"We're going to an orange farm on Saturday, would you like to come with us?" There is still a lockdown, so, to be able to get out of the city for a few hours… of course we want that!! "It's only an hour's drive, so let's meet at Tong Vang's house at 5am." "Fine!" Huuuuuhhhh… an hour drive and leaving in the middle of the night??!!
Shivering from the cold, we sat in the car on Saturday morning with the only dashboard button being for the air conditioner. We turned onto the highway with two cars, each with 3 people in the back seat. While Judy wiped the windshield dry in the pitch-dark night, Albert suddenly saw two headlights approaching us. Apparently, there were road works, but the jet-black cones that were supposed to make that clear were scattered over the highway. We avoided part of it, but the other part we heard drumming under our pickup.
After visiting the orange farm surrounded by mountains it was suggested to drive 19 km to a viewpoint. We followed the car of a team member and after an hour and a half we thought we had gone a bit further than just 19km. Might they have meant 90km instead? "Just a little bit more and we'll be there" we were assured. But let's be honest, it was a beautiful ride!!
We decided to skip the lunch halfway through the ride.
After another half hour and a total of more than 130 km, Tong pointed to a mountain top further on. "There it is, we're almost there." We are almost there?! "Tong Vang, that's at least another hour drive to get to that mountaintop!!" Anyway, what do you do? So, we 'patiently' continued to follow the other pickup truck. After another hour we got out of our truck high in the mountains in a poor village and we followed two young women from our team. Within seconds we were all standing in a very small wooden house with a family with 6 children, including a newborn baby and a live-in grandmother. In this space of 6 x 6 meters every person of the family lived, slept, and cooked on an open wood fire.
The "viewpoint" we were supposedly on our way to was actually the family they’d wanted to bring food to. The bag of oranges we gave them was embraced gratefully. It was clear it was a very poor family and they embraced everything we gave to them. We hadn't thought of this this morning when we left at 5 am. The two tall Dutchies were looked at from head to toe in the unhealthy smoky house. We sat with the family eating their ‘Hmong pizza’, a gigantic piece of 'chewing gum' with terrible taste, and we laughed and talked in a language they could not understand. We had a great time and were a considerable encouragement to the family.
We were happy we went the extra mile to support this family with laughter, oranges, and many other goods. We can't really convey how happy they were with it, but we saw it in their eyes and we realize once again how lucky and wealthy we are.
On November 4, we took over from Chris and Sarah, the American couple we are temporarily replacing – from now on we will be the leaders of CAMACrafts. From a business point of view, it is not a large role for Albert in comparison to what he is used to. However, it is a bit weird to run someone else's company and suddenly manage a team in another language and culture. The challenge for both of us is more in making contact with the staff, solving the language barrier, and working in this completely different culture!
From the well-organized, highly productive, busy, but efficiently-working Netherlands, we have moved to a country where words like 'clock, time and efficient' are not found in the dictionary.
We’ve noticed that we have to get used to the culture mostly at the office in Vientiane. Here, you should not assume that YES really means YES. It is a matter of reading faces, asking deeper questions, and guessing the hidden background. There is a relaxed atmosphere - what isn't finished today will be done tomorrow - and we haven't seen an agenda here yet. Plans are made a day in advance but can also be moved without reason to a date that is not yet completely certain. It's a special way of working, sometimes clumsy and annoying, but we're both blessed with a dose of flexibility, and we can laugh about it too.
We have a good connection with the team and despite the fact that we don't always understand each other, there is a lot of laughter and 'talking' with hands and feet and just a little help from Google Translate..
For Christmas we had everyone buy a present for one colleague and write uplifting words for that person. They pay half of the present and we pay the other half. On Christmas Day, we went out for dinner and then headed back to the office to bring the encouraging messages and unpack the presents. This was a very special evening for the team because "getting presents is something for rich people". It was a unique event for the whole team and is looked back on with a lot of pleasure and gratitude. We are in charge of a team of ten people at the office and workshop in Vientiane. Five of them are full-time in the sewing workshop and the other five work in the office next door. It is very funny that the accountant and the man doing the administration are just as handy with a needle and thread, so they sometimes help.
The company also has a shop in the city center that is open 3 days a week. However, the real team members are the producers in the villages in the rural areas and mountains. Before corona, the company offered 200 women in remote mountain villages a job, now there is only work for 100. As there are no tourists and foreigners anymore, revenue has reduced dramatically.
Beautiful Handmade products are made from different types of cloth. Everything so neatly and artfully made, we are amazed! The seamstresses in the workshop in Vientiane and the producers in the villages are really skilled in their craft, we don’t need to teach them anything!
