Vale Heather Chapman

Heather Chapman

19/01/1961 - 29/08/2015

A woman with a boundless passion 

for life and fine dining.

You taught us how to do star jumps and squats 

and about living life to the full.

We will miss you greatly H.

LAO PEOPLE DONT KNOW WHAT MC DONALDS IS!!!

Thats all in this post.
I just thought it was so exciting that McDonalds has not hit the streets in this country!!!

I've been told there may be a Starbucks in the capital, but that's the only chain here!

A sign of the times

Signs, signs, everywhere a sign....

Probably my favourite sign.  

This little lady gets out and about.

Here she is again

Lao people are basically quite modest.  

They are asking is that visitors respect this.

My local temple Wat Vision

I love the signs at the temples.  Some are in English as well

This one is pointing out something along the lines of 

 if we work as a team (village) 

we will achieve more.

A very sobering sign.  

These are the most commonly treated children conditions.

The road I'm living in. 

Imagine having to write out your address!

And of course we have ice cream

Mid Summer Murders Comes to Laos

Mid-Summer Murders Comes to Laos 

I help a young man named Leng practice English.  He is very enthusiastic so I greatly enjoy the time we spend together. 

You Tube is being used as a great resource for those wanting to learn a language.  For example, if you're learning English you can choose stories that are at you level of comprehension.

As well as slowly and clearly reading you the story,  the words are written for you to follow as you go.  You can even decide how fast the story will be read depending on your level of understanding. Sounds great, so we listened to part of the story he has been following.

This was like a script straight out of Mid Summer Murders:
 Janie lives at home in the manor house with her wealthy mother, Mary, who dominates her life.  She has never married.   Her younger sister Dianne lives in London.  Dianne wants to be a singer, is always off having fun and never has any money.  She is forever asking for and being given money by her mother.  There is also a son Roger. 

Mary has called the family together this weekend because she has something very important to tell them.  It is Friday night and the three siblings have arrived,  (Dianne of course has had to borrow the train fare).  There appears to be intense sibling rivalry (of course), but neither Janie, Dianne nor Roger are aware of the purpose for the meeting.   Mary is to reveal all on Saturday Evening.

After a “testy” Friday evening, everyone goes to bed.  

In the morning all the siblings are in the kitchen.  Dianne takes a cup of coffee up to her mother and returns to the kitchen, ashen faced.  “I think Mummy is dead”.


The usual Mid-Summer script ensues.  Typical greedy, dysfunctional upper class English family with a skeleton in the closet.

Leng had to listen to many hours of this before the culprit was revealed....and he loved it. Listening to it improved his English comprehension and then telling me the story the next day added to his spoken ability.

We had a ball.  Each day when we got together to practice English, he had to tell me the latest instalment.  He was so caught up in the soap opera, but also saw the absurdity of it.  We laughed and laughed over, “Did Jaynie really say that?” and “What did he do next”. Etc etc.  

I asked “do you have families like that in Laos?  He thought  there probably were amongst the “rich and famous”, as he could certainly relate to this.  I think normal people would be too hard at work to have time to behave so self indulgently.         

Malaria is alive and well and living in Laos

I need to debrief.  I have to write and tell people about this, because it just amazes me. Sometimes I feel so naive and privileged.

The other morning I had arranged to meet Kaipo, one of the young novices I’d met, to take him to a class at My Library.  He wants to improve his English.  He didn't show up - that's OK.

A few hours later I was at his monastery because I'm helping another novice with English.  Kaipo walks out to meet me, apologetic that he didn't meet as planned.  He has a drip in his arm and is holding up an IV bag above his head with the other arm. (No IV pole available of course).

He has malaria. In Australia, he would be in hospital.  Not here.  He remains in the novice quarters of the monastery.  His monastery has one monk and 15 other novices who are basically all teenage boys.   Thankfully, his father and brother have come to stay to care for him until he is well.

A nurse arrives a few times a day to give him the IV antibiotics. I was taught in nursing that if you get a lot of air in an IV line you can die.  For the boys it's just "another day in Laos".

People routinely die of malaria here.  I gather it is usually people in the more remote areas who may not have the money  and/or can't get to a hospital.  No doubt he is lucky because he is in town and the monastery will pay for his antibiotics.  

People here live with so little.  I feel outraged that "this shouldn't be happening in the 21st century."

@ My Library

@ My Library

We all need to find out more about @ My Library.  It has such a great feel.  

Check out the website:    http://www.thelanguageproject.org/

If you want to donate to something worthwhile, this could be it.

Set up and run by a lovely American, Carol, this is a place where young Lao people can come to  learn English.  But it's much more than learning English. You can follow your interests, be it science  experiments, learning to make videos, doing challenging puzzles, research on the net or much more.

Downstairs has many computers, mostly connected to the internet.  People can play educational games or do learning on line, they can listen to English being spoken.

8.30 - 9.30 am is when Carol and Ly Ly run an English class.  There are anything between about 12 and 24 students of different levels.  There is very sound learning going on here, but it is so much fun.  And the students are eager, they don't muck around in class.  Students are mainly boys, including 7 or more novice monks.

Currently it is school holidays in Lao, so the numbers average 100 students a day.  When school goes back, the numbers are closer to 80.

Have a look at @My Libray on You Tube.  Some of the students videos have been posted.  They are very well done for new students of media.  And you learn more about life in Laos.

MONKS 101

It’s a Monks life.

