by Brett Dakin
At the NTA, Seng, who continued to work weekends to support his wife and son, had his own ideas about why foreign governments kept on giving to Laos. He recognized little difference between the international development effort and a for-profit enterprise: “They have a strategy in the developed countries, and a strategy in developing countries like Laos,” he told me after returning from a Japanese-government-funded study tour on tourism in Tokyo. “But the goal is the same: to make money!”
To Seng, the donation of a fleet of new public buses to Vientiane by the Japanese and the construction of a new Honda car factory in Thailand were two sides of the same coin. The buses were free, to be sure, but all replacement parts would have to be imported from Japan. Even the simplest of repairs would require the help of Japanese contractors. In fact, whenever the Japanese funded aid projects to build roads, bridges, and airport terminals in Laos, the contracts always went to Japanese companies.
The Japanese weren’t the only ones, of course; the US and France were also notorious for such “tied-aid” practices. Seng and his colleagues at the NTA were no fools; they knew what was going on. If they didn’t complain, it wasn’t because they were unaware: “We cannot say anything because we have no money.” Remember the cardinal rule: never kick a gift-horse in the mouth.
The Lao government had no money, but it did have one major hold over development workers in Laos: the visa.
Ah, the dreaded visa. The power of a tiny red stamp to force a falang to run from one ministry to the next, his tail between his legs, trying desperately to obtain the correct letter of approval for his visa extension. The power to place a man’s career on hold, to destroy his plans for marriage, to make a fifth-grade student at the Vientiane International School cry, wondering if she’ll be able to return next year to rejoin her friends and classmates.
One afternoon not long after I’d arrived in Vientiane, I stopped by the UNDP headquarters to introduce myself to the staff responsible for the tourism development project at the NTA. The office was a sprawling, air-conditioned compound shaded by palm trees. A fleet of gleaming white sedans, each emblazoned with the sky-blue UN logo, surrounded the complex. While I waited in a meeting room for the tourism development program officer to arrive, the receptionist provided me with a menu of assorted drinks from which to choose; flattered, I decided upon an iced coffee. During our meeting, the very first thing the program officer showed me was a flow chart that had been produced by the UNDP “Governance and Public Administration Reform” project. (Doesn’t that sound like fun!) The document outlined the steps a UN worker had to go through in order to get a visa. In this “red tape” case study, there were 16 little boxes winding their way through a maze of ministries and approval signatures. The box at the finish line read, “Sometimes there is a problem with issuing a visa.” Now there was an understatement.
“They treat the agencies so poorly,” Bob told me. “I mean, last year, they didn’t renew the visa of the aid co-ordinator at the American Embassy, who was bringing in millions of dollars every year. Completely gratuitous, just to show who’s boss.”
The government used the power of the visa to keep expats on their knees and in line. And since most aid workers simply weren’t willing to give up their cooks, guards, drivers, and maids, their dinners at L’Opera and daily lunch specials at the Canadian-owned Healthy and Fresh Bakery, they didn’t complain. After all, if their visas weren’t renewed, many would have nowhere else to go.
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Back at the NTA, we were beginning to wonder if a gift from the UNDP was worth all the trouble. All the manuals in the world wouldn’t get the new printer to work. And even if we did discover the trick, we probably wouldn’t be able to use it for long. “They give us these big machines, but we have no money to use them,” Seng told me. “When the ink is finished, we’ll have no money to buy a new cartridge!”
The NTA staff may have questioned the worth of certain gifts, but they never explored the larger mystery at hand: why should Laos get any foreign aid at all? When I posed this question to Seng, I was met with a baffled look of confusion. The development frenzy had created a culture of desert that pervaded the society, from the highest levels of the Party leadership down to the man on the street. Many Lao seemed convinced that they deserved this money, that they had somehow acquired a right to it due to Laos’ status as one of the world’s poorest countries. Hands held out, they simply waited for more. In the development community as well, no one was asking why Laos should be the recipient of so much munificence. Aid workers skipped this fundamental query and settled for the more immediately manageable ones: how much to give, and to whom.
