Luang Prabang Orphanage. For Michael!

Michael is interested in helping with raising funds for Luang Prabang Orphanage and asked me to check it out for him, so this post is for him. However, since the Orphanage desperately needs four new roofs, please take an interest too.

Michael, the place is way out of town and down a long, long road, but here's a shot of what you first see when you come to the Orphanage:

Guard post!
Sad to think it's necessary.

With your credentials checked, you then cross a rickety bridge over the river, walk up the hill ... where the first thing you come across is the kitchen:

Kids cooking lunch.

However, when Ruth first got involved, two decades back, the place looked like this ...

The original buildings.

... but since this is still where they house the overflow kids, these "Old Days" are not over.

These days, the place looks like this:

The new buildings.

Two decades ago, when Ruth first came across the place, the kids were half-starved and listless.
These days, they are all energetic and rowdy:

Girls soccer game!

It was a long hard road getting them from there to here. And, although she'd hate me for saying so, it was nearly all Ruth's work. She isn't connected with the Orphanage in any official capacity, but, with no funds coming in - see Fairy Tale post below - she couldn't help but get involved and so set up the LP Book Exchange; a business that directly funds this place. Since no other money comes in and it costs just over US$2000.00 a month to take care of the 500 orphans, Ruth is grateful for donations of books, so please, if you're going to Luang Prabang, bring any old books you have around the place as gifts for her.

US$2000.00 is an awful lot of money and it's difficult making it happen each month, but the kids are making themselves increasingly self-sufficient:

Growing their own food.

They also breed rabbits and fish farm, but I didn't get photographs of those.

Actually, the fish farm story is hilarious. A kindly Australian charity wanted to do something nice for the kids so built them ... a swimming pool! Do you love it? Like, here's people who have trouble raising money for food each month, yet somehow they're meant to also buy pool chemicals? Bizarre! However, the Orphange was grateful and thrilled but never told the charity the real reason ... and the moment the Australians backs were turned, they stocked it with fish ... and have been breeding them for food ever since.

The rabbits too were gifts given supposedly as pets, but ...

Hey, protein is protein! You get it where you can.

Although they live hand-to-mouth, mostly they cope except for when big problems arise. And the big problem currently is the roofs. The roof of the girl's dorm in particular isn't going to last much longer, as you can see in this photo:

Girls dorm.

And the boys' dorm is not far behind:

Boys dorm.

There are also two classrooms that aren't going to last the next rainy season but I don't have photos of those!

Ruth needs about US$16,000 to do all four roofs because she doesn't want to simply replace the corrugated iron with more iron because that only defers the problem. Her plan is for cement tiles, like in this photo here:

Modified Laos traditional roof tiles.

She has already raised the money once but this is Laos ... need I say more!

Michael wants to help. You can too. Just get in touch with Ruth at her Restaurant:

Tamnak Lao Restaurant,
Laneway opposite Villa Santi,
Luang Prabang,
Laos.

And then, once that is done, the next project will be getting mosquito nets for the kids ...

Sleeping quarters!
Mosquitoes are a problem,
particularly with the holes in the roof.

Are we up for that one as well?