"Siwid" means "life".

First day of the last week of teaching. 

I feel torn between here, the warmth, the quiet, steady, day-to-day life, and home. Where I can pet cats because they're less likely to have fleas. Where the weather is cooler, but nicer for running. It feels like someone pressed the "Pause"-button and as soon as I get back, many things will happen very quickly. Major changes are coming up. Like the sword dangling over my head, but it's not a sword, it's maybe a piñata, about to burst open and shed things that I know now are there but don't know exactly what they will be like.

I wanted to write that life is pretty uneventful here. But that's not true. The heartbeat is slower, but life is the same. People around me fall in love, get their hearts broken, people have babies, people come and leave, people die. I feel like in these long-exposure shots in movies, I'm standing still while people around me are merely blurred figures rushing around. I'm on a time-out here, which gave me the chance to breathe, to shake off the worries of the past few months. But it also makes me feel a bit lonely. I'm just a visitor here. Mine is the only life that's on "hold".

Things that happened on the weekend:

- I got myself a pair of jeans and a handsome husband at an auction at game night. Cost me 90$, altogether.

- Watched "Les Misérables". 

- Got a massage. 

- Wrote farewell letters and prepared presents for "my" kids.

- Ate some of the best indian food ever.

- Learned some new Lao: "tod" means "fart", "göp" means "shoe", "siwid" means "life". 

- Ran on the buddha mountain. Hated every minute of the last part back, the 1.5k Mekong bridge. Kept telling myself "I'm not a quitter. I'm not a quitter. I'm not a quitter." and made it. 

- Someone died. I hate that everyone wrote about it on Facebook on the same day, and I didn't know if I should say anything about it here. But it IS very sad and upsetting, even if I didn't know this person directly.

Listening to a mix by El Tigre, "Notes on a blue lake, near a white mountain". It captures the mood perfectly. Yesterday we visited one of our students' village. It rained a lot and the air was cool. While we ate fresh durian and those little bananas that are hard to peel but taste very sweet, I looked outside the window. The green of coffee plants and palm trees and the forests on the plateau was stunning. So fresh, so lush, revived by the rain. Awaiting the fruit, the things to come.

 

July randoms.

Apple turnovers, sweet cinnamon taste, an afternoon treat. My bare feet feel dusty on the cool tiles. Thankful for a fun lesson with the kids this afternoon, "rock paper scissors" and other games for animal vocab. Team spirit, noisy kids with lots of energy and also quiet, shy ones that like to stand in the back and don't play even if I ask them to. 

The sky is cloudy, a slight breeze moves the leaves of the coconut palm in our landlord's front yard. The air-con makes a loud noise while my two colleagues laugh and talk at their desks behind me.

Oldschool rock music, motorbikes driving by, 4.18 p.m. My Australian little brother, making big plans for his and his fiancée's future. Young love, a blank canvas, two people, two cultures. Earlier in the afternoon he was playing an online game where his character's name happens to be "Evelyne". Nickname: "Agony's embrace". Colouring pencils on my desk, lesson plans, my canvas bag. Too late to go to the market now...

My arms are tan, my skin warm and soft, shimmering, reminding me of last Sunday at the waterfall. Slippery rocks with specks of gold, a strong current and a wooden construct for jumping in the shallow water. After the picnic we sit under a small waterfall, just enough space for our heads behind a curtain of water thundering down, we laugh at the funny echoes of our screams. Happiness. A teenage boy who just can't get enough of this game. Lao girls in full clothing, splashing water at the older boys, laughing, holding hands, sihns and T-shirts dripping water. Two of them collect big insects in an empty bag of chips, telling me they're going to fry and eat them later. Small children we all look after, they wade through water from one auntie and uncle to the next, sit on our laps and play with the water. A student who can't swim, giggling, tightly holding on to my hand. She bravely holds her face under water and comes back up smiling, her eyelashes sparkling with drops of water. Communication with laughter, with smiles, with hands and feet. 

I feel ashamed for my bad Lao. For having spent six months here, it sucks. Big time. I cook dinner with two Lao staff members, learned a new sentence today, "jao hian kiao gapp yang nam ajan Maricar", "what did you learn with teacher Maricar?". Chop onions, green peppers, red peppers. Ask the next six people who pass the kitchen area what they learnt today, chop tomatoes. Ask about family, "jao mii kob gua njaj bo", younger sisters, older brother, "pinong"? 

