After our first chaotic and on-the-fly crazy first English class, the second class was easy-peasy. Lies and I knew what we were going to teach, who we were going to teach, what time, where, and for how long. It was awesome. These are the things we take for granted in the West, and I tell you, it has given me great appreciation for such order and certainty! That said, the challenges of this multi-cultural teaching experience made it all the more satisfying and gave a feeling of great accomplishment.
The kids were awesome, each with their own special and unique character (of course!). I gave them each little table-tent name tags so I could remember their names (it is one thing to remember ten new kids' names, it is another if they are Lao names that I can barely pronounce let alone remember!) There were some jokers/wise-guys, some shy girls who would barely speak, one teacher's-pet type, some very serious types, and all of the ranges of personalities- I loved them all! It was such a joy and an honor to be able to spend time with them, and do my best to teach them English- I really enjoyed it. And I was much more ''in the groove'' on this second day, and expended way less energy than our first crazy and chaotic day! I was quite pleased and satisfied during and after the class.
We got caught in the rain on the motorbike ride back with Mr. Kamsai and the Translator, so we all took cover under one of their houses on the way to the dock. This was a neat time for hanging out and just conversing, and I met the Translator's father, who had kind and gentle eyes, as well as his mother. On our way to class that morning, I had been riding on the back of the Translator's motorbike as usual, but this time he stopped after passing a Monk in dark brown robes (a sign of an elder/higher monk, I believe), parked the motorbike, excused himself from me for a moment, and ran to kneel in front of the monk. It turns out the Translator was once a monk himself in his younger years, like many Lao boys do as a right of passage. I learned a lot about the Translator that day, and, it was neat to see!
After this weekend of teaching, we had the next five days off, and Lies and I relaxed our butts off! We had been planning on teaching many more days originally, but since that is not what the Lao people wanted, we took advantage of our free time, and in fact, relished it. Our time was spent lazing in our bungalow porch hammocks, sometimes reading, sometimes napping, sometimes listening to music, and sometimes just laying there, being, watching the river and listening to the birds and the insects, or being with the intense rain that fell each afternoon and many evenings. Sometimes after the nighttime rain, the insects and frogs got so loud, that we literally could not hear ourselves speak! It was so powerful and amazing!
Other stuff we did separately and together- rode bicycles around Don Det and Don Khon Island exploring aimlessly. This was just so fun and satisfying, and we saw so many new and different things every day, whether it was families relaxing together, family celebrations and partying going on, a group of men trying to load a living water buffalo onto a small boat, or small children running around playing and giggling- it was all entrancing and wondrous to witness. I took a ridiculous amount of photos, because the landscape was just so beautiful, as well as the people. (Photos will come when I'm back home in a month or so).
We spent a lot of time at eating at our guesthouse restaurant, with a beautiful view of the Mekong and the bridge from Don Det to Don Khon right in front of us, our vantage point from the stilted open-air thatched roof hut that was the dining area. We spent many hours eating and talking and drinking tea while cuddling with the Santiphab kitties who intermittently begged as well as slept in our laps. I think we ate every item on that fantastic menu, and the two young ladies Meow and her younger sister were so sweet, were fantastic cooks, and were always playing with each other giggling like kids (they were 20 and 16 years old, but the way that they played and laughed made us smile with joy, as they could have been 4 and 5 years old from the freedom of their laughter). They arranged all of our boats for us, and fixed our rental bicycles whenever needed (which, was pretty much every day, sometimes twice in a day until on the final two days I started renting a bicycle from another guesthouse!)
One night when I was walking home late at night from downtown on the wide expansive country road, Meow and her younger sister and ANOTHER sister that I hadn't met yet saw me from their motorbike, and stopped, scooched forward to make room for me, and made me a FOURTH passenger on the back of their bike the rest of the way back to the guesthouse. This was my first time riding so "Lao-style" as this on a motorbike- I had driven motorbikes a ton on my own, and been the passenger of another driver, but this was my first 4-on-a-bike ride. We all giggled incessantly like schoolgirls the whole way back, and I felt so very happy.
One day while cycling aimlessly around Don Khon, Lies and I found a neat and secluded waterfall area with all sorts of rickety wooden bridges built over the water, and strange wooden structures that we didn't understand the purpose of. Whatever the case, we instantly stripped down to our bathing suits and sat in the water and let the river flow over us while we balanced delicately on the large and smooth rocks below us, until the sky clouded over, and the locals hanging out nearby indicated that we should get a move on out! We did, but not before the rain came. But it was great! It is hot outside, and the rain was light and warm, so we cycled through rice paddies in grass and puddles and through a monastery and saw the sights from our bicycles as we made our way home in the rain.
I completely fell in love with these islands and all of the people that we met along the way, especially our sweet guesthouse sisters and their parents and relatives that were always coming and going, eating meals, and hanging around. Our five days off were full and relaxing, and now we had another weekend of teaching to look forward to.
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