Autumn Events in Vientiane

The boat racing festival, following the end of buddhist lent - 28th of October. A famous Lao event. The level of the Mekong was exceptionnaly low though given that we were at the end of the rainy season. The location of the race had to be moved up on the Mekong river, not downtown anymore. It was nice to watch. But the commercial fair that took place in the center of town was just a busy, noisy hustle and bustle!

Halloween, something  celebrated in our bi cultural English-Lao school. Kids love it. I dressed up as a wicked witch and the kids wore their nicest Halloween outfit. Check us out !

That Luang festival, a buddhist festival - the 24th of November, actually the biggest donation day of the year. Lao people wear their nicest outfit and monks gather from all over the country to get offerings that range from banknotes, fruit  juice, candies, soap, food cans, anything that you can store...

Here are a few pictures that give you glimpse of what it 's like.

My New Friend

Sorry guys, I haven't met George Clooney yet!
Let me introduce you to my new friend : Kittycat!
She was one of those stray cats that I fed, but this one was not wild, loved to be pet and became my friend. Ultimately she didn't let the other cats approach her new territory.

And one day I noticed she had a big wound under her tail, probably a dog's bite, a wide and deep cut, pretty bad! I was worried and took her to the vet. Since they had to put her to sleep to make stitches to the tail, they also fixed her hernia (she had a big lump on the abdomen) and spayed her (they removed the uterus and ovaries). In the end that is what she looked like after all that surgery, and I felt like the worst torturer to this little cutie. She had to be taken care of so I de facto adopted her !

Unidentified flying objects...

I feel sometimes that my house has somewhat something in common with a remake of Jurassic park.  I came across two small white eggs nestled in the middle of the cushions of my sofa yesterday.  After looking it up on the internet it seems that those are lizard eggs! How nice!

Furthermore I discovered sort of an oil spill at the feet of my dining table last week-end! Please check this out - see the pictures below. After cleaning it up I assumed it was the shit of an unknown animal certainly coming from the beam running across the middle of my ceiling. My greatest nightmare would be that I be the next target of this unidentified animal shit tossing during my sleep!

Last but not least, I was bitten by an army of ants hidden in my towel last morning after having taken a shower. I washed the towel twice after that, and still found living ants left in the towel...Isn't this freakish!

Actually my worst nightmare would be to come across a giant spider crawling on the wall behind my bed. This I haven't seen so far. I cross my fingers.

 

Hey hey, those are the little drawbacks of living in a tropical country ;-).

 

The Lao National Teachers'day. 10/07/2015

Did you know teachers had their "Christmas day" in Laos? I didn't! 

The 7th of October is actually the National Teachers' day in Laos. What does this entail? First of all it's like a holiday, that is to say the teachers have a day off. The day before, there is a short ceremony in the morning at school where students read a poem to the teachers, then give them flowers.  And on top of that, students give gifts to their teachers. That's how I was unexpectedly covered with gifts this very morning by my students. How cute !!! They were so excited to see me unwrap the nice packages. I was spoiled. I really have to tell you what I got because it is worth telling. A Prévert list :

- washing powder.
- tooth paste and soaps
- crackers for appetizers
- a box of kit kat bars
- 3 sets of glasses
- a hair clip covered with diamonds an pearls
- a set of goodies (drinks, cookies)
 -2 sets of bird saliva drinks (drinks made of solidified bird saliva used to build birds'nests, particularly prized due to their rarity, supposedly high nutritional value and exquisite flavor. I haven't tried yet, might be a little reluctant though)
- a piece of silk fabric
- two very good quality fake leather bags (brand name : Marie-Claire!)
- a selfie stick
- a 1000 bath bill (30 euros, a fortune overhere).

Cynical minds would say it is the National Teachers' Bribery day! Don't listen to them.



Teachers'day ceremony



Christmas for Teachers



Teng & Kobey

The National Teachers'day! Isnt' that something to emulate in France? It would cheer up our French teachers!

My Honeymoon is over !

