Adopt A Village in Laos

New Website

2011-11-20T17:54:00.000-08:00

We are currently in the process of switching over to a new website. For most up to date blogs please visit us as Adoptavillageinlaos.Wordpress.com

Thanks for your continued support!

Heading Back to Laos

2011-10-14T17:17:00.000-07:00

I can hardly believe that I will be on the plane in just two weeks. Can you guess where I will be in two weeks and one day? Still on the plane or in some airport!
Since April we managed to put our house up for sale, sell it, buy another house back in our old neighborhood and move in. That was the easy part. We also gained charitable status of course but more importantly we have finished something like 20 presentations to various interest groups and Rotary Clubs and managed to squeeze in one fundraiser.

As of tonight we have raised just over $59,000 in cash and commitments. We have almost reached our targets but the last $10,000 is always the hardest. What is worse is that I have less than 2 weeks to do it! Indeed I am pulling out all the stops along with the few hairs left on my head. Forget the email campaign...now it's phone calls!
Here is what we need;
Boakham Secondary School - $3,833 (out of $25k)to start construction on Phase 1
Phon Savanh Water Project - $2,275 (out of $10,300)
Hygienic Toilets for Pha Yong Village and Had Chanh School - $3,800 (out of $5K)
Toilets just don't seem to be popular among donors! Perhaps they think I might inscribe their name on the ceramics? Kidding of course.
Water Filters - we need just 27 water filters to match last years numbers ($55ea)

So there you have it. Indeed it has been a little stressful as of late trying to raise the rest. I wish I knew more people. I even tried an ad in our newspaper, although the total amount needed since then has changed.

I am crossing my fingers on this because I have never tried an ad of this nature before. It just went in todays weekend paper so we will see if it has any effect.

Once I arrive in Luang Prabang, I need to immediately prepare for the build of Hat Kham School, sponsored in its entirety by Jai Lao Foundation in California and thanks to Daravanh Bill's success in winning an essay contest about Hat Kham Village. This will also be our first distribution for this year's water filters. Their entourage arrives just 5 days after I do - Yikes!

With $9900 to go and 27 water filters I am sure crossing my fingers for the other projects. I won't start a project unless I have the funds to finish it. The last thing we want to see is concrete posts sticking up in an overgrown field in a third world country - I bet you all have seen that!
I will try to do one last update before I head out to let you know if I was successful or not!

Great News and a Happy Day

2011-08-05T07:44:00.000-07:00

Where does all the time go? It is already August and I have missed two months of posts but it certainly hasn't been without activity.
First, the best news of all. We applied for Charitable Status in January of this year and despite friends telling us that it took them anywhere from 18 months to 5 years, we have been notified after just 7 months that WE HAVE BEEN APPROVED FOR CHARITABLE STATUS!!!! See the top right corner of your screen for our registration number.

Throughout the summer we have been presenting to various Rotary Clubs across our District and beyond with some success, plus we have been invited to speak at Indigo's flagship book store in Toronto in September - of course I don't even have a book. Who's complaining? Not me to be sure. We have also been asked to present at Rotary's District Conference in Collingwood in October - this is attended by all 55 clubs in the District from Toronto to Belleville. We are certainly looking forward to this.

On September 17th, please hold that evening open for us. This is our annual fundraiser to be held at the Capitol Theatre in Port Hope, Ontario. There will be live entertainment, silent auction Lao goodies, and our presentation of course. Ted Amsden, our wonderful photo journalist will be releasing his video that night to give our followers a real taste of Laos and their people. Don't worry if you cannot manage a donation for our cause at this time - we won't lock the doors after you enter and promise not to bug you. We want you to enjoy and learn about what we have been doing in Laos - we hope it will bring inspiration to you, and in turn help someone who is needy.

I am already preparing for my return to Laos but still fundraising until the moment I have to board the plane. We have a long way to go to realize the dreams of so many Loatians that would never otherwise have a chance. Please help us make this happen.

Note also that we now accept Visa and MasterCard to give more of you a choice or payment.

On a personal note, and to add to our already heavy burden, we put our house up for sale in April, but didn't really expect to sell it this year, due to the tough economy. Well it happened. We move on August 26 to our new digs in Port Hope. I have always loved Port Hope and found that we were spending more time there than in Cobourg anyway. An added bonus too....it has been a lot of effort to manage our grounds here. At our new place, it is managed by someone else - no lawn cutting, no major gardening - yeeaaahh! More time for fundraising, planning and managing the projects we have on the go.

So in summary, please check back for more details on our September 17th event.

ReGrouping for the 2011/2012 Season

2011-05-30T06:41:00.000-07:00

Since my return to Canada, I have not even had the time to take a break. I came back thinking I would take 2 or 3 weeks off but that wasn't to be. Yet for some reason I feel re-invigorated. Perhaps it is because of all of the support I received from family and friends I ran into on the street that were there for us last year. In fact I have had considerable time to reflect.

At times I feel that I don't belong here. With all the bickering you read in the newspapers over the smallest of issues, especially under the editorial sections, I sometimes wonder if they would continue to find something to complain about, after just one holiday trip to Laos. I had 21 visitors to Laos over the winter and every single one of them has said it was a life altering experience. In my case, I guess I am still living it. With the support of all of our private citizens and sponsors, $38,000 went a long way. We have helped over 2700 people in the rural villages with schools, a new water source for 45 families, water filters for every family in Pha Yong Village, Had Chanh Village, Small Huephen Village, a high school hosting 1300 students, a secondary school with 420 students and a hospital that only has water from the roof top when it rains (we hope to supply a new water source for them when I return in November), and a few other smaller projects.

Now that I have had a chance to catch my breath, I have reviewed 34 proposal requests from Laos totalling $940,000. Looking at this number over and over again, I couldn't help but just stare at it. It just seems so insurmountable. I consider myself a reasonable amateur fundraiser but 7 months to raise these funds in an economic climate that is trying recover....I just keep shaking my head.

The only way I could deal with it was to try to break it down in sections. I knew that Rotary is very supportive of anything to do with water so that helped a lot. If I can raise $50,000 at the club level, the Rotary District and Rotary International could potentially match to a total of $200,000. This would cover off the costs for the new water source projects, hygienic toilets for 2 villages, hygienic toilets for 16 schools and 175 more water filter systems. This also includes the hospital requirements which also requested a computer for admissions and some small medical instruments. That is a good sized chunk out of my target.

Next I broke down the smaller projects of bicycles for two village schools, student support requests and blackboards, although I am having a lot of trouble sourcing the good quality green ones, rather than plywood painted black (the students can't see the chalk from the back of the room!). I have also applied for sponsorship to private individuals and an organizations for all of these items except for 3 university students. Yet it is pretty hard to ask for a firm commitment if I can't even source the proper blackboards and cost.

As the third breakdown, I had given myself a target of a total of 1000 water filter systems this year. Holy crap! What was I thinking? I had to raise the price too, to $55.00 per system because that is what they ended up costing last year. I know that many of the people who kindly donated last year (202 filters sponsored last year), will do so again this year and a few of them have decided to go out on their own to try to raise more filter sales. A good friend Roland Drake, from Toronto has already raised about 20 filters. Another friend in North Carolina has vowed to raise at least 10. If I add in the 175 filters that I am including in my proposal to Rotary, the total so far is pretty significant, with the sales already made. With the wonderful help from Roland, we have finalized a brochure for the water filter systems. Please feel free to download and print off. Maybe you know someone that may wish to help a family or two?

This leaves 16 schools and I still find myself staring at the number. It is still huge. I have commitments of about $6000, a far cry from about $650,000. Indeed I have a couple of smaller sponsors up my sleeve that I will be approaching and a couple of fundraisers planned for later in the summer that might bring in another $15-20,000. I am also trying to work out some other options too. The Jai Lao Foundation in California has announced an essay competition (closes May 31) and I understand that a couple of the schools in my district may be considered. It is still just a shot in the dark but you never know. There is another shot in the dark with the possibility of speaking to a University south of the border where there may be some consideration into Adopting A Village in Laos. You never know. Still, I know I need a better plan than this to raise significant funds for these schools that are either non-existent or in shambles.

So here is my plea. If any of you can assist in the funding, or know someone or an organization that may be able to assist, I would be deeply grateful.

Meanwhile I continue to book presentations to various clubs and special interest groups. This will be ongoing throughout the summer.

Huephen Village - Fresh, Clean Water!

2011-04-09T11:44:00.000-07:00

My last tour of duty in Laos was to distribute water filters to Huephen Village, located about 1 hour north of Luang Prabang. The villagers has showed me their three water sources and all had completely dried up except for one that was only about 6" deep and perhaps 1 square meter - this one was drying up very quickly too. After a study and lots of fundraising we were able to raise the funds to go ahead with the project. Meanwhile, a number of families were forced to move in search of water.

I am pleased to announce that they now how water flowing into their tapheads. This project is not quite complete because we are still waiting for the concrete on the storage tank to dry but we have completed the dam, several km's of pipe, and 5 tapheads. The pipe has been temporarily diverted around the water tank but the project should be complete in a week.

Above: The Dam (about an hour trek each way from the village)

Above: The Water Tank

Above: The smiles!

We spent considerable time going over the basics of hygiene plus how to maintain the water filters and then distributed one to every family.

Thanks to all of our amazing sponsors who allowed this to move forward. Without you, who knows what would have happened to the villagers - perhaps a ghost town? As mentioned, this was my last planned task for the trip, although I did venture down to the Capital city of Vientiane to see what they had there in terms of products and services. It certainly isn't Bangkok but it has a beautiful riverfront park that opened a few months ago plus some sightseeing and more selection for shopping.

Final Distribution of Water Filters for the Season

2011-04-09T08:40:00.000-07:00

My Last week in Laos was indeed an interesting one and it was a strong reminder of why I was there in the first place, not that I ever forgot of course. Most of my work is generally drudge work requiring lots of planning, organizing, purchasing, banking, accounting, fact gathering, proposals and many, many other things that tend to fill up my days. BUT it is moments like these, I cherish and many of you will too. First up was during my last visit to Pha Yong Village. I had not been there in about a month and I knew the chief had been trying to get a letter of request down to me in Luang Prabang for 24 rolls of barbed wire to be able to build a fence around the school and field and keep the water buffalo and pigs out of the school yard. Mike and I were happy to sponsor this and so I arranged for the delivery. Once I returned to the village I was so pleasantly surprised to see that the fence was up already - it was a bg school yard and they had done it the day before. As the chief explained, each villager was also required to supply one wooden post and two bamboo poles. When asked how long it took them to build the fence and gates, his response was that it took just over two hours! Whoa....try THAT in Canada - we would probably get three quotes, haggle over the price and complain that it was taking too long! It was a last minute thought to take pictures of the fence as we were riding away so this is just a small piece of it. Next up was a water filter distribution. I had been told earlier that a number of families had moved out of Ban Huephen in search of water for their families. It had been in our plans to provide a new water source for them but more about that later. I had extra filters and was determined to distribute them before I left. I had visited a 1300 student high school that was bursting at the seams in terms of classroom sizes and the structure itself due to termite damage. In one of my much earlier blog entries I included some pictures of this wooden high school. Just two weeks before I had visited the location with a potential sponsor to satisfy a request to complete a two room addition (separate building) to the school and noticed some serious degradation to the support beams of the school, to the point where one of the beams had already shifted sice I had been there the previous time. I couldn't bear it so I personally paid for and ordered new massive support beams that had to be hand made and told them to use any extra money from that to put towards a cement floor in the new addition. On this trip I was there to teach about proper hygiene to the students and teachers and to disribute some of the extra water filters. Somnuek Bounsa (the general manager of Le Belair Hotel) delivered them with me in his truck and we were both shocked when we arrived. As soon as our truck stopped on the grounds, we heard the school bell ringing (actually it was the rim of an old truck tire) and the kids running and lining up both sides of a pathway leading from our truck. It took us a minute to realize they had something planned for us. All the students and teachers lined up both sides of us that led right up to one of the new rooms and they were clapping in unison for us. Inside the large room, bacci had been prepared for us. All the teachers, all the graduating students and select students from other grades had been invited to attend and each student was asked to prepare a question for me. After bacci, I was asked all sorts of questions about Canada, about me and one of the teachers asked my age and if I was married - of course the entire room knew that she was looking for a husband and erupted in laughter. Her face went various shades of red. Here are some highlites; One of the questions asked during the question and answer period was if we provide support for university and within an hour these four boys had already neatly written CV's and letters of request to us. This is just the first stage. I now have to give them more details on the rules and subsequent competition. We gave out 6 water filters to this school. After we left the high school we went to a secondary school and dormitory to deliver more filters. We were met with lots of enthusiasm here as well. I will be back with more water filters for this dormatory. There is no water there at all - the kids have to go down to the river to bathe. Although, there is a new trench that has been dug and we are told that the school should be getting water soon. We delivered the last two water filters to the derelict hospital I included in two of my earlier blog entries. They have to bring water in since there is none on the premises but at least the water can be used for drinking water with the help of two new filters. Their request for a well and new latrines is being considered as an Adopt A Village In Laos for next year. You will notice one of the patients lying in bed in the background. They actually had four patients at the time in a 10 bed hospital. I wonder what happens during their busy season.

Last Trek of the Season

2011-03-24T18:15:00.000-07:00

I returned last week from my last trek. I have to admit that it was not my best trip although there were some pretty amazing highlites. It started the night before I left when my itinerary was changed and it was too late to change my scheduled meetings. The main purpose of the trip was to purchase materials and teach the contractor how to build hygienic toilets and sceptic bed, plus transfer some money to complete a fence and finally, to visit the final 5 new villages who had submitted requests for schools, toilets and water. As an FYI, this program I use to post my blogs has driven me up the wall. Please bear with me as I try to keep you up to date but I will be looking for a better program when I return. As I got to the Namba bridge, about 35 minutes south of Nong Khiaw I went into a restaurant to wait for some villagers who were to greet me from Ban Pha Yong. It turned out that the restaurant had no food and no drinks. Imagine a restaurant that doesn't sell anything to eat. We finally met up and I managed to purchase many of the materials I needed and after a bite to eat we headed to Viengkham (about 4 villages south of Nong Khiaw where there is a turn off to Pha Yong Village) and proceeded to the home of a friend of one of the Pha Yong Villagers. There, I had about 1200 holes drilled in some pipe for the sceptic bed since sceptic pipe wasn't available. This went well into the night so we 'dined' there with the family. I had been fortunate up until now but that was to end. The dinner just did not agree with my stomach. We barely got back to Pha Yong (around 11pm) and I became violently ill. I couldn't think of a worse place to be sick - there were no toilets, only bush, it was pitch black outside and started to pour rain...in fact it poured rain the entire night. Needless to say that everytime I went outside I was soaked to the bone and freezing.

Above: Mr. Souk is the head contractor, who was the one responsible for building the extension on Pha Yong School. He did such a beautiful job, I have him lined up for several more after this hygienic toilet project. With many of the materials delivered, they expected to start right away.

Above: The sceptic tank is in the background. It wasn't exactly a perfect location. The area behind it has to be cleared and levelled.

I spent two days recuperating and worrying about how I was going to be able to finish this last trip because I knew I wouldn't be back until next November. It took three sessions of training so that I could rest in between but I did manage to finish it. The next morning Bounmy, my host, translator and good friend rode me back to Sop Khan Village so I could catch a boat to Nong Khiaw. We almost made it and were certainly in close walking distance to Sop Khan when the chain broke on his motorbike. Fortunately it wasn't serious and it was an easy walk to the river. Bounmy was able to fix his bike fairly quickly and head back to his village, then back to Luang Prabang.

In Nong Khiaw I was to deliver an English dictionary to someone I had promised from my earlier trip there, meet with Madame Bountom (head of education) and Governor Bounsom but of course, the student wasn't around, and the Governor with his wife had headed to Luang Prabang. So much for that idea. I also no longer had a translator which I knew I would need if I were to continue the trip. The translator that I had arranged to meet me there, had indeed run into me the day before in Pha Yong Village with another couple. It was only by coincidence that we ran into each other and the tourists told me that he would be with them for thenext couple of days. Hmmmm. So much for the translator!

I did manage to find a translator and trekker at the last minute although I paid dearly for him because the trip had to be considered a tour package. So be it. I was feeling better and felt I needed to push on so we did the 2 1/2 hour boat trip and trek. It turns out that Kham Fan was a great trekker and was quite optimistic about the future, just what I needed to keep a positive attitiude. His translations weren't perfect but I wasn't complaining. ( I ran into the same tourists that had hired the previous tour guide/translator when I returned to Luang Prabang and they mentioned that their guide complained the whole time so I guess it was a blessing in disguise).

