Another day of more stories about my two months adventure in Laos. It was October 17, 2008 and my 12th day in Laos. I woke up early as usual with not much sleep and was not feeling well at all. It was a humid morning and the temperature kept rising and was predicted to be about 40 degree Celsius that day. I packed a couple of outfits and trip to Muang Phonethong.
By 8:00 AM I went next door for breakfast. Aunt Phone had a craving for tum green banana so she made that to add to the left-over. I only ate a banana and a cup of tea and we headed out to Houaylao Elementary School first before going to the hospital to visit Grand-Mama and say goodbye to the relatives since I won’t be seeing them for a couple of days.
We arrived at Houaylao Elementary School a few minutes after 9:00 AM and met with the super intendent and a few of the teachers and officially handed over the money for the installation of the electricity for the school and for buying the fans. I would pay for the electricity installation ($200) and the school will ask for the equiptments from a parent of a student who works at the electricity company. Ai Amphone’s money ($50.00) will go toward buying as many fans as possible for the classrooms. I told the superintendent that I want to be like my mou or friend (Nye Noona) and donate the money anonymously and only record Ai Amphone’s name but Aunt Tou said I had to put down my name on the record and the rest of people in the room also insisted on doing thing by the book. After the signing and taking photos I bid farewell to the superintendent and the teachers.
By now the students were about to be done with their 10:00 AM break. We would have left already but the superintendent asked where I was going and Aunt Tou told everyone on the spot that she was taking me to meet my Aao (uncle) at Dao Heung Market so I can go to Muang Phonethong to visit a school that my mou (Nye Noona) has been building. The superintendent asked if this is the same person that would be coming to visit the school next month and whether or not she helped to build the school all by herself.
Of course I didn’t want any misunderstanding to take place so I explained to the superintendent and the teachers that my mou did not finance the entire project by herself. I had already informed them of how Nye Noona was able to finance their book box library from my previous visit to the school. I told them about the village’s fund with an annual contribution of 100,000 Kips per family into the fund. As for Nye Noona she had to make more egg rolls and sold them to her co-workers and donated the proceeds to the school building project. They all laughed when I said by now her house would be smelling like egg rolls since she has been making so much of them to help with the Book Box Fund and the school building project.
With everything out in the open and clear, we all got on the truck and went to the hospital after making a short stop to air up the tires.