Aunt Simon told me that it is her first time to have rain in the middle of November. Normally in this land, when the rainy season ends in the end of September or the beginning of October, there will not be a drop of rain until the next March when we have mango rain. So the phenomenon of this year is extremely abnormal. Yet, since that is what it is said in Laos where there is no Meteorological Agency, I am not certain what the truth is. I heard that it got extremely cold in the winter before last, and daytime temperatures rose only to about 59_F. And, people from foreign countries who have never expected to wear ski jackets, to say nothing of sweaters, had to go through a week or so, shivering with the bitter cold. It might be the same this year. But I am a bit worried about myself as the only winter cloth I have brought is one sweater.

It probably is due to this chilly weather, but there is a lot of cold going around right now. There also are lots of Laotians living in houses with walls made of bamboos, which have been chopped into flat-shape, and roofs made of plaited banana leaves. Those people might be suffering from the cold even more than I am. I doubt they have such thing as a blanket. It seems that the worldwide abnormal weather has also reached Laos.

As I found Simon doing her job leisurely and unhurriedly lately, I asked her what was going on. She then told me that she now has plenty of time since her daughter became a freshman in a college in this September, and she decided to leave all the housework to the daughter. As I asked "Is she not busy with schoolwork?" she replied "Well, yes, but she goes to school only in the afternoon." So her daughter does cleaning, laundry, shopping, and cooking. I heard that she does not help at all, especially in cooking. She says "It is because I also used to work for my brothers when I was young" as if it was a matter of course. She might be giving her daughter training for homemaking. Yet, she said that she has bought her daughter a motorbike the other day.

Talking of a motorbike, I read an article about traffic accidents within the city of Vientiane in the first half of this year. (It was in English.) It said that among about 2,500 cases of traffic accidents, 75 percent was related to a motorbike, and 80 percent was something to do with someone driving without a license. Isn't it surprising? Though I got used to driving pretty much now, I still drive reservedly as heaving a sigh at bicycles going at a snail's pace, becoming irritated at motorbikes running right in the middle of the road as if they owned it, and being terrified at motorbikes running by me awfully fast like a motorcycle gang. Recently, there have been an increasing number of female drivers, making it extremely dangerous. They are unskillful drivers, and they even have not properly learned the traffic rules; this is what my husband says. He then put it É it seems like how it was in Japan dozens years ago.

Translated by Maiko Noda