We ended up trekking in the rain, and the paths were about as mucky as you can get. I am sure I had two inches of mud on the bottom of my shoes, slipping and sliding all the way. It took us twice as long to get anywhere but the views (in between the short pauses between rains) were nothing less than spectacular. At times I wanted to just find a place to sit and absorb everything I was seeing. I wish I knew more words to describe the feeling of euphoria and beauty all around me. I felt completely at peace for the first time since I arrived.

Here are a couple of pictures I took during the trek to Ban Mae to give you an idea of the scenery. The village is located approximately 2 1/2 hours south of Nong Khiaw by boat, then another 1 1/2 hours souteast on foot.

The pictures aren't particulary clear due to the rain but the views reminded me of what I would see in Vietnam on National Geographic. Here are some highlites of the villages and schools. Above: Mueng Xien Village and Primary School. We had received a request for funding for a primary school but when we arrived, we were a little surprised at what we saw. We found out later that they had requested a secondary school, not a primary school. Even the teachers were unaware (although I was told that they would not normally be informed of this since the two schools are unrelated). Mueng Xien was the wealthiest of the villages we saw in this area. Above: Ban Na Lea. This was more along the lines of what I was expecting to see. This is the poorest area of the 5 village trek. Na Lea is located about a 15 minute walk from Mueng Xien and will be considered a priority for this region.

Above: Ban Huey Lae. The villagers from Ban Na Lea were so excited to see us that they insisted on riding us to the this village by tractor. I was shocked to see the chairs!!!! I felt quite stupid really and the chairs were so uncomfortable because we had to hold them in place for the whole trip. On the way back we insisted that the chief and his administrator sit in those chairs and we laughed all the way back once they realized just how uncomfortable they were.

As you can see, another derelict school in need of attention - the roof was leaking badly, not to mention the condition of the walls.

Above: Ban Mae, perhaps the most interesting. You will note that despite the conditions of the school, the kids were busily making something in art class with scraps of paper they ripped out of their notebooks. I asked the teacher to pick the two star students and here they are.

Above: Ban Pak Jeem. This is a primary school and they have requested a secondary school for the region. Currently the kids have to go quite a distance to get to secondary school. At least two villages will be going to the new school once it is built.

Above; Mr. Kham Fan, translator and guide. Always cheerful and keeping me upbeat during the wet and cold weather, I really appreciated his support. Thank You Kham Fan.

I did manage to run into Madame Bountom, finally upon my return from the trek. Governor Bounsom was in Vientiane so I never did manage to meet with him. My memories of this trip, good and not-so-good will be with me forever.

I am into my last week in Laos before returning to Canada and I have two days left of water filter distribution to four villages, fortunately all by road.

2011-03-24T17:12:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe how fast the time flies. I am two blog entries behind and only 9 days to go before I head back to Canada. I feel very sad at times knowing that I have to go home and leave so many wonderful people behind and with projects that are in various stages of completion.

A few weeks ago I ran into a lady at the Bangkok Airport while waiting for my flight back to Luang Prabang, as we were watching CNN to catch up on news that we had missed. We started a conversation and have become very good friends.

Xenia is an amazing lady who's heart is similar to mine and wants to do everything she can. I took her to some villages along with her best friend who is 82 and I am quite sure they had an experience of their lives. I knew it would be difficult to climb up the banks of the Nam Ou to get into the villages but they were really good about it.

I had to hold Xenia back at times from commitment and sponsorship towards various projects until she hade a chance to see everything I wanted to show her. Quite frankly I wish there was someone here that would do that for me! I am going broke a lot faster than I would have imagined but it is difficult when there is so much need.

Xenia became quite taken by a young fellow finishing his last year of high school. I had been sponsoring Oudom but was quite thrilled that Xenia wanted to take over the sponsorship. I have been already sponsoring two other university students and it was becoming difficult to manage a third sponsorship. So Oudom is now covered until the end of May or June when he graduates from High School. It will be up to him to present a formal request for sponsorship for university, to Xenia. I wish him luck for sure.

Here are a few highlites.

Above: Xenia and I enjoying a slowboat trip up the Nam Ou towards Hat Kham Village

Left: Candy does wonders when it comes to kids doesn't it?

Right: While painted artwork is not common among the villagers, this one was particulary interesting. You can see that they take pride in their few possessions.

Above: Unfortunately the lighting is not very good, but Xenia and Oudom, the student enjoy a photoshoot together after a bacci celebration. Note the white strings on their wrists.

Left: from the left, Myself, Oudom's father, Xenia, Oudoms grandmother, Oudoms mother and Xenia's friend Pam.

Right: A Distillery for Lao Lao. Every village has them!

Huephen Village Water Source Update

2011-03-07T21:28:00.000-08:00

I recently visited Small Huephen Village to see how our project was coming along, in order to supply water to the 35 families. Due to the lack of water there, the village has dropped in size over recent months from 42 families.

After hiking for about an hour, I checked out the dam they were building. During the dry season, this river becomes more of a stream, but with this new addition, water can build up overnight to supply enough water to the village during the day. We also followed the various stages of the trenching in order to place the new water pipe. I am told that the water project whould be complete before I return to Canada but in my view it isn't likely. They still have to build a water tank in the village and 5 tap heads.

Here are a few pictures.

Dam: Somnuek showing off the handiwork of the villagers.

Right: Construction Site of the dam.

Local Villager posing for the picture in front of the trench. The trench, when completed will be over 3km long. It was about half completed when I saw it.

It is dry season everwhere in Laos and water is at a premium. Even at my house here in Laos, the owners installed a new water tank and a pump to ensure that I have a steady source of water. I had heard from my neighbor that the water pressure is not strong enough to make it up to the second floor.

Many of the student dormatories have dried up. The only option is to bathe in the Nam Khan (river) which is degrading for many plus the water is certainly not clean. For drinking water and cooking though, water is trucked in and delivered at a cost of 4000 (50 cents) kip per bottle, the size of a water cooler bottle back at home. The students I sponsor go through 3 or 4 of these a week. This is an amazing price at home, nevertheless it is difficult for many students to manage the $2 per week.

Visit from Associated Press

2011-03-06T17:32:00.000-08:00

I was contacted by Jacquelyn Martin, a photojournalist from Associated Press through email. She had read my blog and wanted to visit Laos for her vacation. I was thrilled. We managed to spend a couple of days together and I know she got some great pictures as we travelled through some of the mountain villages. We were accompanied by the Director of Tourism and Madame Bountom, Director of Public Schools in the District.

I can hardly believe it but this is the only picture of Jacquelyn that I have. I had given my camera to Khamdee, my translator to take some pictures while I was working, but this is all I have. Jacquelyn, please accept my apologies! If you happen to have any pictures that you would like to send my way, I would be very happy to accept!!!

Jacqueline has also kindly offered to send me a print or two for a silent auction that I am planning this summer, in hopes of raising money for some worthy projects here in Laos

The homestay in Ban Phon was pretty amazing. After dinner and a bottle of Lao Lao, Jacquelyn retired for the evening and I thought I was too as I made my way to my homestay location. That wasn't to be though. There were about 8-10 people who followed me up and another bottle of Lao Lao, plus stories and laughter.

Here are a couple of pictures.

I should mention that while the men tend to sit in the foreground, the women are perfectly welcome to join in but they tend to stay in the background as shown below.

Khamdee was my translator for this leg of the journey. He is also a university student but goes to school at 4pm, then starts an overnight shift at a hotel to help for his studies.

I have just over 4 weeks to go before I leave for Canada.....and things are moving quite quickly. I can't believe I have been here since the middle of November! Anyway, I now have Government approval for all of the remaing projects and am working very quickly to make sure that all of the projects are well underway before I leave. These include Done Lom School which will begin construction on March 14th, the hygienic toilet project for Pha Yong Village which started last week, the toilet project for Had Chanh Village school where construction will start immediately following the Pha Yong toilet project, and there are a couple of other smaller projects already underway.

The Hill Tribes with Governor Bounsom

2011-02-24T00:01:00.000-08:00

Last week was pretty exciting for me. With Huephan Village Water Source construction well under way, I was free to return to the Muang Ngoi District to continue my efforts up there. Once I reached Nong Khiaw, I managed to purchase and transport about 1700 metres of barbed wire fencing to Pha Yong Village. This was to be able to clean up the school yard from grazing water buffalo, pigs and chickens. While there I met with the Mong and Khmu chiefs to discuss plans for the hygienic toilets for the village. We walked through every potential site and fortunately they have lots of land for sceptic fields. I will just be building one bank of toilets this year and see how the villagers maintain it before committing to and adding 10 more banks of toilets throughout the village.

I did the same with Had Chanh Village and while there, took a closer look at their school to see what needed improvements. I finally revisited Done Lom Village to give them an update and see the progress of the land they were to have prepared for the school. I was pleasantly surprised to see the land was ready to begin building. The problem was that I was not! I was still waiting for the final approval stamps which I had been told just needed the chiefs stamp. Deciding to take matters into my own hands, I returned to Nong Khiaw, met with the various Government departments and managed to get approvals for Done Lome before I returned to Luang Prabang.

It was Valentines day and Madame Bountom (the governors wife who is head of the primary school education department) was in Luang Prabang, so the governor had invited me, along with some of his deputies and friends to join him for dinner, followed by a game of Patong. The more drinks I had, the worse I got at Patong and I was the Governor's partner in the game. Okay so I really sucked at it BUT once I stopped drinking and sobered up a bit, I actually did much better.

I also spent a day visiting Khew Khan Village and Huena. These are two villages that had requested schools but none had actually provided a proposal. Still, I knew I wouldn't be back there before I left for Canada so figured I would take a look. Tell me what you think. Do you think they need a new school?

Kew Khan - This one room school is in relatively good shape on the outside. They have asked for a 3 room school with toilets.

Left: Huena Village School - my translator took the picture and I should have had it taken from a different angle. During the rainy season, you can see why there would be no classes held. It would be pretty hard to stay dry with the driving rains and wind. They have asked for a three room school with washrooms and a kindergarten.

I should note here that these two schools are the best you will see.

The following day I headed up with the Governor, his wife, a deputy, a school teacher and my translator to the mountain tribes of Ngoi. Wow, what an experience. I can't say that I have ever been closer to a governor in my life....physcially. There we were four of us squeezed together in the back seat of a pick up truck. the back of it was filled with vegetable and food offerings to the poorer tribes and family of the Governor. We visited 6 villages in one day, namely Phon Kham, Phon Savanh, Ban Phon (The governors home village), Heu Kheun, Lao Souh and Pho Vieng.

Here are some highlites of the trip.

Left: Do you think these guys would stay away from joining us for lunch? No way, despite many attempts at shewing them off.

Right: Main Street in Ban Phon, the Governors home village.

Above: Ban Phon Primary School. There will be at least two more villages moving to Ban Phon, one of them due to the fact that their village will be 35 metres underwater when the Nam Ou, 7 Tier dam gets built. They have asked for a primary school and secondary school.

Upper Left: Amazing scenery in between the mountain villages

Upper Right: Village folk in Ban Phon.

Upper Left: From Left - Deputy Governor, Village Chief (in front), our driver, Governor Bounsom, a teacher from Lao Sou and Director of Primary Schools for Ngoi District Madame Bountom.

Upper Right: An inside look at Ban Phon school

Upper: village kids and some amazing mountain scenery.

Phou Vien Village School - they are asking for 2 more rooms - what they need of course is a 3 room concrete block school.

Upper Left: Phou Vien School with a scenic view

Upper Right: A Cloud of dust followed us wherever we went.

Above: Lao Sou Public School. As you can see,it is falling apart. Note the black goat!

Another view of Lao Sou School.

The visit to the last village was pretty amazing. It was a Mong Village and once they found out that we were there to discuss the provision of a new school, to say that they were pretty happy would be a gross undertatement. We did not have the time to stay for Bacci, but they delivered a live goat to the back of the truck. I definitely should not have looked into its eyes, knowing that we were going to be eating it!

So much for the black goat!!! Why did I have to look into its eyes!

I felt pretty guilty the next morning.....barbecued goat is absolutely mouthwatering, but I kept seeing the big black eyes. I was with many of the Governor's closest aids and friends, a couple of whom spoke English which was a real treat. Mind you the Governor himself is getting pretty good at English too.

After a full meal of the best barbequed (black) goat I ever tasted.

The Governor and myself are at the back - the rest are deputies, close aids and friends.

A last memory of the trip.

Rotarians from Whitby Sunrise Club

2011-02-23T18:55:00.000-08:00

I can't believe how fast the time has flown by, with only 6 weeks to go before I head back to Canada. What is worse is that I haven't updated this blog in over a month!

It was only 3 days after Sammy and Kate left, when 7 Rotarian friends from the Whitby Sunrise Club came for a visit. Their adventure started right in the airport. Poor Mark and Leslie! There they were, sitting in the Immigration office looking quite forlorn and trying to use Canadian logic to talk their way out of a $200 fine each for not checking the expiry date on their passport before they left. With some luck I had brought the hotel manager to greet them and with his influence we were able to knock the fine down to a total of $300. Perhaps a minor consolation but better than nothing for sure.

Left to Right: Rotarians (and spouses) Buncha Putchana (president of Bangkok Rotary), me, Leslie Burton, Mark Chipman, Craig Howie, George Punyaprateep, Deborah Murray and husband Robert Ellis.

The picture on the right is Le Belair Hotel Manager Somnuek Bounsa who negotiated a discount for Leslie and Mark.

They were only here 3 full days and I knew that Rotarian George Punyaprateep had taken them on a grueling adventure in Thailand, so I didn't want to overload them with too much.

The first day, I took them to a couple of villages, the main one I wanted to show them was Ban Huephan, where the villagers have been forced to trek kilometres to get water. Fortunately, I had received all necessary approvals the week before to be able to officially announce this and the start of construction to run a new water source to the village from a river located about an hour's trek away. The villagers were waiting for us of course, including the Ou District Governor, with open arms and our Rotarian Guests had their first Bacci experience. For those of you who have not read in my earliest blogs about Bacci, it is quite an extraordinary experience and quite humbling I might add. We are generally treated like their Buddah with prayers to us, lots of chanting, and lots of ritual involving string tied around our wrists as they pray to us. I have really shortened this but if you would like to understand more, please take a look at my earliest blog entries.

Here are a few highlights;

(left) The fellow in the centre is the Governor of Ou District. The district is located North of Luang Prabang.

During Bacci, the Rotarians were watching me very closely to see what I would dare to eat, since the hygienic conditions were non existent.....yet. I can certainly tell you that they ate very lightly and some were quite good at hiding the food handed to them so they didn't have to eat it. We have plans to distribute a water filter system to every family in the village and to teach them about hygiene, but more about that later.

Here are some highlights from Day 2 of their visit and it features the new village of Nong Buekhon whereby 300 families are being moved here from several villages around. The Government has found a sponsor for building two water tanks that have been installed already, and various Taps throughout the new community. They are still seeking sponsors to finish a primary school, secondary school, hygienic toilets and the completion of a road system throughout the village. This is a huge project. With equal personal donations from all of the visiting Whitby Rotarians, we managed to purchase and distribute 200 blankets and mosquito nets to the village, to add to the 180 blankets and mosquito nets I donated along with the owner of Le Belair Hotel a couple of weeks earlier. They are still in need of more so that each family has a blanket and net. I might add that I received a couple of phone calls the following day saying that we were seen on the local TV station.

The fellow on the right is the Governor of Luang Prabang District.

Below is the District Governor and staff with
the blankets and mosquito nets

The final day was open for everyone to see and feel the heritage city itself. Some went golfing, others went bicycling and we all met up for dinner together that night. I am pretty sure that Laos left some lasting impressions, and they have vowed to help me further our cause here.

Another Round of Lao Lao

2011-01-17T06:28:00.000-08:00

My next round of visitors to Laos are close friends of mine - Sammy and Kate. Sammy owns Bualai Taste of Thai Restaurant in Port Hope and Kate works with her. Sammy's restaurant continues to be the busiest restaurant in town and it is no wonder. Reasonable prices, amazing food and a bubbly personality that never forgets a name or a face.

They are just here for a couple of days while they continue their tour in southeast Asia and to Sammy's village, located about 2 1/2 hours south of Udon Thani (the Thai border at Vientiane). I didn't waste anytime in getting them into the villages though. It just happened to be the coldest night of the winter though. The temperature hovered around 12 C. I know it is not like our Canadian winters but certainly uncomfortable with only light jackets.

Rotarian Lisa McCoy had been itching to get into the villages as well, to spec out a possible site location for a 'Muskoka' School that she hopes to raise funds for through the summer months.