I am really not good at learning Lao. Too scared to try, it's too easy to just speak English. Two weeks left here. 7.40 p.m. now, it's dark outside. A gecko is catching mosquitos outside my window, his translucent green body shimmering in the cold light from the office. 

The Confusing Lives of Finger Print People.

I. Did. Not. Expect. Teaching. Family. Members. Vocabulary. To. Be. So. Difficult. GOODNESS GRACIOUS. #teachingkids #almostlostpatience #neverdoingthatagain #yaytohashtagsinablogpost

I'm knackered. And SO THANKFUL to my assistant teacher Mr Khio who explained everything so patiently in Lao. 

I'd prepared a really cute worksheet about family relations, where they were supposed to write "niece" on the line between "me" and "my uncle", for example. 

To cut a long story short: It didn't work.  

My lesson plan (ambitious, but better too long than too short):
- finish finger print family tree that we started yesterday*
- teach: "Who is this?" - "This is my ..."**
- "How many brothers and sisters do you have?"
- game: two teams, count which team has more sisters/aunts/uncles etc. in total
- do worksheet "family relations"

- start new topic: describing people (connect to family: "my father is tall")
- game: "I spy" with people ("I see a boy. He is tall. He has short black hair. He is wearing a blue T-shirt. Who is it?")
- teach new lexis: tall-short, long hair - short hair, dark skin - fair skin, long nose - small nose, curly hair - straight hair
- game: bank robbers. Description of five robbers, put pictures in the right order. 
- draw 6 faces by instructions ("long nose, short curly hair, blue eyes")
- use lexis actively: describe the other students

* I know! Finger prints - fun!! 

**No, fellow ESL teachers, I didn't plan a starter. That's because my students are all sitting in the classroom 20 minutes early and as I'm not willing to entertain them during that time, I let them draw pictures or read English word books. Also, possible future ESL employers, this is obviously not a proper lesson plan and my actual lesson plans look much different. Promise.

Today's actual lesson: 
- finish family tree / draw pictures
- teach: "Who is this?" - "This is my ..."
- "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" - "I have 2 brothers and 1 sister"

- game: two teams, count which team has more sisters/aunts/uncles etc. in total - STUDENTS ARE CONFUSED/NOT WILLING TO COOPERATE --> start fighting/drawing/mixing teams

- CHANGE OF PLAN. Invent game to give the students the opportunity to make some noise, have fun AND (!) consolidate new vocabulary: Someone throws a plastic bag in the air, they laugh, shout, scream while it's in the air, but the second it touches the ground, they have to be silent. Students have fun. Round two: While the plastic bag is in the air, we shout words from family vocab as loud as possible (eg. "SISTER-SISTER-SISTER") STUDENTS HAVE FUN, EVERYTHING IS OK.

- Make example about the worksheet, hand out worksheet, students start doing it. At least some of them. Check the first worksheets that are finished, point out that you are not your grandma's cousin. Neither her niece. Check the first answers of the slower students. Praise for correct answers. Try to explain that you're not your aunt's aunt. Call Mr Khio to explain it in Lao. See what the faster students are up to now. They take drawings by their classmates from the wall and hang up their own drawings instead, not nice, but whatever. Check more answers. Call Mr Khio to explain the difference between "niece" and "nephew" in Lao. Faster students ask permission to go to toilet. Okay, anything that keeps them busy while I give the slower ones the chance to understand new lexis. Correct spelling errors. Call Mr Khio over to explain the difference between "son" and "grandson". Now about 80% of the students have finished. The 3 girls come back from the bathroom. "Teacher, play game." 
- "No, please wait." Check more spelling errors, have Khio explain more lexis. Luckily the two teenage boys are much more patient than the girls and explain new words* to the younger ones (or in one case: do the worksheet for them thinking I wouldn't notice the writing in green instead of black pencil). Two students have filled out only two of the gaps by now. Enough, I can't have the other ones wait longer.

*I'm so confused right now that I initially spelled "words" with a V.

