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home on the mekong ~ March 9, 2003 - 4:56 p.m. okay, I'm back. no, not back in america, just back in having-money mode. trying not to let it go to my head, but oh, my it's nice not to be broke anymore. I just have to budget, which is something of an aquarian stretch for me. I hate getting paid once a month. but the good news is, I got my way when I went to the school administration and brought up the fact that now that I'm a full classroom teacher, I should be making a full classroom teacher's salary-- $500 a month, less $50 in taxes. they agreed with a minimum of fuss. halleluia. and this is something of a downside about the school, I've discovered. the thing about money. the people in charge are not teachers, they're business people. and the school is run as just one of the many businesses they own. there are things you can't know about the realities of teaching a roomful of kids unless you've been at the front of a classroom. so they're a bit tight with money. if I'd kept my mouth shut, they would have continued to pay me a sub-standard salary, in spite of the fact that I'm replacing a full-salaried teacher, and I'm just as qualified as he was. in america, that would be called discrimination. and then there's the skewed priorities. marketing is a big focus. consequently, we've got very little in the way of resources to work with, but everything *looks* really good. apparently they spent thousands of dollars on the students' christmas show. thousands of dollars. any idea how many books we could buy with that kind of money? but it all has to look good, for the parents who are paying for their students to be there. more flash and less substance. and one of the realities of that paradigm is part of the reason I was hired: I have white skin. and wealthy lao parents think their kids are getting a better english-language education if a farang is giving it to them. so strange, to live in a country where my whiteness is at the same time prized and stigmatized. but the lao teachers are enjoying the fact that I am studying the language. at lunchtime, I get together with soupanya, my lao-teaching counterpart, and he helps me learn lao. I help him with his english. and it's exciting, learning a new language, especially in a country where I get to practice it every day. I am learning quickly, although it still feels like I'm such a long way from being able to hold an actual conversation. I can ask and answer basic questions, though. what is this? this is a water bottle. is it delicious? yes, very delicious. where are you going? I'm going home. where have you been? I've been in namphou. do you like it? yes, very much. I want to eat lunch. no meat, please. I like sticky rice. and like that. the tones are hard for my western ears to distinguish, and there are sounds which it is torturous for my english-hardened palate to spit out, but I am practicing. the polite form of "yes" is the same word, with a different inflection as "you", so I suspect I often say the wrong one. last night I was walking home, and a very drunk older man started follwing me, talking in a mish-mash of lao and french and repeatedly offering me liquor until I got angry. I rarely feel threatened here, but I started to get nervous, walking down the quiet alleyway to my house with him right behind and not a soul in sight. I didn't want him to follow me all the way home, so I turned around and started walking the other way. he turned around too, and then I got mad. "you-sigh?" I demanded. "you-sigh?" I thought/hoped I was asking "where are you going?", but when I got home and looked it up, I realized I'd just been saying "where? where?", and I had to laugh. anyway, I told him to go, waved him away, and he did. I know he didn't wish me ill, but he was just way too drunk to be following me down a dark alleyway late at night. the more lao I speak, the more empowered I feel. lao people also treat you with more respect if you at least try to speak it. it separates you from the average asshole who thinks everyone on the planet should speak english. so, there's that. it's been a long time since I really tried to learn a new language, and I'm really jazzed about it. I'm remembering that I'm good at this. my living situation is, hopefully, settling down. everything has been pretty chaotic. first I was told that I was moving out of my house. then I was told that I could stay until monday. sunday night I packed all my things. then, on monday, I was told that I could stay in the house for at least another couple of weeks until they figured out where to put me. it was teacher wayne, another farang, who told me what the school didn't: that if I wanted to find rental housing of my own, I was entitled to $75 a month housing allowance. he also told me of a rental he knew of for $50 a month, and took me down there on a friend's motorbike to help me check it out. and I like it, I like it a lot. it's a traditional lao-style house, dark wood floors and woven rattan walls. two bedrooms, an airy living area with a view of the river, television, telephone, a small kitchen and a bathroom with a squat toilet. simple, lovely. room enough for me and my yoga. it's right on the mekong-- a little ways from school, but if I get a bicycle, not bad. close to namphou, where I go to use the internet and watch movies at saignam. I decided to think about it over the weekend, but I'm leaning more and more towards taking it. the landlady seems really nice. I just need to work out my housing allowance with the school. like I said, they're tight with money, but the fact is that I'm entitled, and there are people in high places who will back me up. oh, and if you're wondering about all these US$ amounts... large money transactions in lao are generally conducted in either US dollars or Thai baht. there are about 10,500 lao kip to one US dollar, and most of the bills in circulation are 5,000 kip bills. so when you change US dollars, you generally get a couple of inches of kip. unwieldy. so people here move fluidly between kip, baht, and dollars. we get paid in dollars, and rent is paid in dollars as well. anyway, there's no school tomorrow-- we get a holiday for international women's day-- but on tuesday I'll get it all figured out. then maybe on wednesday I can move, and start settling into home all over again.
(((rings))) |