Helping out

So the other day, we learned of a project here in Luang Prabang called Big Brother Mouse. Started by a few young locals, the aim is to provide books for kids here in Laos. For several reasons - poverty and small size - there are incredibly few books here and many of those are not even in Lao. The group has a storefront where you can buy books and a classroom where they have "English practice".

A portion of the profits from the bookstore goes to giving books away in the countryside, with the hopes of hooking readers early (sounds familiar). We went by the classroom today to donate an hour teaching a few novices ("novice" referring to their status as monks, not yet to their English). Lisa worked with an older, slightly more advanced boy - a task made difficult since he is not allowed to have contact with a female. I worked on reading "pen", "pencil", "table" and "chair" and a few other classroom vocab words with 2 younger boys.

After our "work", I chatted with one of the young men who runs the classroom part time. His name is Linthot, he has finished college and plans to attend university to become an English teacher. He comes from a farming village and we had a great chat about farming life in Laos.