What's a vientiane?

Good question. Let me back up...

Laos (rhymes with 'cow', for those in the know) is a landlocked country in the heart of southeast Asia. It's small, about the size of Utah, with 6.5 million people. Officially known as the Lao People's Democratic Republic, the country is poor. On the U.N.'s human development index--a bundle of indicators that measure standard of living--it ranks 133rd out of 177 countries. The average life expectancy is around 55 years; GDP per capita is roughly $2200. (To put that into perspective, the U.S. life expectancy is 78 years, and our GDP per capita is $43,800.)

In the 70s and early 80s, Laos was ruled by a harsh Communist regime that mirrored Vietnam's. Though Laos declared official neutrality during the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese ran the Ho Chi Minh trail directly through the country, making it a prime target of U.S. bombs. Per capita, Laos is the most heavily bombed country in history--the U.S. dropped more bombs here during the Vietnam War than they did in total, worldwide, during WWII. The country is still reeling from this devastation--not only is recovery slow, but more than 30% of those bombs did not explode on impact, and so are still active. Hundreds of people are dismembered or killed each year by land mines. Valuable land is left untouched because villagers are too scared to cultivate it, and infrastructural advances are stalled because only half of the country's land is known to be clear of unexploded ordnance.

Laos is still officially a Communist state, one of the few remaining in the world. Though it has liberalized since the end of the war, privatization is sluggish and most of the country's income is a product of subsistence agriculture. Enter DDD. With its fair trade outsourcing model, DDD trains and employs poor and disabled workers here and in Cambodia. The Big Idea is to sustainably support a new corps of leaders while cultivating the growth of the local economies. Enter Me: I am here to figure out how DDD can best expand--within each office and in new countries--to maximize its social impact.

Next to the dire picture the statistics paint, my life here is unreasonably pleasant. I live in a small hotel on the banks of the Mekong--from my window, I can see Thailand across the river. Each morning, my tuk-tuk driver picks me up to drive me to the office. Carts, bicycles, motos, tuk-tuks and cars share the road, closely weaving around each other with little regard for their differences in size. The concept of lanes or one-ways is fluid. To me, driving seems like a perpetual game of chicken, but it works, in typical Lao ("Why worry when it'll work itself out?") fashion--the bus brakes at the last second, or the moto swerves with aplomb.

All of my colleagues are native Laotians, but even the entry-level data operators know at least a word or two of English. They are universally warm. Without knowing how to ask, they gesture for me to sit with them and share their breakfast; everyone delights in introducing me to Lao food. And, oh, the food! Lao cuisine is akin to Vietnamese or Thai--lots of noodles, rice and vegetable dishes with beef, seafood, pork and chicken. Because Thailand, China and Vietnam are so close, they are well represented among Vientiane restaurants. And the lingering French influence fills the only significant gap I find in Asian food: bread and cheese. I eat everything, love it all, and pay next to nothing.

The exchange rate here is 10,000 kip to the dollar, qualifying me as a millionaire each time I exchange a benjamin. Most meals are between one and two dollars. The round-trip tuk-tuk ride is $2 a day. Internet cafes charge one cent a minute. At the local market, DVDs are a dollar each and my new "Gucci" watch was a splurge at $5. After lunch last week, I bought a double-scoop cone from the ice-cream cart for eight cents. I shudder now, to think how many pennies on the ground I have passed in my lifetime--if I'd known there was chocolate at stake...

The city is safe, but lively--there seems to be no tension between the large expat population and the Laotians (despite the many, many retired white men who come here to land beautiful Lao brides). Add to that the fact that a number of people (2) have said that they wished they were as tall as me, and I can't ask for much more.