Getting wet ..and a couple of other things...

Sa bai dee! It’s just a regular Saturday afternoon in Vientiane – I’m writing in my blog, Sam is listening to the AFL over the internet (although he has been sick now ever since his wisdom tooth was removed – I hope that’s not normal!), and we’re taking it easy :-)

The last two weeks have been quite uneventful, although I feel a shift within myself – for the first time since I arrived last October, I don’t have any undercurrents of homesickness. I have found routine and friends here, and while there are still unique frustrations – like not being able to speak Lao! – I have grown used to them and have found ways to cope :-) The other ‘event’ has been the onset of the rainy season – I now get wet pretty much everytime I get on my motorbike. And I’m not talking a few drops – I’m talking absolutely drenched, need-to-wring-out-my-clothes-and-have-a shower-as-soon-as-I-get-in-the-door kind of wet. The first few times it was amusing, and then it got plain annoying – and we have four months of this left! I was so wet when I arrived home one night this week that I raced inside out of the rain – unintentionally leaving the gate unlocked and the keys in my motorbike until the next morning. The only reason I think it wasn’t stolen was because noone wanted to come out in the rain and get it!! But there is an upside to the rainy season – it clears the haze from the air, so the sky looks a brilliant shade of blue and I can see Thailand on the other side of the Mekong quite clearly, like someone has given me glasses. It’s quite beautiful :-)

Other than these non-events, I’ve been up to the following:

• Being sick – Chris and I were stricken with a vomiting bug last Sunday and had to take it easy, while I was still recovering from my cold I had caught the week before. I eventually ended up taking a day off work the following Thursday after a particularly nasty bout of dizziness;

• Experimenting with chlorine at work, in preparation to launch our integrated village based, solar powered, water purification and bottling system. This has brought me back to what I love about engineering in a development context – problem solving on the ground with limited resources (my days in Nicaragua were also filled with this type of work, and I think that’s where my overwhelmingly positive impressions of development work came from). Sunlabob is going from strength to strength at the moment – having just won two grants worth $200,000 each from the World Bank and UNEP respectively, and attracting tremendous interest – its such an exciting place to work. For example, I found out on Friday that I will be presenting our water purification system to the World Bank’s Director of Gender on Monday afternoon!

Work has also been exciting for Chris – he spent the last week in Cambodia negotiating with Ericcson for Sunlabob to supply components for remote telecommunication applications, a contract worth many million dollars. Of course this meant I was alone, but I kept myself amused by watching DVD’s and getting a pedicure (for 20000 kip, or $2 USD!) with my friend Kaylie :-)

Another exciting event at work – a snake and a gecko squaring off outside my window. Who won? The gecko never had a go, but the snake was killed (apparently it was poisonous..) so I guess you could say the gecko :-)

• Going to numerous costume themed parties – for some reason, everyone in Vientiane seems to be jumping on this boat at the moment. We went to a fellow AYAD’s ‘Into the Wild’ birthday party, followed by a random costume party the next week (which was also a farewell party for our friend Tom, who has been working for Sunlabob’s partner – the Lao Institute of Renewable Energy or LIRE - since Chris and I arrived). I was a bit of a party pooper and didn’t dress up for either – too much effort!!!!

• Playing touch football – the netball team has now combined with the Lao women’s rugby team training session on Tuesday night to try and attract more people to join the team. I’d never played touch football before so I wasn’t very good!!

• Church activities – Chris and I have been elected onto the committee now, so there has been a few meetings to attend. An amusing – and related! - event: last Sunday we went out for our customary lunch after the morning service, and were pestered by someone trying to sell us things while we were eating. After failing to get us to buy watches and a electric massager, he finally pulled out the Viagra! But noone bought that either :-)

• Inviligating – for those who don’t know what that word means (I didn’t either) it means supervising an exam. The AYAD crowd were asked to help supervise the Australian Scholarship exams this morning – 700 students sitting a logical thinking/English exam. Only 40 of these will be selected to receive a scholarship to study in Australia – so for these young Lao people, a lot was riding on this test. For me, it was an opportunity to see just what it was like for all those exam supervisors I’ve had over the years (but of course I was nowhere near as mean as them!)

Next Thursday morning Adra arrives for a three day visit – we’re planning to take her to an eco-lodge outside Vientiane for a night :-) So next time I should have some more interesting news!

Sok dee,

Susan