Today I had to borrow money from a friend to pay back another friend. How embarrassing is that?
It’s not about spending too much and living paycheck to paycheck. It’s about a ridiculous banking system. Our school deposits our salaries in the Laos Public Bank, which is open from 9 to 3 Monday to Friday. As people saddled with jobs, we are NEVER free during the bank’s operating hours. “Oh, well,” you’re thinking, “just use your bank card at an ATM.” Wouldn’t that be such a tidy solution? Unfortunately, the Laos Public Bank doesn’t issue ATM cards.
Rather than switch its account to the local branch of New Zealand’s ANZ Bank, which DOES have ATM cards and DOESN’T charge any fees for them, the school instead patronizingly offers us this service: We can bring our bankbooks and paperwork to the school cashier before 9 a.m. each Wednesday, and she will go to the bank and handle our transactions.
That’s a great system IF you don’t get sidetracked by the piles of paperwork on your desk, a concerned parent dropping her kid off at school, a depressed colleague needing to chat, a crying child, or any number of other obstacles that stand between your classroom and the cashier’s office early on a school day.
That’s a great system IF you don’t have any surprises during the week, such as a guard who makes off with your electricity bill money, a weed whacker that needs to be repaired because the aforementioned guard put the wrong kind of oil in it, or an unanticipated shortage of Beer Lao in your fridge.
That’s a great system IF you know what day of the week it is and therefore go to the cashier on Wednesday instead of Thursday.
That’s a great system IF someone reminds you that the following week is a holiday so you should probably take out some extra cash.
Perhaps you sense that I haven’t been entirely vigilant about the Wednesday banking. You would be right.
Two Wednesdays ago, I took out just a bit of play money. Then I realized we would be off work for a week, the bank would be closed for the holiday, and we had friends visiting. So I borrowed $500 from a colleague. Today, I frantically tried to fill out the banking paperwork before my 8 a.m. EAL Parent Coffee. At the last minute, I realized I had left my bankbook at home. Meltdown. Freak out. Waterworks. Pick your euphemism. It wasn’t pretty.
My fabulous colleague, Carine, sprinted across the room, gave me a big hug and asked how much I needed. Let’s see … $500 to pay back Bernadette, plus money to pay back our new guard for the weed whacker work, plus money to pay back our housekeeper who bought groceries out of pocket, and so on. Before I knew it, I was $800 in debt to Carine.
I can totally see how those dumb gamblers on TV get in so much trouble.
Category Archives: Daily Life
Changing of the Guard
We hired Ae, our night guard/gardener, at the recommendation of a VIS teacher, who was friends with his previous employers – a couple who had worked for a charity organization here but returned to the States last year. The teacher said Ae was desperate for work and had been calling him frequently to find out whether any of the new teachers wanted to hire him. Without pursuing any other options, we offered him a job. In retrospect, it’s highly likely the VIS teacher simply wanted to get Ae off his back.
Within the first couple weeks Ae was already asking for a loan. I sought the counsel of everyone I could find (Lao and foreign), and they all responded with a resounding, “Don’t do it!” However, Ae showed Tony his dilapidated little thatched-roof shack and told us (through a translator) that he couldn’t pay his children’s tuition. Saavy little bastard. When it comes to children and education, I’m a big fat sucker.
So, against the unanimous advice of friends, colleagues and strangers, and without Tony’s blessing, I gave Ae the equivalent of $120. He agreed to let us deduct about $12 from his pay every month till the end of the school year. Even the Lao teacher who translated during this discussion shook her head and suggested we take out a bigger chunk each month.
But did I listen? Of course not.
Last week, I gave our maybon Daeng the electricity bill and the money to pay it (about $150, a fortune even to us). Unfortunately, she delegated that task to Ae.
For the next few days, Ae kept trying to tell me something. He made gestures that looked like a bird flying overhead and rambled in Lao. I told him repeatedly to tell the story to Daeng so she could translate, but he acted embarrassed and wouldn’t do it. Finally, I called another Lao lady, who talked to Ae and conveyed his story: He was riding his motorbike to the electric company when all the contents of his shorts pocket blew out. He didn’t realize what happened until it was too late. He claims that’s how he lost our bill, all our money, and his whole salary.
Tony wanted to fire him on the spot, but I convinced him to sleep on it. Neither of us actually slept that night. Tony was seething with anger; I was confused about how to proceed. I feel a constant nagging guilt about our relative wealth in Laos, and I worry about being culturally insensitive. I decided to call our landlady, Mrs. Villay, who owns most of the homes on our block and seems to be the matriarch of the village.
