A New Adventure

                                            The Nam Khan River at twilight

From Rebecca-

We're off on a new adventure in Southwest Asia. We came here via a very circuitous route. Marquette>Traverse City>Fowlerville>Detroit>New Orleans>Cozumel, Mexico>Harvest Caye, Belize>New Orleans>Chicago>Tokyo>Bangkok (Whew!) and finally to Luang Prabang, Laos where we'll be for the next 6 weeks. 
I'll be working at the Lao Friends Hospital for Children. Mike will be wandering around the town and country- musing and making friends. Also possibly doing some volunteer teaching of English with the medical staff. 
We've been a little remiss in getting this blog up and running so for our first entry (and as a means of experimenting to make sure the darn thing works) I'll share an email that Mike sent to Quinn yesterday. (She was in South Africa with Josh.)  More to follow...


Hey Quinn. 
Yes, we’re in Laos.  It’s five-thirty in the morning here, which (I think) makes it very late night there.  I fell asleep at nine and woke just a few minutes ago—eight hours!  I’m sitting in the small, open-air common area of our guest house, having a cup of tea and listening to the roosters do their thing.  This is a lovely place. We came in low over steep, green hills and a muddy brown river.  Of course, we’ve been to Luang Prabang before, but I suppose the truth of a place has something to do with the emergence of the matrix between the beholder and that which they are experiencing.   Not that I’m going to get all Bhuddist on you or anything, but while I recognize the place, am familiar with the streets and businesses—even stopped in to say hello to the fellow who runs the guesthouse we stayed in when last here—there is something very different about my perception of the place this time.  In a good way.  
Last night we went out in search of a meal.  There was a little family-run place just a couple blocks from the guesthouse, where mom and the kids put out bowls and bowls of greens and noodles and different meats and some things too that I’m not at all sure what they were.  Customers are given a bowl and a pair of tongs and encouraged to fill it from the samples, which the girls then took and mixed up into a big salad with various sauces and spices and peanuts and sesame.  Really really good.  But, you know, kind of rustic.  There was a place to sit in an enclosed area behind their stall, and a cooler with cold beer.  One of the girls spoke English, and so she worked us through the deal.  We had a nice salad and some grilled beef with sticky rice, plus a couple big bottles of cold Beer Lao.  As we were eating, the place slowly filled with young parents, kids, and couples.  Just off the eating area was a charcoal fire and grill, where one of the girls was turning meat, and the whole place held the smell of smoke and sizzling fat. When the bill came, I did the math and realized our whole meal and drinks cost just under five dollars.  Needless to say, it’s my new favorite place!  Anyway, while we were eating, I could see a stream of folks walking past.  Our guesthouse is kind of off the beaten path, but there were some tourists who looked at the place like one might look at an exotic animal at the zoo.  Our last time here we were kind of nearing the end of a six month run in India, Southeast Asia, etc., and I suppose I was a bit worn down.  Finding the place lovely, but not feeling the love for the crush of humanity crowding the streets—of who I am one, of course!  Anyway, as I watched the people wading past, there was a bit of a shift from my usual tendency to group and catalogue: Dirty hippie, Euro trash, Chinese group following along, comfortable old white people (my people!)  I’ll note, too, how the usual tendency absolutely renders these souls not so much as individuals with unique and varied stories, but as impediment and obstacle—something around which I must navigate, or behind which I must wait before I get the things I want.  All of which very easily leads to tension and anger.  (Or road rage, which probably feels damn good when it’s being spent, but is no way for a civilized race to move forward!)  
Now, it might be the beer, or the excellent food, but something in me registered these souls for the individuality they carry.  I noticed their shoes, and wondered how they felt, or what that woman in the white dress thought when she slipped hers on before heading out for the evening. Did her husband comment on them?  The close-cropped hair on the side of a young man’s head, giving way to a mop of styled tangles up top.  Square glasses, a full sleeve tattoo, and  an almost painfully articulated expression of intellect and sophistication. What's he afraid of? An old dude with a cane (when did he find that he needed this, and is it something for which he feels shame, anger, a hopeful/distinguished air?)  Each part of the parade blended with, and became a part of the exotic temples, the monks, the palm trees, the cool French architecture, coffee, and baguettes.  
The hope and effort, of course, is in finding a way to sustain the child-like acceptance and wonder.  It’s almost always like this when one lands in a new place, be it New York, South Africa, or Luang Prabang.  And as it fades, so too does the quality of life.  Which, ultimately, is all we have.
OK.  I have been writing and drinking tea for an hour.  There is a faint light of day coming into the sky, and I want some french bread and coffee. Time to walk.  I think you are flying home today.  
Safe travels.  
I love you, Dad.