Mae La Noi Daroonsik School Tour

Sewatdee kha! Now that we’ve had a few weeks to settle in I thought it’d be nice to have a ‘campus tour’. Mae La Noi Daroonsik School (MLNDS) serves roughly 1,000 students from Mathayom 1 (ages 11-12) to Mathayom 6 (ages 17-18). The school was built specifically for students that live in the more remote hill tribes of northern Thailand; the Hmong, the Lawa, the Karen, and the Shan. About 300 students live in dorms at the school because their villages are too far from campus. Mae La Noi is not a big town, but it has a 7-11 or ‘seven’, which I hear is the mark of a big town in Thailand.

Home sweet home!

This is our house. Amanda and I live in the former house of the Chinese teacher, who left shortly before our arrival. I expected to live in a house like this (which would have been completely fine), where GP’s last Thailand Teaching Fellow lived. It was very surprising to arrive and find our house complete with an air conditioning unit, western toilet, and kitchen. Amanda made a video tour of our house that you can find on her blog here. Our house is positioned between the school director’s house and the clinic.

Director’s house

Clinic

The students who live at the school in dorms take turns cooking and cleaning for one another in this kitchen space near the girls’ dorm.

If you take a left past the student dorms, you will find a large chicken coop and pigs.

You’ll also find a community garden.

Just past the dorms on top of a hill, you’ll find the schools beautiful track and football field. Every afternoon from when school ends to when the sun sets students are playing here.

This is the school store. It sits just to the left of the school bank where students and some teachers store their money. Here students buy ‘Mama’, a very popular instant noodle brand, snacks, and water that the students filter themselves.

Here is the library. The library is on the first floor of building three, which hosts all of the English classrooms and is also home of the canteen, or cafeteria where we eat breakfasts and dinners.

This is one of my favorite landmarks on campus—the ice cream stand. Every day this man is stationed in the far corner of the canteen with a smile on his face. He speaks no English and I speak barely any Thai at this point, but we both speak with a love of ice cream. He also makes shaved ice which can be flavored with lychee and other Thai fruit syrups.

There is so much more to this beautiful campus, but that’s all for now, folks!