So the four of us and an interpreter travelled up to Nong Khiaw, hitched a boat ride to Muang Ngoi and other than a stroll through the village, we just took it easy for the rest of the day. Quite frankly I think we were all happy to go to bed early just to get warm under the covers.

Today though we rented a private boat and headed to Done Lom Village first. I had received their proposal and although incomplete and missing critical information, it had already been approved by the Department of Education. We spoke with the chief to bring him up to date with where we were in the process and hope to begin construction in the next few weeks. I still have to line up the head of construction and get a signature from the Governor but the way has pretty much been cleared for us. We then took a tour of the site for the new school. The area had been cleared by the bomb squad and the trees had been felled but there is still a lot of work to do to prepare the land. They agreed to have a village meeting tonight and everyone will be pitching in to make sure the land is ready in time. Right now is the perfect time because their field work won't begin for another few weeks. After that, most will be out in the fields. Here is a picture of the land for the future school - lots of manual labour to be done yet before construction can begin.

Shortly afterwards we continued up the river to Hat Kham Village. This is the village with no school and they currently have a few tables set up in the village meeting place...a concrete floor, tin roof and low walls - certainly unsuitable during inclemement weather, not to mention that it is borrowed from the government. Some of you will recall from an earlier blog entry that the old school was destroyed by the last rainy season. Here are a couple of more pictures.

This is also the location that I have been wanting to bring Lisa McCoy to. We all got to meet the children, the parents, elders, all of whom got very excited with our visit. In fact they insisted in celebrating Bacci, yes another one.Not exactly one of my more glamorous pictures.....

Lisa is now in her final two days with me and she will be sorely missed. Sharing our stories, someone to bounce ideas off of and someone to share my experiences with. And what a wonderful cook!!!! It is amazing how she can make something out of nothing. It sure is going to be quiet around here, although my real work is just beginning.

Next week we start the water source project in Huep Han village followed immediately by Ban Done Lom with their new school. Quite frankly I am looking forward to getting started on those projects but wish Lisa were staying.

Governors, Officials and a New Village!

2011-01-06T17:01:00.000-08:00

Pauline was pretty dissapointed at not being able to join us in our overnight visit to the villages so as soon as I got back I managed to get lucky. We were asked to join Somnuek (The General Manager) and the owner of Le Belair Resort, to visit a new village, along with the Governor of Luang Prabang, the ex governor (who sat behind me!!), the deputy governor and the heads of Education and Water and Hygiene. What a treat!

We had heard of the needs of this new village. The Government is attempting to move over 300 families consisting of Mong and Khmu, although the Mong tribe has declined. Still, about 100 families have made the move and are awaiting for land to be given to them for purposes of farming. They currently have three water tanks with taps coming directly off them although the underground piping has not been completed. Other than that nothing is finished yet. The road is a misery to ride, but they have plans to build a primary school (about 20% finished), secondary school, market, bus stop, and hygienic toilets. Many of these villagers have to travel back to their own farmland up in the hills and down in the valleys until they get new property.

We have been asked to assist of course with a secondary school, and clean water. There is a one room secondary school about 5km further up the road and the local village plans to build one more room each year. Our thought was that if we could provide the travelling students with bicycles, then only one secondary school would be required.

The villagers are extremely poor, some worse that others - most do not have latrines of any kind and just go in the bush. It reminds me of a poster in one of the villages I had seen that shows the Government trying to teach the children from pooping in the middle of the street and directing them to a nearby bush! Hmmm.....enough said.

Pauline and Lisa from A Mine Free World Foundation and Adopt A Village in Laos donated 80 mosquito nets to the poorer villagers, and Le Belair Resort donated 100 blankets.

Here are a few pictures of the memories.

This picture is of the Luang Prabang Governor, Lisa McCoy, the owner of Le Belair and myself being presented with a certificate of thanks for the mosquito nets.

Above - The villagers from Ban Nong Bue Kon patiently awaiting the start of the ceremonies, celebrating their first anniversary of the village. This village is lcoated about 2 hours southwest of Luang Prabang.

Somnuek brought a bag of goodies for many of the kids, ranging from books to clothing in an offering of hope to the new village.

From the left: Somnuek Bounsa, The owner of Le Belair Resort, The Governor of Luang Prabang and me.

This is a makeshift school run from volunteers from Canada who have since departed. If you look closely at the sign sitting on the ground you can make aout the words 'Canada'

On the way back to Luang Prabang Somnuek took us to this small village of Nong Hepe. It was a three room school but in need of some major repairs. The Primary 4 and 5 kids without bicycles need to walk 1 1/2 hours each way to go to primary school. Once that is done they can go to secondary school if they can afford it. There are about 10 kids who cannot afford the 85,000 KIP to go (about $10 US). In the primary school there is no latrine at all.

I will be asking for a proposal for a school latrine and for costs to re-parge the outside of the school - at least it is made with concrete block. For the kids that can't afford to go, I will make sure they are able to go next year and if all goes well, Rotary Wheels for Learning will be able to sponsor bicycles for those that cannot afford them. These will cut the travel time down to 30 minutes each way.

Other than some translations that need to be done, I am in a bit of a holding pattern for this years projects. Specifically,
1) Huephen Village needing a water source is in the final stages of approval - we should receive the final stamp any day now so we can start on the project.
2) LadThahae Village needing access steps for the school and underground piping to their latrines for the school is revising their proposal - they just elected a new village chief so there is much for him to learn I guess. The revised proposal is expected in about two weeks. Other than the chiefs stamp, nothing else will be required for the project to start.
3) Done Lom School - I received the document back that needs some translation but most of it is what I gave them. The did get a village and a Department of Education stamp but they did not get a Water and Hygiene Stamp - I think they forgot, plus there is no estimated costing. Once I get some crucial diagrams from the Water and Hygiene department expected today or tomorrow, I will rework their proposal and get the final costing done.
4) Hygienic Toilets - I am waiting for the diagrams from the water and hygiene department as mentioned and will hire an official to map out Had Chanh and Pha Yong Village to determine where to put the latrines. Depending on the condition of the diagrams I may be able to start this within a month.
5) Water Filter - final distribution. This will be done immediately following the completion of the new water source in Huephen Village.
6) School Teachers - I find that one of the schools never did get a second teacher so I won't be paying for that and will save it for one of next year's project. Once I am successful in opening a bank account here I will arrange for payment of the teacher in Pha Yong Village.

So there you have it.

Village visits with Lisa and Pauline, Khmu New Year

2011-01-04T02:45:00.000-08:00

No rest for the wicked as they say. It has been a really interesting time with Rotarian Lisa McCoy from Canada and Pauline Johns from Australia. While it was a bit difficult to organize and visit villages over the first few days with Christmas and New Years celebrations in the way,I am told that the Lao people celebrate their own New Years around the same time as ours but they also celebrate everyone elses holidays too - an excuse to let loose and party I suppose.

From Left: Mike Yap, Rotarian Lisa McCoy, yours truly and Pauline Johns

I was also in the middle of trying to work on my projects in between visitors but I needn't have worried. Lisa and Pauline are no strangers to hard work. It has been a lot of fun to share stories together about the hiccups and difficulties we experience along the way. A famous saying here is 'same same...but different'. It sure fits with what Lisa and Pauline have gone through in Cambodia as compared with I have gone through here.

I haven't told you much about Lisa and Pauline. Lisa is a Rotarian from Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada. Lisa along with the Gravenhurst Rotary Club International Committee implemented the Rotary Wheels for Learning which provides bicycles for children to get to school in developing countries. Their web site is http://rotarywheelsforlearning.blogspot.com/.

Lisa and Pauline are researching locations in northern Laos as expansion to their program. I suppose it goes without saying that they didn't have to look very far to see the desperate need but more about that later.

Lisa and Pauline are directors for A MineFree World Foundation. I was humbled by the knowledge of Lisa's involvement as education co-ordinator in the Landmine Museum Relief Fund. For those of you who have been to Siem Reap, many of you would have seen Lisa's work at the museum. The funds were raised for a six room school project named the Muskoka school.
http://schoolsforcambodia.blogspot.com/.

I am a little delayed with this posting because my notebook got stolen. Fortunately I have copies of everything because almost everything I do is related to email, either directly or document preparation for emailing. The story goes a little deeper but my overall experience here remains positive and hopeful.

Pauline has now returned to Cambodia for a few days before heading back to Australia but I am still lucky to have Lisa remain with me for a couple more weeks and yes, I do intend to keep her busy.

The days seem to run together but shortly after Christmas I took the ladies to the derelict hospital, another village needing a water source and the infamous high school that really needs our attention. I am worried that some of the support beams are going to collapse. There is one critical junction that will cause quite a collapse if it goes.

Here is another view of the high school.

It should be noted here that the white block part of the structure was intended as storage rooms but has been converted into classrooms due to space restrictions - there are four classrooms of this nature and it looks like a dark dungeon in these rooms. There are three other classrooms that are primarily bamboo located elsewhere on the property and used as temporary classrooms unless it rains.

We returned to Luang Prabang, relaxed and snack-shopped for a couple of days but then prepared for a visit to HuepHan Village that is in the final approval stage for a new water source (should be ready to go within a week) and to Ladthahae Village to review the requirements for a small project at the school property there.

Huephan villagers took us on a one hour hike that we weren't expecting, to show us where their new water source was going to come from. We didn't know this at the time but we were glad we saw it. Quite frankly there wasn't much to see but the villagers were pretty excited about it. Below you will see a tall tree that stands out above the rest of the foliage and at the bsae of the tree are two rivers that intersect and merge. This is where the water pipes will originate from - that is a lot of pipe!

I was feeling guilty about taking Pauline and Lisa on such a long journey because I didn't prepare them for it so we didn't go all the way to the foot of the tree. Also we were told that the UXO (unexploded ordinance) office had been there and determined that this was one of the few areas that escaped the heavy bombing raids so they saw no reason to clear the land and left. The path was considerably narrower so we decided not to venture further.

At LadThaHae School, I investigated the site a little closer and while the water tank is complete, the pipes do not run to the toilets. Instead there is one tap and a sealed pipe at the water tank so the water has to be carried to the small holding tanks beside the toilets in the three latrines.
I also obtained more information about the access steps to the school.

Since then I have requested a revised proposal that is expected within a couple of weeks so we can get started on it. This will not require government approvals because it is a small project and the water tank itself is done.

The next day Pauline was a little under the weather with sore feet so she was unable to join us for the overnight visit to Had Chanh and Pah Yong Villages. Nothing ever goes exactly as planned but for some reason it was the closest I have managed to come to a perfect schedule.

We left early in the morning with Lisa, Myself, Phet (our translator for the trip), two lady friends of Bounmy and his mom who had recently visited the hospital to see about a swollen foot, and a water/hygiene 'specialist' who was hired to review the village requirements and compare notes with me to make sure I understood how they build hygienic toilets.

We made it to Had Chanh without incident and rounded up the chief, several elders and village builders so I could teach them (with the assistance of the 'specialist'). It went surprisingly well. In fact the 'specialist' kept commenting about how great I was doing (translated of course), in response to questions I kept asking him to confirm that I was correct is certain assumptions. Once I noticed that he was copying my chalkboard diagrams into his book, I began to realize that while he had some knowledge, he really didn't know enough about designing hygienic toilets at all to be able to help me prepare a proposal on behalf of the villagers...Not Good! I have the theory correct but when it comes to developing the calculations required to size the sceptic tanks and subsequent sceptic fields and piping, I am at a loss.....just what I need...more research....

Still, it was a success in that whenever I get my information, approval should happen quickly. I have asked the department for the schematics they have on file but suspect they are identical to the ones I received from the Department of Education which means....you guessed it...more work.
Above is a picture of Bounmy's mom (left) and Phet (right), our translator. She was there also to learn about the projects so she can be of much more assistance to me in the future. She will also be able to assist in costing and proposal preparation, hygiene training and a lot more. What a personality! She reminds me of Sammy from Bualai Taste of Thai restaurant in Port Hope - bubbly, happy all the time and a very quick wit!

On the right side, above, are a couple of the workers that helped to build the school and the village chief as we debrief after the meeting at the school.

We had intended to leave right afterwards to hike over to Pha Yong (along with a tractor to take our backpacks and luggage). We had planned to spend the night in Pha Yong village but that wasn't to be. They had actually been waiting for us to finish our meeting so they could bring in the new year with a traditional Bacci in celebration of the Khmu New Year which usually happens in December, although the exact date changes in accordance with the village priorities.

Here is a bit of a treat for you. By the way, the images above and below, including the video was taken by Lisa McCoy.

I tried downloading but gave up after several hours. Here is the link;

This is Part 2 of the video where you will see some of the traditional dancing.

Overall we were all pretty impressed. Apparently there is a school they can attend to teach this kind of traditional dancing. There was lots of drinking at this one..that is for sure.

Rather than load this video that would take me forever, please click this link;

That night we had a second Bacci in celebration of a visiting friend of one of the families - apparently there are many reasons for Bacci in Laos. The following morning there was a Bacci held for two more that we were requested to attend. One was for Oudom, one of the students I am partially sponsoring who had returned to his village for a visit after several months.

Immediately following that we headed by boat across the river and got dropped off at SopCham Village where we caught a tractor ride to Pha Yong Village to meet with their chiefs and elders for discussion about their toilet needs and more training. Another positive experience for sure. I found out later that the villagers had actually sent Bounmy's mom for a second reason. It seems that they were afraid that I would head home after Christmas...for what reason I don't know but the thought never crossed my mind. They know I get along very well with the mom, but I treat all the elders of the villages that way....with total respect. Strange isn't it? I have to admit that it was a little tight around the house. My house is a three bedroom and all bedrooms were fully occupied over the New Years period so there were three of us sharing my bed - talk about squishy!!!!

Here is another image of Pha Yong School.

Traditional Dress

2010-12-25T15:03:00.000-08:00

Lisa McCoy from Gravenhurst, Ontario and Pauline Johns from Australia arrived on Christmas Day. In fact their flight arrived a half hour early - unheard of in these parts! What a pleasant surprise. I expected that we would be waiting close to an hour before we would see their faces through the arrivals window but they were waiting for us! We had our own entourage including Bounmy's mother from Pha Yong Village to greet them at the airport.

From the airport we dropped off their luggage at the house and enjoyed a celebatory drink with them before heading downtown to a French restaurant and cafe to get them something to eat. They were a little shocked, OK well may be quite shocked at the whole experience. They had been to Laos before but were not expecting private bedrooms, let alone private bathrooms and internet, and a French Bistro to enjoy a Christmas dinner. I would imagine that their accomodations in Cambodia were similar to the village huts we stay in during our travels. Anyway, they are anxious to get into the villages and prefer to skip the touristy things that I had planned for them so that is what we will do AND they will have the experience of celebrating Khamu New Years at Had Chanh and Pha Yong village, complete with traditional costumes.

Speaking of traditional dress, I promised you some pictures of the Mong tribe traditional dress. When we did the official school opening in Pha Yong village, the Mong tribe showed us deep respect by wearing the traditional uniforms and their children in school uniforms.

Above: Chief's Administrator

Upper Right: 1st Chief - Pha Yong Village

Bottom Left: Mother and Daughter all dressed up for the occasion.

These are pictures of the 1st and 2nd chief of Had Chanh Village

The following are pictures of some of the school children, taken with the school water filters.

Pha Yong School (Above)

Had Chanh School childrent in front of their school (Bottom)

So we are now off for breakfast on Boxing Day and hope to show our guests a high school and a hospital so they can get the true feeling of the struggles facing them.

Tours with Ted, Jennifer H, Jennifer M and Mike

2010-12-21T03:51:00.000-08:00

Now that our first group has left and I have successfully managed to email most of our wonderful sponsors for the forst two villages, namely HadChanh and Pha Yong with a photo of family members with their new water filters, it is time to relive the experiences and time for reflection.

Of course there had been a lot of preparations for their arrival but it was so wonderful to be able to share real experiences with our truly amazing guests. As a short recap, Jennifer Mercer, proprietor of Jenn's Dance It Up Studio, Jennifer Hawthorne who offered to teach English and Ted Amsden our infamous photojournalist from Northumberland Today.

Ted was a real trouper carrying his camera luggage everywhere he went - I seriously doubt that I would have been able to lug it around and still enjoy myself but he did and never complained once. In fact he stated a couple of times that he would love to come back. I asked him to tell us what his greatest memory, good or bad, was and he said the destitute feeling he had when visiting a 10 bed hospital about 25km from Luang Prabang. I think all of us were in shock over that one. We had never experienced anything so bad.

Note that this was the cleanest room of the entire hospital and with no water except when it rained.

