Delivering New Books to a Rural Village

Duncan here.  Yesterday I went on a second book delivery expedition with the Lao non-profit Big Brother Mouse (BBM).  This was the event that Belle, Jesse, and I had sponsored.  (B and J stayed in Luang Prabang.) The mini-bus ride with four Laotian BBM staff members took 45 minutes as we traveled NE on increasingly rutted dirt roads.  At times our progress was slowed by wandering cattle, chickens, and ducks. Past teak forests.  Past rice fields and people making bricks by hand. Local Lao huddled over cooking fires under their thatched stilt houses.

Finally pulled into the packed dirt square of the U-shaped elementary school.  Sixty families in the village.  Six classrooms for 95 students from K-5.  All the students streamed out in their sandals to welcome us. Random attire sprinkled with old jackets or shirts bearing western cultural references -- Addidas, Busch Park, etc.   Everyone somewhat bundled up against the Lao winter (68 degrees).

The classrooms were clean and spare.  No glass on the windows, just openings in the walls and wooden shutters to keep out any heavy rain.  Children's drawings hung on strings above everyone's heads.  Children sat four to a bench.  Posters encouraged breast feeding, and explained how stepping in feces or not washing hands can give you worms.

The BBM presenters split  the children into one younger group and one older group. They crowded into two classrooms and I went back and forth between them.  The children each got new pencils and colored pencils and worked on tracking the Lao alphabet.  I did too.  Not a straight line to be found.  Everything is curved and swirly.  Then we sang a sone about books and reading, complete with choreography and many laughs, particularly when lumbering foreigners give it  go.  The wicked cute kids giggled, and the female teachers covered their mouths with their hands as they laughed.  Next, two presenters read ('told') two stories aloud to the children in the same way a CLiF presenter would.  The pacing and interaction with the children was very similar, with lots of shouted answers and room-wide giggles..  Finally we all went outside and played games in the damp square (a passing rain shower had come through).  Mangy, half-starved (but gentle) dogs sniffed around for scraps any kids might have dropped.  Chickens pecked the dirt. A Buddhist temple peeked through flowering bushes next door.

At last, the moment everyone was waiting for.  All the children lined up, and each child came up and selected a small paperback picture book 5 inches x 4 inches to keep.  There were 15 choices, all books that BBM employees had written in Lao and that BBM had published.  The kids were so excited and immediately started reading the new treasures.  The school principal said that most of the children do not own any books at all of their own  -- only a textbook or two from school.

At around noon all the children (followed by hopeful dogs) streamed out the gate to go home for lunch.  The teachers and the principal hosted us to a special meal to thank us for the visit.  We all sat around a big table covered with bowls of steamed greens, sticky rice, fresh chicken (seen in the courtyard earlier that morning), hot sauce, soup, and Lao salad.  The only utensil provided was a soup spoon.  We all ate out of the same bowls by hand. The youngest of the 6 teachers was in charge of serving the beer.  She filled a glass and gave it to a BBM employee.  He drank it, poured the suds on the floor, and passed it back.  She filled it up and gave it to the next person.  Round and round the one glass went until 6 large bottles were done.  Then the children came back, a few speeches were made in English and Lao (BBM presenters translated everything) and we returned to the big city of Luang Prabang.

Google Big Brother Mouse if you'd like to learn more.  It costs $250-$400 to sponsor a Book Party like the one I described.  Most of the children served have never owned a book of their own.  Saabaidee!