netted

Sometimes I think of my place in the world like a net, strings of connections between people and places and ideas, hovering above a great abyss. At the center, the most number of intersections. Saggy, stable, comfortable. Thats where the fish get caught.

At the edges, fewer connections hold taut. You might even think yourself in a whole new place, might think yourself divorced from that center point you once knew. The edge of the net is in tension, porous, less to hold on to. If you bounce too high, you might just fly off the side. When you're out there, its nice when a strand passes straight through, reminds you that the those two worlds you try to live in are actually just one interconnected fabric of an existence.


My esteemed friend Sam threaded his way through my life this past week, and how glorious it was. 

 

 We saw some temples of old (That Luang), some nightclubs of new (Romeo), and met a few rice farmers who, neither new nor old, persist in spite of it all.  Showing excited interest and stumbling over some Lao words as we rolled by their raised bamboo stilt shack surrounded by rice fields, I slowed the bike to a halt. They beckoned us in, and we ascended the ladder to the patio.  We blabbered away, me attempting to form coherent thoughts and corresponding speech, them thinking of the most simple way to say the most obvious things.  The rice harvest, we found out, will be beginning in a few weeks, as the rains let up and cool dry season begins. We shared some salted crackers we had brought, and they reciprocated with a freshly cut unripened papaya salad, a staple of the Lao diet.

Some of my thoughts on the Mekong are here. Love from this side.

hydro-post

Rain has been pounding the rooftops these last few days, dark skies envelop even the brightest colored temples, turning them black and white, like the old silent film they could be featured in.  Downpours have nicely coincided with my trip home from work, allowing me to observe some interesting local customs concerning rainfall.  Lao people have funny ways of staying dry. They motorbike around with umbrellas in one hand, feet tucked up into the center of the motorbike to prevent the inevitable.  Brightly colored plastic ponchos take flight like capes behind some.  Others just drive really fast, apparently subscribing to the philosophy that they can out-scooter even the wettest rain.

Buddhist lent is coming to an end, and that means boat racing here in Vientiane.  Teams are practicing rowing their brightly colored massive wooden hand-carved boats in preparation for the big day, next month.  I made my way out to a village where some friends were practicing to survey the scene.  On the shore, the whole village came out to watch the spectacle - foreign and Lao women rowing a big traditional boat up and down the Mekong.  Eating grilled river snail and canned Beer Lao, I tried to carry on conversations about the most simple things with the gaggles of village boys who showed up to the Saturday entertainment.  We had some laughs.

Also paid a visit to a funny relic called Buddha Park.  An hours drive from Vientiane in a small grass field next to the Mekong, there exists moss covered concrete giants. Images from Buddhism and Hinduism are scattered throughout the garden, with a strange onion shaped orb that can be ascended through a series of semi-functional stairwells inside.  Makes me consider that universal human desire to create - to extrude into possibility the chaotic free stuff of this world, mash it together into a semblance of a form, and aim it towards the cosmos. To erect such shadow-casting objects is to live on into the lives of those future humans who must, as they stand before the creation, wonder what was gyrating through the mind of the creator.

In the next month or so, Laos and the region will be transitioning into the cool, dry season. I am moving into a more permanent residence tomorrow with three other PiA fellows... a balcony-laden strangely partitioned abode in a nice Laos neighborhood. Time is picking up pace.  My being is no metronome these days, some days are months, some weeks are seconds. Just about (what I am told is) a month into my new life in Laos, and things make a bit more sense. Hope fall is upon you, but not literally.




Love, kyle.

dual nature

Asia, Southeast Asia, Laos... a place rife with dualities and juxtapositions. Hallowed cultures, dating back to rice empires won and lost, colonial histories still trickling through the seams of society, and a governmental focus on developing to keep up with the demanding economies of the western world. These all happen in tandem, overlapping and intertwining to make a complex fabric of interactions that is easy to get wrapped up in.

Got myself a motorbike, the standard vehicle of the masses here, a 110cc Kolao. Independent mobility is a beautiful thing. Spent the weekend driving through the outskirts of town and countryside, talking to grandmas and children and whoever will speak slowly enough and forgive my terrible tone usage. Spent a day at a 'waterfall' which was more of a few enhanced rapids where Lao families sip Beer Lao and eat sticky rice while taking a dip.



In other news, I want to dedicate this thought to the life of Nell the dog, a truly significant part of the childhood of both Eli and I. I still remember those autumn afternoons running her through her worm-hole plastic tube in our backyard, and waltzing her around our kitchen floor, arm outstretched. She certainly got us through some hard dog-woe times, and in part inspired us to get one of our own. Watching her grow old reminded me of an old wise woman, who had shared with us some secrets about life that we would never have otherwise known.