Class

I arrived at the Ed. Center Monday afternoon (sweating as usual--no kleenex, no wipes, use sleeves) and set up the chalkboard and workbooks for the folks. 5:00 p.m. and it's Noy and me and Yiasthoj (Yeh-Tawl, of course) and her son, Khorher (Koe-her with barely a whisper of an r). 5:30 p.m. and a few more children show up. Put away the workbooks and go to Plan B. Luckily, I had my trusty ukulele, so the few of us sang and attempted to do the alphabet (some do not know how to spell their names in Lao, so English seemed like a bit of a leap), but we laughed a lot and they mostly had notebooks and pens so we wrote letters, each in our own way. I had picture cards, too, so we talked about A-E and played some games with those. The next thing I knew it was 6:30 p.m., so we repeated a song or two and disbanded until--Tuesday! I now know I am teaching from 5:00-6:30 p.m., Monday-Friday. Last night several of us scrounged for chairs, learned F and G, sang and wrote and talked a bit more. There were four adults. I am hereby calling the class: English for Those from 6-60 and we'll see what happens tonight. We're supposed to be doing greetings, phone numbers and family pictures; it promises to be a full class. We'll see about moving to mats on the floor; harder to write, but much more typically Lao. As I'm sure you've guessed, furniture is scarce.

The latest typhoon from Hong Kong has graced us with its remnants. Crackling thunder and lightning all night long and lots of rain. It's good for the rice crop. Many sprinkles linger on today.
Noy and I shopped yesterday. That's not exactly accurate. I shopped and Noy carried. I now have peanut butter and jelly and bread. It was hard not to be giddy coming out of the store, but I tempered my smile knowing I'd just spent 215,000k (around $26), a good sum of money.