As for me, I was in a unique position to ask these questions. My situation at the NTA was unlike any other. Unaffiliated with the UNDP or anyone else, I arrived with no promises of money or “technical assistance.” All the NTA got was what they saw: a guy who showed up, did what he could to help, and hoped that something came of it. Heck, I couldn’t even provide textbooks. If the government decided to cancel my visa, so be it. I’d simply up and leave. I would be sad to go, of course, but for me the consequences would have been minimal. Without the responsibility of a wife or family, I had the luxury of thinking primarily about myself. I had little money but more freedom than I was likely to ever have again. It was to preserve this freedom and the objectivity it allowed that I turned down opportunities at aid organizations for more work. I was lucky to be free, and I knew it.
The day before I left Laos for my own Christmas holiday, the new printer still wasn’t working. As it gathered dust, the staff used it as just another piece of furniture. Forgotten documents piled up on top. But the UNDP label, affixed prominently to the front, reminded us all who had been responsible for this marvelous gift.
For the Birds
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One intelligent man is not necessarily more right than a band of fools.
Lao Proverb
One Thursday afternoon in February, I left the office in a particularly good mood. I had completed a project at the office, it was a beautiful day outside, and I was heading home to a three-day weekend.
Friday was International Women’s Day, one in a seemingly endless stream of international holidays sponsored by the UN and celebrated in Laos. There was International Children’s Day; Teacher’s Day; and Older Person’s Day. Not to mention World Food Day and, though no one could remember the last time one had occurred in Laos, World Natural Disaster Reduction Day. In Vientiane alone there were more than enough unnatural disasters to cope with. Each time one of these holidays came around, the government would dutifully hang a banner just outside the Presidential Palace, proclaiming just what International Day it was. There seemed to be one for each day of the year.
International Women’s Day was officially a holiday for women only, but in Laos, everyone took it off. At the NTA, this made perfect sense, for my male colleagues were incapable of functioning without their female counterparts. And the men certainly didn’t want to miss Friday’s party, when their wives, sisters, and daughters would prepare an elaborate and delicious meal—and then do the washing up.
Just as I made my way out the door, my restless young friend and colleague Thanh appeared out of nowhere and grabbed me by the arm. “What will you do tomorrow?” he demanded, as a sly smile spread across his face. Thanh always seemed to have grand plans for the weekend. Whenever he went out on the town with his friends to drink, he would don his prized black leather jacket and race through the streets on a powerful Suzuki motorcycle. His machine made my Honda Dream look like a tricycle.
“I’m not sure,” I answered warily.
“Then you go to the picnic!” Thanh exclaimed.
“What picnic?”
Thanh cheerfully explained that, in celebration of Women’s Day, the NTA staff would be having a picnic lunch at Nong Nok, a small lake about 65 kilometers north of Vientiane. To my surprise, Thanh’s suggestion struck me as a perfect way to spend my day off. I’d been
to visit the lake with some friends only a week before, and had been thoroughly enchanted.
Nong Nok, or Bird Pond, was actually a seasonally flooded meadow covering an area of sixty hectares during the wet season. It was known as Bird Pond because a great variety of birds, including Chinese Pond Heron, Black Crowned Night Heron, and Common Kingfisher, had made it their home. In the late dry season, more than 1,200 Whistling Teal roosted in the wetland. Such an intense concentration of bird life was rare in Laos. In Vientiane, just about the only birds I ever saw were those sold at temples, kept in wooden crates no larger than their wingspans. For good luck, worshippers would buy the birds and set them free. This new-found freedom didn’t last long; the birds were immediately re-captured for re-sale.
At Nong Nok, nearby villagers used the lake for commercial fish breeding. Every year, fry were released into the lake during the wet season. Then, during the dry season, they were caught and sold to nearby communities and in Vientiane. The villagers worked hard to maintain the wetland’s delicate ecological balance: regular guards ensured that the birds weren’t killed and that the fish weren’t poached.
