Lights out...

Yes, power cut this week, followed next day by no water. The former was the more annoying as it was a very localised failure, and buildings across the lane were unaffected. The reason that was so annoying is that it meant I was powerless  (no pun intended) to drown out the sounds of the Teachers' party taking place on the school field. The previous week, the kids had one day's education, last week it was right up to 3.5 days. Thursday afternoon was 'grass cutting day', when the kids hack at the grass with machettes for 2.5 hours, and Friday was, for reasons which escape me an all day party for staff; they had had the previous Friday off for Teachers Day, but I suppose this was a Loy Krathong Party. The noise started at 9am and continued without a break until 8pm.
I  will have to explore if there is a way to add 'music' to this blog, so that you can all enjoy/endure the sounds of a Lao singer at work.
Which reminds me; I must apologise for some missing sentences in recent blogs. I have no idea how or why this occurs, but it seems to happen when I add a photo. But none of you has complained about that, whereas someone has complained about my ignorance of sun dials and that I have mis-aligned mine.  All I will say is that Lao time operates on  no known scientific principles.

 The boat racing is done and dusted for this year. I did not get the dates wrong, merely the locations. I had no idea there were 2 events taking place simultaneously, one in Luang Prabang on the Mekong and a village event, taking place on the Nam Khan; I opted for the latter. This is a funny old country........  the more the government encourages xenophobia  and fear of foreigners (excepting the Chinese, who are kindly looking after our forests for us by chopping them down), the more exotic we become. At the boat races I felt  like an old colonial governor in the last days of the Raj. There was no seating or shelter of any kind, but on my arrival 2 chairs were produced from nowhere, a box (see photo) overturned to make a table   (3 pages torn from an exercise book formed the table cloth) and a sun shelter made ready.

Yes, it's not like the Royal Box at Wimbledon, but  it served me nicely...and obviously my security and welfare were also important concerns.

 

I was not the only falang there this time; there was a group who must have been from an organisation called something like the Obese Falang Photographic Society. The only things larger than their cameras were their stomachs and bums.They were amazingly uniform in their size and shape...the sort you dread sitting next to you on a 12 hr flight. I was assured by my Lao friend that the reason for their being so overweight is that they eat bread....so now you know.

Back briefly to my village school; today they have bulldozers out levelling the school field; great; that badly needs doing to make playing  sports safe there  Wrong. It is to build a road and  car and motorbike park for parents, teachers and visitors so that they don't have the inconvenience of having to leave their vehicles and walk 60 metres across the field. Money well spent?

I was going to include photo of the silent  monk pouring over his English Grammar in my sitting room.But I was told a little story about him, and discretion suggests I should not both tell the story and identify him. One Lao visitor, seeing him there, signalled that he needed a quiet word with me."Alan; he is a ladyboy...everyone knows that". Well, not everyone it seems! I assume that he is not transgendered, although that might explain his preference for my shower, rather than a more public facility. I have  no issues about this news, but am intrigued as to the views of the temple about the possibility of transgender monks. Somehow I suspect that they might not be wholly sympathetic?

We have had a few English-type showers here; but nothing resembling tropical storms. The cloud cover is taking longer to lift in the mornings so that mornings are cool until the sun breaks through about 10 am.Afternoon temperatures are still in mid 30s. Some of the kids have started going to school in fleeces and jackets, which seems a little premature, but I guess by now there are some poor village kids feeling the cold up in the mountains.

The weather has been kind to my plants as you can see

and the orchids continue  throw out more and more shoots.

On the cultural front I have been reading Tacitus' Annals of Imperial Rome and listening to the Bonzo Dog Doohy Dah Band. The latter is more popular with the locals, especially 'On Jollity Farm',of which there is a version on U-Tube. As for Tacitus, you should read what he says about you Christians ! In the course of one paragraph he manages to call you 'notoriously depraved', anti social and guilty. It also seems that one major problem the Emperor had to deal with was riots between supporters of different ballet companies. I can just imagine the same thing happening in the UK today with the rather grand supporters of the Royal Ballet taking on the more plebeian Sadlers Wells  company.

Making mobile phone calls just got harder. One of the major companies has had it all lines blocked for the crime of undercutting the fixed price scheme recently announced by the government. Presumably in return for a generous gift, the government has agreed to prop up the more inefficient companies by keeping prices high and not allowing price competition.

I am up country for a few days, but should be back in time to resume the monologue next week.

Alan