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One of the fun subjects of travel photos is taking shots of kids. Children everywhere are ingenuous and innocent, and don’t seem to mind when some strange, old foreigner sticks a camera in their face. Most of the time, I’ve found, they like to ham it up for the lens. As usual when visiting Nai and his family in Laos, I had plenty of opportunities to take some shots of all the kids in the family area–sons and daughters of Nai’s brothers and sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews, as well as assorted neighborhood children.
While I was there, a couple of the families had birthday parties for their young daughters. Some of the photos, then, are from the parties.
Here, everyone’s getting ready for one of the parties, blowing up the balloons, preparing some of the food, with the bamboo baskets filled with sticky rice.
 Laos Birthday Party Earlier, the wife of Won (Wahn), one of Nai’s brothers, prepared the sticky rice. Sticky rice is eaten with your hands, generally out of a bamboo basket, and can be dipped into a hot (spicy) sauce, or can be used to grab a handful of really hot papaya salad.
 Preparing the Sticky Rice Some of the kids chowed down on a few appetizers.
 Chowing Down on a Few Appetizers So, what exactly are they eating? Deep fried chicken feet, of course. (Never tried ‘em myself)
 Deep Fried Chicken Feet Here’s one of the birthday girls, Took, who was 8 year old, if I’m not mistaken. Notice the money wrapped around her wrists with string–birthday gifts from the people attending the party. Most of it will probably go to her parents, to help with the party expenses, but she’ll get some of it, I’m sure.
 Birthday Girl, Took Here’s Nai with his brother Guay’s (Gway) daughter.
 Nai with baby Here’s a few shots of one of Won’s kids, just a cute, adorable little guy. I’d guess he’s about 4.
 Cute Guy  Cute Young Guy Hey, let’s see what those shades look like on you. Cool!
 Cool Kid And a few more shots. Looks like somebody got banged up. Guay’s daughter with Nui, one of Nai’s sisters.
 Banged Up Nap time?
 Nap Time And finally, here’s Kim, never camera shy, the son of Nai’s sister Lot.
 Kim I’ll try to get the final photos of my trip posted soon, so, as always, more later.
Clinging precariously by my fingertips, I survived another year, but it’s just another day around here–work, work, work. No time to celebrate. However, I did buy a large cake and several boxes of candles. Now, I’m not sayin’ that I’m gettin’ old, but below is a photo of me as I’m preparing to light the candles. I’ve also got a fire extinguisher handy to forestall anything like last year’s catastrophe. Wish me luck!
Yup, I lucked out and made it to another birthday celebration. I don’t know how, but I’m thankful that I did. Unfortunately, I’m writing this from my office. Here’s what happened.
I bought a smallish cake, since I observed my big day alone (no party, because I have to work tomorrow). Unfortunately, I put a candle for each year into the cake and attempted to light them all and make the obligatory wish. I don’t know what the hell happened, but one minute I was enjoying the almost tropical heat of the candles and the next I was being dragged out of my apartment. Thank goodness the Yeosu Fire Department was on the ball. One of the other English teachers managed to capture the conflagration with his cell phone, the only thing he was able to save. (See photo below.) Luckily, only the first two floors of the dorm were gutted. They’re going to move us all to the 6th floor for now. I’ll probably not mess around with any candles next year.
Hopefully, this isn’t my last post for a while. War games involving South Korea and the United States will begin tomorrow in the Yellow Sea (West Sea to South Koreans) near the line demarcating the North and South, and Crazy Uncle Kim in the North says that this will bring the peninsula to the brink of war. The U.S. has deployed an aircraft carrier to be part of the exercise, so if the nut jobs want to start something, I’m sure they’ll have their hands full.
Hopefully, nothing will happen. Hopefully, North Korea will get an earful from its only ally, China. China has a big stake in all of this. Many analyses that I’ve read state that it can’t afford to let the North Korean regime get involved in a full-scale war for a couple of reasons. It would likely mean the collapse of the N. Korean government, which would mean that hundreds of thousands of refugees would cross the northern border into China. More dire for the Chinese is the possibility of a new pro-American government coming into power, something they certainly don’t want to see.
