camaraderie.
The other teachers and I stuffing down some lunch in between building sessions on the Habitat house in Pak Chong, Thailand. The students are sitting at their own tables because, well, it would be uncool for them to sit with us now wouldn’t it? Yeah, whatever. We all know who the cool people REALLY are.
Laos.
This photo was taken from the first floor of the Lao-American College in Vientiane. I went there with a group of teachers to provide teacher training for Lao teachers of English who can’t afford to go out to the big linguistics conferences for upskilling. The LAC, who hosted the mini-conference, was really great in making us feel welcome and even provided a wonderful leaving ceremony including food and performances by the students that I will talk about for years. Working with my talented colleagues as well as the local teachers was a fantastic experience in grass roots action as that information will filter down to other teachers and also to the students.
It was the first time I’d been to Laos despite having spent lots of time in surrounding countries and I was surprised to find that Vientiane felt like some places I had been in India (except for the lack of crowds!). The fun part was that most people understand Thai so I attempted to use my rudimentary Thai to communicate with Laotians. They would then tell me what the words should be in Lao and then laugh at my attempts to switch over. That brings my number of tonal languages that I can successfully butcher and embarrass myself in up to 3, hurrah!
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