I’m a teacher?!
February 25, 2009
with my three students- Baiyan, La and Hak
Except for my youngest years when I just wanted to be like my mom, I’ve never really pictured myself as a teacher in my future life. So it feels kind of strange to me that 3 people call me Aajaan Fa (teacher, plus my nickname Fa), and that I really am teaching them English 2 nights a week. Even stranger is the fact this is actually the activity that I’m most passionate about doing right now. I have lots of other passions, but somehow teaching these three girls and studying Lao with Khamla feels so satisfying. I think that’s mostly because of the relationships I’m developing with all of them and the progress I can already see in their language learning and in my own.
learning Lao traditional dance (fawn) with La
These girls are so excited to learn, so they are really fun to teach. I am also enjoying getting to know them and seeing that these three girls who were always so timid when I used to come visit Khamla are now really comfortable with me. We joke around a lot. Admittedly, I don’t always understand what they are saying, but I feel good vibes. 
Lao dance, with Khamla's family's shop in the background
Learning Lao with Khamla is going well too. Working with my peace group really motivates me to learn the language better. I just feel like there is so much more I could do if I could just understand everything that people are saying, and if everything I prepare for workshops or say at meetings didn’t have to be translated by my coworkers.
So I’m trying, and I do feel like I’m improving. One funny story, though. Lao is such an easy language in some ways (no verb conjugation, usually the same word for the verb and the noun forms, written phonetically), but so difficult in other ways. One night Khamla and I were working on learning the names of family members, very important in Lao culture.
Unfortunately, the word Bu has very different meanings, depending on what tone you say it with. So instead of saying the very logical “The grandfather is married to the grandmother,” I ended up saying, “The crab is married the the grandmother.” Unsurprisingly, Khamla got quite a kick out of this. This kind of thing happens to me all the time (and probably much more often than I realize, because Lao people are unlikely to comment on it unless they know you well). Actually, part of why this story is funny to me is because at the time, I was just tired and didn’t think that what I had said was that amusing, and wasn’t too thrilled that Khamla was practically falling out of her chair laughing at me. But I soon got my sense of humor back, and realized that this is exactly the kind of thing I want to laugh about (and usually do).
La and Aajaan Fa
Anyway, now that I don’t live with my host family anymore, these four girls are kind of like my new family. I know I can stop by anytime, and I usually eat dinner there at least once a week. It’s nice to feel like I truly belong somewhere.
