Coming Home

I fly home tomorrow afternoon (Sunday). As the time to go home has been getting closer, I've been getting a little more sad to leave. I will miss so many people here! But I am SUPER excited to see everyone back home!It's been a fun week of spending time with some of my favorite people over here before I leave for two months.  I've eaten at my favorite restaurant ever two times this week - Taj Mahal - an Indian restaurant. Unfortunately I don't think there are any Indian restaurants in Sioux Falls or Sioux City. :(  I also went to the sauna two times- it's great! I thought it would be too hot to enjoy, but it's wonderful! And my skin is so soft after smearing yogurt, tamarind and other stuff on it. And I'm happy I'm coming back in 2 months to see them again. Can't wait to see family and friends in 2 days!! :)

Bamboo Hunt

I leave in less than 2 weeks!! I am so excited to go home and see Noah, Brayden, family and friends. . . but I'll sure miss lots of stuff about Laos. But it's only for two months and I'll be back! :)

This weekend 4 students and I went to another student's house a little bit outside of Vientiane. It was fun! And I love these students!! :)

They love taking photos! The 2 boys on the left are my students and the girl is also my student.

Many pictures!

We ate some steamed frogs for lunch. Not my fave. If they were fried, they would be OK, anything fried is OK to eat. Steamed is not the best. . .

We went hunting for bamboo out in the forest. The girl in the middle in the gray is holding the bamboo shoot. All Lao people love bamboo! Bamboo soup is a special food to make for special people. They seem to think I'm a pretty special foreigner so I often get bamboo soup cooked for me. Unfortunately, it isn't my fave. :(

Now the boy in the hat is holding the bamboo. We're gonna play catch with it. Hunting for bamboo wasn't as exciting as it sounds. :) There's plenty of bamboo all over so we didn't have to go inside the forest really. One of the boys dug it up with like a pitch fork thing. We just watched.

It rained all weekend, the 3 days before we went. It actually spat (?) a little all day. There was water everywhere! This is behind the kid's house, on the way to the forest by some rice fields.

This is a river that I think came from the 3 days of rain. It may always be there, but if so, it's usually much smaller. They found crabs to make crab sauce to eat with rice. I've never eaten it.

Looking for more crabs and anything else we can find.

Walking home.

Cute hat!

More fun pics.

I'm a little too tall.

Playing cards is illegal I've been told a few times. If the police see you, they can throw you in jail. We went to the temple to play cards. Apparently if you play cards when someone dies, when someone is born or in a temple, the police can't arrest you. So we were safe! :) 

I also almost peed in the monk's bathroom, which I think would be one of the most unforgivable Buddhist sins! I asked where the bathroom was. My students pointed to the bathroom. I went in the bathroom. They came running in yelling, "You can't go in here! It's for the monks!" after they just pointed me in this direction. Thankfully they caught me before I went. :)

A message from my student

My students frequently text me. Many times they say, "Teacher, what are you doing now?" or "Teacher, have you eaten dinner yet?" Tonight, I got this text from one of my students.

"Teacher, on this evening there was an accident with my dog. A car hit a my dog and now i am cooking the grilled dog. Have you ever eaten dog?"

Driving Test

In Laos, like many other countries, you (being Lao people) need to take a driver's test to get your driver's license. There are two options for this test. 

Option #1: Pay 150,000 kip ($20) to sign up to take the test. 

Option #2: Pay 200,000 kip ($25) to sign up to take the test.

Option #1: After registering, they will give you a number for when you can take the test. Go to the place and drive your motorbike in some small circles and figure eights. If you do not put your foot down to balance yourself, congratulations, you pass! If you put your foot down to balance yourself, sorry, you do not pass. Try again. 

Option #2: After registering, they will give you a number for when you can take the test. Go to the place and drive your motorbike in some small circles and figure eights. If you do not put your foot down to balance yourself, congratulations, you pass! If you put your foot down to balance yourself, sorry, you do not pass. Try again. Oh, wait, you paid the higher price? Never mind! Congratulations! You also passed!

activities

Here are some photos about some recent activities happening here.