However, many South Koreans are calling for blood, and CNN is reporting that protests by members of the military are spreading in Seoul. The protestors are demanding that a strong response to the recent shelling is necessary.
Hopefully, the situation won’t escalate any further, and, hopefully, I’ll be posting tomorrow. After all, it’ll be my ??th birthday. 
This weekend, the capital city of Laos is marking its 450th year since its founding in 1560, when the capital was moved from Luang Prabang out of fear of Burmese invaders. There have been lots of celebrations, and when I phoned Nai on Friday night, it sounded like the party had moved to his house. He told me that a lot of the neighbors were whooping it up, and I think he had his somewhat loud TV tuned in to the goings on at the National Stadium. So, Happy Birthday, Vientiane!
Yup, I’m celebrating (?) another year. How many now? Let me think . . . ummm . . . lemme see, where the heck is that calendar . . . better figure out where I put down my glasses first . . . no, not there . . . maybe over here . . . ouch, hit my toe against the couch leg . . . ahh, there they are . . . now what the heck was I doing? . . . and where the HELL are my teeth?
Ok, not that bad. As a matter of fact, I jogged 6 miles this morning, lifted weights, did 80 situps and 100 pushups and only after THEN did I fumble around for my oxygen tank and mask. I invited a bunch of friends over to celebrate, but they said they would rather go out and have some “fun.” I took a photo of me celebrating. Here it is.
More later. (I hope)
I managed to get through another birthday last week, and my mother sent me an e-card which featured animated fireworks. Coincidentally, Yeosu held a Fireworks Festival the evening before, featuring a contest between teams from 4 countries–Korea, China, the Netherlands and France. (I don’t know who won.) Unfortunately, I had a night class to teach. Afterwards, however, I was able to see some of the higher bursts arcing above the mountain across from my apartment. Here’s one of them.
Nai has been voicing his annual complaint about how chilly it is at night in Laos (mid-fifties fahrenheit). His family doesn’t have running hot water and he says that when he takes a bucket shower “water is same-same eye.” (Most Lao people have difficulty pronouncing the “s” sound at the end of English words, so here he is saying the water is like ice.) Well, it’s about to get even colder. The weather forecast is predicting temperatures in the mid-forties next week, which is VERY cold for Laos. Luckily, it is also forecast that the low temperatures won’t last for very long. Good thing, because I’m heading there on the 14th.
I got quite paranoid about the recent problems in Thailand, with protesters closing Suvarnabhumi Airport. I was afraid it might still be shut down or closed for safety checks after the protesters abandoned their siege. So, I had my travel agent in Seoul change my itinerary. Instead of flying from Seoul to Hong Kong to Bangkok on Cathay Pacific Airlines, I’m now flying from Seoul to Hanoi, Vietnam on Vietnam Airlines and from there to Vientiane on a rickety old Laos Airline plane. Naturally, the airport authority in Thailand is now saying that the airport will reopen for normal business in just a few days. Bad timing on my part. Wish me luck.
My Transportation to Vientiane
It was Nai’s birthday a few days back, so I called to wish him Happy Birthday and to sing the birthday song to him. Did you know the B-Day song is, reportedly, the most sung song in the English language. It’s also sung in English in Korea and Laos. Anyway, Nai’s 35 and he said he’s an old man. Puh-leeeeeze. His family was having a party for him–lots of people, lots of food and BeerLao, and a birthday cake with candles. He wasn’t feeling too well, however, complaining of a headache (“my memory hurting me today”), an everyday occurrence, for the most part. I think he gets migraines, because he tells me he can’t see out of his right eye when the pain is really bad. Until I quit smoking, I used to get extremely painful migraines, and when he tells me he can’t see, it’s an exact description of what I used to go through. He experienced the same thing last year at this time, and then the headaches quit, more or less, for several months. He doesn’t smoke, so perhaps they’re triggered by cold weather at night (50-60 degrees) during the winter months.
Speaking of Laos, sort of, I found a couple more nifty blogs. One is Lao Cook, a, you guessed it, blog devoted to Lao cuisine. It’s written by a native Lao chef who is now living in Spain. Though it doesn’t appear he gives the recipes, the photos and narrative are very appealing. A couple of other good blogs, both about daily life in Laos, are Lao Meow and Lao Bumpkin.