Being the cleanest room, imagine the birthing room and the examination room - we were told they do surgery there but I think it is more for cuts that require minor stiching after looking at the tools they use. Nothing was clean and everything hazardous is either burned or buried on site in the backyard of the hospital. Needless to say we won't be putting a well there.

In fact nobody complained at all and just went with the flow. Jennfer Hawthorn was game for anything, wanted to experience everything and I believe, enjoyed every single experience. She mentioned that her most joyious moment of her trip was the teaching of English in Pha Yong Village to the school children. I tried my hand at it because there were two classrooms of students to teach and I certainly didn't have the knack that she did - If I sang like she and Jennifer Mercer did I can tell you the kids would have run out of the class howling. I will post a couple of pictures of this once Ted has had a chance to review them.

Jenn Mercer...better known as Diva Jenn. What can I say about her? She was cheerful the entire time and it couldn't have been easy while expecting a child. She was a bit taken back by some of the food that was being offered like a pigs head and wasn't too impressed with the hygiene in the villages but Diva Jen came through with flying colours. Lots of pink to be specific. The kids loved her as you can see below.

Here is a sampling of some of the other highlites and lowlites of their visit.

Having fun with the Governor of Muang Ngoi District during the official opening of Had Chanh School. Wonder who had the most Baci strings?

Obviously Mike - he cheated because he still had the ones on from our previous visit.

What a sight. This is what we saw as we arrived after a 1 1/2 hour trek to the school in Pha Yong Village. New addition to the school looked perfect, water filters for every family and the school and the Canadian Flag flying high. Jen Hawthorn went a little soft when she saw the flag.

This is the new location for the school in Done Lom Village. It is waiting to be checked for bombs and landmines before clearing the land.

In this barren area a school once stood. In fact I received a picture of it back in June and it was in desperate need of help. The school finally succumbed to the rainy season and it had to be taken down completely for safety purposes. The village has borrowed the open aired community centre from the government, seen in the distance.

These pictures are of a secondary and high school for a district located about 20km from Luang Prabang. The left picture shows class being held in a storage unit under the school. We discovered major termite damage. Even some of the beams looked like they were rotting right through. they have only asked us to help them finish off a separate building to hold three classrooms at a cost of about $6,000USD plus there are only 6 toilets for 1300 students.

They not only need classrooms and toilets, they need a new school.

There are so many more pictures I will be sharing with you. In my next entry I will provide pics of the village chiefs and traditional costumes in celebration of their New Year, held early in honour of our visit.

My Longest Hour

2010-12-04T21:18:00.000-08:00

This last week has been interesting, frustrating at times, emotionally fulfilling at other times. For some reason all the days run together - I cannot remember one day from the next because they do not take weekends off, except for the banks and government institutions.

Anyway, sometime early last week Somnuek the manager from Le Belair Resort and Hotel, took me to Nong Khiaw, a short 2 1/2 hour ride, to meet some of the officials I will be working with in the future. We met with the General Manager of Education and the General Manager of Hygiene and Water. Both expressed their gratitude for our support and interest in the Muang Ngoi District of Luang Prabang. It appears they had done their homework well and were prepared and waiting for my arrival. Before I left, I had 11 new school projects they requested assistance for, and 6 villages that still had no reliable water source. I can only imagine how the villages survive. I will be trekking to many of these villages to see for myself of course but one of them is a five hour trek each way! What is worse is that it appears that the school there is in the worst shape of all of the villages so I have no choice but to go there first.

Next was a meeting with the Governor of Muang Ngoi who was considerably late and as an apology, took us for lunch to get to know me a little better. He knew that we had accidentally skipped some of the government processes and joked with us saying that he wished we would do more like that because it saves them a lot of red tape. This is of course translated from something that if translated word for word into English would mean something like 'we stole two schools and wishes we would steal more'. The local government priority there is to build as a minimum, temporary access roads to the remaining 48 villages that do not even have that. Naturally he asked for our assistance with whatever we could do to help - otherwise it is going to take 10-15 years.

I am still waiting to receive pictures taken with these wonderful people and will edit this post when I receive them.

Now to my longest hour....

This day started one day late to begin with. The water filters were to arrive in Luang Prabang the previous day and they had requested someone to go with them to Nong Khiaw because they didn't know the way. So we sent for Khamlath's father who came all the way down from Had Chanh village - later we found out he wasn't needed. The filters arrived a day late. Once we were informed of this, there was no way to contact Pha Yong village. After many, many calls, reception to the village just wasn't there. The only way to contact them was by public radio broadcast and that is exactly what happened. By the time the radio announcement was made, all the villagers had already made the trek to the river when someone heard the radio announcement. Wow....I wondered how they would react when they saw me but there was no need to worry.

So, one day late and, an extra passenger that didn't need to be there, we left at 7am in the morning. We drove 5 minutes and found the truck on the side of the road, partially unloaded trying to fit two blackboards into the back of the truck. They had picked someone up along the way, presumably to make a little money on the side and that person had bales of string she was taking to Nong Khiaw. Another half hour went by as we mounted the blackboards to the top of the van and we were off again to pick up two ladies (Bonnie and her stunning daughter Penelope from LA) I had met at the hotel, to share our adventure.

So, everyone aboard, we headed out to catch and beat the truck to Nong Khiaw so we could hire local labour to unload the truck and load the boats. We had driven for about an hour before we heard a pop - it sounded like one of the strings holding the blackboard may have popped so we stopped again to take a peek - nothing apparent so we drove for another few km until I started to hear a rubbing noise. It sounded like the back tire was rubbing so we stopped again. Sure enough, the back passenger wheel was rubbing against the back of the wheel well. Immediately I knew what the popping noise was. It was a mounting bolt that had popped and the whole rear axle had shifted. Crap! In hindsight I should never have let the ladies back in the van - this was indeed serious. For some reason, we got back in the van and crept along for probably no more than 5 minutes and wouldn't you know it...there was a little shack on the side of the road that just happened to do motor bike repairs but was obviously versatile. He took a look, figured he could fix it although he didn't have the bolt we needed, so he welded one! An hour later we were back on the road and I was expecting to be hit hard being a 'phlang' (meaning foreigner) and all. It cost equivalent to $4. Yes, only four dollars!

Once we got to the dock, laborers were easy to find but we all pitched in. Instead of two boats we needed four. Here are a few pictures.

Now it was time to man the boats, one or two of us in each boat. Of course I got the tippy boat - not being a strong swimmer, I can tell you the next hour was perhaps one of the most harrowing experiences I have had. Even starting off I thought we were going to tip over. I think the captain of the boat did too - he had this sickly, worried look on his face the whole time. I wished I'd had a camera. Every time we came up to a turn or hit a bit of current, we both had to lean over to keep the boat ride side up. In most places the river was not terribly deep and the driver hit bottom several times so I can't say I was worried about surviving the trip...but the water filters that I had worked so hard to raise money for, the endless hours of planning and organization of various fundraisers, the stress of preparing for the trip, the upcoming projects, the meetings......
As we rounded the last bend in the river and approached the shoreline nearest Pha Yong Village, my emotions got the best of me. There they were, 83 families, their kids, the two chiefs waiting on the side of the river. All of a sudden everything led to this amazing, remarkable...in fact there are just no words to describe this event. I wish you all could have been there. Even one of the ladies I think was a little teary eyed. Every bit of effort by myself, Mike and all those that helped us was all worth it. I am awaiting a couple more pictures from the ladies but I won't get them for a few weeks but I will edit this blog entry and insert them - I know that they took some pretty awesome pictures as we approached the shore.

After Pha Yong we continued to Had Chanh Village and helped bring everything up the river bank to the village. In the evening a baci was held in honour of two visiting ladies. This was a memory for them that will never be forgotten - in fact they said it was life altering for them. For once I could say I actually knew how they felt. I sure hope they contact me.

Return to Laos - November 2010

2010-11-28T02:37:00.000-08:00

Its Official!

We are now an incorporated Not-For-Profit Organization. It was a bit of a wait but certainly worth it. Now our next step is to apply for charitable status and be able to issue tax receipts for qualified individuals. This is estimated to take at least a year. Meanwhile a few dollars can go a long way in Laos. For example a $50 dinner for two buys a water filter for a family of 6 or 8 for years to come, saving the agony of illness caused by water borne bacteria.

Please note that our current directors are as follows;

President: Steve Rutledge
Secretary: Cleve Pendock
Treasurer: Ron Coleman

As we prepare our next submission to the government, I am currently in Luang Prabang preparing for a revisit to Pha Yong and Had Chanh Villages. I have now purchased school supplies and will be purchasing gifts for the children of these villages. We already have donated Tshirts, toothbrushes and toothpaste. While we didn't have enough space to bring more, there will be at least two new toothbrushes per family - currently they share one toothbrush per family!

Tomorrow I am off with Mr. Somnuek Bounsa, manager of Le Belair Resort to visit the District Vice Governor, a Hygiene official and an Education official from the Muang Ngoi District, followed by a vist to three villages including the one village that currently uses a mud hole as their water source. This is the village that I will likely be giving final approval for the sponsorship or a new water source.

Following that, on Tuesday we are expecting a large shipment of 155 water filters to arrive in Luang Prabang and onwards to Nong Khiaw. Then they get loaded onto boats and shipped up the Nam Ou (River). Some will get dropped off to the riverbank closest to Pha Yong and manually transported one by one to the village approximately 2 hours away. The rest will be shipped to Had Chanh Village, thankfully right at the top of the river bank. So yes, it will be another very long day.

I will be returning to Luang Prabang on Wednesday to complete our shopping for the guests coming on December 6. This also needs to be shipped to the villages in advance of their arrival!
I almost forgot - somewhere in the mix I will be moving to a Salanoy located close to downtown Luang Prabang. I signed the lease today but just haven't figured out where I am going to find the time to move everything.

As you can see, my schedule is a little daunting but everything always works out, just not quite the way I imagined it. I expect that my next posting will include lots of pictures.

Pha Yong Village Update

2010-11-09T15:39:00.000-08:00

This summer and fall has been a whirlwind. All of a sudden it is time to leave for Laos again.

When we returned from Luang Prabang at the end of the spring, I had no idea what the summer would hold for us. I knew there were a lot of desperate pleas from various villages to assist. When I received pictures of the one village with just a mud hole to drink from, my heart just sank then a little determination took over...OK...a lot of determination. Raising funds for a local cause is one thing but raising funds for another country half a world away just seemed the impossible dream.

Both Mike and I just couldn't believe the response. We had our first function and sold out in two weeks from launch and good-hearted citizens just seemed to come out of the wood work. It was then that I realized just how many people I actually knew and how many people wanted to help by doing their own fundraisers. In three months there were 5 fundraisers. On the other side of the coin I started working with some of the Rotarians that I knew. Every club I presented to, donated or committed to donate. Further, through a blog I set up (OK so I had some wonderful help) it was amazing to see just how many people have been reading it and how many new contacts I made. In fact one of them will be visiting us in Laos over Christmas. This wonderful lady from Gravenhurst has indicated serious interest in helping us to build more schools, buy library books and do a bicycle distribution in Laos. Even more amazing, through her contacts I was also asked to put together a much larger proposal for next year - to put this in perspective, it would be equivalent to sponsoring 12 schools! Another highlight was that we are just waiting for our Not-For-Profit official paperwork. As of today we are told that it will probably be another couple of weeks before we see it.

I think the largest driving force for me was to see our pictures on the front page of GO magazine (a quarterly magazine of the Northumberland News) and the accompanying article. The article was well thought out and written. Now we have no choice but to live up to that. The magazine is certainly well read in our community. Since then I still get a lot of positive comments.

Before I continue though, I wanted to give the latest update on Pha Yong village. I think the pressure is on for them as they try to finish before all the local Government Officials arrive with us to officially open the school in just four weeks. Remember this is all manual labour. Here are a few pics of the progress.

They still have to parge the entire left side of the building but it is looking pretty good. They have also had a problem matching paint colours. After two visits to Luang Prabang (over 6 hours each way), the supplier still hasn't managed to match up the colours.

It will certainly be wonderful to see our first two projects there completed.

So there you have it in a nutshell. I was going to give special thanks to some of the special people who helped us make this happen but to be frank I am not only likely to miss someone and regret it forever, but there are over 200 special people and organizations that did whatever they could manage ranging from $3 up to thousands. Every single dollar will go a long way and I am getting excited to be able to share with you exactly where your money will be spent.

Still I would like to thank the various Clubs of Rotary including Whitby Rotary, Port Hope Rotary, Northumberland Sunrise Rotary and Oshawa Rotary. There are additional Rotary Clubs also that we have made good contacts with. Thank You to All.

Next, I have to figure out how we are going to take 544 toothbrushes, over 200 tubes of toothpaste, over 200 T-shirts, solar garden lights and a host of other things, in our luggage. Cathay Pacific has been kind enough to sponsor an extra bag but they only fly to Bangkok. I am trying to work with Bangkok Airways to see if they will help for the last leg of the journey but it doesn't look good at this stage because we don't have our official status yet.

One thing about the tooth brushes, I wanted to first of all thank Dr. Roxana Popa for being the first to jump in with her own generous support. Then, the next time I went into Altima for just a teeth cleaning, the entire staff had a donation ready for me when I arrived. It was a heart wrenching moment. In fact there have been a lot of those. One couple saw our presentation at the Capitol Theatre and once they saw a picture of that mud hole, that was it. They personally donated the rest of the money needed to fund a new water source. They did this as an anniversary gift to each other.

I also wanted to thank Dr. Anna Tucka for her personal donation plus the toothbrushes and toothpaste. She would have given me floss too but unless I show the rural villagers how to use it, they are likely to use it to tie branches together or something. I am told that she has even more stuff for us to take. Fortunately Mike, Ted Amsden, Jennifer Hawthorn and Jennifer Mercer are flying Air Canada so guess where my next baggage request will go?

Just five days to go and a 26 hour flight (ugh!) before we can all start fulfilling the dreams of the village people. I will update you as internet access allows.

Fundraising and Project Update Oct 11

2010-10-11T05:12:00.000-07:00

As we celebrate Thanksgiving here in Canada, I cannot help but feel for the villagers of Laos. Yesterday we were honoured with the task of helping to prepare and serve a Turkey dinner with the Whitby Sunrise Rotary Club members, to the less fortunate families in the area. It was inspiring and self fulfilling to say the least.

On the other hand I kept thinking about the struggles in the remote Loatian villages. Indeed the villagers have smiles on their faces for what they do have. With so much sickness often caused by poor hygiene, an 8.1% infant mortality rate and a life span of only 54 years, I know there is so much we can do for them.

We, and others who have approached us to do fundraisers have been working hard through the summer and early fall. Together we have raised just over $25,000 in donations and commitments. With just 5 weeks to go before my return to Laos, I am getting closer to my targets but very nervous that there is not enough time left to raise the funds before we leave.

Here is where we are at the moment.

1) University Fees for 2 students for one year - Done and paid for.
2) Funding for two more school teachers for Had Chanh and Pha Yong Villages ($1550) - Target Achieved.
3) Funding to complete construction of a water tank and school access ($3210) - Target achieved
4) Funding for a new water Source ($7600) - Target Achieved
5) The provision of 202 Water Filter systems for 198 Families and Two Schools for Small Houp Han Village, Pha Yong Village and Had Chanh village ($10,100) - 198 confirmed sponsors, although I have enough word-of-mouth commitments to be able to say - Target Achieved Distribution is expected in December for at least two of the villages.
6) New School Project ($9450) - We have raised $2550 so far with an estimated $1000 more coming in and strong hopes for a matching grant of $2000 more, leaving $3900 to raise. This is a pretty tall order considering our official fundraisers are now complete for the season. I am crossing my fingers for sure.
7) Hygienic Toilets for Had Chanh school and for a bank of toilets in Had Chanh and Pha Yong Villages ($6000 est.) I have not even managed to start fundraising for this however if I can raise enough to cover the school project, I will donate whatever is needed to complete this project.

Now, let's go to some pictures of the schools;

Had Chanh Village;

Looks pretty sharp doesn't it? You can see that they take pride in their work. To complete this project we still have to fund and teach the villagers how to build hygienic toilets for the school.

Pha Yong Village

These people have come a very long way since the last update.
They have since had to complete even more road widening to get the rest of the materials up to the village.

Referencing the distribution of the water filters, we will be shipping them to Nong Khiaw, then by riverboat to Had Chanh Village. At that point, then the villagers from Pha Yong will trek over to pick up the water filters one at a time. This will require two villagers for each filter to carry. that is 85 Trips!!!

Currently I am waiting for a picture update from the last three fundraisers that were done so that I can properly thank the hosts, so Stay Tuned!

