Tong Dao

Tong Dao is a student of mine. She is also a famous singer. The other day as I was eating lunch with the teachers, one of them showed me a CD with a 7 singers on the package. I didn't know what she was doing. She pointed to one of the girls and told me it was Phonsavahn, one of my students. I did not recognize her. But when looking closely, I could see she was in fact my student. Her real name is Phonsavahn, but her stage name is Tong Dao.

It was some American Idol type thing in Laos. And she won! So now she has a CD contract. When I mentioned that I had seen the CD to her the next day, she told me she would get me a CD soon. She was out of them now, but her producer (!) would give her some soon and she will give it to me.

This student is very studious, hard working, kinda shy and kinda serious and the last of my students who I would ever expect to be a singer. I was completely surprised!

So I don't know how well known she actually is, but she has a CD! :) And I asked some other students and they said they did know who she is.

I haven't been able to listen to the CD - it doesn't work in my computer. So I'll try again or ask for a new one. But I have a famous student!

Spider Webs

I have walked into many more spider webs here than in all of my 22 years living in the States. Almost every web that I walk into gets stuck on my face. I think there may be two reasons.

1 - There are more spiders here than there are in the States. (This is probably not true, but I think most of the US would agree with this untrue statement. Although there probably are more big scary spiders here than in the States.)

2 - I am a head taller than 97% of the Lao population. In the States enough tall people walk around and clear the spider webs for me - so I only occasionally walk through them because everyone who is of my height or taller is taking their turn to clear the spider webs with their faces. But here, only 3 % of the population is available/tall enough to clear the spider webs that are more than 5'2" above the ground. And I am in that 3%. :(

The worst place where I always get spider webs in my hair is in the bathroom at school. Gross. It's a squatty potty and EVERY time that I stand up my hair is caught in a tangle of spider webs. This has happened countless times, and I have slowly learned my lesson. I try not to stand up completely because I hate the nastiness of spider webs in the hair, but it doesn't work. They always find my head.

Writing Lines

My students cheat relentlessly. I hate it. The other week we were playing Telephone in my pronunciation class. I tell the students a sentence, they need to tell the next student and so on and so on. The last student will tell me what they heard to see if their team speaks clearly. They were in teams of 6. I told them they could NOT talk. I Told them 7 times not to talk.

We played a few times and my students were obeying me well, they were not talking or cheating. The last one was a little more difficult. I turn around and see my first student telling the last student what I had told him. I marched over to them to ask what they were doing? Their guilty faces gave them away. I was thinking, this is a stupid little game, why do you need to cheat for a game? If you cheat on a little game that doesn't matter, of course your'e going to cheat on real things.

Their punishment for cheating: writing lines. They both had to write 30 times, "I will not cheat and tell my friend the answer in Teacher Christa's class." One student asked if he could type it. How dumb does he think I am? They did their homework/punishment. I think this might be my new favorite punishment for students who cheat.

Did you know. . . (last one!)

that you will get dark skin by sitting under normal fluorescent (I think?) light bulbs? Not the bulbs that belong in a tanning bed, but normal every day light bulbs.

Lao people are terrified of dark skin. They really use the word afraid. Every time I ride my motorbike without a jacket to protect my arms from the sun, they say, "Aren't you afraid of being dark?" I usually reply, "No, I'm afraid of being white." They hate dark skin. So they keep their jackets or sweaters on ALL the time! In my classroom all of the girls are wearing their jackets in this more than 100 degree sweat box. We do not have AC in our classrooms. They also think that the fan blowing directly on their skin will make it dark too. I haven't heard this one as often, but I've still heard it a few times. I know that Lao people's bodies are not the same as ours. They have experienced this stifling heat every year of their life. They are used to not sleeping in an ACed room. So I know the heat doesn't bother them as much, but still! Who wears a jacket inside when its 100 degrees!? People who are afraid of getting tanned from the light bulbs.

I wish this old wives' tale were true. Lately, I've been told frequently that my face is looking beautifully white. My arms see the sun when I drive on my bike. My face never sees the sun. If I drive on my bike it is hidden behind my helmet. Whenever I walk more than 10 feet outside my face is covered by an umbrella. I use an umbrella all the time now. When asked if I'm afraid of dark skin while using the umbrella, I reply, "No, I'm afraid of sweat dripping down my face and neck and back and looking like I just ran 3 miles." You'd be surprised at the smallest things that can cause me to pour sweat from my face. I always sweat a lot. :P But walking from the living room to the kitchen to get a drink of water will make me break a sweat. Disgusting huh? But rainy season is starting! I LOVE the rain! And it brings cooler temperatures. : )

Did you also know. . .

that if a tree is not producing fruit it must be a boy tree, but no worries, you can change the sex of the tree by putting a skirt on it. Of course girl trees bear fruit better than boy trees.

We have a papaya tree. Our papaya tree was not producing any papayas. Sone knew how to fix our problem. Make the boy tree into a girl tree and we'll have plenty of papayas. So she took a piece of cloth and tied it around the trunk of the tree like a skirt. Wah lah (I don't know how to spell that) we now have a girl! And amazingly a week or two after the change she was growing papayas. The American that I am, with no knowledge of papaya trees or the sex of trees, I think it my have had something more to do with the season. Maybe Mr. Tree was just not quite ready to make papayas. But, maybe if we had not put the skirt on him we would not be enjoying our papayas now. I guess we'll never know.

Honest to goodness, many people believe this! Seriously! I had sometimes seen scraps of cloth tied around trees before but I didn't know what it was, but after hearing this crazy story from Sone I know now that quite a few others have performed surgery on their trees so they'll bear more fruit. That's the thing though, they do NOTHING to the tree besides tie a piece of cloth around the trunk. And magically, because the tree is now wearing a skirt, he knows he must change into a girl and start making fruit. 

I feel like almost every week Julia and I look at each other and burst out laughing in disbelief at the crazy things our friends believe.