I thought that I would be walking outside to go to the terminal, but conveniently the plane was brought alongside the terminal building. I didn't expect that. As I was looking outside while waiting in line for entry formalities, I saw some men who look like airport staff riding their bicycles along the runway. Of all the airports I've been up to now, Memanbetsu in Hokkaido was the smallest. But I feel that this Wattai airport is just so tiny that it is a fair match for an out-of-the-way station in Japan, where only one or two trains stop all day.

The terminal itself was completed with support from Japan, and it's new and comfortable. As I went outside after finishing the entry formalities, I was amazed. There were only as many people as that can be counted on the fingers of one hand. There was neither a guy who shamelessly comes up to you saying "Let me help you with your baggage," nor a taxi driver touting for customers. Because it was excessively different from my expectation, I was greatly astonished. "I thought I was supposed to be in an Asian town."

It was about six kilometers from the airport to the house. There were no tall buildings. As most of the roads were not paved, it was red and muddy everywhere after the rain. In order to avoid huge puddles, the car was making its way around, tottering here and there. There were a number of motorcycles moving slowly on the road. There were also a variety of trees calmly spreading their branches.

My house is located in the Wat Nak village area (Nak temple), but since there is no such things as house numbers in Laos, there is no address either. A village is formed with a temple as its center, and a number of villages together form a city (Vientiane). If you get on a three-wheel motorcycle, the tuktuk, and say, "To Wat Nak, please," you will get somewhere close to the house. Then, from that point, you can find your way by telling the driver "This way" or "That way." That's why there is no mail service either. There is a big post office in the center of town, and each Laotian keeps a post-office box there to receive mail.

First thing in the morning, I look out on mendicant monks from the window. Two groups of monks pass my house between 6:30-7:00am. One of them is a middle-aged group led by an elderly man, and two boys who seem to be of elementary school age follow close behind. Their heads are shaven, but they are wearing normal clothes. They all are in bare feet. They recite a sutra after receiving alms, and go to another house. The other group is made up of much younger members, and that's probably why their voices reciting sutras are stronger, and also the sutra itself is lengthy and enthusiastic. Looking at an old man, my next-door neighbor, offering alms and listening to the sutra with his head down, I feel like that I want to try it too. But on the other hand, I also feel like that I'm not supposed to do it without having faith in Buddha. Some days ago, it was raining, and so I was wondering what they would do either get wet or wear raincoats, but surprisingly, they were using umbrellas. The monks go bare-footed during their religious mendicancy, but other than that they usually wear sandals.

(Thunder is pealing and the heavy rain is making howling noises. With these conditions, I'm afraid the lights will go out so I'm going to bed now. The sound of falling rain is so terrible that I can't watch TV anymore).

About the time when we are finishing breakfast, our housekeeper, Mrs. Simon, comes on her motorcycle. She is thirty-seven years old, and a mother of two. My husband has retained her from when his predecessor had employed. She polishes his shoes first after she gets here. Looking at her doing her job, he murmurs "I wish I had a wife like her..." in a loud voice, and leaves the house. She does all the work in the house such as cleaning, washing, ironing, shopping, and cooking. When I showed her a Japanese cooking book the other day, she was nodding while saying "You can find this vegetable and that one also in Laos. You eat the same thing. I see, I see."

A Laotian woman generally has short hair, and wears a skirt called sin and blouse. A sin is a cylinder-shaped cloth about 120cm in circumference, and you wear it by buttoning up at the waist and bringing the rest to the front in layers to hold. So, the front part is fixed in four layers. It's adjustable and seems to be convenient. Yet I hear that there are more and more women are wearing jeans and riding motorcycles nowadays. It's due to the Thai influence.

Then I surf the Internet for a while. First, I send word to my children in the U.S. to let them know how I'm getting along. It's quite hard because I have to write in English. Then I write e-mail to my friends in the same way as I'm doing right now. I've been having very interesting experiences. I always send one mail to several friends in several countries, and, after reading it, they all give me advice or thoughts of endless variety. A character and interest of each one of them is being reflected. Reading their replies brings me something like an exploring spirit, and makes me think, "Oh, I also have to look at that carefully," or "What's going on with this?" and so on. Because I'm just sending it out to everybody without much consideration, there might be some cases that I'm sending it to you at your work, and I might have been troubling some of you with my trifles. If that's the case, please let me know so that I'll make sure not to send it you anymore.

It has been raining nonstop since yesterday, and it looks like that I'll spend all day today, Sunday, watching the NHK International broadcasting. It is a bit depressing to see a number of campaign speeches everywhere as the election is just around the corner. Due to the yesterday's heavy rain, all the vegetables (red peppers, okras, cucumbers), which had been planted and brought up to about five centimeters tall by my husband, were completely destroyed. Because there is no preventive measure to deal with the rainy season, which is between May and October, the vegetables don't grow during that season, and Laos has to depend on imports from Thailand. My husband, who is the head of the Laotian office of the United Nation Agricultural and Provisional Institution, had made an experimental farm in the garden to prove that it is possible to harvest vegetables despite of the rain, but he was defeated by the rain before even coming up with preventive measures. I know that it's not very nice to laugh, but it is a bit funny. It's because he has an experience only of doing a kitchen garden for about one year.

I assume that the Mekong River is swollen after the rain. I think that the streets in town must be muddy as well. I brought a pair of short boots, which I used to wear in Boston, but an American who has been living here for a long time told me that I'm the only one wearing something like that in here. I first felt a bit proud of it, but actually, it's just impossibly too hot to wear such big boots in summer. It's a better idea to wear rubber sandals to walk as getting soaked.

Translated by Maiko Noda