Sept 14 HadChanh and Pha Yong School Update

2010-09-13T15:32:00.000-07:00

The rains continue throughout the northern Luang Prabang region but it doesn't seem to dampen the spirits of the determined villagers. Perhaps this gives you an idea of the work ethics and their will to move forward, despite decades of war.

Pha Yong Village

It is exciting to see, even for me from a distance, the roof going on from what has been a truly exhausting challenge. It was pouring all day yesterday and they don't dare try to get another truck of supplies up to the village. I have been told that they are going to try to widen other areas of the road too, before attempting another delivery. Through this difficult build, there is renewed energy now that the roof is being mounted. Here a few images of their progress.

You can see their is still lots of work to do but I suspect that the work will move a little bit faster so they can get the kids into the school, now that school was supposed to have started.

Had Chanh Village

Khamlath felt so bad about forgetting his camera last time that he made a special trip to the village, just to take pictures. Here they are.

The school looks pretty sharp. Just some minor work left to do.

I had no reason to worry about the red - it does look kind of sharp doesn't it? Do you notice something missing? I noticed it right away. Where are the dividing walls between the rooms?
The explanation was that the Government canceled one of the teachers, (probably because the old bamboo school was only one room). Anyway, with some discussion, they understand now that they are not likely to get another teacher unless the rooms are there and the government is unable to fund it. They have since agreed to build the dividing walls for completion before I get there. How does one teach almost 100 children in one room at the same time with three different grades?

September 2010 School Progress

2010-09-09T16:01:00.000-07:00

Time has flown by here at home, but for the villagers in Laos, monsoon rains have been unrelenting. They were late starting but it seems never-ending. As of late however, the rains are no longer constant.

I just realized that I have so much to update you with that I think I better just dive in.

Pha Yong village had been almost cut off from the outside world. Still they managed to plod on so that they could get building materials to the school site. Take a look below at what they had to go through.

I may have mentioned in my last update that it took 3 days to take one truckload of material to the site. Part of the road was washed away, leaving only boulders so they had to fix the road to make it passable.

The video below shows the villagers attempting to widen the road to allow the truck to pass. Wow. I wish I had been there to help, although I am quite sure they are much more adept than I. This video is my first so bear with me - I hope it looks OK.

It doesn't look like a lot of fun does it?

As of only three weeks ago, they had only been able to prepare the footings for the posts. It has been encouraging to see how much they have accomplished now and they expect to have the roof on by the end of the month. While they had hoped to have more completed before the kids returned to class in the adjoining building, it will undoubtedly be distracting as they try to complete the structure. Here a couple of pictures of the most recent progress.

Three Weeks Ago

What a difference it makes when you have road access and better weather conditions.

Had Chanh Village has managed quite well throughout the rainy season, although not without their troubles too. With all of their low lying fields washed away, I suppose there was not much to do other than to help with the school. I am told that the school is now finished and that the kids have started school again. This is great news but where are the pictures???
They are coming of course if my guy could just remember his camera!

I will post them the minute they arrive. I am anxious to see them, not just because I want to see a finished school, but I have been told that everyone just loves the colour - RED!!!! What? They have got to be kidding. We picked out the colours (shown in one of my earlier posts) and I didn't see any paint colours that were RED, nor did we choose them. We picked the same colours as used by the Government. This ought to be interesting.

Fundraising Update

We are trucking merrily along, thanks to so many wonderful and generous people, primarily from Port Hope but we have had donations from Vancouver and North Carolina too, even from Lucknow, Ontario. I have never even heard of that before we received the donation and I hope to see it some day.

As those of you who have read this blog know, the first fundraiser at the Bualai, Taste of Thai restaurant, met with an amazing sell-out, two weeks after it was announced. What was really shocking was that so many kind-hearted folks couldn't attend but donated anyway.
Here are a couple of pictures.

There are many more pics of
course. Both floors were filled to
capacity, meaning 2
presentations and a very dry
mouth.

The two on the left will be joining us on our next adventure to Laos, Jennifer Mercer (Jen's Jazz It Up Studio) and Jenn Hawthorn. Grace Lovekin shown on the right (owner of Mad Monkey Clothing) will be hosting the venue for our bake sale on October 2nd. I wish she and her husband were coming with us to Laos also...maybe next year.

Our second fundraiser was held at the home of some wonderful friends, Dianne and Cleve Pendock. I know how much work it was but to top it off, Dianne along with two of her friends Saskia Tomken and Helen Torney performed a live concert for us...wonderful artists. I could have listened to them all night. Then they all pass the floor over to me and prepare dinner for all of us - can you imagine the exhaustion at the end of the night? We sold out on that one too - in fact we oversold and it was rather close and personal in the performance area - lots of fun.
My presentation was a short 20 minutes and I didn't show slides this time. The result? I had a wonderful couple give us $400 and many others just doubled the cost of the ticket price! I have to wonder if they paid me NOT to show the slides.
Here are a couple of our favorite pictures.

Left: My serving skills (or lack
thereof)

Right: Our hosts Dianne and
Cleve Pendock with guest
Peggy Dalla Rosa.

I cannot remember every single face - there are two or three I don't remember their names and apologize for that, but I do know the wonderful ladies in the front row - from left: Margarete Easton, Pauline Carrick and Audrey Levtov. They are so sweet. They are going to bake for our bake sale too. Did I say how wonderful they were?

Our extraordinary musicians from the left: Saskia Tomken on violin, Helen Torney on clarinet and pianist/chef/master gardener/Master of all trades I think, Dianne Pendock

We also presented to The Rotary Club of Port Hope and many folks who did not attend the fundraisers, were kind enough to purchase water filters. We have also heard that they have approved $2500 for next year and will seek matching grants that would involve the district and Rotary International - yeeaaaaahhh!

Currently Mike and I are scheduled to present to Northumberland Sunrise Rotary Club in early October and another presentation is being scheduled for us at the Whitby Sunrise Rotary Club.
And there will be many more.

Next Fundraisers

On September 24th, there will be a kids dance at the Port Hope Recreation Centre at the Fall Fair Grounds, hosted by Jennifer's Jazz It Up Dance Studio.

On October 2, 2010 Cathy Moore is hosting a bake sale at Mad Monkey on Walton Street in Port Hope with Grace Lovekin and Campbell Company with John and Sandy Campbell. We have 20 bakers lined up so you should have a really delectable selection. Could this be Port Hope's largest Bake Sale? I wonder.

On October 9th, this will be a big one. Mike and I will be doing a slide presentation along with guest performers and speakers, at the Capitol Theatre on Queen Street in Port Hope at 7pm. This is a pretty big theatre and while we have sold out the previous venues, this is a tall order. We just don't know that many people! Tickets are $5 or $20 for a family of up to 6 at the door (no advanced ticket sales). So come early for a good seat. All those who have purchased filters for a family in Laos is invited for free, as are all Capitol Theatre volunteers. You are invited to bring a paying guest of course! I know this will be entertaining and Sammy from the Bualai Taste of Thai Restaurant will be bringing hors d'oeuvres.

Other Updates

I am only 9 1/2 weeks left before returning to Luang Prabang and quite frankly, I don't know how I am going accomplish everything before I go. I have medical supplies (donated by The Port Hope Medical Centre) sitting in my studio waiting for shipment to hospitals in Laos but haven't had to the time to figure out how to get them there. I also have cases of T-shirts, and am expecting toothbrushes, toothpaste and floss in bulk (courtesy of Altima Dental Clinic in Port Hope and Dr's Anna and Bohdan Tucka) along with other things. The villagers currently share 1 toothbrush for each family and some villagers were a little embarrassed about the tattered clothes they were wearing. This is just one of many things left to do.

I suppose the most urgent for me is to make sure I have enough financial support before I go.
I now have commitments for support for almost two school teachers, have raised enough money to purchase water filter systems for the first two villages (157 including 2 test units) and need 29 more (in addition to 18 already purchased) to complete a third village.

I am proud to announce that I placed the bulk order today and got a good exchange rate to boot - that hardly ever happens. Our dollar usually goes down the day before I do the transfer and doesn't come back until the day after. I just found out however that the US Dollar has dropped against the Lao KIP. That is the trouble when you have to deal in three currencies.

I expect that with the fundraisers, I will also have enough to finish a small water tank project that includes concrete steps up to a school (up a very muddy embankment), where the last sponsor passed away before completing the project. I hope I will have enough to solve a critical water supply problem for a village that shares a mud hole with whatever happens to walk by (including water buffalo) - This is about $7000. Other things I really want to do include building at least one more school (about $8500 US including furniture), and a solar power pilot project for Pha Yong village ($5000 including the panels, inverters, cabling, a computer, printer and projector). There are also a number of kids that I personally will be sponsoring unless someone steps in to help. It is only $2.50 per year plus uniform for Primary 1-3, but it is more for the kids to travel up river by boat to go to primary school 4 and 5 and even more to go to secondary, then high school. I don't have total numbers of how many cannot afford to go, especially for Primary 4 and up so it is hard to ask for money if you don't know how much to ask for. Finally, I have to start working on Hygienic Toilet facilities for the villages - I suspect this will cost as much as the schools. So my 9 1/2 week challenge is there of course.

For those of you who have been following closely, we have have been researching several options as far as the charity goes. While there may some temporary reprieve, we have decided to go ahead and register our own Not-For-Profit organization followed by the application of charitable status. We know this is not an easy task nor is it a short process but we think it is the best for the project and the people of Laos. We will keep you up to date of our progress.

If any of you would like us to do a presentation for your company, organization, community group or school, we would be happy to do it. Feel free to call me direct at 905-342-3448 to discuss. It is not all about raising money - it is about bringing awareness.

I hope to have another update as soon as I get some pictures from Had Chanh village.

Had Chanh Village Project Update

2010-07-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

July 22 Fundraiser for Water Filters

It is wonderful to know that our first fundraiser sold out within two weeks of the announcement. For those of you who are not from the area, sales are generally last minute. Volunteers and Coordinators alike are usually in a panic during the last week before the event. Perhaps this is a new trend for the Municipality. I'd like to think it is due to this important cause. The event is in just two days and we are actually oversold and I have regrettably had to turn people away.

Had Chanh Village Update

Despite the monsoon rains, the school is approximately 65% complete. Here are a couple of pictures of the progress as of July 18.

We are pleasantly surprised at the progress here. It looks like it will be completed on time, in September. I am hoping too that it will come in on budget.

Floods

On the other hand there have been some setbacks with the other school in Pha Yong Village. Due to the heavy monsoon rains, it took one truck three days to get to the village. This isn't an ordinary trip either. The truck starts off on the road then has to drive down to the riverbank, be loaded onto a float of some sort, float across the river, then try to climb the mud banks on the other side. It is difficult across one river but there were many rivers and streams to cross. Needless to say, the mud hills created havoc.

At the moment, everything is pretty much at a standstill. I am told that many of the farmers were on the side of the roads. This is why.

These pictures were taken on the way back from Had Chanh Village to Luang Prabang. It is sad indeed. The entire rice crops have been washed away. Those farmers that have fields in the hills seem to be in good shape however so sticky rice will still be available. Still, I can't imagine what these farmers must be going through.

I am trying to get an update from Pha Yong Village however communication and transportation from there continue to be a nightmare for them. I will post another update once I am successful.

Had Chanh Village Project

2010-07-07T10:08:00.000-07:00

Had Chanh Village Project

Population: 68 Families - approximately 350 people

Children: 89 students including 57 female, 32 male

Location: Northern Luang Prabang Province. To get there, it is about a 4 hour truck ride to Nong Khiaw, then a 1 hour boat ride up the Nam Ou River. The Village is located at the top of a riverbank of the river.

Brief History: The village is a much smaller village than Pha Yong in terms of residential land usage. It is surrounded entirely by fence. There are ladders made with tree branches at key points to climb into the village (to keep the buffalo and cows out), with the exception of the school where excrement is everywhere. The village has been in existence since the Vietnam war, although could have been there before that. The Lao Government have been in the area located just north of the village, three times in recent years to remove and/or detonate unexploded armaments. Villagers are still wary that many more are still out there and travel only the well marked foot and buffalo paths.

Current:Wages and income are slightly higher than Pha Yong Village although the exact numbers are unknown. The villagers augment their income from fishing and small game hunting.

Source of Support: farming of rice (sticky and steamed), pineapples, plus from the sale of pigs, chickens and fish. There is additional income from small game hunting as available. There are a couple of homes that are considered much wealthier than others due to the concrete block construction of the first floors. Several homes have concrete floors.

Diet: While slightly different than Pha Yong village, the greens are found in areas closer to the river, rather than in the hills. Bamboo is common as well. Fish and sticky rice are the staples for every meal.

Priorities;
1) New School
2) Clean water - they currently boil the water from the river, but it remains a yellow/green colour. Sickness is quite common, as with Pha Yong village.
3) Hygienic washrooms. There is at least one washroom that is half decent - not considered to be hygienic but there was a squat toilet in place and a separate open-aired basin used to fill a bucket and flush the toilet. There were no hand basins in sight.
4) Tourism - there is none currently and there would be a relatively small investment required to become a tourist stop.

Had Chanh Primary School - first priority

School Replacement Cost: $9300 USD
Our involvement with the village is to replace the school in its entirety. It was a one room bamboo school with critical structural flaws from the last construction, endangering the structure. Three classes were taught in the school room. Construction of two walls was bamboo. The other two walls were concrete block, hand-made incorrectly by the villagers. The roof was corrugated metal - some with holes. They will be reusing some of the roof material to cover the rice storage huts.

We will additionally fund 26 new tables for the students as they will reuse many of the old ones at a cost of $904.00 USD plus shipping costs.

We will additionally fund a new toilet at a cost of $366 USD

We will additionally fund fencing to go around the entire school property to keep the animals out, at a cost of $235

We will additionally fund the costs for students who cannot afford to attend school. Estimates are around 8 at $2.50 each for the entire year.

We are investigating how many children do not continue to grades 4 and 5 (located in another village) and their costs.

Clean Purified Water - Second Priority

We will be supplying water purification units to supply each family at a cost of $50 (CDN). This may include most of the shipping costs.

We will also supply additional water filter units for the school washrooms. The style is yet to be decided because of a prototype unit that will be available in September. We have been told that due to the low water levels, there is not enough supply to be run to the school. We will investigate this over the next couple of months to find a viable alternative (eg. building a water tank)

We were advised yesterday that the rainy season is two months late and that the river is at an all time low level, requiring buckets of water to be brought up from the river instead of the Government built water supply (again pumped from the river). We will investigate that as well and possible sourcing of a new water supply.

Hygenic Toilets - Third Priority
We have not fully reviewed the requirements here and will do so upon our return in December.

Tourism
I believe that tourism in this village is a viable, low-cost option to increase the village wealth. We will further investigate this, once the rest of the project is completed.

We are told that the school is nearing completion. Pictures will be available within the next couple of weeks.
Please check back for updates to this project!

Ban Pha Yong Project

2010-07-06T16:34:00.000-07:00

Ban Pha Yong Project

Population: 83 Families (approximately 400 people)

Children: 96 to age 13

Location: Northern Luang Prabang Province. To get there from the city of Luang Prabang, it is about a four hour truck ride travelling north to Nong Khiaw, then about a 1 hour fast boat ride, continuing north along the Nam Ou River. From there you trek on foot through jungle and across rice fields for about 1 1/2 hours depending on how fit you are or how adaptable you are to the temperatures.

Recent History: The Khiaw tribe, originally from the hills and Mong tribe from the valley below, joined together so that their combined size would attract Government support. Individually, the tribes were too small. The Government forced them to move twice in the last 8 years and the village currently sits on a plateau of sorts surrounded by scenic but deadly hills, due to unexploded armaments left over from the Vietnam war. With Government aid, the village received a good water supply, although not clean, and a primary School for grades one, two and three. For further education, the students are forced to move to another village.

Current Conditions:
The average farmer here makes very little. I have heard of annual income as low as $16.25 per year, but will endeavor to get the actual number for this specific village. Most are forced to find additional income through the sale of poultry and pigs, handwoven items etc. The cost to go to this school is $2.50 per student of which approximately 10% of the kids cannot afford to go. Extreme poverty is obvious.

Source of Support: Income from sales of excess rice, chickens and pigs.

Diet: Generally what is found in the jungle - bamboo shoots and various greens, banana and sometimes fish, from a local pond or stream. Sticky rice is their staple (grown on the hills) and steamed rice (grown in low lying areas). They also eat the ends of a small vine plants often found growing as weeds between the rice plants in the fields. They do not eat eggs because they need the chickens. They rarely eat chickens or pigs, preferring to sell them.

