June 5th

Sunday was a rather simply day.  I woke up and walked into the living room to find Somlath sitting at the computer.  Since I wasnt able to check my email I walked around the house and found Chanthas brother high up on a home made scaffolding painting the house.  I talked with him for a while and asked if I could help he said there was nothing I could do.  I saw some of the students who live at Chantha's sister, LingLing's, house sitting outside.  I walked over a bugged them for a few hours.  We talked and one of them made the spiciest papaya salad I have ever eaten.  I learned that all there are Natural Science majors (that may have been the hardest thing I have ever tried to translate) and all are 21 yrs old.  They were nice for talking to me in my broken Lao they didn't speak almost any English.  At this time it was about 12:30 and maybe 90 degrees.  Tom got home from a long breakfast/trip to the library shortly there after and LingLing decided to walk over.  I let her and Tom play the car racing game as I drove to get some Pho.  I picked up my pho and got back as I saw a cloud on the horizon.  I walked up to Chantha's moms house to buy a coke and by the time I got there a monsoon had hit so hard that the rain was coming down slanted and it wouldnt let up for the next 3 hours.  I scurried home the best I could and got completely soaked.  LingLing seemed to be super hyper so we played a version of pingpong without a table it was a good time.  I decided then would be a good time to watch a movie and she had picked out Gullivers Travels.  She put some headphones on and kept yelling at me "Pasa Thai"  meaning she wanted to watch the movie in Thai not english. I kept yelling back ok I understand stop saying that.  About 35 times later the movie started...in Thai and she was quiet.  We made it about 10 minutes before her mom came over and took her home.  Dinner was with Brad and Yoxa a couple from Boulder who volunteers on a village science project in the back room of the library.  We see them almost everyday and they are probably the best falang friends we have.  We had decided awhile back to have a taco night.  There was some trouble with the ingredients so it was changed to a pasta night.  Tom and I added nothing to the cooking but we did bring some garlic bread.  Dinner was great home made pasta and sauce with a beer and a salad with Caesar dressing.  With the music of journey on in the background I hadnt felt so much like I was in America for a long time.  The conversation lasted for a few hours.  Overall it was a good night.  It is times like this where I can see how people who move to other countries can be so insular with the other people from their country.  To have a meal where only english was spoken and people talked about places america, and movies and actors, really made Laos feel like home.