Reading Book Delivery – Pak Ou Village – Christmas Day Stop
It was Christmas Day! Merry Christmas! We got a late start and decided to drive to Pak Ou Village (a 30 minute drive vs. 2 hour+ boat ride).
En route, we saw two elephants, walking on Highway 13 North. We screamed out and asked the mahouts where they were going. “Back to the elephant camp”, they screamed back. That’s where we’re going. The elephant camp is located on the south side of Pak Ou Village. A place to visit, if you plan to visit Pak Ou Village.
We had pleasant lunch along side the confluence of the Mekong and Ou Rivers. Beautiful views!
After taking Barbara’s daughter Tiffany to the cave of 100s of Buddhas, we boated back to the village to visit the Pak Ou Preschool, donated by the McCarthy’s.
Read more about Pak Ou here.
The reading books were presented to the primary and preschool school principal. She reported that the preschool is in excellent shape. There are plans to paint it. Bathrooms are operating just fine.
The preschoolers were adorable. Some came up to the front of the class to introduce themselves, tell us their name, their favorite subjects or what they wanted to be when they grow up.
Noteworthy was a little girl in the back of the room. She’s two years old. Preschool starts at 3 years old. The teachers said she has the best attendance of all of the preschoolers, even though she’s not enrolled. She usually walks to and from school with her older five year old sister and her many friends and neighbors.
It was a very nice Christmas Day.
Reading Book Delivery – Suane Luang Preschool – Next Stop
Does this one-room preschool look like it has a lot of preschoolers? You’re right! Suane Luang Village grew very quickly and the classroom is over crowded. A new three-room school is being built nearby to accommodate the growth.
It was close to lunchtime when we arrived, but the preschoolers stayed a bit longer to listen to Thonghchanh and to see their new reading books. As all of the preschool teachers, they have not seen these new books before and the teachers were excited to read new stories to the children.
Many of the books were famous Aesop Fables: The Turtle and the Hare. The Boy Who Cried Wolf. All books are in Lao and English. Some are in Chinese, as well. The preschoolers loved the alphabet flash cards. It kept their attention and the children anxiously waited for the next letter to see who could guess the right letter first!