Again lurching forward

I’m back. In fact, I’m back to Luang Prabang after more than two years. I’m surprised that people remember me and that I still see my books around. I dreaded coming back to deal with the accounts because on the last visit, a school director practically threatened me when I tried to collect. I’m trying to swallow the losses and move on.

It’s been a good week, but I’m not sure if portals are opening or if it’s yet another revolving door that dumps be back out in the cold. I’m led to believe that I have the green light to introduce English programs at the University of Health Sciences, the Provincial Hospital, the largest high school in the city and the University at Luang Prabang.

They don’t flinch when I mention books. (Maybe they’ve had two years to look over them and people practically reach out to grab when they see the digital files. It’s the combination that I’m betting on. Digital files will cover the problems of resources, lesson planning, teaching training, testing … or sort of.

And I’m still introducing sign language. It didn’t fly that well with high schools students, but their teachers loved it. At one point I realized that teachers thought that every time I moved my hands they were actual signs and I could see people imitating them, So now they may think they know sign language for, “You know, anyway, of course.” I still love the magic of sign language. It makes people smile. 

Books everywhere

One image that moves me to tears is to see so many people reading. The number of newspapers has exploded and judging by the pictures of Aung San Su Kyi on all of them, I figure censorship has been lifted. There are blocks and blocks where vendors set out their books for sale on the streets and I can see men, women, older people and children all looking them over. Most are used and under $2. It’s not like they’re interested because the most recent best seller is out, they must be interested because they’re in the habit of reading anything and feel starved if they don’t have enough. C’mon Laos.

Shwedagon

It’d been waiting for decades to go to Myanmar. I told myself that if the country were to ever decide that draconian nastiness is not the way to make international friends and if Aung San Su Kyi were released, I’d go. Many others seem to think the same. The timing is right. Yangon was rapturous. 

Go get money from the Gates

I’m surprised at how many times people suggest that I go get money from the Gates. They have created a benevolent image so convincing that people think it’s just a matter of giving them a call. “Hey Bill, can I hit you up for some cash?”

Their new interactive exhibition space across from the Space Needle has created stir. Of course it’s beautiful and dutifully digital. There are some weighted buckets that help you imagine what it’s like to carry your daily water from the well. Statistics are mounted big-size so the impacts are more dramatic.  

The irony for me is that no amount of statistics or interactive lessons are going make the problems of development hit home while walking through a gorgeous Seattle exhibition space. They put photos of world toilets on the stalls, but they could have gone the whole mile with squat toilets, no toilet paper and mosquitoes. Instead of all that environmentally sustainable polished wood, they could have made a wall of slivers or simply named the video room, “The Room of Guilt”. OK, but that’s just being me. 

Happy New Year 2012

The year begins with a deep freeze in Seattle. Cars skid off the road, wires drop, snow melts and freezes back into tectonic plates. It’s beautiful and a finger-wagging reminder of how vulnerable we are.

I don’t have to be reminded. The floes of possibilities and disappointments in Laos can’t be predicted. Sometimes it’s just a wet foot, punching into a thin patch of ice, but at other times it’s like looking out onto a sudden expanse of open desolate water. There is nowhere to go and I get a deep chill thinking about the whole sheet under my feet cracking and melting away. That would be a cold plunge.