3 Weeks

More like three seconds. Seriously.

I had a thought the other day while I was walking down the street. Some backpackers were giving me that smug sort of backpacker-y look that they do and it made me realize:

Tourists laugh at non-travelers
Backpackers laugh at tourists
and volunteers laugh at everybody
quietly...

Most people on the street would just assume that I'm a normal tourist. In fact, many tourists in Luang Prabang are around my age. Then a novice or somebody recognizes me and all the other tourists go "whaaat?" It's good stuff.

Anywho its been a busy week. Xayadeth College had exams this week which meant Anja and I had to write up an exam (including information we hadn't taught) and then give it. All the other volunteers working at Xayadeth had to do this too and there was a bit of tension all week. Lao people are very laid back and that often means that they tell GVI or the volunteers things rather late. It was luck that we had a weeks notice before we had to write the tests because Lesley's teacher mentioned it to her. They were planning on telling Sam last Friday which would have meant anyone with a Monday class would only have the weekend to prepare. Many people didn't know that part of the story and were quite mad at Sam for not telling them before hand. In Lao though there's really nothing you can do about it, the best thing is to just laugh it off. I think it was quite wise of Sam to say "Things like this happen all the time, it wouldn't be Laos if they didn't. You just have to laugh, if you don't, you'll cry."

I think my experience with the tests was alright, my time management skills were tried but it all turned out well. I was at Wat Pasaviet with the little Jedi (haha spell check made me capitalize that.) all week That meant I had to lesson plan with Renate everyday and find time to plan for the test with Anja. As it turns out, Renate is a lesson planning superhero because she's a German teacher back home. So our planning always goes quite quickly (Even if it does make me feel a bit inadequate.) Anja and I also created a test that I'm quite proud off. It was a good length and I think it was relatively easy for students who actually come to class. It also had the added bonus of making me feel like a real teacher. This was the first time I'd ever written a test, let alone a final exam. The marking takes a while but I think it's quite rewarding. That, and taking off points for cheating is super satisfying...

Saturday was quite eventful! I took a cooking class at a really nice restaurant named Tamarind and visited a Hmong village to talk to English students.