A series of random things that have happened in my house.
My house. I spend more time here than just about anywhere else. It is where I cook, sleep, read, clean, lesson plan, and kill giant spiders. Its living room contains a small bookshelf we’ve dubbed “The Falang (foreigner) Library,” along with couches that have held many a student as they read books, ask questions, play Uno, or have sing-alongs. Its bedrooms have served as hide-and-go-seek locations, kitten recovery rooms, and napping spots for gaggles of neighbor kids while they wait for their parents to get home from work. Its entryway guards our motorbikes every night and is usually littered with cat toys, puzzles, coloring books, crayons, and maybe a squished piece of cake or two. For most of my time here, it has also housed my oven and stovetop, because the electrical outlets in my kitchen are problematic to say the least. Its kitchen features two conjoined desks covered with a floral tablecloth that have seen some strange food combinations (pancakes and fish soup anyone?).
The best part? That weird desk-table, the oven on the floor, and the tiny bookshelf have all been surrounded countless times by the smiling faces of people that I get to love because Someone else loved them first.
Living here, in this house, in this neighborhood, in this city in Laos has been a gift. It has come with its challenges (I’m looking at you, Lao children who relentlessly bang on my windows while I nap), but it has also come with some of the most meaningful and rewarding moments and relationships that have made this very foreign country feel like home.
I could literally write a book about all of the things that have happened in my house over the past two and a half years, but here are just a few of the random things that have transpired within the walls of my Lao home:
1. Countless children coloring countless pictures and watching Frozen countless times.
2. Pin the carrot-nose on the snowman. Hilarious. And apple-bobbing. Also hilarious.
3. My old neighbors waltzing in with their shampoo and towels because the water was off at their new house, so the whole family figured they’d just come shower at my house.
4. The neighbor’s dog attacking our new kitten, the kitten’s subsequent death, my subsequent tears, and the neighbor children not caring about the dead kitten, but instead caring about their sad foreign ເອື້ອຍ (older sister).
5. A group of students sitting in my living room singing songs together. One student with a beautiful, clear voice sang about someone who leaves their hometown to go study at university. Before I knew it, I had a room full of crying, homesick, sophomore girls who also left their hometowns to come study at university.
6. My roommate and I standing guard in the kitchen with flashlights and brooms during a power outage because we couldn’t sleep knowing that the Giant Huntsman Spider that had eluded our earlier assassination attempt was still at large. Don’t worry, he was (eventually) vanquished.
7. A series of events that went something like this: my English student comes to get help on his final report, children come to color pictures, two Lao students I’ve never met before walk in with a chicken, I am left in charge of the chicken, the two Lao students come back and put the chicken in my trash can, they show my American friend how to kill the chicken, the chicken is butchered in my foyer, and a delicious (and very fresh) chicken soup dinner is prepared and enjoyed by all.
In Laos, I often find myself looking around and asking myself one of two questions: 1. What is happening? 2. How did we arrive at this point? Life here is funny.
