Phon Soneyalerm came to Big Sister Mouse school as a teacher. He quickly embraced our active approach to learning and soon took on responsibility for organizing our rapidly growing assortment of activities, equipment, and games. On a visit to his hometown, he was shocked to encounter many children who had finished primary school yet were unable to read a simple Lao sentence.
He resolved to do something about it. He moved back and opened Little Rabbit school in 2023. Tragically, Phon was killed by a reckless driver just three months after his first school year began. His sister Pheuy took over. Building on the strong foundation he laid, she has continued to create an exceptional school. The few visitors who get there are always struck by what a happy place it is. Parents are thrilled to see their children learning. The children are excited because they are challenged in a supportive atmosphere.
"It makes me happy." That's what children often say, when explaining why they like sign language. Little Rabbit has a particularly enthusiastic group, and one of our deaf sign language teachers often comes with us on these trips, to help them expand their vocabulary. Then, they teach each other, as this boy is doing.
So children like it. Do they learn much? We think they do. So do parents, who choose to pay a modest monthly tuition (about $25). So does the Department of Education. In its second year, despite having lost its founding director, an inexperienced staff, and being perhaps the only school in the district that wasn't focused on teaching for the test, Little Rabbit scored #1 in the district on two of the four evaluation tests that are done each year.
Our trip to Little Rabbit school offers several days at one school. You'll get to know some of the students and teachers. Children here rarely see any foreigners except when our groups come through, so visits are an exciting event for them.
What will you do on those days? There will be time for some interesting excursions but also plenty of ways to interact with students. With our "Hop Home" game, you draw a card and read an English-language command to a student, such as "Walk like a penguin" or "Make a sound like a buffalo." They have fun following the commands, as they learn to understand English. Other games make it fun to improve math skills, or learn geography.
Custom departures: In addition to any scheduled departures listed below, we can often arrange this on request, with a few weeks notice. We periodically send staff and teachers to Little Rabbit, and if two or more visitors want to go, we can try arrange it with a few weeks' notice, sometimes less. You'll typically be joined by 2-4 of our staff, teachers, and/or students, and perhaps other visitors. The cost is the same as for scheduled trips, but for fewer than four people, add $200 to the total (not per person).
Here's the typical schedule:
Sunday: We'll cross the Mekong River into Chompet district, to walk along a rural trail that takes us through the forest to a hilltop overview and several beautiful Buddhist wats. We typically come back early afternoon. However, there's a network of rural roads and trails here. If you want to explore more, it's easy to come back independently, earlier or later, by yourself. We'll have an evening welcome dinner.
We do not include accommodations on this night; most people will have already been in town for a day or more and prefer to stay where they are. If you're on a tight schedule, you can miss the Sunday walk, you can even miss dinner as well; just don't be late for the Monday morning departure.
Monday: We'll take a boat upriver about 8 hours to Pak Beng. Late Monday or early Tuesday we'll drive 2 hours to Little Rabbit school in the town of Muang Hoon. (That best shows the pronunciation; Muang Hun or Houn are also common transliterations.) Because it's going upstream, that boat is usually less than half full, offering a scenic, relaxing trip through the forests, past mountains, and remote villages.
Tuesday-Friday: We'll spend four days at the school, with several options for local sightseeing. Visit a potter who makes the jars for Lao hai, the local rice whiskey. Watch a local man weave baskets and fish traps.
Saturday: Return to Luang Prabang by train, with a farewell dinner in town.
No departures are currently scheduled. If you are interested in this specific itinerary, we can often arrange a custom trip but we'll need to add a $300 overhead fee (for the trip, not per person).
$600 per person. Single-room supplement: $80. (All prices are in U.S. dollars.)
Group size is limited to 8 visitors.
Deposit: $200 per person.
This includes all but two meals on each of the seven days and 5 nights of clean, comfortable, but not deluxe, accommodations on the road. (In does not include breakfast on the first two days in Luang Prabang, where many travelers prefer to choose independently from the many options.) The price also subsidizes some of our students who are learning English to join us. They are ages about 9 to 12. They greatly benefit from the experience while also adding energy and excitement that increases the enjoyment for everyone.
Food: Meals feature dishes that visitors from abroad will enjoy, built around local ingredients. We are happy to accommodate vegetarians and some dishes are usually meat-free in any case.
Our Little Elephant preschool opened in Bokeo province in September 2023. There was a clear need: Like everywhere else we've opened schools, too many children were finishing primary school unable to read. But another crisis has been developing as well.
Among the new children was a 4-year-old boy who could understand Lao, and whose family spoke Lao, but he did not. He was mostly quiet, and occasionally "babbled" in a way that no one could understand, but which didn't sound at all like Lao.
Sherlock Holmes might have been stumped by this one, but the school staff soon identified the problem: At home the boy spent all his time on a mobile phone, watching cartoons or playing video games. He got almost no practice talking, or making himself understood.
Our schools do not allow children to use mobile phones. After six weeks of interacting with real people (the Little Elephant play area is shown here), he showed improvement.
Another of our schools, Little Rabbit, opened at the same time in a different province. Phon, the founder and director, noted that six years ago mobile phones were new in that region and parents happily allowed their children play on the wonderful modern toy. But by 2023, he said, parents were increasingly alarmed. Their children were skipping meals, didn't play outside, and had no friends. All they did was play video games and watch cartoons.
The solution may seem crystal clear. But if you take away the phone, the child will scream bloody murder and throw a tantrum. The solution seems crystal clear anyway, doesn't it? But let's remember that the human race is heading for climate disaster, rather than deal with short-term inconveniences. There's no easy solution in sight, not on toddler phone addiction, nor on global oil addiction.