They came from far and wide at 7.30 am on Monday 1st October to be on time for the Opening Ceremony to mark the beginning of the new academic year at Spitler and Kurata schools. The ceremony was to be held for the first time at Kurata school, so the streams of students, teachers and parents that can be seen in the photographs are the Spitler family travelling along the dyke between the two schools. Once we got to the school ourselves (and no overland trek by bike this time: Jim, Nick and Loll arrived in state by tuk-tuk) we found more streams of people young and old arriving by the main linking road, carrying banners and flags.
Children crowded round the ice-cream seller and a few of the neater girls washed themsleves down at the pump after the long, muddy walk through the wet and dank countryside.
The opening ceremony was soon under way with speeches from Sarin, the Village Head Man, the Principal and, of course, the barang (Jim, Loll and Nick.) The best, we thought, was from one of the children who spoke with wonderful confidence and optimism for the future. (You can just catch her in the photo below right.) The children managed to stay focused for a while, but by the time Nick spoke they'd just about had it and they began to drift off both metaphorically and physically. For Nick, of course, this was quite normal as he's used to teaching in front of a class of sleeping students...
Overall, a great start to the year - and particularly auspicious at it was held at Kurata school and it is hoped that many of the parents of the children of Ang Chagn village will now take the opportunity to send their children to this school which has all the potential to develop and to grow as successfully as Spitler School has.
And the best of it was .. the children got to keep the balloons at the end of the morning!
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