Living and working overseas is very different from being there as a tourist. However, living and working overseas means you also get to be a tourist. Traveling to Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Saigon, Singapore or other destinations from Vientiane usually involved short flying times. Here, as described in letters home, are some of the places …
As we neared the end of our stay in Vientiane, we had no inkling of where we’d be going next. This circumstance is fairly common for self-employed professionals in international development. You may just go home for a while and hope for short-term assignments, or you may be moving on to the next long-term one. …
I went to Laos knowing I no longer wanted to work as an independent consultant in adult education and media. I saw the posting as a chance to begin to develop skills and a résumé as a writer, a role teachers had been encouraging since high school. Before leaving Virginia, I’d received assurance from the …
Laos didn’t offer a lot in the way of entertainment, either for adults or children, so the expatriate community devoted significant time and energy to creating events as best they could. I love celebrations, but entertaining, both as a hostess and a guest, is a challenge. Because Russell was head of the United Nations Development …
Everyday life in Laos wasn’t as dramatic as an attempted coup or an assassination, but it was often challenging. Staying healthy, coping with high heat (over 100ºF) and humidity (99%) for much of the year, managing without household appliances that Americans take for granted, hosting frequent official events connected with Russell’s U.N. project, getting visas …
As we did everywhere, we shared our lives with other creatures in a garden that someone else had already started. Laos was a little different in that some of the creatures were not your basic pets, and the garden was already overflowing with abundance. 1991 March 16 Our family has been expanded by one. Exactly …
For years, I’d been operating with the philosophy that, as a consultant, I could focus on the beneficiaries of a project, working around the politics of bureaucracy and the challenge of team mates who were some combination of poorly prepared, racist and/or not focused on empowering participants to be effective in their own milieux. But …
Really a pleasure to read an excerpt of Malice on the Mekong at the July 19th meeting of the Central Coast Writers in Pacific Grove, CA. If you’re a writer, budding or published, this is a great group for you — fellowship, workshops and monthly speakers on topics of interest to folks like us. Felt good …
Nancy and Husband Russell Sunshine promoting their books at the Central Coast Writers Booth, Good Old Days Festival, Pacific Grove. (Russell’s book, Far and Away: True Tales from an International Life, is also available on Amazon.)