Mrs. Villay lives two doors away, so she immediately came over with an old bill (so the electric company could call up our current charges) and a feisty attitude about Ae’s story. “We couldn’t believe you hired that man!” she said. “He’s not well. He spends all his money on cards. He is not responsible, so he cannot work for you.”
When I told her that I wanted to believe Ae, she scoffed. “He stole that money from you,” she said. “I am sure of it!” She has had her own share of sneaky employees; one maybon stole gold from the spirit house. “When I caught her, she cried and said her baby was sick, but I took her to the village chief and now she has to pay me back a little bit every month,” said Mrs. Villay. “You have to be strong!”
Strong is not a word often used to describe me when it comes to confrontation. Gullible, wussy avoider is much more accurate.
Anyway, this afternoon Mrs. Villay came over to help us fire Ae. Ugh. He turned in his keys and rode off on his moped, and Mrs. Villay said, “I think he’s happy. Now he doesn’t have to pay you back.”
We considered not replacing Ae. However, the grasses and rainforest plants in our big yard seem to grow about a foot a day, and there’s no way I’m going near them with a weed whacker when I know snakes are lurking nearby. So I asked Mrs. Villay if she knew of a trustworthy person looking for work. As it happens, her lovely handyman, Mr. P, has a son who is interested in the job. We hired him 20 minutes after firing Ae.
So Beng starts tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed!
Lao Starbucks
We are so thrilled to have two of our favorite people visiting this week – Tony and Rand! They were in Hong Kong for business, so they popped over to Laos to hang out for a few days. Yesterday, Rand mentioned his desire for traditional Lao coffee, something I had also been eager to try. I knew there was a coffee stall right in front of my house, but I had never been brave enough to check it out. The lady working at the stall had lots of business in the schoolkids on lunch break, who were buying iced juices. I ordered three “kaa-feh boh-laan,” and then we watched her cook up some black sludge in a small metal pot. In three coffee-stained glasses, she measured out about two fingers of sweetened condensed milk, a layer of coffee sludge, and several spoonfuls of powdered creamer. She stirred it up and poured the heavenly concoction into ice-filled cups. Delicious!! She may just be my new best friend. (That’s our house right behind Tony, so you see how convenient it will be for me to get my fix!)
Flat Tire
Yesterday I needed to get something at school, but I didn’t feel like driving the car such a short distance (it takes me awhile to do the 20-point turn to get out of our driveway), so Tony agreed to give me a lift on his motorbike. We had just pulled out of our gate (otherwise known as the neighborhood tuk tuk station) when a tuk tuk driver called out and pointed to the motorbike’s flat rear tire. I made the international gesture for “What the hell are we supposed to do now?” and all the tuk tuk drivers pointed to a little stall down the street. As we pushed the bike in that direction, the ladies at the produce stands all clucked in sympathy and waved us toward the “tire repair stall.” There, a guy on a stool took the tube out, patched it and put the tire back together for the equivalent of 60 cents.
When I was making coffee this morning, our gardener, Ae, knocked on the kitchen window (scaring the crap out of me) and called for me to come outside. He made a “pbttttthh” sound and mimed a tire going flat. I popped out to see, and sure enough, it was flat as a pancake. I guess you get what you pay for.
Somehow I understood Ae’s explanation that we shouldn’t have gone to the corner tire repair guy. He offered to take the bike to a proper place to get it fixed, which he did for the whopping price of $1.17.
Vay-freakin’-cation
We were starting to doubt if we’d make it to October, but – voila! – we did, and we’re enjoying our first week off school. This is the week of Boat Racing Festival in Laos, a holiday to mark the end of Buddhist Lent. According to the Vientiane Times,
“The annual festival serves as a reminder to farmers that the rainy season is over for another year, so they can begin harvesting and preparing their soil for the next planting season. The end of Lent allows monks to leave their temples overnight to visit relatives after three months of immersing themselves in Buddhist teachings. According to tradition, during Lent monks are not allowed to travel so they don’t accidentally step on insects or damage villagers’ rice paddy walls.”
Yesterday, I went for an early morning bike ride and saw crowds of people heading to the temples wearing their finest traditional clothing. They carried ornate silver pots, orchids, baskets of sticky rice and other offerings. After sunset on the banks of the Mekong River, villagers gathered for the traditional ritual of layheuafai. They set adrift little boats made from banana leaves with flickering candles to pay homage to the river.
