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Hello from two extremely happy girls in a very lovely (and hot) Laos!
At the moment, Åshild and I are sitting in the corner of our project house, listening to Sia’s Cheap Thrills, while energetically scribbling down our little adventure. We are overexcited to write to you, as we are situated in the heart of our organisation: Aay’s Village in Phonsawarthe. The reason why we are here and why we are extremely happy is quite a nice story. However, after writing it all, it is almost too long, so you will get the chance to read a part I and part II, just like any modern day adaptation of the last books in a series – obviously as we try to follow those trend. So here we go, I give you Åshild and Mari’s little Adventure in Laos, part I:
As you already may know, we received some fantastic news a few weeks before Christmas. The Norwegian fund, Kavlifondet, wanted to help our organisation and provided us with 25 tablets with pedagogic learning apps that will enable the children in our village to boost their English and IT-skills in a fun and efficient way. The learning lab will enable the children to participate in a more engaging form of learning via tablets, which we couldn't be more excited about. It is really a dream come true for our organisation, and our holiday was spent celebrating the good news and preparing for a very happy new year!
Åshild and I were the lucky ones who got the winning ticket; a two weeks travel to Laos to set up the learning lab in Aay’s Village. We met in Oslo the 7th of January, and began our journey towards our destination. A nine flight journey to Bangkok; eleven hours night train to Nongh Khai; and a four hour bus ride later, we finally arrived Aay’s Village and were ready to start our real journey.
Our project house is a lovely little house situated in a very nice street in Phonsawarthe. Despite the house being charming from the first day we started renting it, there were a few (manyyy) things we needed to fix. The first few days were used to paint the house inside, decorate the walls with big, colourful letters and pictures and posters of lovely our kids and hardworking team, schedule plans with a carpenter, buy a lot of things for our set-up and brain storming for the future weeks. In other words, a LOT to do, but we managed. Big high five, Åshild and Aay!! I have to mention that we were kind of lucky with the weather, as it was – wait for it…raining! Yes, it was actually raining heavy the first week of our journey, and yes, it is supposed to be in the middle of the dry season in Laos, and finally yes, we actually appreciated the rain, as it meant no sunbeams that would only be too tempting for two Norwegians in the middle of January. Instead, hard working from we rose until we said goodnight, we managed to do all we wanted in and around the project house. It is all ready for students and future volunteers to enjoy their time at our cosy little project house.
To be continued…
Big love
Mari & Åshild