- DECIDE THAT WE CAN'T DO ANOTHER BRAINY ACTIVITY NOW. Look at the clock. 3 p.m. Half an hour left. SILENT QUICK PRAYER ABOUT NEW IDEA. Family bingo it is!!! Hand out paper, make them draw a grid, dictate nine different family members. Half of the students complete after one minute, the other are still at family member no.2. Wait, entertain the others. They change places for a reason only they know, but whatever, if it keeps them busy. The slower students have written three family members by now. Check spelling and literacy errors with the faster ones. Wait. Wait. Wait, because we can't start the game without all the grids completed. Wait. Wait. Play bingo. REGRET THAT I DIDN'T BRING CANDY FOR THE WINNERS. Yay, STUDENTS ARE HAPPY, even without candy. Draw new grid, wait 7 minutes for slower students to fill it out, play bingo again. LESSON OVER, THANK GOD.

I thought family systems (relatives = "pinong") were much simpler in English than in Lao. But apparently that's part of the problem. See: In Lao the words for "older brother", "younger brother" (and respectively "older sister"/"younger sister") are completely different. "Older sister" for example is "Euay", "younger sister" is "nawng sao". Culturally important. Same for aunt and uncle: It depends if it's your mom's brother or your dad's brother or the husband of your mom's or dad's sister. Even the grandparents are called different on mom's and dad's side... 

Not only my students are "supson" (confused) by now...

Saep! (delicious!)

I haven't posted any food shots yet, apart from the bakery stuff. Not that I haven't been eating for the past three weeks... On the contrary. Living with Lao people, I discovered a whole new range of Lao food: I never dared buying food from the market, I always ate at restaurants instead when I was here last time. Now we go to the market together and surprisingly, everything's quite safe to eat - at least I've never been sick until now! 

1. steamed rice, 2. sticky rice, 3. papaya salad, 4. vegetables to eat with the meat, 5. tamarind dipping sauce, 6. lab kai (minced chicken meat and intestines), 7. capoon (chicken with noodles and padek (stinky fish sauce)), 8. grilled liver and fish, 9. bbq chicken and sausages. My favourites are 3. and 6.

My crazy housemates, or: "Pig Booms" are "so very etepetete"

At home I share the apartment with four pets and two people. Here, it's surprisingly little creepy-crawlies, but 8 people living in the same house. There's one empty bedroom at the moment because we share rooms - it's chaotic, but I love it...

It's a chaotic mix between languages (Lao, English, German, Oi and Thai from the TV), ages (kindergarten to - umm, my age), interests (learning Lao, the "A-B-C-D"-Song, "Gangnam Style", the movie "Rapunzel") and eating habits (muesli with fruit for breakfast or noodle soup?). My second-youngest housemate and I draw pictures together, in return she teaches Olivia and me fruit and vegetable vocabulary in Lao and cracks up with hysterical laughter if one of us says "mac appöl" instead of "mac appön". I taught the girls to say "etepetete" instead of "highso" (which they believe is a real English word, meaning "posh").

Sometimes being the teacher of one of the teenage girls and at the same time being her housemate leads to funny situations: While she's learning songs like "Do you like banaaanaas? Yum-yum-yum" in the afternoon, late in the evening we end up dancing in our livingroom with all our housemates to crazy Asian music, making silly faces and laughing at the teenage girls imitating "pig booms" (big boobs) with their ice cream containers. 

"Bah" means "crazy" in Lao. 

Shopping à la Laotienne.

So happy about my two new sihns:

(I know, the floor tiles are gorgeous too)

Hot, but not sexy

32 degrees Celsius yesterday afternoon. The only reason we still decided to go running was the promise of rain Grey clouds darkening the bright blue sky, a light breeze cooling down the heat of the day. It hasn't rained yet, after all, but we all hope that it will today. The rice fields are too dry and even if this is not the hottest season of the year, the heat is hard to bear. I've never sweated so much in my life like after the run yesterday, it was just dripping off me and even after taking a shower my skin felt all sticky again in less than ten minutes.

Laos is quite conservative so I didn't even bother to pack my sexy running shorts but brought an almost knee-long pair. My roommate also wished she could wear what we call "impolite shorts" for running. Although my younger students would wear hotpants to school, what women wear here traditionally are "sihns". I wrote about these traditional skirts last year already, I quite like them because they make you fit in a little more in Laos. I already have four of them but I really wanted to get some new ones. To get them, our friend took us to Pakses big "new" market on Saturday.

There are just too many to choose from! I don't really like the shiny ones, I prefer the woven cotton which feels much cooler and doesn't crinkle. I like mine with a pattern just at the "foot". The two I ended up buying are at the seamstress' now and I can pick them up today or tomorrow.

