I really don’t have a problem with insects, but for anyone who does this would not be a great time to be here. They are mostly just a minor irritant but sometimes when I turn over in my sleep and am wakened by an unpleasant crunching sound then I know that one of the little finger-nail sized hard shelled beetles has breathed its last. Also, there are some seriously large ones, who when they land on you make you think that someone has laid their hand upon your shoulder.
I am told that the ones to avoid and be horrible to (apart from the mozzies, of course) are the little furry caterpillars whose fur contains a vicious sting and can give you a nasty irritable rash. I am alone in wondering (goodness, that sounds like the archetypal Daily Telegraph reader speaking) why manufacturers of some lotions and cures place the label around the phial so cleverly that you do not now if it is full or empty? Needless to say I brought out “after bite” bottles that contained absolutely nothing so I have to resort to the age old and totally useless remedy of scratching whenever I get a bite. I did find one beautiful translucent aquamarine….well, greeny-blue anyway…fly that had I known how to preserve it would have made a stunning piece of jewellery. (Hmmm, what a conversation piece that would be, to sit down to dinner with a fly apparently emerging from your ear or nose.)
Following up last week’s comment about ice ream I did find a Lao ice cream parlour which had a wonderful selection of flavours, including, allegedly, burberry; something for the chavs maybe? I had mango, but then unwisely followed some local advice and had it with sticky rice, which I was assured was delicious. Well it wasn’t! I had not been expecting the rice to be coloured lime green, and somehow the texture of it took me back more than 50 years to the dubious pleasures of school dinners. Next time it will be just boring old plain ice cream.
My English class this week slightly foundered on the rocks of cultural differences as I unsuccessfully attempted to explain that in a situation faced with just 2 choices, each apparently having identical merit we might refer to it as being a question of heads or tails. Even having explained that the tails in question had nothing to do with animals’ appendages I was really no further forward. Here in Laos we only have paper money; no coins, and search as I might through my bags and jackets I could not find a single Thai or UK coin with which to explain myself. I was desperate enough to attempt a footballing analogy, which, of course failed utterly. No-one seemed to have noticed that bit at the start, where before they start shouting obscenities and kicking lumps out of each other, they toss a coin. But, maybe they don’t do that any more? Possibly these days the team with the most money gets first choice? I shall try to find a coin in the course of the week and return to the fray next Sunday.
I should perhaps add that for the moment I am using Alice in Wonderland as the reading material for my class. I say “for the moment”, as I am starting to realise that it was a very bad choice. The class seem to like it…”very funny”..but although I have read it many times before I am just starting to realise how very weird it really is. I think I shall struggle to explain much of it as we delve deeper in the Rev. Dodgson’s opium induced meanderings. I shall quietly drop it when I go back to London and replace it with either The Jungle Book, or The Importance of being Earnest. I have to admit to a small but fanciful ambition to produce the first all-Lao performance of the latter. Once her English has improved a little Miss Sisaveth will make a wonderful Lady Bracknell.
Strangest events of the week this week were being asked twice in 3 days if I wished to buy opium. Never once in London have I been stopped in the street and asked if I wanted drugs, now in Luang Prabang I have been asked four times. Clearly I pass for a decent upright kind of citizen in London but here I must have the look of a decadent old druggie. The first dealer passed by without really waiting for a response; he was presumably not that optimistic about his chances of making a sale but the second was more persistent and faced with my refusal explained that he had “many other things”. If he stops me again I think I shall make polite enquiry about what he might also be selling that you cannot obtain from more orthodox suppliers. Marmite, maybe? Branston’s Pickle ? Pork Pies?
But this does raise the question in my mind of how serious a problem there is here with drugs. Teng has told me that a large proportion of young people have a serious problem with amphetamine abuse but I don’t what is else taken. Opium, I know is still used it rural areas for its traditional medicinal functions but I doubt that was I was being offered was intended for my medical welfare. Just to add one more strange note; I am only offered opium in Luang Prabang, in Vientiane I am frequently offered Viagra.
On the usual subject of my builders, a day or two back I was a little surprised by an event when I went to the bathroom to rinse out some clothes. After a few seconds I heard some noises behind me, and I saw the builder’s 7 year old daughter squatting on the toilet seat with her face to the wall, skirt lifted, bottom exposed and evidently undertaking a much needed emptying of her bowels. I have often heard about people unfamiliar with western-style toilets squatting on them but I think I must have assumed that they squatted facing out, not facing in.
At the risk of making too much of this small incident I should add that this child does cause me some general anxiety. Just as the builder has taken possession of my home, so has his family, and this child enters the house at will and takes it upon herself to explore the house and its contents whenever and however she wishes. This includes entering my bedroom, regardless of whether I am in bed or not and going through drawers and cupboards to see what the strange falang may have in them. (For the prurient reader I should explain that there is nothing there of any particular interest, with the possible exception of 2 pairs of silk boxers with a rather garish print, but they are merely an example of outstandingly bad taste rather than anything more exotic or sinister). For some reason I can’t get away from thinking that a headline “Charity Chief Welcomes 7 year old Girls into his Bedroom;” is not going to boost donations to LEOT in any major way.
Totally fed up with picking up their cigarette ends from all over the house I have posted NO SMOKING signs in Lao but I doubt that these will have much effect. I have also decreed my sitting room area to be an area outstanding natural beauty and removed all the builders’ clothes, tools, cables, timber, varnishes, brushes etc from it. One of their most annoying habits is to mix up their tools with my kitchen utensils and to regard any space at all as suitable to leave their dirty and sometimes toxic materials. I have stopped drinking tea since I noticed a distinct smell of varnish in the teabags. I have also stopped bringing fruit home, as sometimes I have bought a kilo of fruit only to discover that is gone before I had any, leaving me with just the peel and other detritus to pick up from the floor.
Not that I should pick up anything from the floor, it seems. My habit of sweeping the floor, doing my own washing up, and even worse, my own washing is certainly a topic for discussion in the village; it is evident that the Lao male does not see himself as carrying out any household chores.
I visited a Lao friend for lunch yesterday, though with temperatures in the high 30s lunch tends to be a rather Spartan affair, consisting mostly of fruit and water. I noticed that the TV which had pride of place when I visited earlier in the week, was missing. He swiftly explained that his grandfather had died and he had had to take the set to the funeral so that the guests could have a choice of what programmes to watch!
I mentioned the other week the shortage of tourists to support the local tourist industry. I was walking past Café Malaria one evening about 7pm just as the stage show was about to start. It looked really lovely with the performers on their island stage and nicely set out for maybe 180-200 people. But there were just 6 paying customers. Even at $25 a head, plus whatever they spent on drinks, they were not going to recover much of their costs for the evening, let alone start to repay some of the major capital costs involved in turning it from a malarial swamp into a very elegant establishment (known officially as Roots and Leaves).
Sorry to do this to you but I am going to end as I started a recent Letter with more bad news. Just this morning at the bottom of my village street a bus crashed into 2 young cyclists, killing one instantly, and leaving the other in hospital. I think I read a year or so back that something like 66% of all surgical beds in hospitals in the developing world are filled with victims of road traffic accidents. A chilling thought.
Alan
No comments:
Post a Comment