Auditions!

For the last two months we have been working with the Lao teachers to put on a talent show at the university. It's been a lot of work, but exciting to see the students working hard and thinking creatively. It struck me the other day, that most of the competitions here are very structured and leave little room for individuality and creativity so it has been an encouraging experience to see students thinking outside of the box and addressing some of the issues in society here through skits and monologues. More on that later though...

Tomorrow is audition day! There are three categories: English song, English skit and English monologue.  We were hoping that at least 20 groups would enter for the audition, and last count we had 38! I offered all of my students extra credit if they would enter and in my one class every student is participating! Lao students are very motivated by extra points! :) We've been preparing skits in that class for about a month now and it has been really fun to watch some of the less confident students step up and bloom in their acting role. That's something about this culture (and most Asian cultures) - they are very good at memorization! So this kind of thing is right up their proverbial educational alley!

This weekend a bunch of students came over to practice their skits, monologues and songs. I think on Saturday, we had about 14 students over at the same time. It's been really busy, but very fun!


Some fun pictures from this weekend...

Sudyorth and Udom practicing songs on the guitar

Touy came over Friday and Saturday... Friday to practice, Saturday to learn how make crochet headbands with Sone. When they were crocheting, Sone mentioned Fellowship and invited Touy to come. So Touy went to Fellowship with us Sunday and even brought her boyfriend along! :)

After practicing skits, we played a game of Jenga

Sone and her friends are doing the midget skit, so they came over to practice today. I'm really excited to introduce this skit classic into Lao culture!

Tomorrow we have auditions scheduled every ten minutes from 1:00-8:00 with an hour break for dinner. Yesterday one of the Lao teachers told me that every slot had been filled, so we opened up another hour for auditions at 11:00. Wow, tomorrow will be a long day! But it is part of a dream coming true - more collaboration with our Lao colleagues and providing a creative outlet for our students! Shout out to the A-Family for their inspirational work on shows every year at OGC that helped inspire me to suggest doing a show like this:)

You can be lifting us up... we really want to do a good job on this so that we will be able to work more closely with our colleagues on projects in the future. And I really just hope this will encourage our students to see that they can use English in a creative way...and more than anything, that they can do it. I think lack of confidence is one of the biggest crippling factors for students here and I just want them to know that they are not stuck in lack of understanding forever.

Deodorant and Superstitions Part 2

This is basically a post about deodorant so if that grosses you out, read next time ;)

Random side note, I never remember how to spell deodorant, but I just realized (thanks to spell-checker) that deodorant has the word odor in it. Hmmm, now I will never forget how to spell it. And for once English makes sense...de meaning not or take away, and odor meaning bad smell.

Anyway, I ran out of my American deodorant a month or so back and let me just say, we must have different odor genes than Asians because it does not work the same. Today I almost had to go home to change my clothes. Yuck!  That was a first! But my team leader has a spare Sure and is going to share with me, which makes me really happy.

On that smelly note, let me share two more Lao-isms regarding deodorant and BO.

3. If you use deodorant, it makes your armpits turn black. I'm still trying to figure out how this one works, though the deodorant here is whitening deodorant. When I first saw that, I thought to myself, "Why the heck do they care if their armpits are white?" But then Asians want everything as white as possible, so ... But yeah, maybe this is why. My roommates told me that they have friends whose armpits have turned black because they used deodorant.  Of course they look at our skin when we come back from the beach and call that black so maybe they really mean slightly tanned skin.  I have yet to see evidence of such blackness myself, though I intend to do some research reconnaissance. (I still contest it is probably lint from a black T-shirt but they refuse to buy that!)

4. If you share a shirt with someone who has BO, then you will get BO too. Now, I'm not talking about wearing a shirt right after the person wears it and the shirt still smells. No, this means that after you wash said shirt, you will then somehow get BO passed on to you indefinitely when you wear the now-laundered shirt. Sone explained it this way, "It's the same as when you have a cold and then you cough and someone else gets the cold from you." Yes, apparently they think BO is a virus that has germs and can be "caught." I tried to explain that was rather unscientific, but that fell on deaf ears in a place where the doctors say the reason you have a sore throat is because you drank cold water. 

So, on second thought... maybe I don't need that Sure after all...maybe I just need to be more careful who I let borrow my shirts. Hehe :)

(Author's Note: Just want to be sure that the reader knows our bantering with our Lao roommates in these matters is all in fun and no one feels belittled.  It just makes for a lot of laughs and silly arguments at meal time)

Superstitions Part 1

Living with Lao people this year has been a great experience. Christa and I have learned a lot about Lao life and culture and have been able to improve our Lao a lot. S's English is pretty much amazing now, and even N, though she is just now trying to produce language, can understand most of what we say in English after living with native speakers for months.

