Wat SokPaLuang, Vientiane

Then...We started sitting on the floor, with a cabinet of books and newspaper on the walls in a novices room, but now...

Then

When we started the library at Wat Sok Pa Luang (the novices' high school in Vientiane) it was in a novice's room. The walls were papered with newspaper. We had one locking cabinet for books and everyone sat on the floor or leaned against the walls.

By April, the end of the2003/ 2004 school year, everything has changed.

And Now

We have a big table with lots of chairs and stools, fresh walls that the novices helped to scrape and paint...

and new bookshelves along 3 walls.

When the school year started again in August 2004 we installed listening stations for cassettes and CDs and their first two computers.

Now they can study typing in English and Lao, Microsoft Word and Excel and study English using CDROMs. We've been lucky to have foreigners stop in. Keith, in the listening station above, lives in Vientiane and comes by on Saturday mornings to help out.

Emile from London stopped in for a couple of days after 3 weeks of helping in The Listening Library in Luang Prabang.

and Han, whose Alam Asia Journeys Foundation www.alamasiajourneys.com supports The Language Project, comes to Vientiane sometimes to help.

Some things haven't changed...

they still pour into the library and read standing or leaning against the walls.