After seeing the monks on Tuesday morning we were due to visit a rural school with a local charity. Katie wasn’t feeling great and as she suffers from travel sickness she decided to skip the 90 minute drive on the local roads and stay at the hotel with Nigel.

 

Until recently there were very few books published in the Lao language and none for children. A not for profit started publishing children’s books with children. It also started distributing them to schools and directly to school children. People can donate and sponsor new books or a book party that sets up libraries in classrooms and provides each child in the school with a book. We wanted to contribute something so before we left Ireland we had sponsored a book party. Our “party” took place a few weeks before we went to Laos but the charity “Big Brother Mouse” invited us to attend one that was happening when we were there.

 

i went with Laura and Emma deep into the countryside to s small rural school with no electricity or running water. Laura and Emma were put into the equivalent of 4th class at home. The charity brought workbooks for the children to do first but Laura and Emma were given the junior class version as the 4 th class one had Laos words and the junior one was all pictures and numbers. The posters on the walls showed they were some things similar to the girls school like learning how to calculate area. 

 

I don’t know who was more fascinated the local kids or the girls. We were told most of them had never seen a fired haired child before. The girls handed out the drinks and books and the kids sang songs and played games.