Sunday, February 2, 2014

Children of Ban Pak Ou

How do you make friends with kids when you cannot communicate verbally at all?

There was a tiny village next to the elephant camp with more little children than houses.  I wandered over during my few free hours to buy Diet Coke and tried to engage the children who were mostly laughing at me because I could not understand the simple things they said.  Then I figured it out.  One at a time, I took a picture of each child and showed it to them.  They laughed hysterically at each one.  On the second day, a few more children came up to me.  After I took their pictures, they took me to their schoolyard where we played tag (I can't catch a ten year old) and they taught be how to count to five.  They could count to ten in English, but five was more than I could learn at one time.

The children of Ban Pak Ou, with an adult or two.
























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