Thursday 17 December 2009

Cao Son in winter



The first impression of us was the image of the baby's in the kindergarten right next to where we stayed. Their round eyes looked at us eagerly, their hands reddened because of the cold, and welcomed us bustlingly “bye- bye, bye-bye… “. We didn’t understand what was happening?


A few minutes later, we begun to understand: In Cao Son, there was only a kindergarten for babies from 3 to 5 years old. This class was built by the Embassy of Denmark, called "Class of Mercy”. Perhaps the teacher taught the children to say "bye bye" to the guests who offered this school. The school was built in 2007, but probably there are rarely visits, so that any cars could make the children confused with those foreign visitors.

Getting familiar with the children was easy, because we had prepared many candies. They were obedient, made a queue and called each other and didn’t scramble for different candies. Perhaps with the children, the candy is always delicious...

When we visited, the class was having a break. There were 14 babies, aged from 3 to 5 with 5 quite young teachers.
We chose 14 warm pants, coats, scarves and the teacher helped us to select and wear those on for the children.



They talked in Mong language so we couldn’t understand. But looking at their eyes and smiles when they were waiting for new clothes, we felt that it would be better if we had brought more clothes.



These images will remain in our heart forever. We are aware that it is these children who will bring the future to this land.

In the afternoon, we brought the old clothes to Ngai Phong Cho – a tribal village. Being unable to go by car, we had to ride motorbikes for10km trail from Cao Son. The journey gave us a chance to enjoy the fresh air, the big panorama when we followed the trail and went along the mountain slope. The mountain showed its softer side and its slopes wrapped in green trees. The highland terrace fields were suddenly dotted with wild flowers or the outstanding color of Hmong girls’ skirts, miraculous as a dream .



The local people were getting around on this way:
 
We really saw the life of the local minority groups here. The village had about 20 houses which were scattered around the top of the mountain. There was a school, which is the most beautiful, model building here and also it’s the living place for 2 teachers. The teacher htold us that in order to “keep their student going to school”, they had to prepare sweets, candies to give them. People rarely visited the village, that’s why the children looked at us curiously.



Far away from city skyscrapers, Cao Son is the imprint of the natural life. The local people here live a simple life which is still intact as tens and, hundreds of years ago.
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