Visit to villages in the north, a school makeover and sunflowers

It has been a busy time! Last week we went up north to help fix up a school and visit our other projects. We had visited this village earlier in the year to see if they were using the biosand filter that was installed by HiHopes and as a result met the teacher and saw that the school was in pretty bad shape. So when Rita asked Annie where we could use a budget of about $ 1000 she immediately thought of this school. With the $1000 we were able to cover the concrete floors with linoleum, buy cupboards and shelves for storage, books, medicines, cups and toothbrushes for the children as well as kitchen utensils, and a desk for the teacher. We will return with a stove and warm jackets for the children, about 40 total. The teacher is very dedicated and both the teacher and the students were VERY appreciative. We worked most of the day on Thurs and then visited other villages on Friday - driving back Friday night.



On Sunday we decided to go the sunflower festival west of Chiang Mai. Ya one of the staff had gone home for the weekend so we planned to pick her up since her village is on the way and then drive on to the festival. None of us really looked at the map or the distance or we would probably not have gone! On the other hand we got the opportunity to meet a student that Bev and I sponsor and had never met in Mae Sariang. We stopped by her house and met her grandother and heard the sad news that her mother was at the hospital, near death because of AIDs. I asked her if she wanted to go to see the flowers and her face lighted up and she said "sure". What she didn't realize was that there were a bazillion curves between her home and the festival and she was going to get pretty car sick.



On our return trip we visited her mother who looked very frail and weak and was on a "drip" and oxygen. A sad ending to a fun trip but I think it was good for her mother to see that we would support her daughter's education.