Ambassador Comes to Town

The U.S. Ambassador to Laos paid a visit to the dig sites today, and also visited Taoy base camp and the town’s medical clinic. I accompanied her to the 1 year-old medical clinic. It was raining and there were leaks in the ceiling, chickens and pigs walking through the hallways, and babies crawling on the dirty floor. I just shook my head….. What a difference from U.S. hospitals. But this clinic was a godsend for the local people, most importantly for child birth. The current infant mortality rate in the mountain regions was exceeding 50%! Now, the word was getting around in the community that there was a local facility to go to which could provide obstetric and pediatric care. The clinic was averaging one birth a day, with only a 10% mortality rate. The Ambassador was quite impressed. U.S. money had been used to fund the construction of the clinic. But she was not as cheery about the birds in the hallways, with the current proximity of avian flu in Southeast Asia. The clinic was also in dire need of supplies, and medications. The Ambassador and I discussed these issues and others, such as hurdles in getting Laos better medical care, and the frustrations of living in a communist state.



A TRIATHLETE IN LAOS?
It took about a week in Laos until I started losing my mind. It wasn’t the rough living conditions that got to me. It wasn’t the bugs. It wasn’t the isolation. It wasn’t the dirty water we were showering with. It was the fact that I couldn’t work out and train in my normal routine. I am an avid Ironman triathlete who is used to working out two to three times per day. My psyche and my body depend on those daily workouts. But in the middle of the mountains in eastern Laos, there is not a pool right around the corner. And forget biking. There were no bikes in Laos that I observed, and even if there were, the tires would never hold up on that awful, rocky, muddy road. The good news is that I could run, but only between the hours of 1600 and 1800 and with mandatory accompaniment by three Lao officials. The “running law” was that one could run out 1 mile and then had to turn around.

My Lao “running guards” were a bit behind in the fitness category. Some of their lack of fitness could be contributed to other variables. I mean, they ran with cigarettes in their mouth and with shoes that appeared to have come from a bowling alley. They began to stage themselves along the 1 mile route, so that when one would tire, they would hand off duties to the next guy to try and keep up with me. I was so irritated that I couldn’t go farther out than one mile. My big question for the Lao was “where was I going to go?” It’s not like there was a big city nearby, or any place that I could cause any semblance of trouble. We were in the middle of nowhere, and I wasn’t allowed to run more than two miles. I tried once to “unknowingly” wander out for a run at 0500 hoping to avoid my escorts. I can’t tell you the sense of freedom that I felt as I began to stride down that dirt road alone, with the exception of an occasional cow or pig that would tag along. As I passed the one mile marker I felt a sense of relief. I was going to run as far as I wanted that morning…..or so I thought. Suddenly one of the Lao smoker runners emerged from the brush, and yelled out at me “Stop!” I pretended not to hear him. I mean for heavens sake, did he camp out and sleep at the 1 mile marker??? He yelled out again to stop. And it was at that time I gave in and stopped. “You got me pal,” I relented. There was no way around the situation.

When I was running back to base with my tail between my legs, I realized how convenient exercise is in the United States, and how many of us take that for granted. We have countless gyms and pools, tennis courts, bicycles, paved roads, and the freedom to run from coast to coast on a whim, if we wanted to. In Laos, for me, there was none of this. Many athletes use exercise to achieve a positive physical and mental state. They get into a routine and their psyche depends on it. The worst nightmare for many athletes is to get injured, because they are physically restrained from working out. For me in Laos I also felt restrained, injured in a way, and there was nothing I could do about it. I realized that I couldn’t fight it, and had to change my expectations, change my perspective and embrace the culture and situation I was in. Once that paradigm shift occurred things took on a life of their own. I allowed myself to relax and not worry about how many miles I had to run in a certain day. I played the Lao version of Bocci ball with the locals every evening, and occasionally we would have a pick-up game of soccer or I would teach them how to play horseshoes. By acknowledging the situation I was dealt, and changing my approach, I emerged from that month with some very close friendships with the locals that I would not have had otherwise. Lesson- in difficult situations, take a step back, look at the big picture, and realize that is ok to release yourself from the grips of that rigid training plan sometimes.