Lingering effects of Luang Prabang

I guess when you live somewhere for 3 months it's bound to have some influence on you (or maybe I should say that hopefully it will). Here are some of the habits or quirks I've picked up since living in Luang Prabang:

(1) I follow the lunar cycle. The buddhist celebrations follow the lunar cycle and I loved the 4 PM drumming at the 3 wats closest to our guesthouse (Wat Aphay, Wat Aham, Wat Visoun). So I kept track of the lunar cycle so I'd know when to go. I find myself still checking the lunar cycles when I check the wunderground weather where ever I am. Full moon tonight!

(2) I cover up in the sun. The locals seem to do that everywhere we've been in southeast Asia. I could not understand the long-sleeves in the HEAT when I first arrived in Luang Prabang (which was actually cool weather, I now know), but now I find myself only wearing my long-sleeved shirts, despite that fact that the temperature is over 30 degrees C and feels a lot hotter with the heat index.

(3) I really appreciate the elegant design of the cheap (~$7CDN) sandals I bought in Luang Prabang. They had a back strap (over the heel) that held the sandal on for walking, but that could be moved up over the instep for short distances when you need to slip in and out of your sandals often (e.g., for entering buildings - you remove your shoes when entering private homes and some public places in Laos). I can't even find this style of sandal in Malaysia, although I think I probably could with extensive searching. But I know I won't find them in Canada. Sigh. Ron has a pair; mine broke. I will post a photo. Funny how something so simple and taken for granted in Luang Prabang is just not even thought of in other parts of the world. It's a simple design that meets a real requirement in Laos, but the requirement doesn't exist in Canada. So the elegant design would not be appreciated. But now that I know about the requirement, I really appreciate the design. I once saw a novice entering a building right in front of me. He removed his sandals mid-stride, so seamlessly I couldn't tell he had removed them, except that I knew that he had and I could see them on the floor. The grace that comes from a long-repeated, common-place action...

(4) I walk slower. Not all of the time, but a lot of the time, and when I walk fast I notice it. This is significant for me. The Laos "please don't rush" approach to life has rubbed off on me. This is good. I needed to slow down - in life.

(5) I'm much more aware of the community that lies beneath the surface of everyone's day-to-day life, if only we choose to nourish it. In Laos, the families really LIVE together - the kids and extended family members and animals are in each others' lives for most of the hours of a day. For many people (there are, of course, exceptions), this is also shared with the neighborhood (the houses are literally open to the street). So people walking by look into homes. Everything is done in the open, from working to cooking, to watching TV, to shaving and even bathing, washing clothes, washing hair... It made me realize that at home we really shut ourselves off from the rest of the world, and this means our communities have atrophied. I think maybe we've lost something special. Ron has long been talking about creating a front yard that we can sit in and be part of the neighbourhood, and I think he's on to something. But we'll have to start with rocking chairs and hammocks to ease our neighbours into it. They might get upset if I started to wash the dishes and my hair in the front yard. ;-) Mind you, I'd probably bring people together if I did baking out there... mmmmm oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

This is the first place I've seen that has a weather forecast of "Smoke".

This is due to the slash-and-burn agriculture around Luang Prabang. The smoke has become very noticeable over the last month. We had a lovely cool breezy day last Wednesday which enabled us to see the sky. We got a lovely view of the mountains around us for a couple of days, but this was an exception. Most days the haze of smoke means we can't see the surrounding moutains. We have even seen ash blowing around in the air.

A couple of weeks ago Ron and I were returning to Luang Prabang from a motorcycle ride in the country. It was dark and we could see the line of fire beside us, on the other side of the Nam Khan River. Oddly enough, we have not heard of any forest fires, which we find surprising, considering it is very dry (after all, it is the dry season).

Oh well, Luang Prabang is still lovely, even shrouded in smoke.

Amy

Photos of morning alms

A few of us have given alms to the monks in our neighborhood. I enjoy it so much I go pretty much every day. The monks from 7 temples collect alms in our area between 5:30 and 6:00 AM.

There are as many as 130 monks in these 7 temples, but we usually see between 100 and 110 each day. Not all monks collect alms every day. The come in groups, by temple. For example, the monks and novices from Wat Aphay (pronounced a-pie) usually come by first, followed by the monks and novices from Wat Aham and then Wat Visoun.

The monks get up at 4:00 or 4:30 and pray before the collect alms. They eat breakfast when they get back to their temples, which can be as late as 6:30 or 7:00 AM. They walk at least a few kilometers in their bare feet. The locals who give alms get up a good 40 minutes before alms are collected to cook the sticky rice. The woman who runs the guest house where we are staying gets up between 4:30 and 4:50 everyday.


