MEKONG LIFE

This is actually at night but in the distance you can see the lights of Thailand

Down by the Mekong early in the morning,

See the lights of Thailand in the distance, all aglow.

Beneath the city lamps of Laos are smiles of friendly people

Welcoming and warm as gentle steamy breezes blow.

In the morning this week we awoke early to go down to the river for an early morning walk. We walk while it is cool, 4:45 a.m.  We utter "Sabaidee" (hello) to fellow walkers and bike riders and visit with a couple who we are working with here in Vientiane, the Jorgensens. The first morning we watched the garbage collectors riding on top of the heap of garbage sorting recyclables from the other refuse. The air was full of unfamiliar smells. We ran into a Lao man who spoke French and Glenn enjoyed a visit with him in French.

The rest of the week, we were pleased to see that the Jorgensens had casual friendships with many of the early morning walkers. The statues and parks and motor scooters and bicycles that come into view are becoming familiar. Without the Jorgensens and our driver, Khamphee, we would have become lost, I'm sure. 

Today I bought fabric at the marketplace (mall). Some new friends took me there to expose me to what there is available for purchase. There was food and appliances and fabric and clothing and more than you could imagine. I bought some fabric for a skirt that is navy blue with a beautiful gold border. The skirts are called "sinhs". Yes, the h is silent.

This morning as I took my clothes off the clothesline on our back porch, I was thinking back on my childhood as I watched my mother hanging out the laundry in the back yard. I instinctively knew to use one clothes pin for two shirts to save space on the line and use fewer clothes pins when I hung out the clothes to dry. We didn't bring too many clothes, so washing and rinsing the clothes in one tub and draining it, then transferring it to another tub for spinning isn't a big deal. It is nice that I have my own washer in my apartment.

This week we have seen water buffalo and goats in the village where we were celebrating the completion of a new well  and several toilets for a school.

We missed the photo op with the water buffalo. Here are the goats.

One of the water tanks our  charity helped finance.

 As we waited for the water buffalo to cross the road I felt like I had been taken and plopped into a storybook somewhere. This a surreal experience that provides a new adventure every day.

That's a big coconut. We enjoyed drinking from it through a straw.

As a final note, we started teaching English this week.  Glenn and I teach 2 classes together and 1 each alone. We will share some of the experiences we are having in the classroom in a later post. These people are charming and beautiful.