News

MES seemed to have a busy week after a break for Lao New Year. We cleaned around the school by cutting some branches of the trees that did not look at all nice and bought some more flowers to hang filling the space and help it looking better. We also still worked hard on the band room, last week we screwed some sticks on the wall and started putting foam on the wall.

the wood sticks and the foam

MES was closed for Lao New Year, because many kids wanted to spend time with their families.  Some of them visited their families in rural villages in the country or other provinces.

The official festival lasts for three days from April 14 to April 16 (although celebrations can last more than a week in towns like Luang Prabang). The first day is the last day of the old year. Houses and villages are properly cleaned on the first day. Perfume, water and flowers are also prepared for the Lao New Year. The second day of the festival is the “day of no day”, a day that falls in neither the old year or the new year. The last day of the festival marks the start of the new year.

Water is used for washing homes, Buddha images, monks, and soaking friends and passers-by. Students first respectfully pour water on their elders, then monks for blessings of long life and peace, and last of all they throw water at each other. The water is perfumed with flowers or natural perfumes. Some people prefer flowers in the water to give a pleasant smell, as well as adding cologne/perfume. Over the years another tradition has developed with Lao New Year: people will smear or throw cream (shaving cream or whipped cream) or white powder on each other during the celebrations.

Sand is brought to the temple grounds and is made into stupas or mounds, then decorated before being given to the monks as a way of making merit. There are two ways to make the sand stupas. One way is to go to the beach, and the other way is to bring sand to thevat, or temple. Sand stupas are decorated with flags, flowers, white lines, and splashed with perfumed water. Sand stupas symbolize the mountain, Phoukhao Kailat, where King Kabinlaphrôm’s head was kept by his seven daughters.

Another way to make merit at this time is to set animals free. The Lao believe that even animals need to be free. The most commonly freed animals are tortoises, fish, crabs, birds, eels, and other small animals.

Flowers are gathered to decorate Buddha images. In the afternoons people collect fresh flowers. Senior monks take the younger monks to a garden filled with flowers, where they pick flowers and bring back to the wat to wash. People who didn’t participate in the flower picking bring baskets to wash the flowers so the flowers can shine with the Buddha statues. In the evening lao people usually go to the temple to worship the Buddhas.

There is an annual beauty pageant in Luang Prabang to crown Miss Pimai Lao (Miss Lao New Year). There are many beauty pageants in Laos, but Luang Prabang – the old capital – is widely known for its Nangsangkhan pageant. There are seven contestants, each one symbolizing one of King Kabinlaphrôm’s seven daughters.

During Lao New Year, there are many spectacles including traditional Lao music, molam, and lamvông (circle dancing). During the daytime almost everybody is at the temple worshiping, hoping to have a healthier and happier life in the new year. During the evening, people of all ages go to the Vat for entertainment

NEW PAINTINGS

New Paintings by JORDAN ANDRES and BIPTISTINE SAUSSAC from France. While they were travelling in Luang Prabang for a few days, they dropped at MES and kindly offered to do some things . They painted on the woods of the parking area.  They did very nice paintings.

VOLUNTEERS AND VISITORS

Last week, MES had a piano volunteer from Austria. Her name is ANGELIKA and she was teaching for two days. She really enjoyed with her teaching.  Ale Stuat from UK and Wielke luebben from Germany came to MES for a visit and they kindly donated an used ukulele, ukulele lesson book and a CD.

Lucas Bisson and Chloe MAINGAULT from France said that it was really nice to meet us and to share her experience with us, She was sad to leave, but she one day she will come back. Bettine Winters, Anne Kamphorst, Iris kliene Schaars, Peleu Lomeakse from Netherlands said that it is a really good project, A life without music is a life without a soul, Really good that music bring people together.

PHOTOS OF MES STUDENTS

We kind of completed things and did repeatedly thing Last week which is similar. We MES staffs completed some paintings on the small wall of the parking lot. We filled more rice husks in the corners of the ceiling in the band room. In the corner it was difficult to fill from inside so we filled from outside. To do that we remove the tiles and filled the rice husks and put the tiles back after filling.

For visitors:  we had two foreigners volunteered for a few days at MES.  Osker Stichler comes from Germany and he was a guitar volunteer for a day. Julia was a piano volunteer for two days and she comes from Canada.

We painted music notes on a coconut tree in front of MES and made Lao instruments “Kaen” and some guitars.

What is “KAEN”?   “Kaen is a traditional instrument of Lao and it is often played at special events, such as baci ceremonies, births, funerals, homecoming, house-warming parties, and during festivals. It is played by blowing your mouth and using fingers to close and open the small hole on the sides of it to make different sounds. But we don’t have yet in MES. We want to have some, but it is quite difficult to order them because not many people can make them.”

So glad to see many people come to MES , here are some of them who are very fond of playing guitar and ukulele. They’re really patient with their lesson and always try hard and very concentrate.

EGG TRAYS AND MORE RICE HUSKS

Some people have given ideas for MES band room while we’re improving it. Lately MES Staffs had solidarity to continue fixing it by putting egg trays on the ceiling and we also put more rice husks in the ceiling. Again, we were lucky to have some help from our students who offered with willingness.

We have done putting the egg trays and rice husks, but the band room is still need more improvements that means we’ll also put something on the floor, the wall, doors and windows  as well in the next few weeks.

UKULELE VOLUNTEER TEACHER

Last Friday, we had a ukulele volunteer teacher whose name is Jell and she is from America.

She was traveling in LuangPrabang for a couple of days with her boyfriend and she came to the Music for Everyone School to teach ukulele lesson to MES students. They  were very proud of learning with foreign teacher like her.

BAND ROOM IMPROVEMENT

MES staffs started to improve the band room by putting 60 sacks of rice husks in the ceiling and egg trays on the ceiling to stop the echo the noise to disturb the neighbors. We are going to put something more on the wall as well. Last week, we were lucky that we got some help from the students.

MES VISITORS

Past week, MES had two visitors, Robert Dubiel is from America and Jose Carlos Wevas is from Spain. They visit MES and Robert Dubiel donated some money. Thanks a lot Robert for your support.

Last weekend, MES staffs and MES Students did painting on the small wall of the parking lot. We also flattened the ground because we wanted to plant flowers on there.

Last week, some volunteers and visitors Georg Kadau,  Jakob Hunger from Germany and Lissandre Dupog-Raoll from France visited MES. Dupog plays several songs on guitar. Also MES was visited by their friends, Christopher Colbert, from America.

They said that they really enjoyed volunteering and helping the students at MES, but they had to leave Luang Prabang. What a pity short time they had!