One of them was more expensive than usual because it's hand-woven. You can get a cheap, factory-made sihn for 20 000 Kip, plus tailoring 28 000, which is 6 Swiss Francs in total. We looked at hand woven silk sihns that cost 600 000 Kip - about 75 Swiss Francs! The more expensive one I bought was still cheap, compared to that, I paid 115 000 Kip. Including tailoring it costs me about 17.50 Swiss Francs.

I'll take my sihns home this time because I don't want to risk my clothes to disappear again... By the way, I got my teaching shirts back. They were in a bag with clothes that were supposed to be brought to poor people. Well, poor me if they hadn't turned up - it's almost impossible to find western-sized clothes here...

Homework for you guys!

I love teaching young adults with intermediate English skills. Reason 1: I learn a lot about the lives of young Lao people. 2: Most of them are really motivated to study English, you don't have to kick their a* all the time. 3: They ask tricky questions.

In my evening class, most of the students are between 16 and 20 years old. Some of them there are really bright, and I just had quite a long conversation with a guy whose main hobby it is to study English. He really challenged me, in a very polite and interested way! Not someone to be satisfied with half-baked answers.

So now I've got some questions to the native English speakers among you guys. Help - I need the answers until Monday!!

* How would you explain the use of the word "basically"?

* Can you say that someone is "practical"? (My guess: Yes, if this person can do things like fix a lamp or weld metal)

* Why does English have so many phrasal verbs? :)

* Is a "tendency" the same as a "habit"? (OK, I was able to explain that one...)

He even taught me an idiom: "put all eggs in one basket". Apparently it means the same as "go all in", or "risk everything". I like the expression!

Hassliebe.

"That's really German", befand meine Kollegin Asia, als ich ihr sagte, dass wir im Deutschen das Wort "Hassliebe" haben. Auf Englisch gibt es kein spezielles Wort für dieses Gefühl - man würde einfach "hate and love" sagen. 

Josh sagte mir, er habe laut lachen müssen, als er die Klassenzuteilung sah. Tatsächlich, als ich erfuhr, dass ich dieses Semester jeden Nachmittag eine Horde Kinder unterrichten würde, schluckte ich erst mal leer. The thing is: Ich mag Kinder nicht so. Diejenigen, für die das neu ist, werden mich jetzt vielleicht für einen schlechten Menschen halten. Aber ganz ehrlich: Kinder im Allgemeinen, wie sie einem im Migros, auf der Strasse oder im Zug begegnen, finde ich nervig und störend. Ganz besonders im Klassenverband frühmorgens im Bus oder am Sonntagmorgen im engen Aarauer Bahnhof-Coop. Ebenso nervig sind oft ihre Eltern: (schneidende Stimme, kurz vor dem Nervenzusammenbruch) "Kevin/Fabian/Chantal!!! Jetz isch ändgültig Schluss! Legg die Schoggi wieder häre!!". Noch schlimmer ist es aber, wenn andere Mitreisende milde lächeln, wenn Kinder im Zug mit maximaler Lautstärke irgendwelche doofen Spongebob-PSP-Games spielen oder, ebenfalls in maximaler Lautstärke, rumnörgeln, während mein Aggressivitätspegel langsam, aber sicher ins Unermessliche steigt. Das Kondensat von nervigen Kindern sind übrigens nervige Kinder in Filmen und ihre auswendig gelernten neunmalklugen Bemerkungen.

Oft frage ich mich ernsthaft, ob ich mir das eines Tages tatsächlich auch antun möchte oder ob es nicht viel einfacher und relaxter wäre, keine Kinder zu bekommen. (Jaja, ich höre die Antwort schon: "Einfacher wäre es sicher, aber nichts gibt dir so viel Freude wie ein Kind.") 

Die Einzige, die mir bisher überzeugend erklären konnte, warum Kinder all den Aufwand und Ärger wert sind, ist meine Freundin Tamar. Als Mutter von fünf Kindern, die ich übrigens allesamt wunderbar finde, muss sie es wissen. Während ich dies schreibe, fällt mir auch noch mein Kollege R. und seine absolut liebenswürdige Tochter Lily ein. Damit stosse ich auf des Pudels Kern: Wenn ich Kinder nämlich nicht nur von Weitem erlebe, sondern sie als Individuen kennenlerne, liebe ich sie. Allerallermeistens. Meine Kiwi-Kinder (Sonntagschule) oder auch die herzige kleine Tochter meiner Freunde, die als erste Eltern wurden: Bei ihnen kann ich gar nicht anders, als sie sofort zu mögen. Und nun also die rund zehn Kinder und Teenager in meiner Nachmittagsklasse - innert Minuten hatte ich jeden und jede ins Herz geschlossen. 

