One of the lovely things about being here is that nothing….nothing ,happens. This is fine until I sit down to tell you about my week. On Sunday a friend took me out on his bike to see his rice fields. Ok, that’s all for this week, see you again in a week’s time.
But maybe you want to know about the meat lady? Or the mysterious 5.45am delivery person?
The former is really a butcher on a bike. I have not worked out her timetable yet, but once or twice a week she comes round the village with meat in a sort of sidecar, the side of which doubles up as a cutting board. The meat looks good, though given the apparent absence of anything to keep it chilled, one assumes that by, say 2pm, the meat is at least as active as when it formed part of a water buffalo or whatever. I am sure the “cutting board”, open to all the elements, also adds that little bit of something extra. As for the early morning delivery, given that I have not yet achieved my objective of getting up early and going for a run before it gets too hot, and before the villagers can have a good laugh at my expense, I have still not met this person. He/she does not come every morning, but several times a week I hear the sound of the bike and the horn going “ponk,ponk” as it makes its rounds. I wonder what is on offer at that time of day?
I have visited my friend, the “temporary monk” a few times; it appears he signed up for 2 weeks, not 3 days as I reported earlier. With delicious irony for such an aesthete he has been put in charge of the toilets. The duties appear to be two-fold. One is to clean them, and the other is to chase out the young novices who use them for places of illicit pleasure….eating between meals! I asked what I could take him and his many room mates that was both permissible and useful and he asked for ice….so I staggered across the road from the corner shop under as many bags of the stuff as I could manage
The living and social conditions there are really pretty dire; the monastic life looks gentle and elegant but there are aspect s of it that come across just as plain tawdry (The other thing he asked for was anti-mosquito spray; his room was infested with them, with no fan or any other facility to get relief from them) Things are not helped by an apparent boom in the number of novices seeking to enter the temple. This is unlikely to be as a result of increased piety; more to do with increased poverty as the global economic downturn eventually reaches down to the lowest and poorest. Having visited that temple three years ago when one of our students was firstly a novice, then a monk, I would say that the room which once held 4 in adequate comfort was now home to 10 or 12, who really were laid out on the floor like so many sardines in a tin. Numbers may also be affecting food supplies; yesterday there had been no food for lunch, so growing lads of 13 and 14, amongst others had no food for 24 hours. I had arrived too late in the day to be able to offer them food, but in any event it is beyond my means to lunch 170 people, however modestly. And you read this stuff to be cheered up?
Curiously, as I was writing this a text arrived (the temples do not restrict the use of mobile phones, nor for that matter, cigarettes; presumably Buddha’s teachings have little to say on either subject); “sabaide Alan thankyou for you have faith with novice”. I don’t quite understand it but will take it as saying, “thanks for the ice, but its now all gone, any chance of some more?”
My own modest life style continues to improve however. This week I finally worked out how to get Radio 4 and the BBC World service on my Netbook. It is also one of the wonders of the age that I can get Radio Brighton and listen to ball-by-ball commentary on all Sussex cricket matches. I would be intrigued to know how many others are sad enough to be listening to the wonderfully amateurish commentary with the apparently rather basic technical support that Radio Brighton offers. (5? 6? maybe 7?) But, however basic, I am delighted that I can receive it 5500 miles away.
Also, this week saw the installation of anti mosquito screens on the front and balcony doors which will enable a free flow of air (not that there is any today) without letting the little blighters in. A friend keeps raiding his aunt’s house for plants for me, so with those and some paintings that I have been given, the house is looking very cheerful. (Although an old lady...there I go again...4 years older than me !...said it looked fine and that I just had to get rid of the plants and the bookcases to make it perfect.) In fact, a friend has built me an additional bookshelf to accommodate the extra books I brought out this time (including Wisden Cricketer’s Annual, 2010, a biography of Michael foot, some PG Wodehouse, The Catcher in the Rye and Homer’s Odyssey). However, this has clearly given him proprietorial rights to re-arrange the collection a couple of times a week. At the moment it appears to be arranged on the basis hardback/softback and then on size. (So, Dominik, I note that your Roots now sits between Cold Comfort Farm and Michael Foot, just one removed from the Autobiography of Frankie Dettori.)
A couple of you have referred to the rather odd American guy with homespun wisdom whom I mentioned last week. It set me to ponder whether I also could sum up a whole philosophy of life so simply. And I realised that I can; “you can never have too many towels”.
The dog has just popped in rather optimistically at 4pm; maybe he has heard of the falangs’ taste for afternoon tea and biscuits. He is officially called something like Njim-Njom, but I have given him the name of a UK acquaintance who is prone to pop in for a free drink or 4. Today he is the beneficiary of half of a 2 day old baguette, which has most of the characteristics of a bone, being rock hard. He seems very content and is clearly not going to allow any other dog near it.
I have resumed my Lao lessons, with a rather more demanding, and so far, more reliable teacher. He would be content to give me a lesson everyday, but at an age when you forget more than you learn, being taught makes my head hurt, so I have limited his appearances to twice a week...on wonchan and wonaphat.
I don’t know if eating too many pineapples can be bad for you. If, so I must be careful. We are at the height of the pineapple season, and as well as being cheap they are absolutely delicious. Whilst on the subject of food, we tried pancakes again. This time the results were better in that they did not all have to be thrown away, but they still bore little resemblance to pancakes; crepes, they most certainly were not. They were about half an inch thick and 2 of them could have fed a regiment of the Lao army for 3 days, if they have vehicles large and strong enough to carry them. But I have a trick up my sleeve; I brought out some Sainbsury’s (yes, not Boots) pancake mix and next time around we shall see whether that does the trick. I brought out 4 cookery books but they have not proved very useful as I can’t match up the ingredients with what appear to be available here. Maybe there is a Freemasonry that I have yet to be admitted into. Certainly no tuk-tuk driver has said to me, “Mister, you want chick peas? I have lovely red wine vinegar , you want bouquet garni?..boomboom”.
In an earlier life I was a student of state of British Politics between 1964 and 1970. Now that I have the time for such activity I have become a Wikipedia anorak, adding paragraphs and footnotes here and there to biographies and events of that period. With no publisher to please, nor deadline to meet, it is a delicious and enjoyable activity. Well, yes it may seem sad, but with only 4 miles of track in the country, it would be hard for me to become a train spotter, so Wiki will have to do instead. And, of course that period covered Britain’s rather unhappy support from the US war in Vietnam and the “secret war” in Laos that we knew nothing about, but then the US Congress did not know either. So, it’s quite interesting to revisit the debates and personalities of that time from a different perspective.
Finally, some housekeeping. You have all received at least one, and in some cases 2 or 3 invitations to subscribe (er, no..that does not mean pay)to the Blog letterfromlaos. If you wish to keep receiving these trivial thoughts from afar, you can do so in one of the following ways. If it’s raining, and there is only and football or soaps to watch on the TV, just go to www.leot.org.uk click on Who We Are and you may find that a new Letter has appeared, which can be accessed by the extraordinarily sophisticated device of clicking on a box that says “Alan’s Blog”. Or even more spectacularly, you can be informed that a new Letter has invaded the ether. For that to happen, you first of all need to go to
http://letterfromlaos.blogsptot.com/ or so I am assured...and hey! If can do it, anyone can do it.
Best wishes
A
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