It was Christmas Eve, December 24th, and we started our day by delivering books to the Kokngiew Preschool.
The five year old children were busy writing during our visit. The 3 and 4 year old jumped at the chance to look at the new books.
This village is one of the more education minded villages of Give Children A Choice preschools in Luang Prabang. Parents, year after year, prioritize their village funds towards their school priorities.
The Kokngiew Preschool deserves special credit. The school principal proudly reminded us that their preschool continues to be the Luang Prabang Education and Sports Department’s Number 1, model preschool. Principals and school administrators come from other villages and other provinces to observe their preschool classes.
The school was in excellent condition. There were plans to repaint the school (even though it didn’t seem to need it).
Long Or is located about 20 minutes outside of Luang Prabang city. Visiting the preschool brought back memories of our handover ceremony. It was a handover ceremony, healthfair where hundreds of children and adults came for free physicals performed by Lao and US doctors.
Read more about Long Or here.
We found the Long Or preschool in excellent condition. Walls were clean outside. The walls inside were filled with children’s drawings, charts and health and hygiene posters.
They were very attentive, when Thongchanh showed the preschoolers the story books. The teacher instructed them to be very quiet, but you can see that there were one side of the table who couldn’t help to show their excitement.
Great school to visit. Great village to visit. Long Or is one of the major producers of pomelos (which is like a grapefruit with thick skins). From the description on our website, Long Or has an interesting mixture of Lao Loum and Lao Seung (Hmong) villagers, who govern and live together even though their cultures are very different.