EM: Gone to Bokeo

I've accepted a one-year position assisting a humanitarian agency in
several very small, very remote villages in Bokeo province.

The agency is a Belgian-funded "food security" NGO, which is to say
that they help people who have been starving and/or malnourished in
the recent past durably cease to be starving and/or malnourished.

This seems to primarily entail digging trenches for irrigation, and
assistance in diversifying their crops and diet.

My own role will be quite marginal, serving as the only
westerner/outsider at the remote "field stations", and assisting the
Lao staff in gaining some competence in reading English.

The job will also involve long days, and long months, isolated in a
small room in the middle of the semi-tropical mountain forests, with
nothing to do but study languages --living and dead.

This should provide me with an excellent opportunity to become fluent
in Lao (among other vernaculars: there are five minority languages
spoken in the district concerned) --but it will also provide me with
an excellent opportunity to conduct some focussed research on Pali.

When I arrive in Bokeo (next month), I will only have access to the
internet about once a month, when I visit the relatively large town of
Huay-Xai; there will be no communications of any kind at the "field
station" described.

There are some serious drawbacks to the assignment, such as malaria
and the need to forage for firewood, however, I do think it will be an
excellent opportunity --both for me to develop my vernacular abilities
and to advance my researches in Pali.

The opportunity will also exist to gain (at least) a phrasebook level
ability in Akha, Lahu, Tai Le, Hmong, and two Austroasiatic/Mon-Khmer
languages.

E.M.