Trotzdem hatte ich anfangs dieser Woche einen mittleren Nervenzusammenbruch, als mir dämmerte, dass ich die wohl ungeeignetste Person überhaupt für diesen Job bin. Während meine Kolleginnen und Kollegen rundherum nämlich vor Ideen nur so sprudeln, sass ich hilflos und aufgelöst über meiner Unterrichtsplanung. Gleich nach Beginn der Schulstunde an besagtem Tag fiel mir aber Gott sei Dank ein, dass ich ja leidlich gut zeichnen kann. Ich zeichnete also eine Landschaft mit einem Fluss (river. Ri-ver.), Fischen (small fish, big fish), Fröschen (biiiig frog, small frog with umbrella) und Regen (Pasa Lao: fun tòk, English: RRRAAAIIINN) ans Whiteboard und die Stunde war gerettet.

Obwohl die bisherigen Stunden ganz gut liefen und sowohl ich als auch die Kinder Spass hatten, ist diese Aufgabe eine Hassliebe. Der Hass, und zwar nicht gegen die Kinder, sondern gegen meinen Job, sie zu unterrichten, kommt in dem Moment ins Spiel, wenns ums Vorbereiten geht. Exakt dann nämlich, wenn ich "Jazz Chants" heraussuche.


 
Wenn ich zum Beispiel den "Hi-Song" höre, sehe ich vor meinem inneren Auge die Lehrerin mit angespanntem Stepford-Wife-Lächeln und irrem Blick und würde am liebsten rhythmisch meinen Kopf auf die Tischplatte hauen. "You don't need a whiteboard, you don't need resources, you just need yourself and the rhythm." And a psychiatrist.

Erst recht, wenn sich vier Stunden später in meinem Kopf immer noch "Hi Scott, how are you? - I'm fine, thank you!" in Endlosschleife wiederholt.

It's always wrong. But sometimes it's right.

Tuesday Randoms
Für Deutsch runterscrollen 

* What stupid person came up with the idea to measure cooking ingredients in cups? Made play dough today and found at least two different measurements. At home it says "cups" on the rice packages, for example, and I always cook too much or too little - depends on if I use coffee mugs to measure or smaller cups... In Switzerland "Tasse" (cup) can be any size! If I cook the right amount it's just by chance. (Or, as our Lao office manager Thak put it today: "It's always wrong. But sometimes it's right.")

* Play dough!!! It's so simple to make and great to work with. I taught my teenage class colours today, made red, yellow and blue play dough (Thank you, Paul and Alison!) and had the students mix it to get orange, green and purple. I used the play dough to teach fruit, too, but in the end my favourite student work was this little pig: 

I think it's a hybrid between pig and bird, since it doesn't have legs but big Dumbo ears.

* Turns out that buying poker cards is illegal here. I'm positive we'll get them somewhere, but three shops turned us down today. Learned what "cards" mean in Lao, though: "saw" like in "chainsaw". (Recap: Josh and I had a six week long Euchre match last year. I lost and had to buy him dinner at Pakses fancy French restaurant. Have to beat him this time!!)

* Rainy season doesn't mean that it rains all the time. But it does mean that all the dust and dirt turns into red mud. When the bakery boys came back from sports yesterday I couldn't tell if they'd been swimming, running or mud catching. (They had been playing football.) That's what shoes look like after a match like that: 

* Got to speak French today, with tourists at the local restaurant. Somehow it feels more special here.

* Probably someone just pulled my leg, but I thought it's still funny enough to share: I learned the typical Australian way of making up swearwords: You combine a swearword with a food. E.g. F*muffin. Or Sh*pizza.

* There's a thunderstorm coming up. The loudest thunder I've ever heard and amazing lightning.  



Dienstag.

* Welcher Idiot kam auf die Idee, Zutaten in "Tassen" zu messen? Habe heute Knetmasse gemacht und mindestens zwei verschiedene Messbecher gefunden. Zu Hause koche ich regelmässig zu viel oder zu wenig Reis, weil es auf der Packung heisst "1/2 Tasse pro Person". Kaffeetasse oder Teetasse? Wenn ich doch mal die richtige Menge koche, ist es pures Glück. (Oder, wie es unsere laotische Administrationsleiterin Thak heute ausdrückte: "Es ist immer falsch. Aber manchmal ist es richtig.")