But perhaps the funniest part of living in a mixed culture household is that there are things that some people accept as true that you think are just ridiculous. I guess this can happen with the same culture as well, but it is especially apparent when you have multiple cultures and people living in one home.

Just for fun, I thought I'd share with you some of the Lao superstitions/beliefs that Christa and I have found particularly hilarious (S and N know I'm writing this and there's no hard feelings:)

1. If you wash your hair when you have your period, it interrupts the cycle of your period and causes the day of it to be changed the next month. Thus, most Lao girls do not wash their hair for up to 5 days when they're on their period (I can barely go two days without washing my hair so I can't imagine!). It's funny because as I'm writing this, I asked S if she still thinks this way and she said, "Now, I think I changed and don't care about that anymore." But then she added, "I do think it made the day change though."

2. If your tree isn't producing much fruit, put a cloth skirt on it and it will grow more fruit. Seriously, our papaya tree only had one papaya on it, so our landlady marched over there with an old Lao skirt and wrapped it around that tree, making it a female and thus more fruitful. It actually does have about 6 papayas on there now, but I'm not sure if that's because of the skirt, or because of the natural order of things.

Stay tuned for some more tomorrow :)

Fruit

Our fruit trees are looking awesome these days. I love how sitting in the garden helps me to understand the process of growth and bearing fruit and patiently waiting for a harvest to come. Just rich with meaning on so many levels.

Here's S by our Papaya tree. She noticed that one of the papayas had finally turned yellow so she raced out to pick it.

I love how this picture shows Lily with her bone...She loves carrying that thing around now that she is big enough to put the whole thing in her mouth (thanks mom!! :)

Here's S with the giant papaya.

I'm learning a lot about fruit tree stuff. For example, I always thought you waited until the fruit was ripe to pick it off the tree. But apparently you should pick it before then. Reason #1, if you don't, your landlady will come take it first. Reason #2 (and probably more importantly), it is good to let the fruit ripen off the tree. Otherwise it might actually be rotten by the time it's ripe. That's just a strange concept to me, but it seems to be true here. So, S picked the mangoes early and then wrapped them up in towels to make them warm and about 3 days later they were really yellow and looked really saep (delicious).

Here's N showing off the plate of ripe mango goodness!

Truly a stunning picture, eh? ;) But that mango sure was delicious.

Speaking of fruit, on a much deeper level some really cool stuff has been happening this week. It's slightly sensitive so I'll wait to share it in a better medium (or ask my madre), but suffice it to say, I think the Father is really doing some planting of fruit seeds in N's heart. It's been really cool to watch. She went to an special group activity with some people yesterday and loved it and was really open with them about where she's at in regards to all of this. Oh, I long for the Father to shed His light into her heart!

That would result in some pretty awesome fruit here in this place! :)

Mother's Day Tribute

A tribute to my mom on Mother's Day...

These are some of my favorite pictures from my time back home last summer and they catch my mom in a rare moment of crazy spontaneity.

My mom is a pretty incredible woman. She gave her life to teach her kids at home and instill in us values of The Book. She taught me to be honest about my faults and how to struggle well. You wrestle with the sinner's heart. My mom has shown me what it's like to wrestle with the Father. To not pretend. To say it how it is, even if it hurts. To sit on His lap and beat on His heart. She has loved much even when it has brought pain...such a picture of the Father's love. She has opened up our home time and again to international students and all my "orphaned" college friends.

I've learned many things from my mom. For example, you should never run out of food when hosting. So, every time my mom makes food, it goes like this:
"Does this look like enough? " Mom asks.
"Yes mom, it does," I always reply.
 And then she says, "I think I'll add some more."
To which I respond, "Well, why did you ask me then?"

That's one of the things I miss most - times in the kitchen with my mom. I lovingly refer to her as Barfa Stewart, and not because I don't like her food but because she is always insulting it.  I rather like her food actually and have grown to love cooking so much because of all the times we spent in the kitchen together.
 
My mom has graciously surrendered her dreams to allow me to live my dream...living and teaching overseas. And even though I know it's hard for her, she bravely supports me all the time and is the best package-sender ever. I think she's on a first-name basis with the people at the Post Office.

Mom, I am sorry I can't be there on your special day, and for so many other special days. Thank you for teaching me the treasure of JC and that sharing His love with others is worth any sacrifice.

I'm so thankful for you and am so thankful the Father gave me you as my mom to train me, teach me, love me, challenge me and nurture me as your daughter. 

I love you, Mom!

