Lao Landscape and Volunteering

Well, having a free day to wander in Luong Prabang has me much more optimistic about the possibility of volunteering without having some packaged "experience" thrown at me at the same time. I managed to track down the booklet for the Stay Another Day group, which supports what it calls "destination-friendly" tourism (ways to make sure the local population benefits from the tourist traffic and doesn't get forced into losing their culture in the process). They've got a number of awesome groups in the booklet including MyLibrary, which is a resource center for people wanting to learn computer skills, English, and just about anything else, and Big Brother Mouse, which encourages literacy in Laos by distributing fun but informative books to kids and adults. Both of them always need people to stop by and practice English with locals by just sitting and chatting, and at MyLibrary I can teach people basic computer skills, too. There's also a restaurant that supports an orphanage, so when their book swap opens tomorrow I'll ask the staff if the orphanage needs any help, too. So tomorrow morning after my last pre-Christmas run to the post office, I'll be going to Big Brother Mouse to work on English practice, and from there I'll visit the other two places and see what they need, too. Yay!

So yesterday I didn't really get a chance to wax rhapsodic about the Lao landscape, but it really is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. The bus ride went through these incredibly steep mountains, so steep that the road has to do switchbacks, something usually reserved for the steepest of on-foot hiking! So as we zig-zagged up the side of each mountain we had plenty of chances to see the hills and waterfalls and jungles, as well as the villages that set up along the road. Even in the dry season, when lush emerald green has mellowed to a shade closer to yellowish-green, it still looks so teeming with life up there. There are also these things that look a little bit like Louisiana palmetto grass, but even taller. Some are twice as high as a grown man, and topped with these big silvery brushes tinged with purple. They're really beautiful...I managed to catch a couple pictures from the moving bus, so I hope they do the scene justice.

This also just so happens to be Hmong New Year, which is the time of year when all the youngsters break out their traditional brightly colored dresses (covered with jingling coins and beads), and go out looking for their future spouses. The boys, who are still school age, go visit the neighboring villages and get to know the girls by starting ball-games with them. When a boy finds a girl intriguing, they'll stand and toss a ball back and forth and chat for a while. I saw a bunch of these ball games as we drove by and didn't know what they were until Chris (who had been hiking in the Plain of Jars for the past few days and got the full lowdown from his guide) explained it. Very cool. So who knows, maybe I saw the blossoming of young romance before my very eyes and didn't even know it!