Beegees:
Exploring the waterfall was manly (yes, Heather...I said manly!). My favorite is one with us together (which took a lot of practice and sprinting and about 10 minutes of running back and forth between camera and waterfall).
This was really fun and I know Saleumsai enjoyed taking me out to see it. Definitely manly bonding and exploration... now, next episode... the village (and not M. Night's village). Stay tuned for foreigner meets far away baahn! (Lao for 'village')
Tongue tied in language lessons and I still feel like after several months of study and practice... that little children know more than me!
But, just so you don't feel left out... I've recorded some of my initial Lao lessons and you can try for yourself. Some of the initial learning is easy; or so I thought. See the hard part is that every word has a tone of ending on a higher, lower, or same tone. Also, every word has a low, middle, or high tone to begin with. And, to top it off, there's the 'shortness' or 'longness' to every word. So, grand total combination of 18 different ways to say the exact same sound and it means different things.
Probably the hardest part is the actual hearing of different sounds and tones. They have sounds that are completely different from ours. Many words begin with a "ng" (similar to how 'song' ends but only using that sound for the beginning) or "ny" or plain "n" sound - extremely hard to tell them apart in normal conversation.
Saleumsai, my tutor, is from Salavanne province in the Southern part of Laos. This makes a big difference because the Lao language is not standardized. Northern Laos, Vientiane, Middle, Southern, and rural Laos all have different tones and words. At one time, Laos and Thailand were similar in language (and they still are to a very great extent - most of my students use a Thai dictionary to help them understand English words; plus all my students understand Thai and have told me if I know Lao well enough, I can understand Thai). So, we are learning a 'southern' dialect of tones. He is also giving me the most common words that would be most widely understood. It helps that he worked in Northern Laos at Luang Prabang with foreigners at a nice hotel; it gives him a broader range of Lao language exposure.
The style of language learning here is "Learning by Immersion." Thus, we try to speak only Lao and I learn words from context rather than depending on English to convey ideas. This is how we all learned our native language - from context - and its the easiest way to truly learn a language in its own context.
Here are the first three lessons I've recorded.
First lesson - basic words for family, people, and different verbs. The words are:father sitting, little boy running, man standing, little girl walking, mother sleeping (or laying down), spoon, pencil (we don't have one so we are pretending), knife, plate, pen, fork (vs the word for #3), bowl, book (either blank paper or reading), large jar, small jar, paper, chair, long chair, table:
Second Lesson - basic words for animals and prepositions with a random ruler stuck in for fun. The words are: cat, pig, dog, horse, cow, chicken, a ruler, water buffalo, on, next to, in front of, behind:
Third Lesson - common everyday words. The words are: shirt, to wear or wearing, pants (vs. the word for the number 2), corn, to eat or eating, ice cream, fish, flower, key, egg (vs the word for chicken), camera, "to take a picture" or "taking a picture", can, rice, breakfast, lunch, dinner:
There is a ceremony that happens often here in Laos that is called a Bossi (sometimes written Baci or Bacci or Basi, and pronounced 'Bauh-see'). I got to participate in one such ceremony when a co-worker, Nicole from Australia, had to leave early. The Lao people do a Bossi for several reasons, but mostly it is intended to bless an individual who is leaving or has something going on with them that warrants intervention of some kind. I encourage you to read this article if you want to know more about the whole thing: (http://www.laoheritagefoundation.org/ceremonies/baci.jsp)
Here are the basics... in the center is a Pha Kwan:
This is where the spirit of kwan will come and re-inhabit the person who is being blessed. A few words of explanation about the Pha Kwan. It is symbolically decorated with food at the base to 'feed' the spirit that will be called to bless the individual. There are other symbolic things like money and flowers decorating the display. The strings are used to tied the person's hands in order to bind the spirit to bless the individual.
The ceremony begins with some acknowledgments of respect from minors to elders and in our case, words were shared about the time spent together (with a direction toward encouraging Nicole as she leaves).
Then an elderly man (in our case he is called a "moh pohn" which literally means "blessing doctor"; sometimes a Buddhist monk will actually be this person) begins to chant Buddhist lines and everyone in the room leans forward to touch either the Pha Kwan or touch someone else who is touching it. This way everyone is 'connected' with the central point where the spirit will come. After some brief intro chants, everyone returns to their seat and folds their hands in front of them while the elderly man return to speaking more Buddhist chants from a small book. They light several candles part way through the chanting.
He presents the food to the spirit that he has called and then gives it to the person who is being blessed. He then takes a string from the Pha Kwan and ties the right hand wrist binding the blessing spirit to the person. Afterwards, everyone in the room takes a string and blesses the person.
The interesting thing is that many of our students were there to see Nicole because she taught many of them. Now, this is where the story takes an interesting twist... because you see, I can't in good conscience participate in this ceremony for two reasons.
1.They believe in this ceremony and the spirit calling as actually taking place. I don't. I very strongly believe this is slavery to rituals that have no truth or blessing in them. For me to participate would be to condone what is taking place in the ceremony and leads me to point #2... 2. While I respect their beliefs, I have different ones. My own beliefs are that this is wrong (I haven't the time or place to expound on this point properly or decently). So I can't participate in good conscience without denying the 'I am.' So... mutual respect going on here.
Now, Amy (my co-teacher) and I were attempting to come late to the whole thing anyway, but after arriving 40 minutes late, they were just beginning. I had one or two students who were trying to instruct me as to how to participate and I had to play the "I'm a slow foreigner who doesn't understand anything" card. I felt bad. I can't even really explain to them why not for other reasons. But at the end, they were tying strings on all the foreigners wrists. About 20 of my students came up to me with strings and said various blessings to me (like "Teacher, I hope you enjoy long life, prosperity, happiness, love, and good health") as they tied the strings to my wrist.
Its at this point where it was hardest for me because I felt like it was simply my students giving me encouragement... and I couldn't really refuse without being completely disrespectful to them and everything they are trying to do for me.
The Lao people apparently wear these for three days in order to get the maximum blessing out of them. I felt they were tight and uncomfortable so I cut them off after a couple hours (and because they hold a significance in this culture to the Buddhist belief system).
So, moral of this story... its hard living in another culture where I want to respect the people and their practices. No easy road here...just one that requires mutual respect.
