Sabaidee (Hello, in Lao)
I have to say it was an amazing trip. Laos is a beautiful country, beautiful sights and sceneries and interesting things to do. It has beautiful people, really really nice people, most of whom don't take advantage of you (except probably those who sell stuff at the market. One of us got conned), but are very carefree and simple people.
They lead very simple and carefree life. One magazine jokes that Lao PDR (which abbreviates for Lao People's Democratic Republic) stands for Please Don't Rush. But seriously, Laotians take their time into doing what they wanna do and have little worries. It was so bad that we waited two hours to get all our Naan for breakfast.
The main objective of the trip was to raise funds for the building of two classrooms. We had to raise RM15,000 for the building. Well, we managed to raise RM11,000++. It wasn't totally enough.
The raising of money was a whole adventure of its own, we did things we never imagined doing. Like selling keropok in LRT stations (I didn't get the privilege to do that) and begging for money in restaurants and public places.
While we were there, we interacted with kids, teaching them English, and Arts and Crafts. The kids were really adorable bunch of people willing to learn. It was tough communicating because they don't speak English. Never had I experienced such communication breakdown. But we managed to learn each other's language from each other.
We also helped construct the classrooms by helping to carry things, lay bricks and stuff. The construction workers were really nice people. We actually talked to them, and grew close to them.
And other than that, we had our own share of sightseeing and playing.
I grew closer to people who I knew before but didn't really know. I saw the different sides of my teammates, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Basically, I learnt a lot, about working with people, the conflicts and frictions we go through, the fun and joy we shared together.
It was a perfect end to a holiday. I didn't think it would be this fun. Laos far exceeded my expectations. Basically, I didn't really expect anything.
Had the time of my life, and wouldn't exchange the experience for anything else.
Hopefully I'll blog out the things we did daily in the days to come especially after I got all my pictures. One kid deleted 1 and a half days worth of my pictures. I'm mad!
Signing off,
Lah Kohn (means Goodbye, in Lao)
