Thought for the Day 3

Well, after a couple of trips to the stationery shop I managed to purchase all the bits and pieces I needed for organising my work space in the office:

I have moved from where I was before, partly so that I am not in the direct firing line of the A/C unit, and partly so my coordinator and I can have adjacent desks.
Note the ukulele on the shelf. Yesterday afternoon the rest of the office was entertained (or otherwise!) as we practised various children's songs and started making up simple Thai versions. I provided the music, not the words!!

And a close-up shot for Sarah, with fine-liner pens and paper-clip pot!
 

We went to do some observations in a school yesterday. However, when we got there the director told us that a child in the class had been killed in a car accident, and the teacher and children had gone to the funeral. He said we could go back the next day, but on reflection I felt it was better to give them at least a couple of days for things to settle down a bit, so we are going to try again on Thursday.
In the meantime, we are still waiting to get started with the Early Childhood centres, so things are still pretty slow workwise. Today we are going to check out the location of a couple more centres, and we have a couple of meetings lined up with other NGOs to discuss ideas for the project and possible ways of working together.

I will leave you with a wonderful quote, which one of the other VSO volunteers here in Thailand has as a footer to her emails. It captures perfectly the VSO approach, which is one of facilitating rather than imposing development:

“Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. But with the best leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say "We have done this ourselves"- Lao Tzu