Startup at SRU, Adventures in Laos...

Leah in the rain in Laos

Well, I must say it has been quite interesting! I started October 1st, which was not too much of a day. No sooner had I gotten there and sat at my desk, than we began discussing visas. Mine expired on the 4th, and so I needed to get my non-immigrant (which permits me to obtain a work permit) visa, which in Thailand means you need to exit the country and re-enter. This meant traveling three hours to the Thai-Lao border, crossing and working out the visa process. Well, I had initially hoped it would be a day-long deal. Nope. No way, no how. Let's talk three days. Jim was so kind and patient to take us up, he had some books he needed to read anyway for his doctorate. So at the border we found a guy who would take us into Laos and help us through the process, for a fee of course! Jim couldn't go because he would have to sacrifice his visa to do so.

Savannakhet, Laos

So this guy takes us in and we get to the embassy at 11:30. No problem, they're usually open until noon. Not here. Closed at 11:00. Nuts! So he dropped us off at a hotel and said he'd pick us up at 8:30 the next morning. Well, now we had a whole afternoon and evening in Savannakhet, Laos. The town is awfully run down, which wouldn't be a problem except that everybody had their lights off in their shops and nobody was selling food (that we found). It wasn't like Surin, that's for sure. You walk down the street, and there's somebody selling food everywhere you look. So we trudged about in the constant rain, bought some umbrellas finally, and eventually found a couple places to eat. Good thing, 'cause this wasn't over yet.

Faculty of Humanities (where I work) at Rajhabat

The next day we got up nice and early, packed our things and headed to the embassy. We waited, made this copy and that copy and finally thought we had things in order. They asked me for the original copy of my degree. No problem, I brought it to Thailand. Problem, it's in Surin. "That's okay" the guy said, "We'll just charge you another 1,000 baht" (about 30 USD). So instead of paying $30 for a visa, we ended up paying $60. And of course, every time I found out I needed to pay more money (that I didn't have on me) it was a trip to the ATM. Now, Lao money is called the khip, and it is about 281 kihp to the Thai baht. But it's 34.5 baht to the USD. So, it is 9,600 khip to the USD. Imagine now, I had to withdraw about 10,000 baht when it was all said and done, for all the expenses incurred here. That was millions of khip. So only in Laos will I EVER be a millionaire.

Typical Classroom at SRU

Back to the story at hand. After all that and a dozen copies of everything I had, we found out we had to wait ANOTHER day. Ugh. Savannakhet wasn't looking real good at that point. So back to the hotel, which fortunately had cartoon network. Unfortunately, it was all dubbed in Thai. Oh well, it was something! It rained the ENTIRE time we were there. But we did get out and see some things. We saw a dinosaur museum (one room with a couple bones thrown in there) and a book store (we woke some people up who were sleeping on the floor) and actually found a place that served pizza. Finally, the next afternoon we trekked to the embassy at 1:00pm and were FINALLY able to get our visas. So our driver rushed us back across the border, where we met Jim and got ourselves home. Whew, I must say I NEVER want to do that again!

So that was the visa. This past Monday, I started at SRU (Surin Rajhabat University) in a more official sense. I have been putting together course layouts and syllabi and researching for some of my classes. I have 4 classes but 3 subjects. They are...
1. Creative Writing (4th year English majors)
2. English for Tourism (3rd year English majors- two classes for this one)
3. Backgrounds of English Speaking Countries (2nd year English majors)

So that gives you an idea of what I am up to. Pray for Leah, we handed in all of her information, transcripts, resumes, etc... to the Demonstration (elementary) School at Rajhabat and we are waiting for their response with a contract. Pray that happens sooner than later. She has her non-immigrant (piggy-backed on mine), so that's not an issue. Now I just need to go and get my work permit, and we can finally purchase a motorcycle! That makes me very excited, because I have waited upwards of 45 minutes to catch a bus sometimes. Keep praying, God is doing wonderful things!