The second photo shows Emma, Zoe and I preparing to give alms. Notice that we are sitting on low stools, because women have to be lower than the monks.

The third photo shows Patrick about to give alms. Notice that he is standing. Men do not need to be lower than the monks. We are all wearing a sash over one shoulder and using silver bowls. If we were giving sticky rice, we would use the covered baskets used to hold sticky rice.



The last photo shows me about to give alms. You can see Patrick standing at the beginning of the line.

We work with many novices every day. A novice I was working with at the Mekong English Centre today mentioned that he is from Wat Visoun and sees me every morning giving alms. It was interested trying to explain that yes I did like giving alms - I like the way it binds the community together. The symbiotic relationship really appeals to me (the locals give alms for good luck and take it very seriously and the monks collect alms because that is where they get their food). My English-Lao dictionary does not have an entry for "symbiotic", but after much discussion maybe they (we had an audience) understood. They were certainly amused.

The Improved Buffalo

March 3, 2010

I have been going to Big Brother Mouse (BBM) whenever I have time in the mornings. From 9-11 AM native English-speakers are paired with Laos students who want to practice their English. It is fun working with the students.

I arrived early once and read one of the books while I waited for students to arrive. It was the Improved Buffalo. It’s a wonderful story, and the illustrations are magical. I bought my own copy and a couple of BBM’s collections of Lao folk tales. I am having a difficult time finding teaching material that is culturally relevant to Lao students. I am actively looking for good English books of all levels that cover topics relevant to Lao, and am very pleased with what BBM produce.

Check out the Improved Buffalo at http://www.bigbrothermouse.com/books/newbuffalo-book.html. I'm happy to bring back extra copies if you would like one. :-)

UXO

March 3, 2010.

There is a UXO (unexploded ordinance) visit centre here in Luang Prabang. People can go and find out about initiatives to educate the Lao about UXOs and to clear UXOs from specific areas.
One of the GVI volunteers has made contact with the UXO visit centre and is teaching English to the officials there for an hour a day.

The UXO situation was made more real to us a few weeks ago when the UXO team sent a notice to our guesthouse, which is right beside the Nam Khan (river) indicating that between 9 and 10 AM the next day (it was a Friday) they would be exploding an UXO down by the river. People were asked not to watch. I was teaching at the time but one of the other volunteers was in the guesthouse and said she could hear and feel the explosion. We were curious where the UXO came from. As far as we knew, Luang Prabang was not bombed. Ron was talking to a local who said that in general, Luang Prabang was not bombed but that the old bridge (right behind our guesthouse) was bombed as a strategic target. He said an UXO was found there a year and a half ago. He went to watch the UXO team detonating the UXO found recently and said it was a cluster bomb. I gather they wouldn’t have tried to take out the bridge with cluster bombs so we are guessing that it was washed down the river from somewhere further north. The river is very low at the moment so it is possible the cluster bomb was there for a while but only now visible.

A volunteer from London saw the following article in the Times shortly afterwards. It is very sobering to be living in a community for which this is a very real issue (and as I said, UXOs are not considered to be an issue in Luang Prabang).

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article7036794.ece

Tutoring

February 17, 2010.

The novice monks in Monk School take one English class a week at Monk School. This is not enough, and in every class there are usually at least 5 students who are really struggling with the material. As each lesson builds on the previous lesson, I am concerned that the ones who are behind (e.g., who cannot read) will never catch up. To that end, we have been discussing offering tutoring on the weekend but could never figure out when and where to do it. The novices have a busy day during the week and have to be at their own temples for praying and breakfast in the morning, then again for lunch before noon and for praying later in the afternoon. There is of course the added complication that the novices who most need help do not know English and my Lao is very limited. In our class on Friday, we broke out into 4 groups with about 6 students in each group. I really enjoy small group work because you can really see who is understanding the exercise and who is struggling. In my group, I had 2 students who were clearly not able to do the exercise. Lao students are excellent collaborators, which unfortunately means that when someone doesn’t understand and others do, the ones who do just provide the answer to the ones who don’t. There is a lot of shameless copying. However, I have observed that once students understand that (1) they are expected to try and (2) we will help them and (3) copying is not what we want, then having students who work together well is a big help. So I asked Tricia Feeney (the main GVI English teacher at the Monk School) to tell the class that I would be at the outdoor tables at the Monk School at 1:00 on Saturday. I did not expect anyone to show up but I had to try, and if no one showed I was happy to sit on temple grounds and read a book for an hour.