The staff in the office and shop need help and guidance, especially related to communication, administrative matters, sending emails to their customers abroad and marketing. It is difficult for them to interact with customers abroad and we have noticed that they want to grow in their understanding of other cultures. Most of the customers are from outside Laos. This is something Sarah also asked us to help with while we are here. And yes, it helps them to spend a few months with people from a completely different planet.
We spend a significant part of our time coaching and supporting the team in their business interaction with customers. Albert gives English lessons to the whole team for an hour three times a week and Judy is giving one-on-one sessions with three team members who need English for their job to improve their pronunciation.
It is fun and interesting to go along with the team to villages where they collect the products from the producers and do quality checks. When approved, the women receive new handicraft assignments. Young girls get embroidery lessons from their mothers. A few girls proudly showed us how neatly they already create their pieces of art, and it is obvious that they have a lot of fun doing it. It is also very clear, much to our relief, that there is no child labor, it’s just learning in a fun way.
When the quality checks were finished, a large bag of reading glasses appeared, and everyone searched for the right optical strength. Some men also wanted reading glasses but not everyone understood the concept. Some were looking at the trees in the distance and then laid down the reading glasses, disappointed that they seemed to be of 'pretty poor quality'. We try to explain. When we had given all the children some tasty cake, we left for the next village.
Unexpectedly, a few weekends later we were invited to attend a wedding. A special privilege to be present.
Scooters crossen links en rechts om je heen. Wil je linksaf slaan dan is het prima als je op de rechterbaan 'voorgesorteerd' staat, en staat het licht net op rood dan betekent dat niet altijd stoppen maar juist gas geven. Rood is hier het nieuwe groen. En je ziet de meest wonderlijke creaties kriskras over straat gaan. Parkeren mag ook op de stoep want scootmobielen en kinderwagens kennen ze hier toch niet. Rijden zonder verlichting is geen probleem en een kentekenplaat lijkt ook geen verplichting. In de stad rijdt niemand harder dan 40 km per uur en daarmee gaat het meestal dan ook goed. Tsja, verkeersregels zijn hier duidelijk slechts suggesties en zijn zeker niet iets om je erg druk over te maken…!
We are able to use the company's pick-up truck and enjoy it every day, although participation in traffic requires concentration of 70 seconds per minute. Scooters cruise left and right around you. It is ok to 'pre-sort' in the furthest lane to the right when you want to turn left and a red light to many means accelerating instead of stopping. Red is the new green. And you see the most wonderful creations crisscrossing the street. Parking is allowed on the sidewalk because they don't know prams, strollers or mobility scooters here. Driving without lights is no problem and a license plate does not seem to be an obligation either.
But the good thing is that in the city nobody goes faster than 40 km per hour and it usually goes well. Traffic regulations are taken as suggestions and are certainly not something to worry about…! Myanmar
In stark contrast to the relaxed life in Laos is the tension in Myanmar. Everyone was happy with the growth of democracy, economics, and also with the freedom of expression they had enjoyed over the past five years. But since the military coup in February of last year, people have returned to a life of fear, intimidation, and restrictions. The economy has collapsed, free speech has become impossible, the press has been restricted, and thousands of people have been detained, tortured, and many of them have died suddenly within 24 hours of being arrested.
We still have many contacts in the country, and they all tell us about the fear in which the population has been living for almost a year. Hannah said this week that she heard gunshots at close range on her way home. A person who was involved in the construction of our holiday homes in Taisun fled to India a while ago. He was politically active and a fighter for democracy and his life was no longer secure. And not only he and his family, but many hundreds of thousands of people have had to leave their homes and flee.
A travel agent, with whom we have a lot of contact, said that in the city where he was born more than 750 houses were set on fire by the military. The two houses he owned which were inhabited by family were also both set on fire and destroyed. His best friend who tried to put out the fire was shot dead by the military simply because he wanted to put out the fire they had started. It's a horrendous situation. Yet there is also hope and people also move on with their lives. Mayzie, our language teacher, is pregnant. We received a number of questions from someone who is setting up a company and hopes that travelers will come again in the future. Hannah continues with the kids' clubs she has at home every day. We were able to give her some money late last year to buy chairs, tables, and other materials and every day about 40 children, teenagers, and young adults gather in her parents' house. She teaches them English, singing, dancing, and is doing all kinds of fun activities with them.
What courage for a young woman to offer all these kids a great time in this situation and all the while to be teaching something which looks to the future.
For the past 8 months, we have been able to donate money every month for emergency relief that has fed and sheltered families. This too has brought hope into the lives of many people. We would like to thank everyone who contributed to this. Let's continue to bring hope to people, whether in Laos or Myanmar. With love and hope people can handle a lot, their eyes are opened to the future and the new generation can grow up with possibilities instead of impossibilities. It is just a little bit that we do, but we are grateful that we can still be a positive influence for the people we meet here in Laos and in Myanmar.
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