I arrived safely back to Laos on Friday afternoon after some long, but uneventful flights.
I had a nice chat with my taxi driver on my way home and was happy to see that my Lao wasn't quite as rusty as last year.
It was really good to see my housemates again. :)
On Saturday morning I went running at the track and two of my students were there. So we sat and chatted for a while. It is so nice seeing everyone again! So nice. I also saw my little running buddy - the kid who usually runs with me and practices his English.
Then when I got back, one of my favorite Lao people told me that she was in Vientaine. She had just graduated this year and is back in her hometown about 15 hours away. But she is in Vientiane until Tuesday. What a wonderful blessing to be able to see her, when I didn't think I'd be seeing her for quite a while.
Saturday, my friend and two other girls went to visit one of my other old students. I was kinda tired in the afternoon and they kept telling me I should stop yawning or I should take a nap. I tried to stop yawning. But again it was lots of fun to see people.
I'll go to school on Monday to see teachers and students. I'm really excited to see them! :)
9.15.2012
7.08.2012
Going Home
I'm leaving soon! :) And am pumped to see family, friends and nephews! :) :) And have air conditioning. And be clean and drive in comfortable cars. And go to my cousin's wedding and jet skiing and going to the beach and Village West. And just having comfortable nice everything for 2 months. Drinking coffee with my parents every morning. And spending lots of time with family and friends and playing with nephews. And carpet - I can't wait to sit on the soft (although prolly not so clean) carpet!
But there are also many things I will miss here. I'll miss eating fruit and sitting and talking with friends. I'll miss my friends and students. I'll miss the teachers. I'll miss driving my motorbike. And not having to follow traffic rules. And Indian food. (I'm going to try to cook some this summer.) I'll miss some Lao food and speaking Lao with people. And being told how wonderful my Lao is even when I only say "thank you". Spending long amounts of time just sitting and doing nothing and talking with people. I feel like in the States, we always have to be doing something, we can never just sit and be. And sitting and being is kinda nice sometimes.
When I'm in the States I miss Laos. When I'm in Laos I miss the States. But am so excited to be home soon! And to watch like 5 movies on the airplane! :)
But there are also many things I will miss here. I'll miss eating fruit and sitting and talking with friends. I'll miss my friends and students. I'll miss the teachers. I'll miss driving my motorbike. And not having to follow traffic rules. And Indian food. (I'm going to try to cook some this summer.) I'll miss some Lao food and speaking Lao with people. And being told how wonderful my Lao is even when I only say "thank you". Spending long amounts of time just sitting and doing nothing and talking with people. I feel like in the States, we always have to be doing something, we can never just sit and be. And sitting and being is kinda nice sometimes.
When I'm in the States I miss Laos. When I'm in Laos I miss the States. But am so excited to be home soon! And to watch like 5 movies on the airplane! :)
7.06.2012
Babies
A couple of weeks ago I went with a friend to a brother's baby's welcome to the world party. (Kinda like a baptism for Buddhists.) My friend was holding the baby. And I asked if I could hold him. I was standing beside her. She uncertainly said, "OK" and was going to gently give the baby to me, but she said, "You should sit down first." Hello! I am 24 and have held plenty of babies! But I listened and sat and got to hold the baby. All of the mothers and grandmothers in the room didn't take their eyes off of me - they were worried that the foreigner doesn't know how to hold a baby and that I'll drop him and break him. Also after holding him for a while, he peed on me. Lao babies don't usually wear diapers. They were thin blankets wrapped around their little butts. They aren't very absorbent.
This morning I went to visit my student and her baby boy who was born two weeks ago. She was holding him for a long time and I wanted to ask to hold him but was a little worried because of last time. She didn't offer so I just thought I wouldn't. Then the other student who I went with asked me, "Can you hold babies?" "What?!" I said. "Of course I can, why do you think I can't?" She went on to explain that not very many people in the States have babies. Which is kinda true, considering a number of my students have 8 brothers and sisters. But I had to explain to them that all people come from babies and there are plenty of babies running around the States. And I have held quite a few of them in my life. After hearing that I am capable of holding babies and that I really like holding babies, she let me hold him for a while. And he was cute as ever! As far as I can tell babies are pretty much the same all over the world, but maybe there's something I don't know about Lao babies.
7.03.2012
Soccer
Tonight we went to watch a soccer game - Lao vs Cambodia. It ended in a tie - 3-3. But it was so fun! This week Laos had a tournament with 6 other Asian teams. Watching this one game has made me really excited for the Asian University Games which are in Vientiane in November (I think). It's like a little mini Olympics.
I still can't get over the fact that English is "the universal language used for medicine and government and politics and blah blah blah and it helps to develop a country through blah blah blah." This is some long rambly sentence people always tell me about what a wonderfully universal language English is. I feel like I should know this more than others since I teach English as a Foreign Language. But it is still weird when I hear Lao and Cambodians talking together in English or Lao and Vietnamese speaking together in English. Shouldn't they have some Asian language that they have in common before going all the way to English? Obviously not.
I think this every time I hear two non-native English speakers speaking to each other. Tonight at the game, the announcer said everything in English.
They're next door neighbors for goodness' sake. Shouldn't they know at least a little of their neighbor's language? Do many Americans know Spanish? Some, but not many. Maybe I think they should be more like Europe where everyone knows English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch and Finnish.
This has gotten kinda rambly, but just imagine a Lao soccer player saying something to a Cambodian on the other team. Tonight one of the Cambodians was kinda angry and a Lao guy was being nice and trying to calm him down. His English must have been impeccable. I can't imagine many Lao people I know who would be able to say something nice and comforting that's appropriate during a soccer game. Maybe he was just speaking in Lao to try and be nice to the guy. But that might be more annoying.
It would also be hard to understand others' accents. My students complain of Indians' and Vietnamese's and others' accents. It does sound kinda funny hearing two people speaking English incorrectly with weird accents. But hey, they understand each other and that's what matters.
So, maybe it is a good idea to have one international universal language.
I still can't get over the fact that English is "the universal language used for medicine and government and politics and blah blah blah and it helps to develop a country through blah blah blah." This is some long rambly sentence people always tell me about what a wonderfully universal language English is. I feel like I should know this more than others since I teach English as a Foreign Language. But it is still weird when I hear Lao and Cambodians talking together in English or Lao and Vietnamese speaking together in English. Shouldn't they have some Asian language that they have in common before going all the way to English? Obviously not.
I think this every time I hear two non-native English speakers speaking to each other. Tonight at the game, the announcer said everything in English.
They're next door neighbors for goodness' sake. Shouldn't they know at least a little of their neighbor's language? Do many Americans know Spanish? Some, but not many. Maybe I think they should be more like Europe where everyone knows English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch and Finnish.
This has gotten kinda rambly, but just imagine a Lao soccer player saying something to a Cambodian on the other team. Tonight one of the Cambodians was kinda angry and a Lao guy was being nice and trying to calm him down. His English must have been impeccable. I can't imagine many Lao people I know who would be able to say something nice and comforting that's appropriate during a soccer game. Maybe he was just speaking in Lao to try and be nice to the guy. But that might be more annoying.
It would also be hard to understand others' accents. My students complain of Indians' and Vietnamese's and others' accents. It does sound kinda funny hearing two people speaking English incorrectly with weird accents. But hey, they understand each other and that's what matters.
So, maybe it is a good idea to have one international universal language.
6.27.2012
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!
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!
6.20.2012
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.
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.
6.13.2012
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)