Tin tins story

He is too young to have been in the army, we reckon he is somewhere around 45-50 but it's hard to tell. We think Wing is 60 odd.

Anyway, we'd got kind of used to Wings army stories (not that you get used to them, I think I mean more used to hearing them from him).

And then Tin Tin started talking about his family. You get a bit of warning from Wing, he says 'we go there, I tell you story'.,....Tin Tin just sort of wound it into conversation.
His dad spent eight years in a re-education camp after the war. He was released but had caught malaria and died after 7months.

We also had lessons in politics and language! There is a place here called La Bas because when the French said 'over there' the locals thought that was the name of the place, also Lac lake, the French called it lac which the people thought was the name of the lake (which is word bought over by Americans) so lac lake it is.
Apparently the Dutch for 'beautiful' sounds exactly the same as the local dialect for 'pig person' which is very unfortunate- Wing has to ask Dutch tourists not to say 'beautiful' around people!

And politics- there is an election here on 22 May. Everyone will vote, tribal people, everyone. I ask if the election is fair. Tin tin says yes, everyone gets to vote and then turns and whispers and shakes his head a bit 'but they change the papers'.
Wing says it is a bit like Russia with lots of tribal areas wanting to be not communist buy either their land is too poor and they could not survive or the land is too rich and the government needs it for farming.

Never seen ethnic people being 'forced' out so obviously as here either. Its funny to use the word 'force' as it's not physical. Towns just get bigger, the minority people own the land but don't know its value so they sell a $1000 plot for $50 and move further into the 'jungle' which courtesy of chemical warfare is not so much jungle anymore it just has slightly more trees than the town!

Tin tin deals with it all as he did at the orphanage - 'this is their destiny'.........