* Knetmasse! So einfach zu machen (2 Tassen Mehl, 2 Tassen Wasser, 1 Tasse Salz, 2 Esslöffel Öl und 1 Esslöffel Weinstein) und super zum Basteln. Ich habe meiner Teenagerklasse heute die Farben auf Englisch beigebracht, habe rote, gelbe und blaue Knete gemacht und sie haben es zu Orange, Grün und Violett gemischt. Danach habe ich die Knete benutzt, um die englischen Namen von Früchten und Gemüse zu unterrichten, aber schlussendlich war mein liebstes Kunstwerk der Schüler dieses kleine Schweinchen:

Eine Kreuzung zwischen Schwein und Vogel, es hat nämlich keine Beine, dafür Dumbo-Ohren.

* Offenbar ist der Kauf von Pokerkarten hier illegal. Ich bin sicher, wir kriegen irgendwo welche, aber drei Läden hatten heute keine. (Was bisher geschah: Josh und ich hatten letztes Jahr einen sechs Wochen dauernden Wettkampf in einem Kartenspiel. Er gewann und ich musste ihn in Pakses fancy Französisches Restaurant einladen. Dieses Mal gewinne ich!!)

* Regenzeit bedeutet nicht, dass es ständig regnet. Aber aller Staub und Dreck wird zu rotem Schlamm. Als die Bäckerjungs gestern vom Sport zurückkamen, war es unmöglich zu sagen, ob sie schwimmen, laufen oder Schlammcatchen waren. (Sie hatten Fussball gespielt.) So sehen Schuhe nach einem solchen Match aus:

* Konnte heute mit Touristen in unserem Lieblingsrestaurant Französisch sprechen. Irgendwie fühlt sich das hier spezieller an als zu Hause. 

* Ein Sturm zieht auf. Regnen tut es schon länger, aber jetzt knallt der lauteste Donner, den ich je gehört habe, und aus meinem Fenster sehe ich tolle Blitzgewitter...

The Grand Tour

Have a look around our house! 

Mosquito Sickness

Dengue Scare Sweeps Southeast Asia

"Laos may experience 'worst dengue epidemic in its history'"

Dengue endemic in more than 100 countries

 

The outbreak of Dengue fever (facts on Wikipedia here und hier in Deutsch) here is very severe. Many of the staff here got sick. I'm using mosquito repellent and hope not to get it...

The bakery.

There's NOTHING like a ripe mango that melts sweetly in your mouth. Nothing.

and papaya and dragonfruit and nashi pear...

Just after I typed this, I went to get ant spray downstairs and found out that they'd just baked pains au chocolat at the bakery next door. So now: 

There's nothing, absolutely NOTHING like a freshly baked pain au chocolat.

Aren't I just REALLY lucky finding the one place in South East Asia where there's real wholewheat bread, pastries, croissants?! I'll tell you a bit about it. The school where I teach English has a couple of students who learn a trade here: The girls learn housekeeping, cooking and childcare (1 yr.) and the young men bakery (2 yrs.). They also get to go to hotels for work experience and study English with us. At the end of their time here they should be able to get a job and know about work ethics, English, hygiene and all sorts of other useful things. It offers them a future they probably wouldn't have otherwise.

I love that part of the school, not only for the bread and pastries but because I can see the young men and women grow in their personality. It's amazing to be with them again. I'm stunned about how good their English is and how confident they are now compared to when I first arrived here 14 months ago.

Proud baker with ham and cheese croissants

Freshly baked pastries every day...

The first wedding cake they made

Erste Eindrücke.

Jaja, jammert ihr nur schön über die Hitze in der Schweiz. Während sich bei mir Mini-Ameisen im Laptop einnisten und es auch ohne Sonne drückend heiss ist. Alle 10 Sekunden streift mich ein kühler Luftzug vom Dreh-Ventilator und diejenigen Ameisen, die nicht gerade unter meine Tastatur zu schlüpfen versuchen, tun sich an den Kondenswassertropfen an meiner Wasserflasche gütlich.

