Got milk?

Just woke up in Vientiane, Laos. I'm pretty excited because today is New Year's Eve and we are going yo visit the Beer Lao factory. Festivities already started last night with people driving around drinking Beer Lao and yelling 'Beer Lao! Happy New Year!' We have noticed a flood of Thais into Laos in the past few days and they certainly change the dynamic.

We arrived in Vientiane yesterday after like 10 days in Vang Vieng where we had a lot of fun. For Christmas we stayed on an organic mulberry farm which was super relaxed. We could volunteer there and although it wasn't very well managed we really did enjoy ourselves. Kim especially liked milking the goats in the mornings and making cheese. We stayed there 4 days helping out on the farm for half days and then chillin in the afternoon. Tubing, beach volleyball and learning that Laos vodka is not vodka at all!  As a matter of fact the distillery is here in Vientiane and I just might have to get to the bottom of it... I'm thinking its more like Soju but not nearly as good.

We also tried our hand at teaching English, another volunteer program at the farm which is poorly managed. I was thrown into a class with about a dozen kids ages eight to twelve. A bit of a challenge really, they were so excited they were distracting themselves!  I had no curriculum to work off... I had to quiz them to see what level they were at. We practiced writing small sentences on the board. They really liked when I asked them to do things.  The second class went much better. An older group, ages thirteen to eighteen, they were actually at the same level as the younger students because all the classes started learning English four years ago. Except they were much more focused and we covered a lot of ground. They were especially interested in conversation skills which Lenny (an Australian who works in Vientiane) and I demonstrated for them and then asked them to do the same. Super awesome!  It was a tough two hours but super rewarding.  I was actually exhausted after.  Stumped me and Lenny when the one kid asked for an explaination for the difference between who and whom lol. And I have never seen anyone so excited to learn the terms flip flop and zipper.

So I can now say I've milked a goat and squirted milk into a cats mouth.  And taught English which I am not so nervous about now and will attempt it again soon.

Off to the brewery!