{"id":35672,"date":"2017-06-21T18:00:38","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T23:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=35672"},"modified":"2017-06-15T05:13:17","modified_gmt":"2017-06-15T10:13:17","slug":"the-laos-school-reveal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=35672","title":{"rendered":"The Laos School Reveal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week we promised photos of the elementary school building that we helped build in a small mountain village in Laos.\u00a0 If you read this post<\/a>, then you will get the background info and before photos of the school. This is the third and final post on our trip to Thailand and Laos, and I hope you enjoy seeing the almost finished product.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"Laos<\/p>\n

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We also built a playground for the school.\u00a0 We painted tires for the playground’s jungle gym.\u00a0 The playground’s design was developed by students at Michigan State University for a friend of ours.\u00a0 They used items that are easily found in third world countries.\u00a0 They created a handbook full of designs, materials, and directions needed for different playground equipment.\u00a0 And by the way, the school building you see there is still being used by the pre-school.\u00a0 It was not the worst building on the school’s campus.<\/p>\n

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\"Laos<\/p>\n

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Luckily, one of the men in our group was an architect, and he drew up a plan for a local welder to create the frame for the swings.<\/p>\n

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\"Laos<\/p>\n

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The children were even fascinated withe the tree swing.\u00a0 You can see the new school building in the background.\u00a0 They still needed to do some finish work.<\/p>\n

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\"Laos<\/p>\n

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Mr. Right and I were so happy to contribute the ways and means for the playground.\u00a0 You can see that our “clients” are happy with the end results.<\/p>\n

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\"Laos<\/p>\n

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This is our German friend Lucas.\u00a0 He and his girlfriend Katarina are bicycling in Laos, China, India, Thailand for several months.\u00a0 We met them at our guest house, and they joined us for our week of work.\u00a0 He is studying to be a teacher, and Katarina is a social worker, so this project was right up their alley.\u00a0 They were such hard workers and added a European touch to our group.<\/p>\n

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\"Laos<\/p>\n

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Not only did our group paint the new school building, but they also painted the exterior of an existing building.<\/p>\n

\"Laos<\/p>\n

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This is the view out the back windows of the school.\u00a0 They are surrounded by breath-taking natural beauty and views of mountains.<\/p>\n

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\"Laos<\/p>\n

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Now, get this.\u00a0 The older children in the high school ride their bikes to school in the morning, back home for lunch, back to the school after lunch, and then home again in the afternoon.\u00a0 The temperatures were between 90 and 100 every day we were there, and the humidity was super high.\u00a0 They also do this in the rainy season.\u00a0 They use umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun.\u00a0 Some of the children ride several miles each way<\/span>, and most of their bicycles were in bad condition.\u00a0 I think we could have had a bike repair clinic and been busy the whole time we were there.<\/p>\n

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\"Laos<\/p>\n

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At the end of our week in the village, they had a big celebration for us including a traditional Laos ceremony.\u00a0 This room was set up for the ceremony in the almost finished school building.\u00a0 We drank potions, had rice sprinkled on us…..<\/p>\n

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\"Laos<\/p>\n

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….. received ribbons that we were to wear for three days to have good luck, etc.\u00a0 This ceremony was very important to them.\u00a0 Along with our team, the room had Laotian officials and someone like a medicine man.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0\"Laos<\/p>\n

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There were also dancers followed by a big celebratory meal.<\/p>\n

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\"Laos<\/p>\n

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I even got up the nerve to have another photo taken with the two security guards and their AK 47’s.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0\"Laos<\/p>\n

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After the week in the countryside, we returned to Vientiane, again on a six-hour bus ride through the curving roads on the mountains.\u00a0 Mr. Right and I stayed there a few days before coming home and enjoyed being a tourist.\u00a0 This room was a welcome sight.<\/p>\n

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\"Laos<\/p>\n

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One quick story before I go.\u00a0 See the arc in the bottom right hand corner?\u00a0 Well, in the 1960’s, the USA sent the country of Laos money to build a new airport runway.\u00a0 Instead, they took the money and built this arc so that they would have one like Paris.\u00a0 Its nickname is the “Vertical Runway.”\u00a0 It was just beautiful.<\/p>\n

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Take care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week we promised photos of the elementary school building that we helped build in a small mountain village in Laos.\u00a0 If you read this post, then you will get the background info and before photos of the school. This is the third and final post on our trip to Thailand and Laos, and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[11,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35672"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35672"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35695,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35672\/revisions\/35695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}