Edward Allen

Dear All,
I’m safely back in the UK, back in rural England, and it is somewhat horrifically cold. It is ludicrously cold, and British heating appears to be something of an oxymoron. Anyway, Happy Christmas.

I got into Heathrow airport very early on Wednesday morning, landing in freezing fog so thick you couldn’t actually see the wing of the plane (I’m guessing the captain of the 747 I was on I could see the runway, but if he couldn’t then he is a very good bluffer indeed). There was snow on the ground, and outside temperature was sub-zero. It is a little warmer now, and the snow is gone but apparently is coming back next week.

The jet-lag is hitting in, and I miss Laos. Staying with my Parents is dearly wonderful, sweetly lovely and amusingly seems to come with lots of marmelade, but it is a culture shock.

Christmas has been lovely, I went to church on Christmas Day with my Dad and got much closer to dying than I had previously planned as the heating had failed to come on and it was agonisingly cold. My inflamation problems hit extremely agressively, leaving me overwhelmed with pain. But after hugging a hot air fan heater for about 20 minutes things stabilised. I knew it was going to be rough, but hoped it wasn’t going to be that rough.

As normally happens we then went over to my sisters enormous house for a huge and beautiful Christmas dinner, with an a local turkey, flowers everywhere, cut glass and bone china, and every possible trimming and 6 deserts. My sister’s 3 boys were there, I think the oldest is something like 4 or 5, and they behaved with the abundance of personality that is a sometimes frustrating characteristic of our family. Also there was my aunt and her husband there too, my cousin and her husband and their two young children too. It was quite the do.

Whenever I come back to the UK I realise how Lao I’ve become, and whenever I unpack my hand-luggage I always find the roll of toilet paper I’ve brought with me in case I catch a cold on the plane. In Laos you’re never more than about 3ft from a roll of toilet paper, rolls are everywere and in every room. But here toilet paper is just in the bathroom which seems a bit odd.

Laos is still a nation where flags with the communist hammer and sickle emblem come in large and small sizes, I tried to buy a small communist party flag a few weeks ago and was told they’d sold out of the small ones but had some left about the size of a Korean car. It was tempting.

It does feel awfully strange being back here, I went to a supermarket and foud them selling 23 different types of egg which didn’t make sense to me. Everyone seems so overweight here, but looking around at the abundance of lovely food in the supermarket it makes sense. If I lived here, I’d be fat too.

Yes I miss Laos, I always do when I’m away, but I know also that I have to be away from Laos to refresh and get a change of air. The UK is a phenomenal nation, with incredible smooth roads, spectacularly efficient and honest government, and an abundance of food, and clean water, and everyone drives so kindly and politely. It is an amazing place, there is wind, and crisp air, and intelligent discussions on the radio, and things just work here. It is a nation that is almost beyond amazing in what it has achieved and put in place; after a few years in Laos I find myself dazzled by how astonishing the UK actually is. I think the only thing I’d change here, is that I’d change people to be more grateful and positive about what they have here; there is a kind of British malaise which gets wearying.

My old Latin teacher said to me that “it is worth doing something, just because it is difficult” and he happened to be very wrong about learning Latin, but very right about working in Laos. It is difficult, but it is worthwhile too, and I don’t regret ever coming to Laos, I don’t regret trying to make a difference, and I don’t mind if I fail. My health situation is still pretty rough, but that is nothing more than a distraction. As the psalmist writes, in psalm 37:3, we are to dwell in the land and do good, and everything else will work out just fine.

Wishing you all a wonderfully Happy New Year,

love Ned