As much as we would have loved to see this, Tony and I were scared off by the crazy riverside street fair. We walked through it during the daytime, and we just couldn’t imagine how it could get any more crowded or frenzied. At one point, I was meandering along when I noticed a panel covered with blown-up balloons on my right and a guy throwing darts on my left! I was walking right through the Pop-A-Balloon game! There were no signs or other warnings. Absolute chaos. One of my colleagues lost her handbag in last year’s melee when someone cut the strap, and other teachers reported stories of stolen cameras and pickpockets. So we decided to stay far, far away from the river this weekend.
Unfortunately, that means we’ll also miss the dragon boat races. Linda, a friend from school, was rowing with a village team, and I had planned to cheer her on. But alas, I got spooked by the crowds. So we watched the races on TV. Pretty amazing!
We’re sticking around Vientiane for this weeklong holiday, trying to catch up on work and taking advantage of our loaner car to get some errands done and do a little sightseeing. Today we checked out a nearby swimming pool. It’s big enough to swim laps, and it was totally empty! I was psyched until I noticed the mold all over the sides and the brackish color of the water. Still, I’m not completely deterred. I’ll wear goggles and try not to get water in my mouth. How bad could it be?
Singing in the Rain
As the poster child for Seasonal Affective Disorder, I am a girl who knows rain. I know exactly how much rain it takes to put me in a funk (3 hours of nonstop drizzle). I know exactly how much precipitation must fall before I move from the funk to a near-vegetative state (24 hours of steady rain). And I can tell you how many dreary rain-filled days I’ll wait before plugging in the good ol’ Happy Light to bask in its simulated sunshine (7).
Therefore, the bliss I feel these days is truly unprecedented. Folks, it’s rainy season in Laos. And you ain’t never seen rain like this.
When we lived in Kansas, I once drove my Chevette with its rusted-out floorboards in a massive thunderstorm because I needed to pick up a Prozac prescription. At one point in my crosstown journey, the water in my car was up to my knees. But, I swear, that “downpour” was a mere sprinkle compared to the daily deluge here.
I later totaled my Saturn by driving through our church parking lot-cum-lake in another one of those famous Midwestern storms. Yet, again, I must insist that such spittle would not even qualify as “rain” in Southeast Asia.
In Laos, there’s really no such thing as “raindrops.” You can’t see individual drops because the water is literally gushing from the sky like an open fire hydrant.
And then … quite suddenly … it stops.
The rains cease; the skies clear; and the sun gets to work. The temporary pond that blocks my front gate drains away, and within hours even the mud dries up. Most of the time, those wild raucous house-shaking storms happen at night, and by morning, the air smells fresh and the roads are just a wee bit damp for my bike ride to school.
Occasionally, like today, the rains douse Vientiane all … day … long. You might fret that, by now, I must have moved from funk to comatose, but I feel remarkably upbeat. The sun’s promise to return soon has kept me sane so far.
Our first snake!
Our gardener weed-whacked this poor little guy. That’s Tony poking it with a stick.
I asked Ae (the gardener) if it was poisonous … OK, lacking the Lao vocab for “poisonous snake,” I actually gestured a snake biting me on the arm and then me dying dramatically … but he just laughed and shook his head. Now I’m not sure if his head shake meant, “No, it’s not poisonous.” or “Holy crap, you’re a freak.”
Color Me Happy
Update on my weekly Dash-to-the-Friendship-Bridge bike ride: On Saturday, I beat my previous record by more than 2 minutes! 37:47 Sweet!
I often use little mental tools to distract myself because I despise exercise with every fiber of my being. This week, I consciously focused on the colors I encountered on my ride. This may seem cheesy, but I’m going to list some of the thoughts that ran through my head during those 37 minutes.
• Wispy low-lying pink clouds glowed against the barely blue sunrise sky. Slowly, slowly the powdery blue deepened to a glorious cobalt while gentle breezes swept away any threats of rain.
• Ubiquitous brown … the dry shade of woven baskets overturned like massive wicker bowls to keep the speckled chickens from roaming … the alternately dark reddish mud and pale dusty dirt of the unpaved roads … sun-bleached wooden stilts protecting homes, restaurants and shops from the encroaching water … shiny dark hair pulled into a thick ponytail, gleaming coffee-colored eyes and golden skin of the smiling woman selling cold drinks at a roadside stand …
• The rainy season’s gift of green in every hue includes the crackling fronds of the coconut trees, the nearly teal floating pads of the water lilies, the waxy dark leaves of the magnolias, the yellow-tipped fluorescence of the rice plants, the seafoam-colored potted plants with twisted prickly stalks, and the bright tufts of doomed little weeds in fields where oxen graze.
