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Sometimes in meetings that go long, I doodle. 

Sad we won't be getting snow out here :(

Seth's Departure

Last Friday Seth left the Fast Laos team to do some long term global backpacking, and Thursday night we had a soccer game / dinner in his honor. 

Seth was our tech guy, Spikeball master and resident 'most in shape dude'. His presence will be sorely missed. 

The teams (Lao and American alike) take a group shot.

Seth was also my Insanity/ T-25 workout buddy. So not only will I miss Seth once he's gone, I'll also miss our morning workouts. Much harder to get up at 6am when no one is there to motivate you :) 

SETH GET TRAVELERS INSURANCE.

Hand washing

This sign was hung above one of the main roads near our office. 

It says 'Global Handwashing Day 15th October 2013'. And it wasn't hung up till mid November.

It's unfortunate because Laos could really use a day to learn about hand-washing. No one here really seems to do it. 

Typhoon Haiyan changed course...

Typhoon Haiyan changed it's course. Originally, metereologists stateside predicted that after causing massive devastation in the Philippines, the typhoon would hit Vietnam and Laos. One metereologist in Ann Arbor told the Washington Post that the storm would be 'one of the top five natural disasters in Laos' history'.

My dad sent emails warning me repeatedly to get water and food for the apartment before the typhoon was supposed to hit on Sunday. Friday Nick and I went to Homeideal and picked up a bunch of water, nuts, cereal bars, etc.

The sunsets over the weekend were absolutely spectacular- I don't know if that had anything to do with the weather out East, but they were very out of the ordinary.

The typhoon never hit us- we had 80o all weekend - but what happened to the Philippines was devastating. 

Anyone wanting to donate to the Philippines cause should consider the United Nations World Food Programme- it's been incredibly active over there already and they have a great rating from CharityNavigator. If you donate through http://wfpusa.org your donations are also tax deductible. 

http://wfpusa.org

Lao National Museum

After brunch at Le Banetton on Sunday, Nick and I went by the Lao National Museum. Even though it is right next door to the Lao Plaza (the hotel we lived in for a month at the beginning of our stay here), I'd never seen it open, or never had time to go in. They close for lunch at noon, and we got there around 11:20am, so it was a quick tour. 

The museum had some interesting artifacts from across the country, and some posters about Lao/ Asian history, but the most interesting part of the museum was the rooms that talked about the "American Destruction" (what we would refer to as the Vietnam War). (Please note: I am no expert on the Vietnam War. Most of what I get is from the Internet and what I've read from these museums, then tried to research independently. I'm sure there are people reading this who would like to argue points of this blog entry with me, but again, this is from what I have seen and experienced while living here, and a lot of time spent clicking around Wikipedia) (and we all know what a reliable source Wikipedia is)

As an American, visiting these exhibits in the museum feels very weird. On one hand, every victory the talk about and take pride in was a loss for the Americans, so I am tempted to be angry, or sad. But on the other hand, Laos suffered immense losses from the Vietnam War, and arguably fared worse that Vietnam did in the long run.  From the "Legacies of War" website (and verified against other websites): Laos is the most heavily bombed country per capita in history. There are still millions of unexploded bombs littering the Lao countryside, and thousands of farmers and their children have been killed or injured by them since the war ended. The U.S. does donate money to the removal of these bombs, about $9 million/ year, but it's slow going.

I knew very little about the Vietnam War before I moved here (especially compared to how much I know about WWII). What I now know about the Vietnam War makes me incredibly sad for all those who were involved in it. 

(I hope this post isn't interpreted as un-patriotic, especially on Veteran's Day- the date is a coincidence. Very proud of the men and women who defend the U.S. of A., and feel so fortunate to call America my home)

This site talks about the "Secret War in Laos": http://legaciesofwar.org/about-laos/secret-war-laos/ 

Circus

On Saturday evening we (six guys and myself) went to the Viet-Lao Circus, which was in Vientiane for a week. It was held at the Russian Circus building (which also hosts Muy Lao fighting and other sporting events), and it was incredibly awesome. 

Outside the Russian Circus there were carnival rides and stands.  One of our guys, Zach, bought a turn at the beebee guns (we finally figured out how carnival games worked), but he couldn't shoot the soda bottle with enough force. So Griffin asked if he could shoot Zach in the back with the gun. And, because this is Laos, the man running the stand had no problem with it. 

Tickets to the carnival were 40,000kip, 60,000kip and 80,000kip, so we got the top tier seats (still only about $10). Unfortunately, even top tier seats (second row) are not enough to prevent the lady sitting in the row in front of you from using her iPad to record the... entire... show. 

We didn't have incredibly high expectations for the performance, but we were so surprised by how great the acrobats and trapeze artists were! There were jump-ropers, artists on tightropes, a magician and clowns...

The trapeze artists were my favorite (even though they did their performance to a Kenny G rendition to "My Heart Will Go On"... which played twice)

All of us agreed that the worst part about the circus was the animal acts.  I don't really know how animals are treated in the American circus, but they always seem to be happy to perform and to be incredibly well-trained. This is not the case in the Viet-Lao Circus.  The circus performance included acts done by dogs, monkeys, snakes, and a horse. 

The dogs were dragged out by their front paws, which was bad enough, but the way they cowered whenever they had to perform tricks, or when the trainers came towards them... it was heart-breaking.

The snake act was kind of weird... there was a basket with two enormous snakes in it (some in the group speculated that the snakes were drugged). The entire "act" was really just the snake man wrapping the snakes around his body and running around the ring yelling like a crazy man.

The snake act became decidedly more interesting when the snake man was focusing on the second snake, failing to notice as the other snake tried to slither out of the ring to the back of the building (which was right next to where we were sitting). Nick hates snakes, and was poised with one foot on the stairs to run away from the snake if it decided to come toward the stands.

The monkey act was by far the most brutal, and the hardest to watch. The monkey trainer came out and tied his monkeys to the crates that were at the edge of the rink while he set up (about 10 feet from where we were sitting). The monkeys were agitated and one of them kept throwing himself on the gate to knock it over. Some parents were not paying attention to their kids and one of the children went towards the monkey, almost as if to pet it, until a woman sitting in the first row pulled him back.

The trainer had a loud whistle that he would blow into the monkeys' ears whenever they messed up a trick. When one of the monkeys got confused and did a trick prematurely, the trainer smacked him on the head! And when the trainer had the monkey bike around the ring on these little monkey-sized bikes, it's almost like they were trying to bike away from him, and were terrified of him chasing them.

Probably the highlight of the animal acts was the moment the angry monkey was placed on a pole that the mean trainer balanced on his nose. When the monkey got up to the top, he almost immediately started peeing ... not much got on the trainer, but enough so that I felt the monkey got a wee bit of revenge.

I just hope he wasn't punished too severely after the performance :( 

The horse was fine... almost pointless. He just ran around the ring with a performer on his back.

Despite the animal abuse, and the woman with an iPad, it was a really fun time :) 

Slack-lining over the pool

Saturdays the guys set up the slack line so it went across the pool.

Then Griffin set up two lounge chairs to make a water slide. I didn't do the slack line (balancing issues) but I did do the water slide!