Priorities according to the village chiefs:
First - Kindergarten school so the families don't have to take them and tend to them in the fields while they work,
Second - Clean water - currently they boil all drinking water but there are still many contaminants,
Third - Hygienic Washroom Facilities. Currently each home has a hole in the ground behind their home covered by a poorly constructed bamboo shelter. When the hole is full, they cover it and move the shelter.
Fourth - Healthcare. It is about a 2 1/2 hours trek and boat ride from the nearest help, or several hours to the nearest hospital. They specifically requested a doctor or nurse.
Fifth - Tourism as a means of income for the village. The chiefs and elders have spoken about it for some time but their knowledge of how to start up and resources are extremely limited.

Our involvement will be to directly fund the first three priorities as identified by the village chiefs. We will also research the possibility of putting them in touch with a Healthcare Foundation. Upon our return in December, we will take a closer look at what will be required to develop tourism in this remote village. It won't be easy. Generally speaking, backpackers usually travel light (including their pocket books). Those that have spending money to buy crafts etc., generally avoid the long jungle treks.

Pha Yong Kindergarten School - Phase 1

Cost: equivalent to $9450 USD
We have authorized the plans and funding to add an extension of two rooms onto the existing stone block school. We also believe that the Government will fund school teachers, when and if grades 4 and 5 become possible. The Director of Education states that there must be 15 students per class before they authorize funding. The village must pay the educators for the first three years before they will consider such request.

Additional Funding will be provided for the roughly 10 students that cannot afford to go to school. Estimated cost is $25/year for the 10 students. The chiefs think it possible that the few families still living in the hills will relocate to the village with the promise to educate their kids, so this amount may change.

Additional Funding will be provided for the Kindergarten teacher. We have agreed to fund for the first year and will discuss the requirements for the following year. The average cost for a school teacher is about $700/year. This is probably a bit high but needed to attract the teacher to the village who will still have to build a home which averages about $1300 USD

Additional Funding for Furniture: Current quotes are almost $4500 USD to cover the original three rooms and the two new ones, since the Government did not provide funding for furniture. They are currently using makeshift tables in two of the rooms and floor matts for the third room. The cost is considered extremely high, even taking into consideration extensive shipping costs so more quotes and pictures of the furniture have been requested.

Clean Water - Phase 2 (running concurrently with Phase 1)

School - there is a water source at the school with two squat toilets however no hand-washing basins. We will be reviewing a protoype of a new design for the basins in September. If unsatisfactory, we will fund the construction of two handwashing basins that will incorporate a Water Filter System valued at $44USD plus shipping. Shipping costs to Luang Prabang City are about $2 per unit. We are waiting for shipping estimates for the rest of the journey.

83 Homes - We will be funding 83 water filter systems ($44USD) plus shipping costs, one to each family in the village. The total cost estimate is $3652 plus shipping.

Hand-washing Stations - We have not approved funding for this portion of the project yet. The requirements will be reviewed in December/January and costed at that time.
A general guess would be about 20-25 basins and water filters required throughout the village because we will be building multi-unit washrooms to save on cost.

Prior to delivery of the units, one adult member from each family will be required to take a hygiene course and to understand the maintenance requirements of the units.

Hygienic Washrooms
The general thought is that we would fund the building of washrooms containing several toilets for up to 8 or 10 families, depending on the proximity of the homes to each other. The planning for this phase of the project has not been started yet. However the walls will be block walls with tile roof and hand washing stations. We will be reviewing sites for the sceptic beds, requirements for getting water to the toilets and hand-washing stations etc.

HealthCare
It is unfortunate but I am not an expert in this field and although I understand their need for a nurse or a doctor, the best I think we can do for them is liase with a Foundation or charity who's primary funding goes to healthcare. I have since been given some information of such a Foundation and will endeavor to discuss the village needs with them during my next visit.

Tourism
In order to help the village sustain their livelihoods and to somewhat improve the village wealth to the point where they may no longer require future financial support, I am looking at different options. There clearly is a lot of work to do here in order to prepare the village for tourist type activities - the first one is access and this will be costly in order to attract more tourists with money. Backpackers would certainly enjoy the village but they generally don't carry much in the line of spending money. The other major concern is to find a happy medium between tourism and culture. We do not wish to contaminate the village customs and culture with tourist demands. I do not consider this as a critical fundraising project at this stage. Investigation may well lead to some sort of local Government support. I have decided not to treat this as part of the overall project but will work on this as a personal interest project.

Update as of July 28, 2010
After many days of trying, I was finally able to contact our liason in the village. Cell phone connection is extremely limited. The monsoon rains have created havoc in the village and there is no access to the outside world at this time, except on foot. The last truck load of building materials took three days and no sleep to arrive. The truck got stuck several times on the muddy riverbanks. More building materials are required but the villagers will have to wait for a considerable dry spell before attempting to bring more building supplies in. As a result, the building construction is going very slowly. It is still too early to tell if the building will be completed on time, in December.
Sickness has run rampant in the village although the people that we know appear to be on the mend.
I still am unable to get pictures of any progress. The closest village with internet access is Nong Khiaw and their internet communications are down as well.

The Projects - Foreword

2010-07-05T18:05:00.001-07:00

Foreword

We chose these first two projects as a starting point because we would have better control, given that relations had already been built with the village liasons. We felt it critical to use these two projects in order to understand the processes required, determine what sort of obstacles could be expected in the future and to learn more about the culture. We didn't want to use someone else's money for this learning curve so we are using our own, at least for the schools.

Just before the last trip to Laos it was strongly recommended by several friends that I read a book called Three Cups of Tea, a true story about Greg Mortenson who had built 87 schools in Pakistan and Afganistan as of the publishing date of his book. I never really had the time to read much of it while overseas but managed to finish it last week and yes, there are quite a number of comparisons behind the reasons for building schools and more when it came to some of the challenges he faced. All I can say is that I sure hope I can avoid most of what he went through. I am rather shocked that he is still alive. Still, it did prepare me somewhat for the adventures that lie ahead. The book is an incredible read.

During our treks to other villages in Northern Luang Prabang province, most villages seem to have schools but most are primary grades 1, 2 and 3. After that many drop out because they have a much longer commute, either by trek or by boat, which is significantly more expensive, to attend grades 4 and 5. After that is secondary school, grades 6, 7 and 8, even a longer commute usually requiring the children to live in the village where the school is or in a dormitory of sorts. Again, the expense rises significantly more. Finally, we get to High School (Grades 9, 10 and 11), only available in very large villages or the main cities, which are extremely expensive, comparatively speaking. Only 15% of the young adults make it this far. After that, it drops to less than 1% for post secondary trade school or university. Somehow there must be an answer to improve these numbers. Perhaps we will discover something better.

Since the start of the first project just a couple of months ago, we have already received three requests and proposals for funding of projects that have either been started and abandoned due to lack of funds, or for full replacement of derelict one-room schools. A couple of them are intriguing but we need to be sure we know what we are doing first. I know that once our cause is more widely known, we will be getting many, many more requests where we won't be able to handle them all unless I win the lottery.

Finally, while each project is considered separate, I will be combining them for purposes of fundraising efforts only. These people are clearly living on the edge. It is now rainy season but there is very little rain and farmers are becoming desperate. Without rice there is no food and almost no income.

Had Chanh Village

2010-07-05T05:25:00.000-07:00

Our guide and host for the next village, Had Chanh Village, arrived late and it was starting to get dark so I was beginning to wonder if we were going to be able to visit his village as planned for the next morning. There was no need to worry. Kham Lath showed up, ready for action.

(Mike and Kham Lath)

We headed back by boat along the Nam Ou River (eventually drains into the mighty Mae Kong River) about 25 minutes by slow boat again, right to his village – no trekking required with heavy backpacks! As soon as we got there we noticed a distinct difference from the village we had just come from. This village was smaller and the houses were much closer together. The entire village was surrounded by a fence and ladders made of tree branches to climb in and out of the village. This was to keep the buffalo and cows out. We had planned to stay only one night so there was a lot to do in a short time. As we entered Kham Lath’s home the walls were concrete block and it was just one big room – the living quarters and kitchen were upstairs made of board rather than bamboo.

Top Left: Kham Lath's Home
Top Right: Kham Lath's Dad
Left: Looking out of our home
Right: Candy offerings

They were among the wealthier class I suppose. Most other homes were the typical bamboo walls and built on stilts in case of flooding during the rainy season. The moment we arrived, the women started cooking and again the children of all sizes came for a visit. Crap! I had forgotten to refill our candy supplies! Fortunately Kham lath had brought some. We promised them something later though. We did refill our bottled water supplies before we left, thankfully! There was no store and the water, AFTER boiling was a yellowy-green, a bit like lemonade. No wonder there was such a high rate of infant mortality and sickness in these villages. The average life span is somewhere around 53 and I am already 54.

Below: General Pictures of the neighborhood.

There was a lot of bamboo in this first meal but generally the meals were different than those we experienced in Pha Yong village. There was also fish, a staple with every meal we ate. Still, I was eating delicately and eating more rice. As soon as we were finished, we visited the school and I am glad we did. The concrete floor of the school was disintegrating, caused by poor quality. There were concrete walls at either end of the one room school both with major cracks leading from the floor to the very top. You could see outside through the cracks. Inside there were some tables that were in relatively good shape and there were also three blackboards, one on each of three walls of the room where they taught three classes at the same time for 89 students. I wondered how they could learn anything with the distraction of the other classes going on. The rest of the structure was made from bamboo and the roof was metal with a few holes in it. It didn’t take a genius to figure they would not get another year out of this school and it was dangerous.

School Pictures

Shortly after that we met with the chiefs and other elders of the village, with similar results as the first village. They also had never been offered help from the outside world.

Above: Meeting with the chiefs

At least they were a lot closer to medical help than Pha Yong village where the trek was required before getting to the river.
We also checked the water supply – lots of pressure but not clean. Some of the houses were wired for electricity but there wasn’t any. Someone in the village had rigged up something in the river but the entire contraption was above the river level, not enough to turn the blades of the mini turbine, for sure. They would have to wait until rainy season but was told there was nobody to maintain it so I suspect it hadn’t worked for quite some time.

I went to use one of the toilets, or should I say hole-in-the-ground, but I couldn’t get the door to shut so I abandoned that idea. Fortunately one of Kham Lath’s friends saw me and whisked me over to his. It was surprisingly clean, concrete floor, a concrete basin to hold water and a ceramic squat toilet. It was a pleasant change to what we’d been used to. Still, the water had to be carried in from one of the four foot concrete water posts and I suppose there was lots of bacteria in it. There was no sink either for washing your hands so I headed over to the shower area to wash my hands. I would doubt that others would go to that trouble. Just before the Baci ceremony began we headed over to a friend of Kham Laths where they tried out the home made rice wine. OK, so they drank a little more than just a taste tester. I can’t imagine how they can drink so much and walk straight, let alone act it.

Baci began as expected – lots of chanting but definitely less formal, plus both the chief and the 2nd chief were a little more into the party scene afterwards.

Baci Ceremony

One rule we have to follow. When the chief gives you something you have to take it. After the ceremony and the offerings were done, he gave me a piece of meat that I didn’t recognize. I started chewing it and chewing it. There were chewy bones in it. I didn’t even want to think what it was. It turns out it was a starling! Yes, the entire bird. I think Mike got a whole frog. Mike also got stuck with eating sticky rice and pork fat. He had a tough time swallowing it so when he was given a shot of whiskey to wash it down, it made him gag – it was all he could do to keep from throwing up all over the platter. The chief also gave me a big piece of meat. I started eating it and thought it tasted pretty good, to my amazement. I looked down to see what it was and after the shock wore off, I asked Mike to take a look at it. It was the entire pig tongue hanging down. Everyone was watching so I just had to take a bite out of the side of the tongue and keep going until it was gone. As I was eating there was a bottle of whiskey that I had brought to Khamlath. It didn’t last very long. It was the home made rice whiskey that nearly killed me. If it hadn’t been for the chief giving it to me, I would have declined but after a couple of hours of this I couldn’t see straight anymore and it was only 3pm in the afternoon. There was lots of music and singing. They managed to convince Mike to sing. Normally a good singer, Mike was quite drunk and could only think of one song…My way. Unfortunately he could only remember one line and it sounded like it was all one note. He got lots of clapping anyway for his effort. I was to the point I had to get out but didn’t want to get up for fear of falling over everyone. But I had to get out of there, pretending to have to go to the washroom. Once I got out though, the sun was very hot and after about 15 minutes I was fine again. That is when the Baci broke up and we started playing volleyball, frisbee, badminton and a couple of other games.

Above and right: Sports, right after Baci - I managed some frisbee for about an hour but that was it.

Covered in sweat a couple of hours later it was time to take a shower. Kham lath went first and left the water on for me. There I was taking my shower as many people were still chasing balls around me. When I finished I felt so stupid. The tap didn’t work and I couldn’t figure out how to turn the water off. As my face started to get red from embarrassment, this little kid, no more than 1 meter high reaches way up, grabs a small rubber tube and shoves it up the nozzle to stop the flow. She was very respectful and didn’t laugh at me, just trying to be helpful.
That night we went from one home to another, then to four more, each with a full meal set out for us. We were literally ushered right from one meal to the next. It ended up to be 5 meals from about 6pm. Even that wasn’t so bad but we could barely walk and are butts were raw from sitting on the floor for so many hours. What was worse was that we couldn’t stretch.

The next day we got up early and met with all the kids in the village to give out little gifts and more wristbands – the kids were wonderful!

Above and Right: Stickers, balloons and friendship wrist bands were handed out (courtesy of Jennifer's Jazz-It-Up Dance Studio in Port Hope)

After that we headed out by boat to visit several villages to look at their school situation. One school we came across was being reconstructed. Now this was a real shocker. It was being sponsored by a secondary school in Richmond, BC., some fellow Canadians and Global Perspectives 12, a program by the Canadian Government. Well Done!

School sponsored by Richmond High School in Richmond, B.C.

Our Next Project!
Another village had a school that was literally falling apart made entirely of bamboo. This will be our next project. We met with the chief who was thrilled. Unicef had visited them 6 years ago and promised a new school but they had not heard from them since that time. Another Canadian though was also working on a new water supply for them. The bottom right picture is of the fish we bought, just caught a few minutes earlier.

In yet another village we learned what not to do. The village had been given equivalent to $3000 to fix an old bamboo school but the villagers felt they needed a new one so decided to tear down the old one and start building. They made their own concrete blocks. We were dismayed at the construction. There were holes in many of the blocks so with a closer look, we felt the area around one of the holes and the block started to crumble in our hands. First the walls of the block were way too thin, plus they didn’t use enough concrete. This building will be very unsafe for the kids but I don’t dare get involved. I sure wouldn’t want to be held responsible for this. We call it the sandcastle school.

Left: Sandcastle School (we call it that)

How could I leave this village without showing you these priceless images.

We spent the next night back in Muang Ngoi. Although we had planned to be there for two nights before heading back to Luang Prabang, our work had been completed so we just stayed the one night.
Our trip back to Luang Prabang wasn’t exactly uneventful. Our host Kham Lath had left a piece of luggage in his home village so we stopped off there on the way back. I have never seen anyone move so fast. As he came down the steep riverbank with bare feet, he was like a jack rabbit. After arriving in Nong Khiaw we decided to wait for the mini van, rather than take the truck - at least there would be no stops and the trip would be faster. The van left 1 1/2 hours after the truck and we arrived by mini van at the same time as the truck arrived. While unloading the luggage, Kham Laths luggage was missing - apparently left on the boat. We found out later that it had been removed, given to the boat ticket office and while they claimed it, it disappeared after that. We suspect it may have been the staff. It was sad that he lost several of his belongings including his land deed and every school certificate right back to his first grade.

Thank you Kham Lath for your dedication to your village, your hospitality, your translations and being there when we needed you.

Back at our luxury hotel I met with the hotel manager, Mr. Somnuek Bounsa who had been out of the country when we first arrived. I learned much more about the projects he was working on and he certainly wanted to get involved with us. He managed to get me an appointment with the Director of Education, and although Somnuek had done several school projects, he had never actually had the opportunity to meet with the director so this was a positive experience for him as well. The director thanked us for the work we were doing and agreed to supply us with blueprints for the standard government approved schools of various sizes for us. This was wonderful news. It certainly would save me hours of time and lots of money from trying to come up with similar designs. He also asked if we would consider schools that they recommend and I agreed although mentioned that our focus was in the remote villages.

Right: a baby monkey rescued from the middle of the road. It was quite sick at the time but getting better by the day.

Back to luxury - Yeahhhh!

