Life in Laos - Ice Girl

Chapter 17.

Banlung was 100 degrees with no clouds. The landscape was flat. Intermittent rolling parched Eastern hills led to a shimmering blue volcanic lake and cool shade.

To the north The Heart of Darkness flowed strong. Impenetrable jungles bordering Laos sheltered animists and cannibals.

How’s life in Laos, asked Ice Girl.

  A French doctor in Luang Prabang told me this, said Leo. He’s lived there six years. He has a young son and daughter with a Lao woman. He invested time and money to develop a guesthouse. They expanded to five properties.

They had problems. Her extended family smelled a huge profit. She threw him out. She wanted all the land. I saw her when she brought their daughter to a pre-school where I played and learned from kids. They were both fat and unhappy.

  So how does it work in Laos, said Ice Girl. You didn’t answer the big quest-ion from a small person.

  Men make the rules, said Leo. Women take care of the home, kids and money. It’s all unspoken subtleties. They do their thing. Women worship in the temples. They do their meditation. Men sit around getting drunk, discussing new night girls, ethics, morality and behavior.

  What happened to the French man and kids?

  He plotted a way to get them out of the country. He let her keep the land and buildings.

  Many people never leave their village, asked Leo. Why?

  Everything we have is here. A village maintains the other world.

  The world is a village.

  Good things happen when you take risks, she said. You risk expanding your perception. You risk losing everything in the expansion. Are you prepared to lose everything? I know the feeling, said Leo. They killed my family. I’m sorry, she said. We have to accept loss forever.

  What is the most beautiful word you know, she said?

  Kindness. And yours? Food.

  Less talk and more drawing are essential in life, she said. Experiment with circles, dots, triangles, squares, lines and curves to reach magical levels of realization. Connect the dots forward.

  The asylum is a prison and protection, said Leo.

  You create art to explore your sense of self and find out how you feel you are, rather than whom you think you should or ought to be, she said cutting crystals.

  Make the right choice for the wrong reason, he said.

  Make the wrong choice for the right reason in the right season, she said.

Ice Girl in Banlung