Sweet Sounds

Tuesday night I came home to the sound of water pouring into our water tanks...After 4 days of no running water, it was a beautiful sound. We had resorted to catching rain water to flush our toilets!

However, an even sweeter sound was heard tonight.

Thursday nights we often hang out with my team leader Corky and study together.  N started studying with us a few months ago. Tonight we studied about Father A and his many sons (I can picture myself marching in Sunday School years ago as I write that!)...Just think, that through the blessing he received, the Father blessed all the families of the earth. All the families of the earth! And as we read that story tonight, I was sitting next to one of His newer children from a small little landlocked country called Laos.  

Blessed to be a blessing...

And the chain continues on and on.

Anyway, back to the sweeter sound... As we often do, we start off our time talking about something we're thankful for or something we would like to ask the Father for. Tonight Corky asked S to talk to the Father for us, and when she got to asking for N, her words touched my heart and I almost teared up thinking about the way the Father is working in this family.

She asked the Father to open N's eyes so she could see Him. She asked it right there, so boldly, and as she was sitting next to her sister who still sits in darkness.

One former blind one asking the Healer for the sight of another.

And isn't that what we all are?

And, I'd like to think that there is no sweeter sound to the Father's ears.

Expect the Unexpected

So, one thing I'm learning in Laos is the title of this blog- expect the unexpected. If there was one theme for living in this country, that would be it.  And then, expect the unexpected to be even more unexpected than you expected. Ok, now that's confusing.

But this weekend was just one thing after another that is teaching my stubborn heart about this.

Example #1 - Nouy's birthday party.
Last year, I went back to Sone and Nouy's house for my birthday. It was really nice to have a birthday dinner with a family; it felt like a real family celebration.  So this year, her mom wanted to do that again. Well, the day we were all free fell on the same weekend as Nouy's birthday so we decided to have a joint party. That made me a little nervous because Nouy is definitely more of a party-er than I am. But we talked about it and decided there would be no beer (that's another post...but this country has turned my dislike of alcohol into an utter hatred of the substance).

It started out rather normal - shopping at the market for food. I asked how many people would come and of course, nobody knew. They just said around 10-15. So we started cooking, and cooking and cooking. And it sure seemed like a lot of food for 10-15 people, but whatever.

As I was frying hotdogs, I heard a car pull up blasting music. I thought, hmm, they have a really loud radio, wow.

Yeah, turns out it was Nouy's friends who are in a band and they brought their entire band sound system with them. Double-decker speakers, microphones, a sound board and the whole 9-yards. I felt my heart groan on the inside - a lot of people and a lot of music could only mean one more thing... a lot of beer. I was staring into the hot oil watching the hotdogs slowly brown and crying out to the Father for patience, for tolerance, for anything, really, to let me get through the night.

It turned out to be a really really really long night.

Here is a more tame view of the night...

Nouy and her parents with the birthday cake.

Sone, Nouy and I (when I was still holding it together)

Here's the sound system, Nouy and her friends and a ton of food and beer on the table.

 I lasted until about 11:00pm...about 3 hours of head-pounding music up to that point (it would continue until about 12:30) . So loud you could hardly hear the person next to you, and your ears felt like they were going to explode. I finally made a not-so-graceful exit to the room to try to sleep. It was not one of my better moments, let's just say that. I curled up on the bed, amped my iPod to full blast trying to drown out their music with a Passion album, and threw the covers over my head. But my body kept shaking because the base was so loud. Heck, the entire house was shaking the music was so loud. I just lost it and balled my eyes out like a little kid. Here I am supposed to be all things to all people and I had just hit a wall. I couldn't do it. And I balled like a baby.

My expectations (for a quiet family party like last year) had been dashed. Actually, in my best attempt to calculate the worst possible experience, I couldn't have come up with this.

My sweet roommate Christa came to check on me and was just JC incarnate to me...full of grace and encouragement and comfort.  I was really thankful for that. And she gave me a back scratch - that just makes everything better!

I guess this is a pretty honest confession here. But it's just the reality. Life is really hard sometimes, and you can't just run away (even if you want to). I want to learn to be more flexible, and I feel like I'm slowly learning, but I'm also wanting to learn to accept His grace in the moments when I utterly fail to show grace.

Example #2 Teacher meeting

It's a long story (and I will tell it in another post), but we are having a Talent Show at our department! I'm super psyched about it and I've been working with several of the teachers in the department for weeks now to get the official proposal together.

It's Monday and we're supposed to have a meeting on Tuesday morning. That gives me all afternoon on Monday to prepare. Perfect, right?