After one week of teaching, I have the feeling my honeymoon is over :-(

I realised that I had to handle two levels of students, the ones who can read simple things, and the ones who barely know the alphabet and of course can't read at all. This means that when I gave a task, the formers were finished right away while the latters had not understood yet what they were supposed to do ! This means the formers had nothing to do but fool around while I was striving to have the latters begin the task... At this very moment I had a glimpse of what could be the feeling of the sometimes "exhausted, worne out, overwhelmed" community of teachers!

Furthermore, after a while the kids especially the boys feel more comfortable and test your boundaries ! Yes just as the kids do in our Western countries. So I had to take action and gave three warnings in a row (unhappy smileys) to be displayed on the behaviour chart of the class which had its little effect. I also needed to be much more stuctured in my lesson plans and activities, otherwise  the kids behave just like a leaking ship, they start to feel free and mess around. This was an exhausting week but I felt much better at the end of it, could handle better the activities and had the kids work in two differents groups for certain tasks.

The little Cookie who knew the alphabet but was unable to read a word last week was enjoying reading simple sentences after two weeks which was really nice to see.

Conversely I don't hold much hope concerning the little Ami who doesn't know the alphabet AT ALL and is the only one who NEVER listens, always doing something else. I just can't figure out how to manage her!

My little Japanese boy, Seiji, is my Benchmark since he doesn't speak Lao nor English I monitor him quite closely, if he understands what's going on, the others should also understand!

Well I'm getting there slowly but surely. And I can still say that my students are my little cuties!

My FEP2 class

My FEP2 class with Lao assistant Vickham.

Daily morning exercise at Oscar.

My Lao English class !

What a treat !

The beginning of school was last monday for the students, so I eventually got to know who were going to be my new students. I have a class of 13 kids from 8 to 10 years old. And believe me the Lao kids are so so cute !!! Boys are so lively and enthusiastic and inquisitive when the girls are so shy and introverted. I guess this is a cultural feature. I also have three foreign students, a girl from Vietnam, a boy from Japan, very shy and lost (does not speak Lao) and a little Chinese kid, very ugly, fat, and mean on top of that ! However those kids are such a treat !

My heart was already broken after three days of school. One kid was withdrawn from my class to be sent to the "normal English curriculum" class because his level of English was too high ! He was such a nice smart and lively kid, I was so sad to see him leave! But in the end it's better because he was so far ahead of the others and was thus overshadowing his classmates. The class is more well balanced now. However I have my burden too! A little girl Ami, she does not know the Roman alphabet, she is as slow as a slug, has the attention span of a gold fish and is only interested in drawing princess gowns and crowns !

Of course my concern is to be able to cater to their different needs given that I have different levels to deal with - some can read a litlle bit some others don't even know the Roman alphabet- , and that they don't get bored and have fun while learning.

This is an auspicious start however. I'm so happy to deal with those kids eventhough I have to sometimes raise my voice (but they are so responsive) !

Hereafter a picture of my class the 1st day. One kid (with hat) has left (as said) and three others showed up in the meantime. The young man, Vickham,  is my very nice Lao teacher (assistant).  I'll post an updated picture soon...

A little taste of paradise! August 2015 in Vientiane.

I can't help sending you a few pictures of my garden that is so lovely, a little green paradise!

I have overcome my first apprehensions of the place - I mean the surroundings of my house- I was fearing all sorts of animals, insects, spiders or snakes, and have ultimately concluded they were not that harmful nor ferocious, that micro ants in my cereals were edible, a lezard in my refrigerator had lost its way, and a moth in my shower was just as scared as I was before ! There was a snake yesterday on the cimented path going to the back of my house. The wild black cat, wandering around the house, was staring at him with mewlings of distress, the snake rose his head, threatening the cat, eventually the snake turned back and slithered away... Thank you black cat for taking car of my yard. Now, I feed him!

The beginning of class for teachers was 2 weeks ago. We are a team of 34 teachers, half Lao, half foreigners - another French girl, 2 girls from Switzeland, one from Holland, the others are from England, South Africa, the US and Australia. Nice people overall, nice boss, rather helpful. We've done preparation work for two weeks, classroom decoration,  lesson plans. All this takes actually a lot of time. The beginning of class for the kids is next monday. Can't wait to see the kids. Mine will be 8 to 9 years old with very little English exposure. I also have a little apprehension of course. This will be the next chapter...