When I arrived on Saturday, a novice monk from the temple (on whose grounds the Monk School is located) joined me. He was keen to work on his English, so we chatted. Ron joined us a few minutes later. And lo and behold, so did 3 students from my class. I left Ron with the first novice and worked with the students from my class. Two more students joined us. Success! I wasn’t sure how much they were enjoying it (we were really just reviewing material from the last class), but at the end of the session they asked if I was going to be there the next day. So of course I said yes. I then designed a lesson to cover more material from previous lessons. Three students joined me and we had a lot of fun. I brought a small whiteboard and a clock (so we could practice telling time). It was a good session. One keen young novice asked if I would be there again next week, so of course I said yes. I am hooked. I really want to work with the students who are struggling, so Ron is going to run a more advanced session for the keeners (since he is already working with one keen novice) and I will work with the ones who need to start from square one. I am looking for an English-Lao dictionary that has the English word, the Lao word in English script, and then the Lao word in Lao script. I’m told (by several people) that Phosy market should have them. I will look on Friday when I go to get my week’s supply of cookies for morning alms…

FAQ: How is the teaching going?

February 17, 2010. Frequently asked question: How is the teaching going?

The short answer is it is going well. I am learning a lot and enjoying it. Students in Laos are very motivated to learn English, which makes working with them very fun.

Here’s the long answer, for those who are interested.
I have been pretty conservative with respect to jumping into teaching. I have never taught before and have had no training, so for the first couple of weeks I was mostly observing the teachers and helping out by reading snippets so the students could hear my accent, and helping the students with their pronunciation. Many of the private schools where we volunteer have Lao teachers who are only too willing to hand over their classes to us, but I was not comfortable with this when I first arrived. I had one experience early on where I arrived on my own at an 8:30 class and introduced myself to the teacher (who I tracked down in a back room). He showed me what he was working on (pointed to the place in the text book) and then said he had to go pick up medicine for someone in his family and asked me to start the lesson. He pointed me to the classroom and headed on his way. Yikes! When he arrived back in the classroom he noticed I was drilling the (obscure) grammar incorrectly (not surprising, as I had not bought into the point of the exercise). So he showed me how he wanted me to do it, then left again!!! He said we were working on efflective pronouns. I have no idea what that is. Many of the Lao teachers work on (obscure) grammar because they can, but I prefer the approach which focuses on effective communicating, including proper pronunciation (so that the Lao students can be understood by native English-speakers).

In any case, I spent a couple of weeks watching and learning and helping out on the manual labour front and on the simple things but not taking the lead. I did help the teaching assistants at the Mekong English Centre (aka MEC, formerly the Mano English Centre) with their computers and PowerPoint, and Ron and I introduced the concept of Show and Tell to the MEC. I guess my enthusiasm showed because the main teacher at the MEC invited me to join the Teacher Training classes he is doing for one hour a day for his Teaching Assistants. It has been very useful for me, and now I am comfortable walking into unknown situations and just dealing with whatever comes my way. I am slowly developing the skills to enable learning rather than explain or just involve the students (yes I have been influenced by Scrivener's LEARNING TEACHING). I wasn't sure I would ever be able to walk in cold to a situation without preparation, but I am realizing that I am slowly building a toolkit of activities and even lesson plans and approaches for providing students with clear ideas from which they can go forward and discover patterns. The more I have in my toolkit, the more able I am to (1) assess what the students know at any given point and (2) figure out a next step that reinforces what they already know and allows them to learn more. I am now signing up to work with the Lao teachers (who are apt to hand over the class even when they stay in the room. This has provided the unexpected benefit of helping me to develop skills for including them and sharing the teaching as well as moving a class along). I am much more comfortable and effective volunteering at Big Brother Mouse, too. Big Brother Mouse sets up a space for tourists and English students to converse from 9-11 Monday to Saturday. Last week was the first time I had room in my schedule to go during the week and I loved it so much I went on Saturday as well. A good thing , as I was the only native English speaker there! I was surprised because there was one tourist for every student during the week. I guess the tourists were all sleeping in on Saturday. So it was about ten students and me. It went well and I enjoyed it. I would not have enjoyed it at the beginning of January when I first arrived.

One of the things the students love best is to hear us attempting to speak Lao. Attempting being the operative word. There is much shouting (in an attempt to help us to hear the subtleties) and laughter. However, it is paying off. I tried some of the Lao words I know on the students at Big Brother Mouse and they understood every one of them. Yay!