In July, we were excited to distribute another 250 water filters!  This brought the total number of family water filters distributed in one year to 764!  That’s about 3,820 people with clean water.  To get to this stage, The Rotary Club of Scarborough, Ontario matched all water filter donations received from their club members and friends of the club, over a two week period.  That was 58 water filters!  Also, our dear friends Barbara Seagram, Alex Kornel and Patti Lee hold an annual bridge fundraiser for us and raised well over 100 filter system donations!  They are such an inspiration.  We also had Daniel, representing a Singapore group, SG L.I.F.E. who donated 30 filters and another group from Malaysia who also donated a lot of filters.  But first, Daniel was kind enough to write his own blog entry!  so cool!

Thrown from the tractor

Got your attention. Right!!!

I was very fortunate to come across Web: adoptavillageinlaos.wordpress.com organization and was impressed with Steve and his local support group in Laos. Ours is a small group of individuals (SG L.I.F.E.) who believed in giving and bringing some happiness to the unfortunate people of Laos and to assist the children of Laos by providing them with an education so that they will have a better future. Although our contribution maybe small but it’s an initial step

Started the funding drive for our initial project for 30 water filters system for a remote village North of Luang Prabang. (an Unesco World Heritage site and was voted the 10 best places to visit). Steve’s organization had previously donated 30 water filters system to a village called Ban Lang Pha, a very remote village in the interior of Laos forest near the Nam Ou 2 Hydro Dam project. We were glad to sponsor the remaining 28 units to the 58 families living there and 2 other units were delivered to another village which was missed out previously.

Made my trip by flying from Vientiane Capital to Luang Prabang, an easy 50 minutes flight by  Fokker. Was met on arrival by a smiling Siphan, (Steve’s local coordinator) and immediately was taken in by his friendly nature and pleasantly surprised by his good command of English.

A quick check-in to the guest house (US$13/night with a Queen sized bed with air-cond and hot water) and headed off to the markets to purchase school stationeries for 60 plus primary school going children. Of course when you are dealing with kids, you need to add sweets and other goodies and we were glad to provide all these happy requirements. Bought some basic necessities (toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap and etc – things we all take for granted) for the villagers.

After a very simple dinner in one of the lanes at the famous Night Market of Luang Prabang, decided to call it a night as we have an early morning journey to Ban Lang Pha. Maybe I was too excited as I had a rather restless night and was kinda tired when woke up at 6.00am but on seeing the ever cheerful face of Siphan, I was eager to get moving. Siphan had earlier hired a minivan for the 2 hours road trip to a place called Ban Dong Nguen. Our boat ride was waiting for us to take us across Nam Ou river and we fully loaded the small little sampan (boat) to make the river crossing and our tractor transport was already waiting at the landing to take us to Ban Lang Pha which is a mere 18 km ride but took us over 90 minutes of backbreaking, tough and rough ride due to the treacherous muddy condition due to the rain that felled for several days before our visit. It will be a road trip that will forever remained in my memories.

The weather was kind to us as it would cloudy and whatever pain and suffering I had was easily forgotten on reaching the village and seeing the entire village welcoming us. It must be the red awful hat that Siphan was wearing. Haha. The villagers quickly helped us unload all the stuff and the village head organized the distribution of the water filters system to the families at their community hall. I had fun and was truly blessed to present the water filters to the individual family and was teasing and joking with them. I think they were surprised to see a Chinese man able to speak their language.

The villagers had organized a thanksgiving ceremony (Baci in Laos) for us to thank us for the gifts and luckily for me, I had no issues in eating Laos food they had prepared in our honor as I have lived here for over 3 years now. There was even a jar of their local moonshine ready for my consumption. Even had our fortune read by the village shaman. These villagers are really simple people even though they have so little but there always a smile on their face and readily will share their meals with you.

Took a tour around the village by the village teacher and was shown the pathetic rundown shack of a place called school. I was totally shocked at the poor condition and almost shredded a tear.

After giving out the goodies to the children, it was time to say our farewell and we informed the villagers that we will look into their request for the construction of a 2/3 classrooms and a pipe water system. Seeing the smiles and the happy faces of the kids made me forget about the long hard ride down from the mountain.

We survived the journey down from the mountain although we had to get off several times due to the bad condition of the jungle path and were almost thrown off as I lost concentration for awhile due to the intense hot sun and the light drizzle that accompanied us all the way.

Arrived safely in Luang Prabang in the evening and I actually looked forward to my next trip into the remote again this coming December. Hopefully we are able to meet some of their request but providing the kids with an education will be our top priority.

Love Laos Project

Thank You Daniel for your insight and for your amazing support.  More information about Daniels trip can be found on his facebook page at (Facebook: Love Laos Project)