For the first time, the Summer League players weren’t released from camp-tivity last Friday. They were a disgruntled lot, but managed to straggle into English classes, somewhat sleepy after emerging from their afternoon siestas.
They were also none too happy, most of them, about the scores they received on a short quiz I gave them last Wednesday. They did pretty badly, though some did well–but not enough. I don’t know whether this reflects on my teaching or on the difficulty of the quiz. Neither, I suspect. What it does reflect, I think, is on the motivational level of many, if not a good majority, of the players. Most of them don’t pay attention in class, and once out of class, they don’t study and they don’t use the language unless I’m talking to them on the field or in the cafeteria. There are, thankfully, a few who do care and put in a good effort. One guy told me at the end of class on Friday that his father was going to kill him if he saw his score. I told him that he had to work at it outside of class, that he had to study and use English whenever he could. He’s a great kid, very friendly and outgoing, as most of them are, but perhaps his father will provide a bit of motivation.
By the middle of next week, all the Dominican Summer League players, the ones who started camp in the middle of January, are being allowed to go home until the beginning of March, so my class sizes will be reduced substantially. The other players leave for Tampa on March 1st and will be replaced by a new crop of guys, most of whom were at the camp last summer. What a turnover, and there’s another influx-outgo around the first of April. Things don’t really settle down until then. It’s a bit of a teaching challenge, a very unique situation.
But, these guys are baseball players first, and there are some good ones here. Two stand out. I usually sit out on my balcony in the morning, writing up the afternoon’s lesson plans and watching batting practice, which takes place on the main field, with the batters facing me. One of the standouts is Reymond Nunez, who recently signed on with the team (beginning of December, I believe). He’s been crushing the ball, slamming some long, towering home runs. Another power guy is a 16-year-old try out kid, whose name I don’t know and which I probably wouldn’t be able to give you anyway, out of a sense of secrecy in case any scouts from the other clubs might stumble onto this blog (highly unlikely, but possible). He, too, has been showing some extraordinary power, especially for only being 16, matching the older Nunez with quite a few long shots of his own. Granted, it’s only batting practice and the wind is usually blowing out toward left field, but no one else is slamming the ball like these two. The Yanks need to sign the try out guy, in my humble opinion, and hope that both of them can hit a well-thrown curve ball, the bane of many a potential big leaguer.
I hope to get some more of the Montana 2007 photos posted soon, so keep checking back for information about them.
Whew! This is getting to be a long post, so I better save some for more later.
[Edited 12/12/2007--I forgot to put a subject line in this posting, so I added one on this date.]
First, thanks to everyone for the birthday greetings. I hope I’m still still posting to this blog at the same time next year.
Everyone departed from the camp today, leaving for their respective homes in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. Except for a few security guards, I’m the only one here tonight, and I’m feeling quite lonely and alone. Teaching everyday it’s easy to become friends with at least some of your students, especially if you’re living with them 24/7, so, naturally, I miss many of them already. Most of them will be returning to the camp in February, so I’ll see them soon. I said goodbye to as many of them as I could before I beat a path to the Boca Chica beach, my last visit there for a few months. Unfortunately, there are no good beaches in Santo Domingo. Perhaps I’ll have to return on a free weekend or, better, spend several days on one of the Dominican Republic’s world-class beaches of Bavaro or Punta Cana around Christmastime, a slow season, believe it or not, because many tourists stay home for the holidays.
Baseball Hall-of-Famer Reggie Jackson has been working at the camp the last few days and I caught a glimpse of him as he ran by me going to his ride to Santo Domingo. Victor Mata, whose official title eludes me, but which I’d guess to be Head of Baseball Operations at the camp and who is also one of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet, said goodbye to me this morning. He also asked if I had gotten an autographed baseball from Reggie. No, I hadn’t. He gave me one and also another signed by future Hall-of-Famer Mariano Rivera. Wow! What a couple of surprise gifts. Thanks, Victor.
Like I stated before, I’m the only one here. It sure is quiet. You can almost here the cold, lonely stars whispering their way across the heavens. The surrounding dark and mysterious forest and scrub land is silent tonight with the lack of any breeze. I often wonder why there is a large fence topped with barbed wire surrounding the complex, separating it from the encompassing countryside. Why do we need security guards? Is there something we should guard against or fear? Well, anyway, it is sure is quiet.
