May 23. Easy bashing German state aid.

We have a delicious noodle soup for breakfast in a place that looks like what you would expect of a Lao eatery: the wooden terrace was built in the field, and farmers are ploughing in sight. This valley has always played an important cultural role as many different hilltribes interact here. Even today, local schoolchildren belong to numerous different tribes and they have to learn Lao in order to receive an education. And then there's English, perhaps the most important of their subjects since it enables them to communicate with the world.
Our day gets along calmly, I live the Lao rhythm now and enjoy it. I don't even remember the deeds I might or might not have done, the ride to the market, the afternoon nap, the rearranging of the center's bookshelves.

We have dinner with a German couple, and I seize the opportunity to talk German again. The man gives a sceptical account of German state-organized development aid in this region. The GTZ (for technological cooperation worldwide) paid millions for a rubber plantation to create jobs for poor Laotians, while Chinese entrepeneurs came in later, invested some money and set up a more profitable plantation without any aid money. They installed electricity and the result was Lao people flaunting their laziness watching bootlegged Thai sex movies. The efficiency of those aid millions is very low, not to say that it's counter-productive. I've heard similar stories about the GTZ and the DED many times, and I think some of it must be true. I'll try to get hold of them back home although I heard they are a select and conceited club. Anyway, I crafted my own concept of doing something good, and yes it IS a delight that I am not dependent on proto-cynical overly bureaucratic government services for that.
We talk about our donation to the butterfly children and the school before we all go to bed. We need some rest am I writing this boring diary about a terrific time I can't believe it... so rest because we will leave early tomorrow. We got our call to move on, towards Luang Prabang and Vientiane, following the common trail to save time. So what, everybody does this. Read everybody's blog. Anyway, to get some words in, the butterfly center in Muang Sing we supported is really nice and quite unique. You don't want to know how much trouble the US couple had to get their allowance to live there. So it is really great that they aren't retiring Thailand-style but empowering the local community and enabling many of the kids to go to college. It would be nice when everybody would do that, wouldn't it?

May 22. Paper mash.

The accident could have been avoided. It was my idea to do paper maché, and I feel a little bit guilty about it. The kids gather at the porch as usual and when we let them storming in they are enthousiastic as always. Yeon prepares a bowl of glue and we start dipping little pieces of paper into it. We are going to make little monsters or dragons - the kids' fantasy has free reign in this domain. They glue and paste and fumble to their hearts' content when suddenly our hostess Leila slips and falls headlong on the floor. It takes a while before I realize what happened; then there is ice and we arrange to go to the hospital asap. The nearest medical service is provided in Luang Namtha, almost two hours by bus, and if it turns out to be broken, she'd have to travel to Bangkok to have it casted. Meanwhile, the children have made an enormous mess of the paper that sticks to every other stalk of grass. We slowly clean it up and tell the children to get back for the night event: a movie.

At night, we show the movie Ice Age again (the perfect children's movie, enjoyed through Charity Travel by hundreds of kids in Palestine, Kenya, Mozambique, India, Cambodia), projecting it on the ceiling with our little gadget. The kids lie on the floor watching and giggling - they love it. I realize that Bryan and Leila are doing good work here supporting these children with scholarships and a possibly much brighter future. After the movie the kids go home and I crawl under the mosquitonet too.

May 21. Jump around.

We have found a beautiful place. We stay under the mosquito net long this morning, before enjoying an extended breakfast, as far as the reconstruction goes. The house is really quite, despite the main road that crosses the fertile valley and should connect to China and Thailand. The local market in Luang Namtha does offer products from those countries because the cargo drivers aren't allowed to enter each other's countries, we are told. Our bedroom is next to the community room, where the children come after school, almost every day, to receive additional training (computer, English) and hang out. It means a lot to them, and we love how the project is organized by Bryan and Leila. Yeon has a call to order the shelves and does so most impressively.
Children are already waiting at the little porch in front of the house, and when we come out they almost jump on us. What have we got?

From earier occassions we remember a few games and activities we decide we can do here too. To our initial surprise, it all goes very well: the kids are concentrated and like the yoga exercises, aerobic jumping and head-and-tail snake game that we improvise. We have done some shopping earlier and give them a soccer- and a volleyball. In the course of the session we learn a lot from the children we can take with us on our travels and apply in other places.
At night, we see a Californian high school's performance of the musical Les misérables on DVD, an astonishing achievement I think, (and a great way to introduce adolescents to art, I can't help myself thinking). My mind drifts off to what we are planning for the future: a mobile (puppet)theater traveling to remote villages in the poorest part of the world, performing for marginalized kids while introducing basic services to their communities. But that's another story. I sleep well that night, happy about being in Laos where finding a charitable cause is a lot easier than in China.