Last 2 weeks in Phongsaly

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I spent my last 2 weeks in Laos with working on a small tea exhibition for Ban Komean in Phongsaly Province. Ban Komean is (and will become) famous for its’ 400 year old tea trees. Even though the village is only accessible during a few months per year (due to extremely muddy roads in rainy season), there are already visitors going. The Provincial Tourism Office built a “Sala” for tea tasting – a good example for bad design. The place has a wonderful view – only that the toilet and kitchen building mostly prevent us from seeing it. There is even a flushing toilet – but no water pipes, so it cannot be used. The room which is supposed to be the kitchen has no window or chimney, so there is no way that the smoke and steam from cooking can “escape”. There is no electricity – but boiling the water on a fireplace influences the taste of tea badly. Not to mention that there is no one in the village who manages the building yet (but there is supposed to be some training soon). Let’s say it simple: at the moment, the only function of the building is that of a dust trap…

In order to give some more life to the place (and also to offer information / site interpretation which is always hard to find in Laos), Carine had the idea to make an exhibition about tea inside the “Sala”. And that’s what we did the last weeks! We kept in mind, that the room will be used for tea tasting at some point – so we mainly focused on the walls and the centre, thus leaving enough space for future tea tasting gatherings.

So far, the content and design for the exhibition has been developed by Carine and myself. Normally, we both have a quite similar approach: involving as much as possible different stakeholders in the process and encouraging them to become active, give inputs and take ownership (something which is especially important in development work). Due to a tight schedule this was not as much possible as we wanted – but this lead to interesting discussions and thoughts (more about this in my reflections which will follow within the next months)

Lessons learnt

> cultural: when I made a model of the room and showed it to my lao colleagues, they asked: “Oh, is this for the spirits?” usually, models like this are used for spirit offerings / ceremonies (especially in northern Laos)…
> interdisciplinary: finding a balance between “academic, informational” and “experience and design oriented” (is it a contradiction? or a design challenge?)
> the limits of a participatory approach: sometimes, people really don’t want to get involved and are not interested at all (don’t force them!)
> and many, many things about tea! In the course of the last weeks, I turned into a passionate tea-trinker (which is not too difficult in Phongsaly since they only have  terrible Nescafé)
> working with only a few hours of electricity a day makes you more efficient and not loosing too much time in front of the computer (should we have electricity short cuts everywhere?)

… to be continued…

(pictures taken during some field visits to Ban Komean; some of the images thanks to Carine & Florian)

Saying Goodbye

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Before we left Phonsavan, Katti and me organized a small event at the QLA Centre. It was great to explore the space in a complete different way – the outside sitting area is a perfect place for hanging around. I’m already dreaming about collaborating with the ice-cream shop next door (and learning how to make the best ice-cream in the world from Paolo). And maybe this dream is not too far away – the Lonely Buffalo Foundation is thinking about supporting the owner to have a “real” café there (run by students and with the focus on english learning). But also the inside is quite flexible. I absolutely love the big table – usually visitors sit down, start to talk to each other or reading the various books lying around. The QLA uses the table for meetings, discussions or just working downstairs instead of inside the office. And during our “event” it became a free-style pingpong table!
But now it’s time to say goodbye and let the QLA take complete ownership – and who knows what kind of ideas they come up with during the next year?

QLA Centre: Evolving / More impressions

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My work with the QLA Centre has finished for the moment (even though there is no end). Until my last day (and even during the last weeks when I have already been away) the centre is still developing, the exhibition is growing, the producer groups find their space in the souvenir shop, pictures are on the walls etc. etc. Since everyone is working on many different projects at the same time, everything takes much longer – which often is for the good because we also have time to re-think first ideas or adapt to new developments…

Ban Napia: Finishing

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It seems that things in Ban Napia are not as bad as expected after my previous visit. Thanongsone and me went there one last time together in order to improve the Visitor Centre – and got lots of support from the villagers! All of a sudden they woke up and were eager to help and take ownership. Thus, we spent a great and very productive day in the village and I can leave the place with a much lighter heart than I thought! I just hope that the energy we experienced during that day will last…

Quality of Life

The tree of life at the QLA centre is growing and is getting more and more leaves. It is so interesting to read what quality of life means to others:

the quality of life is in the state of your mind

to be able to do what I want to do and for nobody to put me down

being independent and surrounded by people who care for you

quality of life are: knowledge, skills, friends, family, society

love; see beautiful things; make people happy around you; freedom

to be peaceful and completely body with happy future

be real, embrace simplicity, put others first, desire little and always remember to smile

family, friends, love, hope, peace, healthy plants, animals, soil, water + air

having friends & family loving me around; be able to smile every single day

quality of life is to be satisfied. the satisfaction depends on your environment

to go to places i want to go, and be who i want to be. free from judgement and fear

freedom, love, health, friends, good food, knowledge

can say what i mean, being accepted, and what I can do participation in community, equality

to have the chance to do things on your own but still have someone there to help if i want

peaceful inner & outside

to live out loud without worries “don’t worry,.. be happy!”

income, friendly, hope, healthy and happy

quality of life: be safe, make own choices, have the proper means for living, say what i want to say

love, love, love, love

the endless feeling of love, safety, freedom, dreams, friends, + family and just to be given a chance

have the freedom to do what you want and make your own choices in every aspect of life! Be surrounded by people who care for you

So what does quality of life mean to YOU?

Ban Napia: Follow Up / Failure?

 

Today, I went on a short trip to the “war-spoon village” – Ban Napia – in order to see how the exhibition / Visitor Centre developed over the past months. I didn’t expect much since Samuel from HELVETAS already told me that almost nothing happened. But nonetheless, it was disappointing to see that villagers use the place to store their construction materials and that it was dusty and dirty all over. The shelves are not used (nothing is there to sell expect for a few spoons lying around) and there is no sign outside and no donation box. I thought we discussed last time that the villagers (together with HELVETAS) were going to work on this but apparently they had other things to do. At least the information boards look nice (even though there is one missing and no one seems to know anything about it)!
I’m glad that I had a look just in time to improve things before I will leave Xiengkhouang. But I also wonder what the real problem is. It seems like the usual “bad case” in development work – giving people the fish instead of teaching them how to do it themselves. At the other hand the villagers wanted to have the weaving house and HELVETAS seems to work close with the locals. Still, as for myself, I figured out the following problems (actually these are deficits which I observed in many projects here in Laos):

1. No clear responsibilities between HELVETAS and GIZ and a lack of communication > no clear understanding of my own role (problems with taking over leadership at the beginning and now it’s almost too late)
2. Not enough focus / concentration: too much time passed between our visits; no strategic thinking, no planning, no deadlines etc.
3. No person in charge in Ban Napia
4. Not enough time to work on this project, too many other assignments
5. It seems there is no one with experience in how-to-establish-a-village-museum and especially how to organize and involve the villagers: how to motivate them, make them proud, how to encourage them to take care and take over responsibilities etc.

Let’s see how we can fix this! In the meantime I will keep one of our MA Mottos in mind (thanks Samuel Beckett): Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

QLA Centre: Update / Temporary Exhibition

I’m glad to announce that the temporary exhibition from Lisa’s fantastic mural workshop is  finally installed in the “Green Salon” (I also put a picture of how it looked like before). We are slowly reaching 85 % – still many things to work on and we will definitely not reach more than 90% until our leave. Which is great since it gives many possibilities for the future