I have just recently come back from a week in Vieng Phouka district (south west from here), visiting a selection of our target villages as part of a small scale study into the effectiveness of the community development part of our project. All the target villages in the project are either provided with funds to workshop, create, discuss and implement initiatives to support education in their villages or new classrooms are built. We spent the week visiting a wide selection of villages in different contexts in an attempt to provide better and more effective training and support in this area. Was definitely one of those weeks whereby a broad range of thoughts and experiences came across my path. The stand out’s in words and photos …
* the teachers operating in these schools have hardly any resources, if at all, and in many cases don’t speak the local dialect, however their passion, energy and strong desire to provide good teaching to the kids in their village is little short of remarkable
* in aus we whinge when we have more than 25 students in a classroom … these guys have anywhere between 40 and 70
* the classrooms that have smaller numbers than that would prefer to have more … the point isn’t that there are too many classrooms … more that the children can’t/don’t want to/aren’t able to/are working with their parents etc etc
* i used to spend a great deal of my time back in aus dreaming up creative methods of getting students to wear the right thing, do the right thing, study the right way, treat each other the right way etc … the students here on the whole are better groomed, tidy, excited and encouraging of each other in their learning than i have experienced in a long time … fancy schools with fancy facilities with fancy opportunities doesn’t create effective learning on its own
* no private squat toilets to be found in a few of these villages … so yep … I just pulled the sinh (the long Lao kinda sarong style skirt you can see in some of the pic’s) up around my neck and squatted on the dirt in the middle of the village with a crowd of people surrounding me … even had a couple of conversations mid stream so to speak!
* rat soup … feet, hairy legs, toenails and all
* my favourite new word i learnt that week … “oopagone” which means “materials” ie learning materials, teaching materials etc … but it reminds me of the oompaloompas from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory … so makes me smile every time i hear or use it now!
* the teacher from Ban Namkhongnoy … read about him in the photos below …
What else … oh yeah and when I returned back home, a mate of mine from Vientiane was passing through and brought me bagels, gin, lentils, coffee and honey … mmmmmmmm … cheers mike!
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ban huaydam – a beautiful akha village perched on the edge of a mountain
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in ban huaydam … and couldn’t resist taking a photo of these cute little guys catching up on some last minute homework on top of the wood pile!
at a village meeting in Ban Nambpamanh … these two lovely gentlemen (who i want to adopt as my grandfathers) are representatives of the Elders … now those faces tell a thousand stories eh?
in Ban Viengmai … this village known for it’s fish, so sharing a feast of BBQ fish, sticky rice and sticky rice whiskey after doing some work there in the afternoon. The rather tentative smile on my face is indication of my brain attempting to process a new excuse for my inability to consume even more lao lao … before she makes it to me!
a village meeting in Nam Noy … this is a Kui village and you can see some of the beautiful clothes that they wear in blue … this particular day was a special festival which we were unaware of, so when we arrived most of the village was well on their way to becoming supremely drunk on their local brew … made for some intriguing conversations
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a pretty typical school around these parts … one classroom servicing a possible 100+ school age children
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footing it up to an Akha village perched on the edge of a mountain … Ban Huaydam
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just chilling waiting for our pickup after walking back from Ban Huaydam (an Akha village only accessible on foot for the last few km).
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Taking a walk around the village after having a meeting with the Community Development Committee re their plans for supporting education in their village … the project supports with training and funds
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doesn’t get much more picturesque eh …
A Kui and Mooser village where the project is providing some school resources and building new classrooms. Currently there is one small bamboo room – yet 250 school age children.
This guy (3rd from the left in the middle) is the sole teacher at Ban Namkongnoy. I had to put him in as he is possibly the most inspirational guy i have met during my time here. He is stationed in a Kui and Mooser village where 95% of the villagers don’t speak the Lao language and use their own dialect. He on the other hand doesn’t speak the local dialect and has the job of teaching the 250 school age children in the village. Currently there is one very dilapidated bamboo room with about 6 tables and less chairs and only 19 children attending. Don’t know too many people who wouldn’t just give up … but he is still there one year down the track and has more positive energy than the most esteemed teachers I know back in Aus. His eyes and smile say it all eh?
if the bike wasn’t fluro green with a kiche basket on the front i might even be able to have a stab at joining the hell’s angels hey??
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Also from the Thai Dam festival a couple of weeks back … but this is a nice close up of the stylish hair the ladies always get around with …
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i tell you if i ever turn from my vegetarian ways it won’t be over here … a bit of meat drying out and if you zoom in you’ll notice the flies, ants and hairs still sticking in the skin … reeeeeally not my cup of tea
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… and yes the feet and all ended up in the soup
kirsten’s bday … so an amazing sunday lunch of bruschetta, salad with yoghurt dressing, belgian chocolate cake, home baked bread, european coffee was had (all fancy ingredients smuggled in from everyone’s last trips abroad!)
from left around the circle … marcus (a danish consultant working over here for 3 weeks), peter & kirsten, chantavon (lao team leader of the project i am working on), pierre, lara, nathalie, marcus
peter & kirsten, nathalie, pierre and kids … are without a doubt my family over here
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and this is the cute old lady (with the widowed son that she wants to marry me off to) that comes to visit me a few times a week … we have established a routine now whereby if i am busy or don’t have time to talk, she just takes a nap on the cushions on the deck … so all parties are most satisfied
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… and every known and again she picks up some random bits of rubbish from around my yard and burns them off for me in the middle of the street right in front of my house … now that’s neighbourhood love eh?!
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a big festival in town for an ethnic group prominent in the north of laos called the “thai dum” … a dancing moment …
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taking a break from the side show alley and dancing festivities … the guy in the middle is a pal from one of the trekking offices and the cute old man just came for a sit and was pretty chuffed to be offered a beer
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side show alley at the thai dam festival … and in line with all these sorts of games at fairs and shows world over, there appears to be some tricky weighting thing on the plastic container making it impossible to snare any of these overheated bottles of juice, milk or beer … or maybe my technique is just useless
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just to demonstrate to you the vast quantities of fish in my little pond. i figure not too much technique will be needed to snare one of these … and if i can’t, i’ve got problems