Sometimes I wonder if I have an abnormal fascination with monks.  You could also read that as an “unhealthy” fascination:  for some reason I love taking photos of their washing.  Yes, believe it or not, monks do need to do their own washing and you see saffron robes hanging over a line or balustrade to dry.  And every time I see that, I just have to take a photo!

When I was a little kid, it was the same with nuns.  Back in those days they wore black habits and wimples that covered all of them except their face and hands. Maybe because I wasn’t Catholic, they seemed like these strange, mysterious, unapproachable beings who certainly weren’t like the rest of us.  I’m sure they never needed to go to the toilet or phone Telstra to sort out the convents phone bill. 

So here I am in Laos and seeing monks and novices on a daily basis, and I even talk to them as well…. And don’t feel uncomfortable about it.

After just over 2 weeks in the country, this is the way it seems to me and I acknowledge that I may have it wrong.

Luang Prabang has a million temples (called Wats).  I believe that virtually each block is referred to as a village (Ban in Lao).  And each village has it’s own temple with monks and novices who live within the temple grounds.

It feels special to me to be living in Ban Visoun.  Named for Wat Visoun which is just around the corner and is the oldest temple in town.  The boat races are coming up in September and this is a very big thing.  Village teams come from huge distances to participate.    I see “our” Ban Visoun boys out in the rain in their iridescent orange t-shirts, making their paddles and heading off to the river to train.  I’m going to be there on the banks of the Nam Khan River come September 12^th cheering them on. 

Even the temple cats and dogs turn up for prayers and wander amongst the Buddha’s or attend to their toilet.

  

But I digress, back to monks and novices.   I’ve been doing a bit of reading.  We, from “Christian” countries like Australia can’t compare our holy orders with monasteries in countries like Lao and Thailand.  I used to say that there must be something right about a country where instead of sending their young men off to military service, it is more expected that boys and men will spend some time in the monastery. 

Lao is a very poor country and possibly the main reason why a boy might enter a monastery is due to that poverty.    Many parents cannot afford to educate their children.  If you go into a monastery, you will be educated for free.  For families in the countryside it may not be possible to grow enough food to feed your whole family so sending a boy to a monastery ensures they will have enough food and a good education.  Many boys travel far from home at a young age to go into the monastery and may rarely have the money for the fare to go home to see their family.  I have met a young many who would happily have stayed in the monastery as he loved learning, but had to leave as his family needed him to help at home and earn money to support the family.  Family is the most important thing.  I also read Phra Peter Pannapadipo’s   book “Little Angels”. He tells the stories of boys who have been orphaned who had no family who could support them becoming monks.  And children who had experienced terrible abuse entering monasteries.   The point to be made here is that it appears that boys don’t necessarily become a novice because they have a religious calling.  For many it is a more practical decision.

Novices at Wat Visoun.   

You might live in the biggest house in the street, 

but you’ve still got to do the garden.

Men and boys can go into and out of the monastery easily.  It is not a huge deal.

By the time a novice monks turns 20 he is expected to decide whether he wants to be ordained as a monk or disrobe and go back to secular society. 

Something I am coming to realise is that monks, novices and monasteries are a reflection of the outside world.  Some are extremely conscientious and devout and studious etc and some are not. 

One of the delightful things I have learnt is that novice monks are basically just boys from about the age of 8 to almost 20.  They may have similar interests and behaviours as other boys their age.  They have about 10 precepts they are to follow which compares favourably to the monks 273.  They are meant to be calm and dignified at all times, but sometimes football calls and I gather it can depend on the Abbot how much of a blind eye is turned to these “typical” boyhood pursuits.  Novices are not meant to eat after their 11.30 lunch, until breakfast the next morning. This can be extremely hard (and possibly not good for) growing boys and I gather this is one of the more difficult precepts for many boys.  Like other kids, many have mobile phones and this week, a novice asked me if was on Facebook so I could send him some English language tasks. 

I have met a number of young men who speak very fondly of their time in the monastery.  You’re never short of someone to play with.

In a town like Luang Prabang, novice monks are part of every day life.  They are on the streets and go to My Library whose morning class I have been going to for the last 2 weeks.   Some of them walk for an hour to get to class.  They aren’t a curiosity or treated differently.  Most of the students are boys and they participate the same as the others.  One of the novices in class wants to be a film director and another is going to study to be a tour guide.  This is their plan for after they leave the monastery.  

As a female, I am aware that I am not meant to touch a monk.   If I want to hand a book to a novice, I put it on the table and they pick it up.  Last time I was here, I was aware that monks are not meant to look females in the eye, but that rule seems to have been relaxed.   

One of the lovely things about being in a town like this is that each day at 6pm it is time for evening prayers at any of the temples.  This is where the monks and novices sit in the temple and chant for about ½ an hour.  Any one who wants is welcome to sit in the temple.  It is beautiful and means that I sit still and try to meditate.  Last week at one temple, three gorgeous young French girls were sitting at the back.  I think one is here teaching English.  The young monk who was to lead the prayers was flirting outrageously with her.  He was doing that in front of his 14 novices and 6 elderly women of his congregation and no one seemed to think it at all odd except me.  I don’t think it odd that a young man was flirting with these gorgeous young women, what I felt was odd was that he was doing it so blatantly, via the microphone in his hand, and in front of his novices and congregation.

So.... that is "Lao Monks according to Marg".  Will be interesting to look back on this in the future and see if my views change.

Certainly worth reading.  Phra Peter

Pannapadipo is an English man who

became a monk in Thailand at the age

of 44.