Our teacher was Mr. Lon and he didn’t speak English but he was more than happy to help us out on basically every aspect of the carving. He showed us which tools to use when carving certain parts of the elephant and I basically had wood chips everywhere by the end of the course. Haha! Karen's elephant had a nose job because she sanded it to the point where it looked like the nose had a giant booger. haha! Mine had a hang nail for when I chiseled one of his toes too much...

He used to have a government job but later quit that to become a master carver. He also gets paid more as a carver. And he’s always smiling! We did the course at his house/carving studio. There was another carver there along with our translator. I had wanted to buy a carved elephant and now I have one. With my name and Mr. Lon’s name written in Laotian.