Water Filter Unit
I met a couple of times after that with Somnuek who introduced me to a water filter that had recently been approved by the Lao Government. Even better, it was being manufactured right in Lao for a cost of only $44 US ($50 Canadian depending on the day plus shipping). I took a look at one and reviewed their brand new web-site. Although it is still missing information, I requested more and have decided that subject to proof of Government endorsement, I would try to provide one for each family in each village that we build a school for, as a start. I have found out that the technology is approved by the World Health Organization. As of today (July 22, 2010), I have 134 sponsors for individual units.

Right - Somnuek, our hotel manager with a water filter unit.

Once back in Canada I have had some time to reflect. For one, I will not leave these people if there is something I can do for them. Since then I have been working on sponsors, marketing, project management and costing and a host of other things to make this happen. I hope to be ready to go full blast when I return late this year.

Pha Yong Village

2010-07-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

Preparing to Leave Muang Ngoi We're Off!

Sights along our
jungle trek

As we rounded the last turn towards the village, I just had to pause to reflect.

Words cannot adequately describe how I was feeling.
There were so many emotions going through me at the
time, besides those of heat exhaustion. For months I
had been living this moment, imagining what it would be
like as I came into the village, wondering what the village looked like. Never in a million years did I expect the scenery to be so stunning. I also wondered what the villagers would be like, if we would be welcome. I wondered what the next few days would bring and hoped that I could handle whatever conditions and experiences came my way. It was exhilarating to see from that vantage point. The village was sitting on a plateau of sorts with distant mountains all around it. What a sight. The last time I had seen such a culture change as a non-tourist was during a business trip to Liberia, West Africa, where it took me another 11½ months to sneak out of the country. That was over 20 years ago and another story.

As we walked into the village, Bounmy just happened to recognize his sister-in-law sitting with her child on a back porch (with no railing), extending from a house on stilts. This was only the third house from the edge of the village so he assumed correctly that was home. The entire village was basically dry mud and dusty. That part was not what I expected. Where were the trees, and grass? I should have realized that their village had only been relocated a couple of years earlier with promise of a water source and a school from the government. They had barely got their houses in order, let alone the grounds around them. Plus, the men had to focus on their fields, their only source of income.

Route to Bounmy's Home. Wait kids....we're not even there yet!

Right: Home, sweet home? But look at the
view they get from their back window.
Bet you don't get that view.

As I sit writing this I admit I am still awestruck with the image of the village from first sight. I guess the best way to describe it is to show some pictures. I still feel strong emotions just thinking about it, the images and adventure that followed.

We arrived at the house and we could see in the distance that the kids were starting to work their way over to us. We took our shoes off and climbed a ladder made from branches. It was very hard on the feet if you aren’t used to climbing rough branches in socked or bare feet. We got to the top and climbed in. It took a few seconds to adjust to the dark contrast from the bright sunshine. What a picture! There was Bounmy’s mom and sister-in-law to greet us. I can just imagine what Bounmy must have been going through, after 8 years of absence to a home he had never seen. As we climbed in, straight ahead of us was the kitchen. The fire was going, lots of smoke in the air, and they wasted no time in preparing lunch for us. All of the walls were bamboo although one wall was insulated with magazine pages to block out either the wind or perhaps the sun. These pages showed pictures of Tiger Woods, new fashion and wildly contemporary architecture and furnishings. They just didn't fit. To the left of the kitchen was a short opening (easy to bump your head on so I found out later) leading to the veranda we had seen earlier from the trail.

Left: Steve and Mike in our new digs. Right: My new mom and pop.
Hey look! Dad's got a frisbee.

Bounmy's Sister-in-Law cooking lunch Fresh Sticky Rice

In the corner to the left of the open kitchen was one area
that was sheeted off – the bedroom of Bounmy’s brother
and sister-in-law with a very new child. As we looked
around the room there was another small room – the
mom and dad’s bedroom and then the rest of the space was open. There was one open window – no window actually, just a wooden shutter to close at night or during windy weather. Our sleeping area was their living room. It was easy to tell because there were three rolled sleeping pads and mosquito nets mounted and pressed against the outer wall for easy assembly later.

Our bedding - if you look over Mike's left shoulder, that is a picture of Tiger Woods. The floor had a fair bit of give in it. With the bedding it was quite comfortable.

We were still suffering from the heat and they asked us to relax so we stretched out on the floor, readying ourselves to nap off while the two ladies prepared lunch. That wasn’t to be though. No sooner had we stretched out, than kids and adults alike started filing in. My brain was a bit like mush but it was easy to read their faces. They were studying mine and were just sitting cross legged in front of us, waiting patiently to hear about us, our stories and our lives from back home. They were totally respectful though. Still, I think I had been able to relax for no more than five minutes and I was already going through one of our backpacks to give the kids a treat. The kids were so sweet……..I couldn’t hold off any longer. I managed to come up with a few stories and asked some questions through Bounmy - quite frankly I had no concept of time, then I think they filed out so we could have our lunch.

They started filing in as soon as we arrived. Over the next 10 minutes we had about 40 people in there.

Our first meal……..hmmm how to describe it? Before eating they put water into a pail for washing hands. As a matter of respect, we were invited first and then dried our hands on a well used towel. The same water is used by all who eat and by all after the meal is finished - not exactly hygenic. Sticky rice was a staple in their diet also and was served in covered baskets beside a large metal serving tray filled with dishes of food.
The women never joined us unless asked to. They were welcome and were told that but this was a matter of respect for us. Bounmy’s older brother, Bounmy, Mike and I sat in front of these strange looking bowls. One was a somewhat clear soup containing a type of very bitter greens. It was like cooking the bitter end of an unripe cucumber. It certainly made me sweat. There was also a fish dish. Bounmy had brought a couple of cans of sardines. I suspect this was a delicacy for them. In the middle was a bowl of very tasty but spicy chilly spice to dip your food into. There was another green vegetable dish of some sort but I it is hard to describe the flavor. I have to admit that I ate more sticky rice than anything else. At the end of the meal they served sliced bananas. They got concerned when they thought I didn’t eat very much but during the hot days at home, I never eat very much. This was a concept that they never did understand.

After our meal, we did rest for a little time but only about 45 minutes. This was such an experience for us that I just didn’t want to waste the day inside and at least there was a slight breeze outside. There was a whole village waiting to be enjoyed, children to see and lots and lots of pictures to take. Once outside though, it was hot, hot, hot! We set up some solar garden lights that I had brought with me so that we could charge them up use them at night if needed. Since electricity was only available for a very few houses at the far end of the village, I thought they might come in handy.

Above: The Village People

Our walk was shorter than planned because of the extreme heat but we did see a small shack that sold things like boiled bottled water. We were running low so I bought a whole bunch of it (turns out it only lasted the rest of the day and we had to buy more). Apparently we had walked right by the chief’s house and he had seen us and thought we were coming to visit. We had no idea of course, but should have recognized that it was the only painted house on that side of the village and it was a bright green. When we didn’t actually go in, we had no sooner got back to the house we were staying at, when he showed up. I was totally unprepared of course. In fact the three of us had been stretched out on the floor ready to nap. Once introduced, relaxation went out the small window and we sat around in a circle as other adults filed in. Wow! The seating arrangement was a little weird. He sat to my left, only when he was the person with the most authority. It turns out he was the second chief. If the first chief had come along, he would have sat on my left, with the second chief on my right. Fortunately it was not a formal meeting but I had to come to grips with sitting in a circle for hours at a time cross-legged, never to stretch your legs out in front, even for a second. It is extremely rude to show the bottom of your feet, so I just squirmed a lot.

Knowing that he smoked, I offered a pack of Japanese-made light cigarettes in the middle of the circle after offering him the first one. They didn’t last very long with all the smokers in the room. They grow their own tobacco (and yes, it was only tobacco) and normally rolled big fat cigarettes when they wanted to smoke and wrapped the tobacco with whatever paper they could find. After that we exchanged pleasantries, discussed a time to meet with him and other village elders and he asked me questions like how old I was, what I did back home, why we chose Pha Yong village and lots of other questions. It turns out that I am the same age as the chief - in fact I am older than the average lifespan of a Lao, at 54. If I remember correctly, I may have seen one person who was older than I.

After another dinner, it was dark and we headed off to the second chief's house, armed with working solar garden lights and our notes. The lights sure came in handy - it was probably like magic for them. Without them we never would have been able to read our notes. Soon the first chief arrived with his assistant, along with other elders and those who wanted to participate. We were even pleasantly surprised that women were not excluded although they tended to stay in the background, but we did receive a couple of questions from them.

More pics of the village and kids

I had a speech prepared and a rather extensive list of questions to ask depending on their answers to the previous ones. The whole meeting took about 1½ hours followed by yet another meal – I was still full from the previous one and they weren’t insulted that I declined. Overall it was an exhausting experience because I had to be very careful to explain the questions to the translator to make sure he knew exactly how to ask them. I sure didn’t want to offend anyone by asking questions the wrong way. I was also watching their body language intently to make sure they had understood the question the way I intended it. Mike was our photographer and did an excellent job throughout the visit. The experience was quite amazing and I was thankful that the village chiefs and elders had listed their priorities in exactly the same order I had, agreeing that their priorities were education, clean water and hygienic toilets. Their other priorities were some sort of healthcare (even a nurse) and tourism to bring more dollars into the community. The chief thanked us several times, citing that nobody had ever offered to help them.

Above: The home of the First Chief. He had electricity including two light bulbs and a plug.

It was announced through their loudspeaker system in the village that the next two days would be a holiday from the fields, in our honour. Ok, well the loudspeaker system consisted of the Chief walking the full length of the combined villages yelling out the announcement...another Wow!

After the meeting we changed and headed to the shower area in our underwear with a towel wrapped around us. The water supply was a simple 4 foot concrete post with a tap protruding from it. It was night and being a bit timid we were thankful for the darkness to shower out in the open. Men just shower in their underwear – women shower in a sari. It sure felt a bit strange but I went with the flow.

Above: Bounmy washing clothes at the local tap.

Right: Jugs being filled at the watering hole.

The washrooms were just as we had expected. Just a hole in the ground with a four foot see-through bamboo shack built around it. Thank God we brought toilet paper. They generally use four inch strips of bamboo to scrape their butts. Yikes! I suppose we should have taken a picture of a typical toilet there but we just didn't think of it. It certainly was not a welcome sight.

The next day we went to see the school and I have to admit I was quite surprised. There was this relatively new three room school made with block and concrete for grades 1, 2 and 3. There was one room that had some home-made furniture and the other two rooms just had mats on the floor because they couldn’t afford the furniture. Of course we were there to build a kindergarten so that the families didn’t have to take their young children out into the rice fields with them every day.

School for Primary 1, 2, 3 - no furniture at all in one of the rooms.

We also looked at their water source to determine the best way of purifying their water. The rest of the day we just sweat it out and moved as little as possible. At night I was asked by one of the chiefs if I had anything to help the swelling of his joints. I am no doctor but I was pretty sure that arthritis had set in. I found out that Bounmy’s mom also had it so I tried giving them Advil first to see if it would help. Before long there were a number of visitors asking for medical help of other kinds but I had to decline. I am just no expert and didn’t want them to think I was. The next morning the mom felt so great that she trekked for 5 hours, climbed a huge hill and down the other side – in fact it looked more like a mountain, to collect fresh bamboo shoots for our lunch, plus a lot of things needed for the special religious ceremony that was being prepared in our honour for that evening. By the end of our visit I had handed over my bottles of Advil and Tylenol with specific instructions of course.

Right - Mom, after her 5 hour trek, carrying fresh bamboo shoots for us and massive banana leaves.

While the mom was trekking, we headed to the rice fields to pick our lunch. No it wasn’t the rice we were to pick. We were to pick the tops off the small vine weeds that were growing in between the rice plants. It was so hot that Mike just sat under a shack trying to keep cool. My problem wasn’t so much the heat, but it was difficult to see the little suckers so I was pretty slow at it. The greens turned out to be quite succulent.

Pics of the plants we picked for lunch - slim pickins'? Bounmy's cousin (below) picked more than the rest of us put together. I say it is because I was too tall to see them, not because I'm getting old - that is the story I am sticking with.
After a hard day of work - well.....maybe an hour.
They didn't even break a sweat - I wish I could say that.

The last morning I woke up and climbed down the makeshift ladder to relieve my bladder and as I got off the last rung, I looked up and was face-to-face with a water buffalo! I had no idea at the time that it was the family pet so-to-speak and employee I suppose. Anyway I backed away slowly and he followed me from under the house. He wouldn't get close to me though. I called for Mike to take a picture but I kept backing up. I guess the Bounmy heard the commotion and told his mom who flew down the ladder to give the buffalo a big hug. He never would let me pet him and I wonder if I scared him because to this date he never came back, although they continue to look for him.

The last full day we did nothing – the hosts would not let us lift a finger to help them and got upset if we did! Still I managed to help them move some lumber into storage and a couple of other things – I just felt so useless otherwise. During the afternoon Bounmy took us fishing in a pond near them. Someone had left the flood gate open so it wasn't only muddy, but it was obviously more difficult to catch fish, because only two small ones were caught.

By the time we got back we were full of sweat and because Baci was being performed that night I had no choice but to head to the shower in broad daylight. As I got close to the shower, there was a pig that had been slaughtered for the Baci and it was being cleaned under the tap. What a bloody sight! I signaled that I would come back later but because I was VIP, they wouldn’t agree and quickly cleaned up the pig parts, moved them off to the side and cleaned up the area for me. Of course I had an audience of about 20 while I showered, as they waited patiently. Yes, everybody stared at the white Phlang (slang for foreigner).

3 Little Pigs

Then there were two.

We were happy to have the garden lights that night. Baci started as we all sat around this metal serving platter that had cones made of banana leaves sewn with plant stems and covered with flowers. There was money that had been collected from the village for us as an offering to Buddha and I was considered Buddha. They had collected 175,000 KIP, equivalent to $12.75 USD. To give you some perspective, the average farmer makes $16.25 per year. Pork, chicken, rice, candies and cookies were also offerings. We just wanted to cry. I sure ‘ain’t’ no Buddha! I knew they couldn’t afford this – they had nothing! It would be insulting to give the money back. I later put the money in my shaver kit and used other money to help those who had prepared this for us.

As the ceremony started Mike, Bounmy and myself were asked to put both of our hands side by side touching each others hands. The chief took a string made from a tree flower (although I may have got the translation wrong), loudly chanted a prayer and brushed the string across the top of our hands to take all of the bad luck away. He then crunched up the string and through it out the open window. Then a real shocker that nobody expected it. Lightning, thunder, heavy rain and wind started – we had to close the window because everyone was getting wet along with sandy dust coming down from the ceiling rafters. This seemed like a Hollywood movie set. The chief was satisfied that the storm had blown away the bad luck. Holy Cow! I couldn’t even have imagined this. Anyway, those who could reach the metal platter, touched it with both hands. Those that couldn’t reach touched the shoulder of the person in front to flow the good energy toward the plate. It reminded me of Avatar, the movie. Lots of prayer and chants followed and then the chief, followed by everyone else in the room picked hundreds of these strings off of hanging branches that had been prearranged, tied and organized, and proceeded to chant prayers to Buddha and then tied a string around each of our wrists. This represented all the families in the village. It was a mob effect as you will see in some of the pictures but so moving it was hard to control our emotions. After that, it was our turn but instead of praying, we were to bless everyone and tie strings around their wrists. Finally, the chief put flowers on us, gave me the money that was collected, plus two shots of their home made rice whiskey that they had been brewing since they knew we were coming. Then came the food. Everyone took a bit of rice, nipped it with some of the pig (or more like pig skin and fat) and put it in our hands. Then we had to mold it and start eating it. I managed to eat some of it but also managed to slide some of it back under one of the plates when nobody was looking. Once we were fed then everyone joined in, followed by drink, more drink, even more drink and song. Boy can they drink! I will take these memories to my grave.

Baci Being performed

A taste of their home brewed Rice Whiskey.

Our final morning arrived and we headed to the school. We were told that there were about 90 kids so we were prepared. We had brought a couple of things for each of them. It turns out that there were about 150 kids. Since school was out, many kids had been returned to the village or were relatives. We had stickers, Canada pins, the volleyball and soccer (futball as they spell it in English). We also had glow strips and friendship bands, kindly made and donated by Jennifer’s Jazz-it-Up Dance Studio in Port Hope. They sure went over well. We got some great pictures too! As we presented the sports items to the teacher who was present, we found that she had been summoned back to the village, requiring a full 24 hours to get there! We also gave her letters written by the kids at Jennifer’s Jazz-it-Up and had some of them translated to the village students.