When I first visited the lake, I’d been lucky enough to enjoy the most marvelous of picnics, prepared by the local villagers. My friends and I had settled down among the trees, shaded from the hot sun, while dishes of fresh vegetables, rice noodles, sticky rice, and peanut sauce were placed on a large banana leaf on the ground. The village headman appeared and offered each of us a small glass of rice whiskey. Women from the village soon joined us with fish freshly caught from the lake, which they grilled on an open fire nearby. Hundreds of birds roosted peacefully on the single tree that sat in the middle of Bird Pond. A flock of brilliant white egrets occasionally rose into the sky, forming a graceful arc over the lake. A gentle breeze whispered over the entire affair, and we were disappointed when it was time to leave. I told Thanh I’d be glad to come along for the NTA picnic.
“Okay! See you tomorrow morning. Seven o’clock a.m.,” he said.
7:00 seemed a bit early for a picnic lunch, so on Friday morning I turned up at the NTA late—and was still the first one there. One thing I had yet to learn about life in Laos was just when to arrive for an appointment. Arriving on time was out of the question, of course; one of the many joys of Laos was that everything ran behind schedule. But just how late to arrive was a mystery. On this particular morning, we didn’t end up leaving for Bird Pond until 9:00.
I didn’t mind the late start, as it gave me time to enjoy Vientiane in the early morning, before the motorbikes took to the streets and the steady trickle of cars began to make their way down Lan Xang Avenue past the office. I strolled over to the Morning Market and bought a fresh baguette. Breakfast in hand, I returned to a small shop just beside the NTA and ordered a hot coffee, served in a short glass. Like the iced variety, Lao coffee usually comes with a healthy serving of condensed milk, and is so thick that you have to practically eat the stuff to get it down; so strong that after a cup you wonder if you’ll ever fall asleep again—and so sweet that it’s followed by a chaser of weak Chinese tea. But it is a truly delicious experience. My first sip was a jolting reminder that the day had begun.
Long after I’d finished the coffee, my colleagues began to show up. As the sun continued its ascent over Vientiane, we prepared for departure. Soon enough, a group of us piled into the van, Thanh popped his latest bootleg cassette of Western music in the stereo, and we were on the road, the wheels pounding the potholes in perfect rhythm with Will Smith’s “Gettin’ Jiggy With It.”
“What does ‘jiggy’ mean, Mr. Brett?” Thanh asked.
“Whatever you like,” I responded, confident for once in the complete veracity of my response to an English vocabulary question.
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When we arrived at Nong Nok, I immediately sensed that something was amiss. This was not the same place I had visited only a week before. In the spot where I’d taken a short nap after our picnic, I saw a garbage truck. Where there had been a small field of grazing cattle, a parking lot had been laid. And right where we had eaten that delicious food, the trees had been felled and the area razed to clear the way for a stage with microphones, speakers, and a set of drums. Near the lake, there were booths selling sugar cane juice and grilled chicken to a steady stream of revelers, mostly Vientiane urbanites out for a day in the country. This was no cozy office picnic. I was the last to know, but the NTA was in fact hosting a two-day festival to celebrate Visit Laos Year, International Women’s Day, and the development of the Nong Nok wetland into a new “eco-tourism” site.
Today, the village headman was busy making the rounds with General Cheng, beaming as he shared whiskey with his guests. Panh, the man at the NTA who’d been put in charge of the development of Nong Nok, tagged along behind them.
Panh directed the Planning Unit, which meant that he spent his time traveling to far-flung areas, drawing up plans for tourist facilities that never got built. He was also the NTA’s official logo man; for today’s event, he had designed a special logo featuring the outline of a bird. He had high hopes that one day a set of Lao-style bird-watching huts would be constructed at Nong Nok.
Panh had earned a degree in architecture in Paris, and when he spoke English, it was with a heavy tinge of Francophone disdain. He used the refrain “of course!” in the same way so many French like to use “Bien sûr!”—to dismiss an unwelcome query. Today, as always, Panh was dressed snappily in a pair of spotless, starched and pressed white slacks, a colorful Thai silk shirt, and polished black leather shoes. There wasn’t a hair out of place on his head. Except, that is, for that one unsettling strand of hair that sprouted from his chin. A sign of wisdom, perhaps? But of course!
