danielbaylis.ca

Dear Family and Friends,

Sa-bai-dee! I write you today from the charming town of Luang Prabang. Located in the north of Laos along the slow moving Mekong River, Luang Prabang is a UNESCO world-heritage site with delicious food and a unique architectural history. The wonderful patchwork of traditional Lao wooden houses provide a backdrop to leisurely bicycle trips, and the saffron-clad Buddhist monks punctuate the city with a gentleness that enables the traveler to feel relaxed.

But I don’t want to sound like tourism advert. Been there. Done that. Loved it. Got the drag-queen makeover.

Essentially it feels like a safe and happy place. And after an exhausting (and bed-bug-ridden) 24-hours in Mumbai on Thursday, I couldn’t have been more content to fall gracefully into the arms of a town that rings at an entirely different frequency. It’s a pulse that is exceedingly welcome after ten months on the road. A fellow can only take so much intensity, you know.

I’m one tough cookie. But I need my beauty rest.

As mentioned earlier in the week, my host-site or ‘volunteer’ partner is a literacy organization called Big Brother Mouse. The work is simple. I present myself at 9 AM, and I am matched with one or two students who want to improve their conversational English. This is achieved through reading, comprehension activities, pronunciation practice and grammatical explanations. After a couple of hours of chatting, I am free to go explore the city, get caught up on my emails, research Laos culture and, in the evenings, sip on glasses of red wine.

The beauty of my task this month is that I get to do what I do best – I am a volunteer conversationalist.

How darn perfect is that?

*

As I head into the homestretch of this yearlong voyage, I’ve begun to synthesize the experiences that I’ve had, and make sense of the journey that I’ve been through.

Throughout the year I’ve struggled to find an appropriate label for the premise of my travels. I really dislike the term ‘volunteer’ because in many situations, such as France and India, I wasn’t really volunteering at all – I was exchanging work for food and accommodation.

And the times where I did volunteer, such as in New Orleans and Peru and Morocco, I was paying for my own food and accommodation. Thus this trip has not been strictly an exploration of work-exchange experiences. So I’m not uniquely a volunteer or a work-exchanger. As with many aspects of my life, I’m floating in a space that lacks definition.

But I’ve decided to play with the term “Self-appointed traveling goodwill ambassador” and to see how that resonates.

What do you think? Too wordy? Too arrogant? Too vague?

Ha! I suppose those are also words that describe me as well.

*

I’m not entirely sure what the coming weeks will bring. It’s kind of nice to have only a 14-hour ‘volunteer’ workweek. Perhaps I could find a little old lady to teach me how to make Laos cuisine. Maybe I could learn how to weave fabric in the traditional method. Or I could possibly attempt to transfer my volleyball abilities and gain skills in the local game of kataw. I hope to eat lots of sticky rice and spicy soups, and perhaps even sample something ‘exotic’ like tail of ox or grilled rat. I’ll taste it all so you won’t be required to. That’s just the generous guy that I am.

Or maybe I’ll just try to be a volunteer conversationalist with each person I meet.

I like that idea.

With love from Luang Prabang,

xoxo

Daniel

PS: I’ll be back in Canada in January. So let’s make a date to conversationalize.

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