 Last weekend I stayed at my student's house. We visited the Lao zoo. Here are two students and Kai's sister by the peacock. I haven't been to a zoo in a long time; the animals are so fun to see!

 We ate at a restaurant by the river.

 Some students went down by the river in Vientiane one night. We ate dinner, walked around and took pictures by this statue.

 More time with neighborkids. Some of them love reading our books. They're written in English and Lao.

I saw my first movie in a movie theater last night. We watched Sabaidee Lao Wedding. There are two earlier movies in the sequence. I've seen the other two movies, but they don't have subtitles in English, so I understood only a little. This one had subtitles so it was a bit more enjoyable. It cost the same for 6 people to go to the movie as it costs for one person in the States. :)

As we were leaving, I left my Pepsi bottle in the pop holder on the chair. Lao people throw garbage almost anywhere. In America, the movie theater is one of the few places where it is OK to leave your garbage behind you. So I didn't think anything of leaving it there. But my student said right away, "You can't do that, you need to take it out and throw it away." Some things I just don't understand . . .

The Zoo

Lately I feel like I live in a zoo. We have more animals in our yard and near our house than I would have thought possible. We have ants all over almost everywhere. In the kitchen, on the floor, in my bed sometimes. But they're not that bad. We have dogs and cats. Lately, we've had chickens and chicks, and even a rooster in our yard. I don't know how the chickens can get through our gate. . .

We've always had geckos (little lizards) which I like. We've always had toukays (bigger lizards - maybe 10 inches long?). One night I came downstairs to pee in the middle of the night. There was a big toukay on the wall in our living room. I was a little surprised!

It is rainy season now, which is GREAT! I love the rain! But it's also (I think) bringing frogs and toads to our house. They're always by our gate, so when I go at night to lock the gate, I can't see them until they start hopping. Yuck. Thankfully we don't have any big gross bugs - like cockroaches.

We still have the cats and dogs. And kittens which are actually a little cute.

I think tomorrow I'm going to the Lao Zoo! I've wanted to go for a while. It's about 2 hours away from Vientiane.

Speaking of animals, I hope this doesn't bother anyone too much. I went to my friend's house the other day. When I arrived, her nephew shoved a long stick with a small lizard hanging on the end by a string in my face. The string was tied around his neck, and I thought he was dead. But then the nephew tried to make the lizard walk on the ground and climb the tree, which it could actually do, so it was still alive. I asked my friend, and she said when she was young she always used to tie lizards to the end of strings to play with them for a couple of hours. Kinda mean, but the little boy was sure having fun!

Sick

Today I was feeling a little sick. I texted my class president and a few others in the class to tell them there would be no class at 10:00 because I'm not feeling the best. I laid on the couch to take a little nap. One of my students who I see outside of class texted me and said, "Yes! After school I will go." I am often confused by the texts I receive from my students. So, I first thought, No, please don't come to my house, I want to sleep. But then thought, maybe she didn't understand . . .

I had been kinda sleeping on the couch and I heard our gate open and a motorbike come in a little after ten. I got up to let them in. It was only two girls. They brought me yogurt/milk stuff and some fruit and bread. It was really sweet! Then we just sat around on the couches and talked. Then one of them gave me a massage so I wouldn't feel sore. :) And we sat and talked more. I fell asleep for a little bit and it was totally fine. They were just checking on me to make sure I was doing ok. It was actually pretty nice having them here. It would have been nice to sleep, but it was super sweet of them! I feel like in the States people like to be left alone when they're sick, but not in Laos. I've also gotten tons of texts from my students checking on me and hoping that I feel better soon! I only have a small headache and stomachache.

Then a few hours after they left, they called to check on me again. She thinks that I should go to the doctor and she will take me now if I want to go. I assured her I was fine!