My phone rings in the middle of class at 11:00 this morning. It's one of the teachers...Can we change the meeting to today at 1:30? Ahhh! Ok, I think I can do this. We rally the foreign teachers, and I dash to get the papers together, thinking, It's ok; no big deal, just a meeting with about 15 teachers, telling them the logistics, etc. I make copies quickly and walk into the meeting and see the entire English Department in the room...about 30-40 teachers, the head of our department, etc. They have an LCD projector set up and ask if we need to use it. Uh, I have a paper handout, but I only made 20 copies (and I thought that would give us some extras!). 

It ended up being a really great meeting and as I looked around the room I felt so thankful to the Father because I have been asking for this very opportunity for a while now. So in one way my heart swelled in thanks, and at the same time my heart pounded from nervousness as I tried to think of what to say to all these teachers who'd come to hear about our plan for the talent show. More on the talent show later... :)

Example #3 - No water

A few roads down from us, they're doing construction and in the process burst a pipe at least twice. The result - no water on Saturday and then water in splotches all week. Though, not too big of a deal, we just had to be careful. Well, on Friday we had no water come, Saturday no water and it's Monday and we still haven't had any water come. We've resorted to catching the rain water in tubs outside...

Usually the city water pumps into these water tanks here which gives us our water supply. So even if the city water gets cut off, we still have a extra supply.  But these tanks have been empty since Friday.

And now the tubs in our house are empty too. I never realized just how much we use water - to boil rice, to wash vegetables, to wash my hands, flush the toilet, brush my teeth and, of course, to take a shower.  I really shouldn't complain though, because one of my students lives on the road where they're doing construction and she hasn't had water for 2 weeks now. I drove down the road the other day to see how much progress they'd made. That was a mistake...all I could think of as I looked at the flooded ditches (from the broken pipes) was this is going to take months!

So there's my very lively update on life here at the moment...

Expect the unexpected. Or rather, just don't expect anything. It's better that way.

I want my heart to learn to trust. He knows what will really happen and He is taking care of it all, and taking care of us, His children, in the process. 

But sometimes when that translates into real life, it can be a really hard lesson to learn!

Teaching in the Dark

Funny, as I just wrote the title of this blog, I realized it could have a deeper, symbolic meaning...

Hmm, but for now, I mean it in the literal sense of the word.

Had my M.A. class this evening (5-6:30) and about ten minutes into the class the wind really picked up. It's been super windy here lately, and actually quite stormy with power outages not so rare.

So we're in class and the wind picks up and and the students start talking about how they're afraid the power might go out (apparently tonight was not the first time). Sure enough, about 5 minutes later, as I'm in the midst of explaining compare and contrast style writing, the power stops. Lights go off and (saddest of all) the air conditioner shuts off. 

(Side note: one of the best perks of teaching the MA class - besides getting paid, and being understood! - is that the classroom has air!! I love it, though the students are usually positioning themselves out of the path of the blowing air).

So, after the power goes out, it's decision time. Do we stop class now? Will it come back on? How much longer will the light from outside be enough to see the board? A man comes by and talks to the head of the class and I hear him say, fai bor ma lui...translation - the power won't come back on at all for a while. Sadness. My only night teaching them and the power turns off after just 20 minutes.

However, we decided to plod on through the throes of academic writing. Actually, it worked out quite well because we were talking about narratives, so we turned our story into a narrative...Twas the night to study writing, it turned dark all around, outside the wild wind blowing is the only sound... :)  Thus, we studied until the whiteboard was not visible to those in the back of the class and then went home early, having discussed only a portion of the lesson I'd planned.

It really explains life here so well... always expect the unexpected, and on the days you think you've got it all planned out just so... well, those are usually the days when you get surprised the most. 

I came home to Nouy reading by candlelight. Thankfully just before it got really dark so she wasn't home alone. So we had a relaxing time talking until the power finally flickered back on around 7:30.

This has been the week of ruggedness it seems... between power outages and water problems. Due to a broken pipe, our village didn't have water on Saturday or Monday. That was quite the adventure. If we played Would you rather? and the question was Would you rather not have electricity or not have water?  I think I'd almost say I'd rather not have electricity (at least during the day). You never realize how much you use water until you don't have it! Also had my bathroom sprayer break off the wall this week (Sone was trying to fix it), and so essentially now in my bathroom there's a hole in the wall that spews water everywhere. Exciting stuff all the time here. Never a dull moment as my mom always used to say. So, we pretty much have to keep the water turned off most of the time. Though I tried to be resourceful this morning and showered using the spewing water hole since we had turned the water on for showers downstairs.

Sometimes I think it's almost kind of fun.

But only for a few hours :)