Das erste Mal joggen hier heute Morgen, entlang des Mekong, vorbei an noch leeren Nudelrestaurants und staubigen Abfallhaufen. Dieses Jahr muss ich nicht alleine gehen: Gleichzeitig mit mir ist meine Zimmergenossin Olivia aus Australien angekommen und sie ist ziemlich fit. Yay! Mit uns im Haus gleich gegenüber der Schule wohnt eine junge Engländerin, die schon zwei Jahre hier ist, sowie zwei Laotinnen vom Team. Momentan ist Full House: Die eine Laotin hat über den Sommer ihre zwei kleinen Kinder und ihre beiden Nichten zu Besuch, ein neuseeländisches Paar ist ebenfalls noch zwei Wochen hier und unser Wohnzimmer ist zur Krankenstation umfunktioniert worden mit ein bis drei Patientinnen.

Momentan haben hier ganz viele Leute Dengue-Fieber, weil die Regenzeit so früh begonnen, dann aber wieder aufgehört hat. Dadurch konnten sich die Mücken stark vermehren und es gibt eine regelrechte Epidemie. Dengue äussert sich durch Müdigkeit, Kopfschmerzen und Appetitlosigkeit, später kommt ein Ausschlag dazu, der aber offenbar kein richtiger Ausschlag ist, sondern Blutungen unter der Haut. Wenn Dengue nicht behandelt wird oder von selber abklingt, kann man innerlich daran verbluten. Ich schmiere mich fleissig mit Moskito-Spray ein... 

Am Wochenende gibts hier im Blog eine Tour durch unser Haus!

Back to school.

Funktionierende Whiteboard-Marker, eine Tüte Süssigkeiten, ein tadelloses Outfit und die Kiste mit den Lehrmitteln: in den nächsten sechs Wochen mein Arbeitsmaterial. 

Sofern meine drei weissen Blusen, die ich letztes Jahr für meinen nächsten Aufenthalt hier in einem der Schränke deponiert habe, diese Woche wieder auftauchen und nicht wie befürchtet an irgendwelche Leute ausserhalb der Schule abgegeben wurden, sollte alles klappen. Zum Glück habe ich in der Schweiz noch zwei Blusen secondhand gekauft, sonst wäre das gestern ein schlechter Start gewesen. 

Where the magic happens.

I don't like flying. It's boring, you've got no leg space and there's always a chance that the smelliest person on the flight is sitting in the seat right next to you. On the first flight (Zurich-Amsterdam) I sat next to an elderly Dutch guy who trades in weapons and in his free time works as a policeman. True story. He was a nice person. We didn't talk politics, though…

On the second flight there was a crazy guy: While everyone tried to catch some sleep after they'd served dinner, he talked non-stop in a very loud voice, in French and English. To himself. Sidenote: I do that, too, when I'm a little tipsy and on my way home by bicycle at night. But I'm not THAT crazy - wait for what's next.) First, I thought he was just annoying, then my seat neighbour told me the guy was probably really scared of flying, but when he started standing up DURING landing and taking his clothes off right afterwards, while two flight attendants tried to get him back into his seat, I was glad we'd arrived safely on the ground. Later we saw him being escorted through the airport by six Thai policemen. All smaller than him, but still quite scary.

My seat row? Jackpot: a friendly Thai lady and a nice young Frenchman. We chatted for hours and had a really good time together. In Bangkok I had to change airports, but I had the whole day to get there. So Nat (the Thai girl) asked me if I'd like to come to her place, take a shower, have lunch together and then take a taxi to the other airport. I hesitated - after all, I used to be quite a control freak for many years and I really didn't want to miss my evening flight. But: 

I took the risk and had a wonderful afternoon. Nat's dad, a taxi driver, picked us up and drove us back to her place, where I took a nice cool shower. Later we went for an awesome lunch at a local restaurant: Som Tam (papaya salad), Lab Gai (remember? Minced chicken), Khao Niao (sticky rice), sour soup with chicken, a grilled fish, bamboo salad and some barbecued chicken, too. "Phet Noy", a little spicy, just perfect. I'm so happy to be back in Asia, where the food is THE. BEST. EVER!

(And yes, I know, I was supposed to be a vegetarian. Let's just forget that while I'm here, OK?)

Remember what comes after lunch in South East Asia? Right, "Phak Phon", siesta. We all went back to Nat's room, where we watched some TV, ate fresh pineapple and mango and took a nap until it was time to leave to get me back to the airport.

I've not even arrived in Laos and already, the magic happens.

My Asian Adventure continues

From mid-June until the beginning of August I'll be back in Pakse.

New blog posts coming up soon!!!