• In a landscape of mostly muted earth tones, orange provides a welcome jolt. It pops from the wooden spirit houses, where villagers hang delicate offerings made from banana leaves, tiny white lilies-of-the-valley and vibrant marigolds. It brings a whole neighborhood to life when monks parade single-file (their humble yet dazzlingly bright robes swishing around their feet, baskets swinging by their hips). They pause to bless the locals who kneel at the roadside and then accept the donations of food.
• Glossy red and yellow Buddhist symbols adorn the gilded gates of temples, reflecting the sun’s persistent rays, begging me to stop and soak up some zen.
• Fuchsia blossoms of bougainvillea spill over the top of fences and splash down the dull white walls.
Aw, geez, I could do this all day.
The voice of my far-away mother, an artist, resonated in my head the whole ride, describing the acrylic paints she’d squeeze onto her palette to re-create the scenery. I pictured her waving her finger at that morning sky and saying, “OK, so we need some cerulean with alizarin crimson and a dab of titanium white.”
Next week … smells? Maybe not.
Hash House Harriers – Take 2
Last night, the Hash run started and ended at the home of Linda, one of our teachers. Her husband was the “hare” who created the route, and it was a crazy one. We walked through a wet market, along muddy little paths in the villages, down more muddy trails next to a creek, through a temple and back home via a busy road.
Linda’s “maybon” had cooked pumpkin soup, stir-fried veggies, chicken stew, and delicious mashed potatoes with pumpkin.
Whetu and I got away without drinking any beer. We had planned to get up early for a bike ride, but alas, it’s pouring rain outside this morning … and that’s why I have time to post on my blog!
Thailand or Bust
Vientiane sits right on the Mekong River, which divides Laos and Thailand. It’s just a short drive (or a 39-minute bike ride) to the Friendship Bridge, which crosses the border. On Saturday, the school arranged a shopping trip for new teachers to see whether the grass is, in fact, greener on the other side.
We all met at school, where a convoy of school vans and personal cars awaited. We took off at 7:30 a.m. At the bridge, we handed our passports and paperwork to our drivers, who took them to the appropriate booths. Staff members who had never been to Thailand before had to wait in line to get their pictures taken, so the rest of us waited for them. Finally, we crossed the bridge with a big cheer: “Hoorayyyyyy…” only to have to stop again and repeat the process on the Thai side.
In Laos, people drive on the “right side” of the road (as in, the North American side), but in Thailand, they drive on the “wrong side” (as in, the Australian side). When you cross the Friendship Bridge, the road criss-crosses to get your car on the correct side!
Once in Thailand, we pulled in to the Mut-Mee Guesthouse in Nong Khai for breakfast around 9:30. (If you’re interested, check out the website: www.mutmee.com.) We sat in their tropical garden on the banks of the Mekong and sipped Lao coffee (strong coffee with sweetened condensed milk), freshly squeezed lemonade and egg sandwiches.
Finally, we drove the last hour to Udon Thani, home of many big stores and malls. We went to just one on this trip, a mall with Robinson’s Department Store. Our goal: Find pants for Tony, who has lost about 50 pounds this year. Just inside the mall, we discovered a store called Export, where we found heaps of clothes made in Southeast Asia and exported to the West. Tony even found the exact same shorts he bought at Target in July, only in a size that fits his new skinny butt (and for only about $10). He also found a few pairs of Dockers pants. Perfect!
Otherwise, we bought a trashcan for our kitchen, and that was about it. We didn’t really need anything. I compared prices of toiletries, and they weren’t any cheaper than in Laos. However, it was nice to wander through Watsons, Boots and even a little Body Shop. There are no Western fast-food restaurants in Laos, so we gorged on junk from KFC, Dairy Queen and Mister Donut at the mall.
In the parking lot, we were all ready to leave when our superintendent, Steve, discovered his car had been blocked in by a white van. A mall security guy showed up with a jack and prepared to haul the van away, but the owners came dashing out just in time. Of course, they were shocked that anyone would touch their car, but they grudgingly moved it so Steve could get out. Ha!
We’ve been told that better bargains are to be found at Tesco or Metro, but those explorations will have to wait for another time. When we first heard of the shopping mecca of Udon Thani, we thought we might head over there a couple times a month, but the border crossing makes the journey a little too time consuming. We’ll likely stick to our little village market until desperation hits.