Glom Tiang Yaai: Back to the RTC

Although I’m only on a short trip this time I did want to get out seeing Master Kampuu at the RTC hospital as we have become firm friends over the last few years, even though we don’t speak the same language. It was just a matter of fitting in with my schedule ( I am working Monday to Fridays and I would need Somjan to go with me to translate, who is also Monday to Friday ) then there was the transport, normally the road is passable on a motorbike in the dry season, just very sandy, in the wet season forget it. Also, I had been trying to arrange lunch with Souly from SEDA-Laos (Social and economic development agency ) the lady who is partially responsible for getting me involved with the RTC as the Biogas project was administered by SEDA. To be honest relationships had been strained between me and her for a while, she has a rather ‘confronting’ personality and we had left it as ‘staying friends’ rather than ’working together’.
Anyway phone going off at 7:00 AM Saturday morning which is very Souly ( ‘I’ve been up for hours, you should be up too’); Suggesting we could catch up for lunch and she was going to the RTC that afternoon, would I like to go with her ?. Cool that had transport and translation sorted out as well. So she picked me up at about 1:00 (only an hour late) and we set off for what is usually an hour or so drive to the hospital. I was reminded just how grating her personality was, I try to look up on as educating, the Laotians can be difficult to work with sometimes, As my colleague Edward stated that yes Laos has had a lot of civil strife in its history but there are still good reasons why Laos is so underdeveloped. They are utterly chaotic but still have these incredible layers of protocol you have to adhere to, also similar to the Thais, they love there paperwork. They also have a number of idiosyncrasies that can be quite honest baffling to an outsider at times. Souly is paperwork, protocols, idiosyncrasies all rapped in one, topped of with a huge dollop of self righteousness. Having said all this she is completely dedicated to help making life better for the poorer citizens of Laos and she produces real results, even though working with her is akin to sucking thick soup through a straw, after a while your head and jaw start to ache and is strangely unsatisfying.
Since I was here only 6 months I was utterly amazed at the amount of development that had been undertaken. The road is now fully developed, it was under construction 6 months ago, its not bitumen but a high density crushed rock which seems to be very resilient to both heavy vehicles and monsoon rains, for a time anyway. There was now a flushing toilet which was housed in its own separate ‘thunder box’ this had been constructed specifically for fulong visitors/ patients as the general ward toilet, to quote Arthur Daly, is a ‘sawn-off lavatory’. Perhaps the most telling improvement is there is now power, it would only take a few minutes to imagine what it is like living in a community that has no power, think back to your last power cut. Air conditioning is a bit of a luxury so you wouldn’t have it out in the sticks anyway, but no fans, no fridge, or freezer, no lights no TV, nowhere to charge your mobile phone. This is before you take into account this is a hospital with all the ‘interesting’ issues that would raise. They also have rebuilt the ward rooms which are now constructed from rendered brick but the number of rooms has shrunk from 6 to 4, they have installed a Thai made water filter, which when I arrived, was leaking. I now understood why Souly wanted to take me. They have to clean the filter elements on regular bases which should be a straight forward operation I have no idea why they had completely disassembled the unit. The simple truth these guys are not the most mechanical competent people in the world. They had already lost a couple of the components (this was only installed a months ago) and I suggested that to stop the unit leaking they should use the usual ‘teflon tape’ instead of plastic bags which they had employed. Kampuu son in law was dispatched to the local market to pick up some teflon tape to try to fix the worst of the leaks. The leak from the top of the filter was not repairable as they had lost the o ring but the other three were fixed. Just before the monsoon came down.
The other very noticeable thing was the level of the lake it had dropped by about 3 metres I asked Souly the reason for this and she said it was due to global warming, should have realised that I was going to get an answer like this, surprised the Chinese or the Thais weren’t involved somewhere but seriously if water levels in a lake have dropped 3mtrs in six months due to global warming we are in deep trouble.
The rapid development of the RTC site is representative of the shear amount of construction work that is being undertaken in Vientiane. There are new buildings, quite sizable ones going up everywhere particularly. I was in Kuala Lumpur in 1998 where a similar thing was happening, but on a much larger scale of course. There I did get the feeling that the economy was racing out of control (10% increase in GDP every years for 10 years is a doubling of the economy). I am not an economist but I was worried that nobody seemed to have their hand on the brake. The collapse of the ‘tiger’ economies less than a year later seemed to bear this out. I don’t get that unnerving feeling in Vientiane, it is a country which there is a definite need to improve basic infrastructure and in all honestly most of the public and private corporation buildings could do with a shake up. Most spectacular of all is the rejuvenation of the riverside in the city. Vientiane is a smallish city ( about Adelaide size ) and is perched on the banks of the Mekong, last year the river front all the way the Don Chan hotel near the friendship bridge ,all the way to the end of the river front road ( the tarmac bit anyway ) was a series of small bars and restaurants, admittedly some were in a state of disrepair consisting of wooden boards which you did not get a great deal of confidence walking over, however there were some fairly new and impressive restaurants such as the Mekong Deck. Well they have all gone a 5 km stretch of the river front has completely disappeared and is being subjected to a huge and dramatic makes over. Even by developed countries this is a huge project and hopes are they will do a good job of it, the it’s that are nearing completion certainly look OK. The emphasis will be for tourists which are a rapidly growing business however I would hope the locals will get a shout. It would be sad to see the new river front swarming with Starbucks and Mackas although I still think that the multinationals are still on the whole barred. The only multinational I have found so far is Swenson’s ice cream which has just opened opposite the Lao plaza hotel, At least we can get good ice cream now.

Next blog in about a week will include a visit to the University engineering department and a local biofuel plant.