Noi lives in Laos. She can’t go to school because it’s too expensive. That’s why she helps her parents on the land. Her parents have a rice field, and the family eats from it every day. If there is any rice over, her father sells it at the market. It’s not much, but the family can make a little money that way. Noi sometimes finds mushrooms in the forest and sometimes people will buy them from her. She will get 2000 to 5000 kip (currency) for a whole day of searching.  

In Laos people don’t get paid in euro’s. The currency is the kip. On the photo you see a 1000 kip bank note. (It looks like 9000, but the old Laotian numbers are very different than ours!). 1 euro is 12.325 kip. A kip is worth very little, only 0.0001 euro's. Because a kip is worth so little, you have to pay 5000 kip for a kilo of rice. That sounds like a lot, but 5000 kip is 41 eurocents (€ 0,41).

If Noi’s father sells 1 kilogram of rice from the land, he gets 5000 kip for it. That can buy Janine’s family school books or clothes. Noi’s father has to sell lots of rice to buy a school book, because one book is 18.000 kip. Noi’s sisters and brothers also don’t have any books. They borrow books from school. The school has 5 books for 22 students. The one kilo of rice her father sold could send Noi to school for one month, because the school costs 5000 kip per month. But Noi’s family never has enough money to send all of the kids to school. Enough rice is sold to send her brothers and sisters, but she can’t go to school.

Most kids barely ever eat candy. They search for fruits in the forest. But there aren’t always fruits. And there are a lot of kids, who all know where the good trees are. So you have to be quick to get the fruit!

A bag of deep-fried banana, a very small bag of Thai chips or a chocolate waffle (more air than candy) costs about 500 kip. Mars bars and other chocolate bars are only available in tourist shops and cost more than 10.000 kip. Homemade water ice-cream costs 500 kip. Ice-cream as we know it costs about 15.000 kip per piece.

A t-shirt costs more than 20.000 kip. After 10 washings the shirt starts to change colour. Kids don’t wear shoes, only flip-flops. These cost about 10.000 kip. No clothing of famous brands is worn in the countryside. A bike ‘made in China’ costs 200.000 kip, a bike of a better quality from Thailand costs over 1.000.000 kip!