Above: Their teacher

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After breakfast, we headed back to the river. It was still cool and we managed to do the journey in 1½ hours with no ill effects and only a couple of minutes for a break. It sure helped that our packs were a lot lighter. After another 1½ hours waiting on the beach we said our good bye to our dear friend Bounmy and managed to hitch a boat ride back to Muang Ngoi. To say that he was a terrific host and tour guide would be an understatement. There is no way we could have had such an experience without him and of course there would have been no kindergarten school or any of the other things we planned. What an angel!

Above Left: Bounmy picking flowers for his mom.
Above Right: Taking a break on my behalf

Think we killed him?
(Me, Bounmy, and Boumy's older brother)

Thank you Bounmy for helping us to see your world!

Looking back at that portion of the trip, I began to realize just how much the villagers and children meant to me. The entire village worked as one big family or collective. It reminded me of the Borg on Star Trek. Their politeness and respect were overwhelming at times. I was also amazed at how much sickness they had all gone through. 35% of all people over 40 have kidney problems, caused by the water. I didn’t count but it seemed that there were less adult women than men, although there seemed to be roughly an even number of male and female kids. Strange…

Back in Muang Ngoi, I took advantage of the restaurants that had a choice of their version of westernized food and Lao food. I didn’t go for the French fries but barbequed chicken (white meat) was a real treat. We ran into a couple of young women and had to laugh. Both of them were eating a plate of French Fries and so we teased them a bit about their ‘cultural’ experience. Within an hour I managed to find a tour guide and set them up to visit the same village we had come from. I couldn’t believe how badly they wanted to go, even with my cautions. When we saw them next, they had to admit that we had warned them. I guess their experience wasn’t as much fun as they expected.

The beginning of our Laos Venture

2010-07-02T17:42:00.000-07:00

This blog is about our experiences with the people and culture of Laos and the struggles villagers cope with every single day as they continue their efforts to recover from the Vietnam war of many years ago. Yes, there is some international aid flowing in but per capita, it is surprising how the rural villagers seem to have been left alone to fend for themselves, generally speaking. History shows that most wars start in the remote areas of a nation. I believe this is caused by a lack of education and communication with the rest of the country. This is also about how just a few individuals managed to change our destiny, hopefully resulting in a better life for thousands of Laos citizens.

When we first arrived in Luang Prabang, Laos, after visiting 5 other Far East countries ranging from the third wealthiest country in the world (Singapore) to 2 of the bottom 10, we felt something different. I couldn't quite put my finger on it because I had visited many poor countries during my lifetime. Perhaps it was because there were no beggars on the streets, or dozens of children asking for us to buy from them, or maybe it was the respect they showed towards us, even as tourists. Yet, Laos is one of those countries in the bottom 10. Whatever it was, we certainly never expected that our lives would change so dramatically. As soon as we arrived, we were greeted with 'Sabaidee' by all of the hotel staff that were present, each with their hands folded as if in prayer. Almost everywhere we went, 'Sabaidee' was the common greeting.

Left: we are about 15 steps up from the resort looking left onto the street.

Right: we are in the same spot looking right this time - pedestrian access to the other side with loose floorboards.

During the first trip in February 2010, we did the usual touristy things from Luang Prabang, the main northern hub for tourists - visited temples, traveled by riverboat to a temple cave, experienced the culture of several villages displaying their village specialties including pottery, fabrics and whiskey that tasted more like Newfie screech (with no disrespect to the people of Newfoundland) or perhaps what you would expect from the TV series, Mash 4077. In fact I managed to swallow our free whiskey taster after several tries, only to turn my head for a second to see that it was filled to the top again! We also visited the night market, museum and even managed to squeeze in a ballet, Lao style.

Kind of scary looking...

We have traveled fairly extensively over many years and up until that point our experiences were certainly pleasant and enjoyable, as with many other countries we visited but with the unique Lao flavour. This is when things started to change for me, albeit I didn't realize it at the time. In a building on the museum grounds, a group of students had just arrived from Japan and were laying out rows of derelict Buddha statues in preparation for restoration to their former glory. It was part of their study course however I was impressed with the relationship that Laos must have had with the educators in Japan.

When we travel, we almost always hire a private guide to avoid the 'herding' effect'. Most of us have taken group tours and you just can't 'feel' the experience, especially when so many are talking and laughing when you are trying to listen, or one statement is being translated into several different languages, and even worse, there is always one person on the bus who feels it is their personal tour and do whatever they feel like, showing total disrespect for the culture in the country they are in, for the guide and for other tourists but I digress. It takes a bit of effort to find the right guide or person that is willing to take you where you want to go and experience the true essence of what you see before you.

Left; Mike and Kham Lath
Upper: Mike and Bounmy
Right: Steve, Bounmy & Kham Lath

This is where the next step in our journey to discovery led us. We managed to get to know a couple of the employees of the hotel quite well. Their English was good and you could even joke with them. They went well out of their way to drive us and trek us to the most beautiful waterfalls I had ever seen. It wasn't just the waterfalls with its aqua-marine coloured water but there were so many levels, each with their own mesmerizing landscape and the feeling of true peace. It is no wonder that even the locals go there on their day off from work. They also took us to two villages where tourists never go - talk about culture! With one pump in the middle of the village to serve all, there was a line-up of women waiting for their turn at the pump to fill their buckets with unpurified water.

One Water Pump for Entire Village

The two fellows who arranged this and took us on this amazing little adventure, would not accept money for themselves, just a bit of gas money for the van they borrowed from a friend. I almost couldn't believe it and have been accustomed over the years to expect an ulterior motive...haven't we all? There wasn't one. They just appreciated our company and told us that they just wanted to learn more English. Wow! That was a first for me. At least we were able to talk them into joining us for dinner.

During our final full day in Luang Prabang, I finally met with the manager of the hotel, Le Belair Boutique Resort. I can't say enough about the attention to detail they provided, their wonderful demeanor and attitude, and especially the beautiful rooms. It felt like paradise. Again, I didn't know it at the time, but I think he was the final straw that made us re-evaluate our priorities after we returned home. Mr. Somnuek Bounsa was kind enough to explain the fundraising projects he was working on in the area. They included new schools, hygienic toilets and water supply for those less fortunate. He was even working on an orphanage with a wonderful German couple. I left him an embarassingly small donation of $25 but vowed to learn more and read a blog that a sponsor and friend of his did to describe his own experience in Laos.

Home Again
Back in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada (my home), I read the blog, posted and written by Bill Stephens (www.jbillstephens.blogspot.com). I couldn't believe what I was reading - it was exactly as I was feeling and I have to admit that it was not only refreshing to know that someone else felt like I did, but that I wasn't completely insane for contemplating what I was planning to do.

I couldn't sleep and just thought it was jet lag. It went on for three long weeks and many restless dreams when I did manage to catch a nap. As we started to re-integrate with our friends, we told them about our trip, our feelings and that we were thinking we might build a couple of schools in the northern rural area of Luang Prabang Province. Surprisingly, everyone we spoke with, wanted to help in some way or another. For the first time in my life, three separate friends offered to do fundraisers for me! This was a real shock because I have always been the one sought after to do fundraisers for various charities in Toronto and Port Hope. The list of friends and family who wanted to help continued to grow (and continues to this day). So that was it. I started emailing the hotel manager and the two gentlemen at the hotel who had given us the tour. Before long I had quotes, hopeful timelines and plans.

Before promising anything though, I knew I had to take a better look and if satisfied that everything was legitimate, I would authorize the construction of a school addition of a kindergarten in one village so that the families didn't have to take their young ones to the rice fields with them every day. I would also authorize a complete replacement of a derelict one-room school in another village for Primary Grades 1, 2 and 3. I also knew that water was a problem so I agreed to look at their water supplies for clean, purified water and hygiene with the possibility of installing proper squat toilets.

Fundraising
I started by doing some research in learning more about what foundations and charities in North America sponsor along the lines of schools, kids, water purification and hygienic toilets. I knew that I could not afford to build more than the two schools I was already about to commit to and I wanted to be able to offer tax receipts to those who wished to help us. I also knew a lot of friends from our local Rotary clubs and their connection to Rotary International, and their involvement in clean water and schools on an international level. What I didn't know was that one of my best friends, a Rotarian was actually the liaison with Rotary International.
Rotary also has a connection with a company that makes low cost sand water filters that do not require electricity, a prerequisite for the rural villages. The general response has been positive but it will take a while for everything to happen, subject to final approval of course. With over 21,000 clubs world wide, I am sure I can do something.

I also reviewed a catalogue that was loaned to me by a friend. Out of over 4000 charitable organizations listed, I was able to identify 118 Foundations/Charities that would, in all possibility, help us by donating to the cause.

To this day I am not sure exactly what is considered a hygienic toilet but I can guess for the most part. All of the internet searches resulted in an endless variety of squat toilets for purchase or how to properly use one without walking away with a big wet patch on your butt - Mind you, the lessons came in handy later on.

Still, I had so much to learn (and still do) but I really did not understand enough about the villages themselves and their specific needs. It is wonderful to have all these plans in place but if the village chiefs were not on board or if there was a lot of corruption, I would have to think again about starting such an ambitious project. I definitely needed to experience their way of living and to meet with the village chiefs. There was no way around it.

Back to Luang Prabang for a Better Look
June came along very quickly, although at times it seemed it would never come. Other times I wondered how I was going to prepare everything before I left. More importantly I wondered if I was crazy and just about changed my mind a couple of times.

We arrived in Luang Prabang safe and sound, although tired from the 24 hour journey so we had planned an extra day to rest up before our real adventure began. Instead of resting we spent the day banking and shopping for the villages. We had brought a lot of gifts with us for the kids but I still needed to pick up a couple of soccer and volleyballs, plus I needed an extra camera to leave there so I could keep track of the progress after my return to Canada. I guess I already knew that the decision was already made to build the schools, although just needed to take a better look at what was involved. That day just zoomed along and before we knew it, we were sitting in the back of an open air truck driving along bumpy roads towards Nong Khiaw and then catch a boat to Muang Ngoi. It took us about four hours by truck but must have stopped 50 times to pick up and drop off passengers over the back of the truck. At one point the truck was full and the driver's wife was standing on the back ledge of the truck - I thought we would lose her on every bump. Then the driver stopped again to pick up two more passengers and a rusted old motor bike which they hoped could be squeezed between us somehow. Not a chance - Fortunately everyone rebelled. It would have been difficult to fit a sardine in there.

Once we transferred to the not-so-fast, Fast boat, the rest of the trip was easy and uneventful but the beauty that surrounded us was surreal, just truly amazing. We could see water buffalos relaxing head deep in the river and caught our first glimpse of albino buffalo - there weren't just a few of them either. This was their off season which meant they were free to roam wherever they wanted, until their work season began. Apparently water buffalo are funny that way. They respect only one owner and are wary of all other human beings. I don't suppose the people have to worry about theft for that reason. They are loyal to their owner and are left to forage in the jungle for food, yet they return to their owner every three or four days to spend the night under the owners home. I guess they were looking for work too.

Once we arrived in Muang Ngoi, we set up base camp there because we were told that would be the last place where they had electricity, hot showers, air conditioning and western toilets. Upon arrival we transferred our luggage containing mostly gifts for the villages and especially for the children we were going to meet. Our own clothes barely fit an overnight bag but we were determined to travel as light as possible, knowing about the trek ahead. At the top of the stairs from the riverbank, the proprietor of the bungalows we rented, was waiting for us and had brought a large cart on wheels for our luggage. She was just recovering from having a new child two weeks earlier but looked just as fit as everyone else, although our host pushed the cart. The bungalows had just been completed a couple of weeks earlier. Inside the room was spacious enough and the bed was comfortable but there was no other furniture in the room. She made dinner for us and this was the first village-type meal we chanced to experience.

Sticky rice was the staple of every meal. Thank God for little miracles. With a weak stomach to begin with, at least I could count on keeping my weight up. She made some sort of a fish soup. I don't mind fish of just about any kind as long as it doesn't taste fishy but that was not to be, plus it was extremely oily - one of the ingredients that makes my stomach run so I was pretty careful and stuck mostly to the rice. The last thing I needed at the beginning of the trip was to spend most of my time on the toilet or possibly worse....and yes there were toilets in Muang Ngoi, although no toilet tanks so one had to fill a bucket in order to flush. Right beside the toilet was a hose with a small nozzle on the end so that when you took a shower, the entire room was drenched. It wasn't a problem of course, just a little extra work after each shower. There was no electricity when we arrived either so no hot shower, no fan and certainly no air conditioning unless you opened the window, however the electricity did indeed come on from about 7pm to 10pm every night. You could hear the generator go on down the street for the village - that was the sign for tourists and villagers to jump up from what they were doing, run back to their guest houses and plug in their cameras, shavers, notebooks and rechargeable flashlights. It was a rather comical sight at first.

We spent a couple of days touring through the caves where the villagers lived during the Vietnam war and heard stories about the lives they led during that time. There were days they couldn't eat for fear of giving away their position when they tried to cook over smoky campfire. We even saw garden ornaments throughout the village consisting of empty bomb casings that were found in the area. We visited the local primary and secondary school there and just happened to be there during the last day of the school year for the Grade 5 students. This was the day that all Grade 5ers traveled from the nearby villages, many by boat, others by jungle trek to write the country-wide exams in preparation for secondary school (equivalent to grades 6, 7, 8, followed by high school 9, 10 and 11). Traveling ranged from roughly an hours walk to a an hours ride by boat. After the exams, they all stripped off their uniforms and jumped into the river for a swim before the journey home.

Swimming After Exams

Villagers home during the Vietnam War

While we were in the village, we decided late on the second day to check out the water source for the village, just wanting to get a frame of reference for the villages we were planning to see. the path led us along the back of the village and into the jungle. We were told it wasn't very far so we followed the plastic pipes, wearing only sandals, but after 45 minutes along the muddy trail it was starting to get dusk. The mosquitoes were not only having a field day with us, but we discovered that the leeches were enjoying our feet too. That was it - we high-tailed it out of there, picking the blood sucking critters off of us as we went.

The next morning we rented a slowboat and traveled about 25 minutes to a small beach on the side of a riverbank. We had all of our belongings and gifts for the first village and had been wondering how we were going to carry everything through the jungles, over hills and across rice fields to get to our first village, Pha Yong. We had left the rest of our luggage in Muang Ngoi. We thanked our lucky stars that our terrific host Bounmy, had arranged for his brother and 6 kids to be there to give us a hand. They were swimming at the time but the second they saw us, everyone jumped out, got dressed and stood in line as we sorted out what we thought they could carry. I couldn't imagine what we would have done without them. Had we known that they had been waiting for us since 8am and hadn't even had their breakfast yet, we wouldn't have taken our own sweet time about having a leisurely breakfast, doing a bit more shopping and eventually working our way to the beach for our boat. Yet there was never a complaint, just total respect.

Thinking back, I think most or all of them were barefoot! We managed to keep pace with them for the first half hour. It was sooooo hot and sooooo hunid. We had brought lots of bottled water but still needed a break to try to cool off under one of the farm shacks along the way, used by farmers for eating lunch and resting during the hottest part of the days. Did I tell you it was hot???? What made it worse was that our backpacks were still really heavy. We went for another hour and much of it under direct sun and I was starting to get a bit dizzy. Yes, I was wearing a hat but the sweat was just pouring off me almost as fast as I could drink water to replace it. We found an abandoned home with a nice shade tree, although there were more leaches. We rested there about 20 minutes and redistributed our loads - to be honest, I traded my load with Bounmy's. What a wonderful host don't you think? I didn't realize it at the time but we were only 20 minutes from his village at that point. Along the way he explained to us that he had not been back to his village in 8 years and since that time, the village had been forced by the government to move twice, so he really didn't know where he lived, but still recognized the general area and where all of his dad's rice fields were. He further explained that two tribes, his being the Mong tribe from the valley, the other being the Khiaw tribe from the hills were joined together for scales of economy. Each village in itself was too small to be properly supported by the government.

Trek from Nam Ou River to Ban Pha Yong. Right:Our wonderful angels!

Bounmy continued to point out the locations where his village used to be and once in a while you could see a small remnant or two. He also pointed up into the hills and surrounding small mountains, explaining that nobody was allowed up there for fear of unexploded bombs. During the war, there was an average of one bomb every 8 minutes for 9 years. As the villagers put it, there was one bomb for every inhabitant of Laos. About 30% of the population died during the war...very sad.

Our trek was about two hours in total so it wasn't as bad as I originally thought. Often when a tour guide gives you a time estimate, you often need to double it. By the time we got to the village, they had already eaten and were waiting for us to arrive.