Child's Play

Sunday 31st January 2010, 9pm, Baravin Bar - Luang Prabang

I'm finishing in Luang Prabang how I started. Outside a bar with a glass of Merlot, able to eat again (I sat on the wooden canteen benches of the food night market and shared barbecued fresh fish and stir fried vegetables with some Scandinavian backpackers), and utterly lost in adoration of this incredible place. I'm going to be very gushy now, but I listen to a lot of this when friends and family fall in love with accepted objects of affection - boyfriends, girlfriends, babies. I have none of these right now, I have places, and in the two months since I've been away I have not fallen more deeply for anywhere than I have Luang Prabang. Everything that appeals to me about Asia is here, everything I wanted from travelling it has given me, everything I fear has been vanquished, everything I knew I have forgotten - all that is left is my desire to walk these streets for days and days to come. Suspecting that I would fall hard for this town I exacted some damage control on Friday and booked my travel out of here for tomorrow morning. If I hadn't preempted my reluctance to move on I would, without doubt, not have the willpower to leave tomorrow.

Yesterday morning and this afternoon have been particularly special, and both due to the children of Luang Prabang. I roused myself at 8am on Saturday, still drowsy and weak through lack of sustenance other than carbonated drinks, but determined to make my 9 o' clock appointment with Big Brother Mouse (http://www.bigbrothermouse.com/). A charity and publishing project that develops books and distributes them to children in rural villages, Big Brother Mouse is slowly but steadily changing the way local families and children feel about education and reading. Last year alone 30,000 children received the first book they'd ever been given as a result of this scheme and the centre in town holds daily morning classes to improve the literacy skills of it's younger generation. I'd read about the project on a poster in town and decided to offer my services as a volunteer for the morning, they're always keen to get English speakers in to help, and hey, I did a Theatre degree, I love an audience.

So for a couple of hours I sat with local children, going through their school exercise books with them, correcting spellings and punctuation, and demonstrating handwriting and reading. I read everything passed to me by the teaching instructor - charity pamphlets, restaurant menus, the story of Buddha's upbringing, television instruction manuals - they just wanted to hear me read aloud to aid their understanding and pronunciation of the English language. This disconcerted me slightly as the whole time I was reading I kept imagining a future generation of Laos people who speak with Essex accents, pronouncing 'whale' as 'wow', 'thumb' as 'fumm', 'out' as 'aaht'; but I persisted gallantly, mustering the closest thing to the Queen's English as my sloppy Southerner's tongue would allow. If in 10 years time Luang Prabang sounds like the set of Eastenders, I swear it ain't me faul' guv, I proper did me bestest innit.

Children are a huge weakness of mine, if not one of my greatest loves. In fact, not just small children, but anyone visibly younger than me (which helped considerably in my previous job where my life consisted of zoo-keeping angry teenagers). A friend very well versed in astrology and matters of star-crossed destiny tells me that this is because under the star sign I was born, on the precise year and day I was born, and even owing to the actual time of my birth, the planets were aligned to produce someone more maternal than the cosmos had yet to create. She even outlined a historical star chart which I didn't understand to prove this to me. I have no idea if the galaxy has had any bearing on this aspect of my character, but I can say with absolute certainty that yes, despite my complete lack of broodiness and hankering to bear offspring of my own, I do melt at small faces and the opportunity to mother them. And oh, what faces these were! Laos people have shown themselves to be open, kind, affectionate and accommodating, Laos children are all of this plus heart-wrenchingly gorgeous.

This enriching experience at Big Brother Mouse led me to this afternoon's activity, desperate as I was to spend more time with Luang Prabang's younger inhabitants. When I walked along the Nam Khan River a couple of days ago I spied with glee a group of children playing and swimming in the water. The game involved throwing themselves in to the mercy of the current, splashing downstream back to the town at one end of the river, paddling to the bank, and then running back upstream to throw themselves in once more and begin the whole marvellous process again. I was very jealous of their fun, but no other foreigners or indeed anyone over the age of 12 seemed to be partaking, so I stayed a reserved and envious onlooker. I had a change of heart today though. Before I came away I suffered a series of uncomfortable and expensive injections, so to hell with it I thought! I'll get my money's worth from all this probably unnecessary immunisation and weeks of dead arms, and take on the possible toxicity of the river, that's what I paid good dollar for dammit - to risk my health in unknown water! The cold dip was also tempting due to the fact that I'd just climbed up and down the 400 steps to Phu Si temple, a view well worth the exertion but nevertheless, perspiration inducing.

So I clambered down yet more steps to the bank, crossed the bamboo bridge, and tentatively approached my small subjects of amusement who were running about in their underwear throwing mud at each other and chasing frogs. If you can imagine for a moment the surprise and bewilderment on the faces of the Aborigines when Captain James Cook moored up on the coast of Australia in 1770 with his pale-skinned crew, then I think you will more or less have in mind the expression on the faces of these Laos children as I approached their waterside territory. Unlike the 18th century English fleet however, I meant these natives no harm. To show them this I plonked down my bag, skirt and flip flops, ran in to the river waving my arms about my head in the best carefree 7 year old style I could imitate, submerged myself under the clear, clean water, and then beckoned them to come in. Kids aren't silly, they know who they can trust, and before you could say 'I'm too old for this', 20 children were yelping with excitement, waving their arms about their heads and sprinting in to the water to join me. What a relief, I would have looked pretty insane doing it on my own.

The next 3 hours were absolute bliss. For that's how long I have spent with them there today; floating along in the current, catching tadpoles, skimming stones, hand-building sandcastles, playing hopscotch, drying off in the sun and sharing Oreo cookies (I'm not silly either - I took bribes in case things didn't go my way). I don't mind telling you that when I said goodbye I was quite tearful, knowing what a rare and precious experience this was and that I, or anyone else, is unlikely ever to duplicate it. When I left the river there was a small crowd of tourists who had gathered on the road where I had been an onlooker the other day, it seems my playtime with the local children attracted quite the congregation. Some smiled warmly at me as I squelched past, others looked at me like I was a carrier of the Crazy Disease. No skin off my nose though. I have been left feeling happy and mellow from the pit of my stomach to the tips of my pruney fingers. Children have this effect, and not just on me I think.

They're the best versions of humanity we're ever going to see. They think everything is funny, they don't care what they look like when they're dancing, they are honest because they haven't learnt to lie yet, they believe in fairies, the worst thing that ever happened to them was when they fell over and grazed their knee which they can't clearly remember anyway because someone picked them up and gave them a cookie. If you spend long enough in their company without the presence of other adults they make you feel like a child again yourself - they teach you how to play and take enjoyment from simple pleasures that age steals from us. They are Goodness personified - they love you even when you don't deserve it, cry when they think they've upset you, forgive and forget quickly, and hug you every time like it's the last time. I do not understand people who say they don't like children, in my mind you may as well be saying that you don't like light or oxygen or happiness; because what a dark, choking, sad world it would be without them.

It's been a remarkable 4 days. I am very regretful to be leaving Luang Prabang tomorrow, but so indescribably grateful all the same for the youthfulness and untouchable joy it's places, it's treasures, it's children, have placed in my heart.