It is hard to believe that I am almost caught up with my blog entries!!! We returned to Had Chanh to revisit friends, discuss some minor updates to the school and to discuss the build of permanent toilets for the village school. Last year we built a temporary one but vowed to come back and […]
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This trip was perhaps one of the most spectacular ones I have been on where trekking wasn’t involved. From Nong Khiaw it was another 2 hours driving along the top of the mountains following their contours and at times the pat was no wider than a cow path. Once we arrived, there was fanfare of […]
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Shortly after the Rotarian visit, Mike, Roland from Toronto and Art from North Carolina came for a visit – they will be here until the end of the month but we didn’t waste any time. We headed up to Nong Khiaw to use that as our base, complete another hygiene course at an education compound […]
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The day we came to officially open the primary school in Done Lom Village, there was a birth in the village. I had not idea at the time but as we were leaving the village to head back to the boats, I noticed that Bounmy and others were caressing this infant. As they left I […]
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We were all a little surprised to be taken to the cave where the Governor hid during the Vietnam war – located just a few minutes outside Nong Khiaw. We don’t know if it was a District Governor or a Provincial one. Nevertheless it was very interesting. Imagine the sound of the bombs echoing off […]
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It was with great pleasure we welcomed the Rotarians from Toronto Canada after their sweat equity trip in Cambodia with dear friend and Rotarian Lisa McCoy. I think they managed to find a new definition for sweat!!!! So we cooled them off a bit and took them to Kwangsi Waterfalls. After a meander up to […]
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It was time to take the trip to Vientiane for a number of reasons but primarily to inform the Ministry of Foreign Affairs what we were planning this year. I booked the flight but had to book executive class to my surprise – I didn’t even know there was a plane here that was big […]
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It didn’t take long before we were back in the villages again. While we had intended to do a number of things during this trip, there was always something that prevented us from doing it. Still, we managed to head back to Done Lom with a boat load of water filters and took four tourists […]
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With the predelivery of water filters for the village, we are all set to go for distribution to every family of a water filter (plus two for the school), hygiene kits (courtesy of Jao Lao Foundation), a hygiene training course and the official announcement that Jai Lao would be the sponsors for a new school. Hat […]
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I made it through the first two weeks and managed to get a lot accomplished already although I am still behind the 8ball so-to-speak. My hope is to get some, preferably all of the new projects completed before the rainy season. Last season was just too difficult for many in terms of transportation and access, […]
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