THE SEMESTER IS OVER...

We finished off the semester with the completion of three videos (although one is still in not 100 percent done). The National Institute of Fine Arts had a thank you (and general end of semester) ceremony in my honor. I felt extremely grateful and blessed. It was a great opportunity to show the student's work to the Institute and Ministry officials who attended. I believe it went over very well. Everyone was feeling proud of the work accomplished.

They gave me Certificate of Appreciation

And best of all--at least for me-- was all the gifts I received from the students! They gave me these amazing drawings and prints. It was so rewarding. I got the feeling that, although there was the language barrier, we still managed to move forward and created some fabulous work.

All of this was made possible thanks to Ajan (teacher) Sai Soulinya. His help, both administrative and as a translator, was invaluable. Here is a photo of him that I really like. He is next to one of his paintings.

BOOKS HAVE ARRIVED!

Our first collection of books and equipment for the students at the National Institute of Fine Arts at Vientiane was a great success. We were pleasantly surprised not only in the amount but the quality of the books people donated and the generous contributions of computer equipment. I am so grateful to all who made contributions. It took a while for the books to get here but they arrived well. The students and teachers at the school were extremely excited and couldn't stop looking at the books.

Unfortunately, due to the prohibitive costs of shipping stuff to Laos from the United States only a few of the books were shipped and we skipped shipping computer equipment all together. However, I am happy to announce that the ASIA FOUNDATION Books for Asia program has generously agreed to allow us to include some boxes of books in their container heading to South East Asia at no cost to us. I am so thankful to them for this tremendous support.

Here is a picture of the the Dean of the school Dr. Bounthieng Siripaphanh who came to thank me for getting the books.