laos, you are beautiful.
As I try to piece together my thoughts and process the past month spent in Laos, I realize my words and photos below cannot fully do this country justice. Nevertheless, I can’t begin to describe how excited I am to share with you what I have seen in this beautiful country and its beautiful people.
As our plane descended into the country, our teams were greeted by an outline of distant mountains and the flow of endless water from the Mekong River. During our day and a half of orientation, I didn’t expect to be in such a quiet and sleepy city, but maybe town is a better description — the façades of old buildings bring you back to French colonial times and the pace of life is much slower compared to Thailand, the previous country we were in, and even back home in Toronto. Yet, I was quite surprised to discover that Laos is considered as one of the world’s Least Developing Countries (LDC).
I was asked by a fellow like-minded friend to describe my first impression of Laos in one word and I chose familiar. Familiar in food, familiar in mannerisms, familiar in language, and familiar in surroundings. Life is peaceful here, although there were times where I did not know what to make of the lack of busyness that I was accustomed to in cities I had visited before such as Hong Kong, Beijing, Taipei and Tokyo.
Orientation consisted of learning about Lao culture and the language. Sa-bai-dee means Hello and Khob Chai means Thank You. We learned how to say the numbers 1–10 and also phrases that would be useful in transportation such as Tao Dai, which means How Much? Most of us became comfortable with this phrase early on from the many tuk tuk rides we had to take during our time here.
After orientation, our two teams flew to our respective cities in Laos. My team began to teach English at a school called Master7 (set up by a like-minded business man) that offered an after school program for local students wanting to learn the language, with students ranging from different ages as well as levels of English. We taught on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 5–6pm and 6–7pm. I taught during the last hour and my class was the smallest in terms of the number of students. Their ages ranged from 9–14 and were less proficient in English compared to others. As someone who had never taught before, I went into my first day of class thinking that no amount of training could have prepared me for this.
I would not have been able to teach any of my classes without the help of our fellow Lao nationals, who would help us translate everything we say so that our students could understand. Some had a grasp on basic English words and phrases but because they were accustomed to their lessons being taught in Lao, our role was to mainly help them grow in confidence and help improve their conversational skills. Our hope for the students was for them to take away at least one thing new that they learned from each lesson and if not, that they at least enjoyed coming to class and had fun.
A story that I had been wanting to share with everyone and will always remember during my time in Laos was right after I had taught my first official lesson. Krintan, the Lao teacher who helped translate everything I said to the class and vice versa, told me that one of my students, Lar, asked him to translate a phrase from Lao to English for me. She was not able to say it to me directly but Krintan wrote on the whiteboard, “I am so happy to study with you, Teacher Krystal.” Coming into Laos, I kept telling myself that there were so many others who were more capable than me and I even questioned my own abilities. I remember spending that night reflecting on my students and for the rest of the month, I could see my students grow in confidence and in their eagerness to learn — and along the way, so did my own heart and mind.
Time was also spent with our Lao teachers and students outside of the classroom setting. On Valentine’s Day, Master7 hosted an evening filled with games while getting covered in heart-shaped stickers and participating in jam sessions to end the night. On Rachel’s (one of our team members) birthday, we got together and hosted a movie night at the school. It was very fitting that we ended the night with a time of singing together, with See You Again set as our farewell song.
I was wrong when I thought that it was truly our last time seeing our Lao friends. On the last night of our team’s time in Laos, Rachel and I decided to head to Master7 to possibly see the teachers and students one last time. The expensive tuk tuk ride, extra 35 minute walk and 1.5 hour long meeting that the teachers had to attend turned out to be such a worthwhile time that we got to spend with them. Throughout all the mishaps, we were able to eat dinner one last time together. I sincerely believe that whatever the future may hold, we will cross paths with each other someday.
When we weren’t teaching, the rest of our time was spent doing various things — exploring the city together as a team; meeting with the city’s long-term teachers and having lunch or dinner with them; connecting with the teachers’ university students whether it was by watching movies, eating Lao hot pot together or dancing to Zumba near the Mekong River in public; and lending a hand to a new and local business called Urban Cotton that is set to open very soon.
Earlier on in the month, our team spent a day visiting the COPE Visitor Centre to give us an insight into the suffering of the Lao people that resulted from the Vietnam War. COPE is a locally run non-profit that provides rehabilitation service for Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) survivors and other people with disabilities across the country. UXOs are essentially “explosive weapons that failed to detonate when they were fired, dropped, launched or projected, and still pose a risk of exploding”. To this day, there are a range of UXOs contaminating the countryside, including large bombs, rockets, grenades etc. The exhibit aims to share the history of America’s role with UXO in Laos, stories from survivors and information on the important services provided by COPE. To read more about the “secret war”, please click here. As one of my team members so eloquently put it, “Lao people are resourceful. They are resilient. They are humble”.
It was surreal being in a country that is still living its history. I am still unsure of how to put all my thoughts down into words but what I know is that I am truly so grateful to have spent quite a few sweaty and at times exhausting but nonetheless, unforgettable days in Laos with my team. Thank you coffee lady, for pulling out a little stool for me to sit on while you made my iced coffee; thank you long-term teachers, for sharing your experiences and wisdom with us and inviting our team into your homes; thank you students, for your eagerness to study and learn English with me; thank you Lao teachers, for partnering with us and making our time in the classroom enjoyable; and thank you people of Laos, for welcoming our team with wide smiles, open arms and showing us endless grace.
Life in Laos was slow but it was exactly where I wanted and needed to be.
Lifting Requests: Looking Forward
- For those that have let me into their lives: To keep in contact with the people that I have connected with and to continue to grow in my relationships with them.
- For those that are serving long-term: To continue to lead their lives living and teaching in Laos with strength, patience, joy and kindness.
- For those that are weak: To be renewed in health so that our teams may serve to the best of our abilities in where we are now.
Thank you to each and every one of you who have supported me and thought of me for the past 1.5 months. There will be more frequent updates to come during my time here in Vietnam!
