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.