Travelling through South East Asia you are continually confronted with young competent people out to make a living with whatever they have. Lifestyles are simple, but their lives are complex. Their energy to get up and dive in the deep end of the pool, into all kinds of projects and wealth generating schemes in order to earn an income for their families.
They can manage money as well as I can, as well as manage a business, raise animals, make product to sell and provide services to foreigners. All come across as capable citizens, and yet in discussions on broader issue of knowledge, they can floor you in their ignorance.
Travelling in Laos I made friends with a local tour guide in the Luang Prabang region who was kind enough to take me back to the village where he was born and his extended family continues to live. This village is not connected to the electricity grid, however it generates small amounts of electricity using small hydroelectric generators. A village that without the use of machines can harvest many acres of mountainous rice fields ever year. A village that with very little support or health care is able to bring in the world numerous happy, playful children which will form the next generation and continue the work of their parents. A village where meals gathered from the countryside are healthier and more balanced than many of meals eaten in developed countries
But this glossy image was easily blown away and demonstrates the gap between those with well structured governments and institutions and those in villages that largely fend for themselves.
It became immediately apparent, when in order to explore my guide's knowledge, I looked up at the bright full moon in the sky and mentioned that one man had walked on the moon. My guide turned to me, and with wide eyes of disbelief asked me to explain this to him.
I started off with the straightforward explanation., A rocket was built and it flew to the moon and dropped the people off. But, unable to comprehend this he pulled me inside where I could get some pen an paper and asked me to "explain everything! I need to understand this!"
Once inside I started to draw diagrams of the solar system, with lines showing the sling shot trajectory of the rocket towards the moon. But this too was insufficient in relaying the issue. I guessed that more fundamental information was missing in order for the young wide eyed guide to understand me.
That's when he asked, and I paraphrase - what happens when you get to the end of the world? Who far can you go before you fall off? My jaw dropped, clearly I had assumed too much.
Struck with these questions I realised just how much rudimentary information would be required in order for him to come close to understanding how a man landed and walked on the moon. That the world was a sphere and the moon rotate around it was incomprehensible! Gravity, unimaginable! I started to proceed with the twelve years of basic physics and science in order to give him and understanding of the globe and its place in the universe, in 30min. Unfortunately, I received little indication that my efforts were successful.
I was then asked a follow up question "why does it rain?" Obviously he knew it came from clouds but broader climate and water cycles were unbeknownst to him and again I struggled to convey the full image.
My guide was also not the most ignorant. This was a student that had completed many years of schooling, dropping out in late high school to start earning a living, and has been in constant contact with foreigners over the past few years. And his competence in transgressing his two worlds of the tourist the city, as well as hunter gatherer country is impressive to say the least.
Certainly there was nothing stopping him intellectually from understanding these things, however by never getting the opportunity to learn or exposure to these ideas, one cannot hold it against him that he doesn't know. I don't think I grasped that the world is a sphere the first time it was told to me.
Schooling consists of language, arithmetic, maybe some English and some national history but little more. Science, geography, economics, engineering, world history and similar topics are not covered. This curriculum is defensible as these skills are not required in the broad Laotian economy. But it goes to show just how far things have to go and how little opportunity these kids have to make big advances into the modern economies.
So for my tour guide the world remains flat, but only because nobody has ever told him otherwise and nothing in his world would suggest otherwise. At the same he time he will continue to guide wealthy tourists through the rough and wild Laotian countryside.