Whoa, what was THAT sound? Just a sec while I take a look outside . . .
Hello . . . Who’s there?
. .
What the hell is THAT?
Oh, my God . . . . . . . . . . . . !!! It’s . . . . .
It’s about time I posted another entry, since I told a number of people I would soon write about the team’s trip a few Sundays ago to the western part of the country. It was interesting, beautiful, touching, and, at times, crazy and out of control. (Here’s a brief press release about the trip and the visit to the orphanage, which I described in the previous post.)
We left the camp around 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 18th. Making the trip were all of the players, about 60 of them, some of the Dominican and visiting American coaches, Abel Guerra, Ani Sanchez (the general manager of the baseball camp), four Americans from the USAID section of the Embassy and a busload of press people. Quite a big deal.
Our destination was a small village near San Juan de la Maguana, in the western part of the Dominican Republic, close to the Haitian border, an area that would take about 5 hours to reach.
We stopped for gas just outside of Boca Chica, which didn’t sit too well with a few people. Why didn’t the drivers gas up before the trip? Abel got a bit upset when one of the coaches on the bus carrying the players let the gang off the bus to get snacks. Getting them back on took a while and was a bit like herding cats.
We stopped in Santo Domingo to pick up a few more of the coaches, and then we were off to the hinterlands, four hours away. We passed through some very beautiful country along the way, transitioning from seaside to mountains.
Below is a photo of the mountains near our final destination, countryside that is representative of much of what we passed through.
On the way, most of the several players who rode with us on the “adult bus,” as one wag put it, slept. However, they’re real camera hams, as you can tell from this shot taken after they finished snoozing.
We finally reached San Juan and the end of our journey, I thought. Nope. We still had quite a few kilometers to go, eventually traveling to the small village of El Cercado, where the food warehouse of “Food For the Poor” (FFP) is located. FFP is a religious organization (as far as I can determine) that provides food, housing and other necessities to “the poorest of the poor,” according to their website.
From Cercado, we traveled about 20 more kilometers to the small, mountainous village whose bridge to the outside world had been washed away by the flooding caused by the torrential rains of Tropical Storm Noel. Poverty-stricken in the best of times, this isolation from the rest of the country is only increasing their hardship.
At the FFP warehouse, we had been joined by a deuce-and-a-half truck loaded with large bags of rice. The team’s job was to transfer the rice to a couple of smaller trucks waiting on the other side of the small stream where the bridge had disappeared in the flood. Here’s part of the crowd that had gathered there.
The players and coaches formed a human chain and passed the food over to the other trucks.
At the time, in my mind, I questioned why the big truck couldn’t have just brought the rice to the village, rather than going through this laborious process. Part of the reason could have to do with the publicity that was generated, but the terrain at the stream crossing was fairly steep and confining, and there was another larger river farther down the road, though it was shallow and flat. Perhaps the heavily laden deuce-and-a-half would have mired in the river bed.
At any rate, the rice was transferred and brought to the distribution point just on the far side of the larger river, where it was handed out to the villagers. That sounds a lot more tranquil than the reality of the situation. The trucks were mobbed, literally almost overrun by hungry people. There was no organized system in place for giving out the food–just lug it over the side of the trucks to the outstretched hands. A few of us commented on the process and lack of organization, but I later overheard a few of the FFP honchos saying that they had tried other methods, but nothing else had worked. So, chaos ruled. At times I feared for the safety of those in the trucks and for the numerous children milling around the area, but I didn’t notice any calamities or injuries. I can barely imagine what the scene must be like in places such as Darfur, where thousands of hungry people are camped, waiting for food. Below is one scene of the chaos.
At last, all the food was gone. Many folks were pleading for more, but there was none. I hope that family, friends and neighbors helped out those who were unfortunate enough to not have received anything. This sweet, older lady got hers, though.
We arrived at the camp about 8:30 that night after an uneventful return trip. Everyone was tired but satisfied with the effort. Let’s hope, however, that efforts like this are unnecessary in the future.
Happy Birthday to me today! More later.
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