Today I moved into my apartment in Vientiane and settled into my new home for the next ten months.

Differences in Apartment Lifestyles in Laos

I just moved in today, and I learned that in Laos, people pay for their water and electricity before they use it. So essentially, you have a meter per apartment and you have to pay to load it with watts and gallons of water. I paid 200,000 kip to cover the cost of electricity for about a month or so.

Laos is different than the U.S. because most apartments come fully furnished and include sheets, pillows, and cooking necessities (e.g., a rice cooker, forks, plates, bowls, etc.). All I really had to buy was a knife, a cutting board, and another bowl. I also bought a pitcher for juice since it’s proving quite difficult to stay hydrated here, despite all the water, juice, and smoothies that I drink. Hopefully the pitcher will encourage me to drink more juice or flavored electrolyte packets at home.

Food in Laos also has little to no chemicals, so it’s important to buy small amounts of food and go to the supermarket several times a week (think two to four). Food here goes bad quickly!

Courtesy of Future Southeast Asia

This is my apartment building.

Laos also does not have dishwashers or dryers, so everything has to air dry. Lao people do not use ovens on a large scale, so if you want an oven in your home or apartment, you need to purchase a toaster oven. I was surprised that most Lao homes do not use ovens. It did not occur to me that ovens were unnecessary for cooking traditional Lao dishes.

Most Lao apartments have maids that come and clean your apartment as part of the contract. It’s completely normal to have a maid here. The maid at my apartment building comes twice a week, but I’m not really expecting her to do too much considering she has hundreds of room to clean and I know she’s on a tight schedule. I’ll do my own cleaning, which sounds good to me.

Last Day of Teacher Training Classes

Today was also the last day of teacher training and Lao classes. I will begin taking private Lao lessons in the next few weeks once everything settles down.

For those of us located in Vientiane, we will continue teaching classes at the American Center for the next two weeks. I have some exciting lessons planned about the importance of baseball in American culture, the myth of the Wild West, wildlife in the U.S., and more. I would like to teach my students to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and teach them to dance the Cotton-Eyed Joe. Of course we will practice the essential skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking, but I believe it’s important to have cultural elements that break up the long periods of hard work that are part of learning a foreign language, especially since these classes are one-offs and I won’t see all of these students again. I want my students to have a fun and memorable English language learning experience more than anything.

Courtesy of Guerra, C. (2023)

The mural behind the American Center