I became wary whenever Panh pulled me aside at the office to discuss his plans for eco-tourism. Here was a guy who kept a pet monkey in a cage behind his house in Vientiane. The monkey spent his days endlessly scampering back and forth, grasping and occasionally gnawing at the chicken wire. “Do you think this is the best way to protect Laos’ natural heritage?” I once asked him during a visit to his home.
“Of course!” Panh replied. “He is happy here.”
Once the guests at the Nong Nok festival had settled down for lunch, they set about creating small piles of rubbish near the lake. Some strolled over to the water to observe the focal point of the day’s event, Bird Pond. “There aren’t many birds, are there?” one complained.
A week before, the lake had been filled with birds, but today only a few were to be seen. Where had they all gone? “What a disappointment,” one picnicker sighed before heading back to the festival site for another Beer Lao. His attention was drawn to the band, which was already testing out the sound system.
“Hello. Hello. Neung, song, saam. Hello. One, two, three.”
Finding myself all alone at the lake, I decided to take a walk along the path that led around to the other side. Making my way through the trail of discarded tissue paper and plastic bags, I soon came face to face with a cow, terribly skinny, like most of his bovine brethren in Laos, yet strong. Along with the rest of his family, he was lazily chewing his cud. But he seemed unsettled, not sure whether to go on eating or flee from the racket emanating from the stage. The amplified sound echoed across the pond, and was almost inescapable. But not quite.
As I made my way further along the trail, I found that refuge did exist. At the end of the lake, up in a tree that was sheltered from the noise, there they sat: the celebrated Little Egret and Whistling Teal, waiting patiently for the eco-tourism festival to end and the unwelcome visitors to go home.
Back at the festival site, the NTA roadshow was underway. Performers in traditional costume graced the stage. A female soloist, dressed in a red and gold sin, sang a love song as male dancers encircled her. A male soloist then performed his own love song, surrounded by a group of dancing women. Both the male and female dancers were strikingly beautiful, and, but for the traditional costumes, largely indistinguishable. Acco
rding to Thanh, most of the men in this troupe were gay. These guys offered “two in one,” Thanh liked to joke. The love songs were followed by the obligatory children’s song, performed by a pair of kids perhaps ten years old—though the girl was made up as if she had been twenty, and nearly tipped over as she wobbled across the stage in her heels.
The show’s finale was the Visit Laos Year theme song. Composed by Ounkham of the Ministry of Information and Culture, with whom I had parties in Sainyabuli, this was a theme song for a campaign supposedly designed to attract foreign tourists to Laos. And don’t get me wrong, it was a great song. But it was entirely in Lao. “Sieng khene, den dok champa, ben sannyalak bpee tongtiow Lao,” the performers sang. “The sound of the khene, the land of frangipani, these are the symbols of Visit Laos Year.” By the time the performers reached the second refrain, the crowd—which, by the way, did not include a single foreign tourist—had already begun to dwindle. Only a few guests who weren’t NTA staff remained. Two or three men, passed out after one too many beers, lay on the ground near piles of trash. In celebration of International Women’s Day, their wives and daughters scurried about cleaning up the mess. The birds had long since flown this coop, but the band played on, trying its hand at a few Lao imitations of Thai imitations of American pop songs: “Come on in to the Hotel California,” the lead singer mumbled.
As the sun beat down, the NTA staff waited patiently for General Cheng to finish laughing it up with his buddies. My colleagues lounged about on straw mats, munching on salted watermelon seeds and spitting them out to pass the time. As seeds flew past my face, I, for one, was going mildly insane. I was stuck. I couldn’t go anywhere, for I was dependent on the NTA van for the ride back. If I took another walk, I might miss the departure and end up sleeping with the birds. And I couldn’t complain openly, for I knew that among my colleagues such personal expressions of frustration in public were unacceptable. I risked losing face. Then again, if I didn’t say anything, I risked losing my mind.
