Dear All,
I’ve now been in Laos exactly 3 years, and to celebrate (I’m clearly such a party animal) I thought I’d share with you my 3 year statistics:
-I’m now onto my 4th house
-2 of which have flooded
-my 5th Meiban (housekeeper)
-4th mobile phone
-3rd laptop computer
-3rd camera
-I’ve been stopped by the Lao police or army 27 times Read More »
Dear All,
I’m just back up to Vientiane from the mulberry fields of Sekong, from the silk farm down there. It is interesting work, though getting villagers to produce high quality silk thread is somewhat difficult, there are just so many different steps needed to turn a worm egg into consistent quality silk thread and any one of those steps going wrong messes up the quality. Silk is basically far too cheap, Read More »
Dear All,
I bought a walking stick, for the 5% of the time I now need one. I rushed into the shop, quickly paid the money ($5 USD) and walked out realising that perhaps it was the most expensive $5 USD item I’d ever bought. But if I need it 5% of the time, and don’t have one when I need one, how intelligent would that be? I’m far too much of a coward to be a hero, and too much of a realist to be making a stand on something as petty as this.
The last 2 weeks have been hard, I’ve had to come to terms with the arthritis and not pretend it is all so under-control I can hide it. It Read More »
Dear All,
It has been a steady, if rather difficult week. My arthritis flared up on Sunday again, and has left me feeling weak and nauseated all week, it has proven to be an unusually uncomfortable flare-up and so rather discouraging. I’m still able to swim mercifully, which is essential for my health as it stretches out my tendons. But life is still beautiful, and living in Laos the right thing to do.
A few days ago I presented an introduction to Biofuels to a Lao and Western audience; with the help of some of the Lao office staff I translated the slides into Lao and spoke for about an hour or so in both languages; these are happy milestones. It is nice to be Read More »
Dear All,
The rainy season has finally arrived here, actually it seems to have arrived with its entire extended family, as the last few days have been somewhat moist. The heavy rains are desperately needed for the rice, with so much of the country having had to replant after such a dry start to the rainy season, and large areas of some of the southern provinces sadly have not being able to even plant rice at all this year.
I’ve been in the office all this week at LIRE in Vientiane. I work basically the same hours there as I used to work in London (8am to 5 Read More »
Dear All,
After very almost 3 years here in Laos I’m learning pungently that one’s ability to succeed encouragingly is greater than ever before here, but one’s ability to screw up considerably also seems to be growing too. In this past week I’ve been down on a farm in Sekong province, in the very far south of Laos. I came back to the farm again because it seemed a good idea at the time to promise a very nice NGO I’d train some of their staff on how to better teach the villagers they work with. When the time actually came, it really didn’t Read More »
Dear All,
It has been a mercifully steady calm week, with unusually few traumas. After almost 3 years in Laos I’m more surprised when a week doesn’t have trauma, than when it does. You can’t be neutral about living here, you either love it or hate it; it is a nation that divides the finest people into two very distinct camps, those who over time love living here and those who over time don’t. And those who don’t, leave. But I love the Lao people, the Lao ways, and every week is so funny here.
I am without a passport at the moment, as my current one is full so I’ve necessarily had to send it to the regional passport Read More »
Dear All,
Last weekend I was in Sainyabouli Province meeting goverment officials, it was a fairly normal trip up country: saw 2 elephants, 2 machine guns and a mongoose. Fortunately none of the machine guns were pointed at me. It was a good trip, we put in about 28hrs travelling over 2 1/2 days but mercifully I wasn’t driving. The province was so beautiful, the meetings were productive, and I would Read More »
Dear All,
It has been a rough week; a physcially extremely painful week as my arthritis flared aggressively up again Sunday night and has remained high since then. But otherwise life is good, and despite the pain I’m in I do so adore Laos, lao people and living; it will surely take more than pain to get me out of here. It is a special, deep and wonderful joy to be living and working in Laos with Lao people.
Every few weeks sadly I get an arthritis crisis, and every few months a really bad one like the one on Sunday night. First the pain kicks Read More »
Dear All,
Contrary to most general impressions, I don’t actually live alone. I
live with a large family of lizards, and I know they are Lao lizards
because they seem to all have 6 children. Almost every time I open a
door, I get a dirty dismissive look from one of them as I disturb then,
and even though I’m in the right this is Laos so it is my fault. Unlike Read More »