Meet our favorite village!

What's going on over here??

What's going on over here??

Update on the current happenings

My Apology!

I promise I didn't disapear off the face of the earth!

Ignore the first awkward ten seconds of the video. I will be editing this when I get home. And forgive me for my awkwardness in the rest of the clip too. 

06/04/12 – 06/09/12

Monday

It was Buddha Day!! Yes, there is a day to celebrate Buddha’s birthday… Or something like that. So, we actually had the day off from teaching because schools were closed. We were able to have a neat cultural experience that night though. For Buddha Day, there was (of course) music playing from the temple at the top of the nearby hill for the whole town to hear all day. Then at night, our team went to the temple at the top of the hill for a celebration which was being held.

The tradition of the night was to go to the temple and kind of pay respect to the Buddhas inside and then outside, everyone holds a branch of flowers, a few sticks of incense and a usually a lit candle. Then you walk around the temple three times and plant your flowers, incense and candle in these flower bed things that were all around the temple. It was interesting to see monks and different people pay respect to Buddha. One of the girls in our group is from Korea and her mom asked her to come do it, so that was cool. Also, our land lady’s nieces took us through the whole ritual and our country directors translated things for us that we didn’t understand. It was nice to know how everything worked and to be a part of the celebration. Another fun moment of the night was that there were two little girls from one of Taylor and my classes at the celebration. We got some pictures with her and then walked around the temple with them.

Side note: I went with Andrea and Justin from home to the temple originally. Just with walking about 100 yards up the hill, we were already kind of tired and we couldn’t remember how long it took to walk up to the temple. I thought how awesome it would be if someone with a pickup truck could give us a ride, so I put out my thumb to attempt hitchhiking for the first time in my life and it worked! There was a cute little family in the back of the truck, so we hopped in and joined them. We also tried to exchange introductions in Thai. They were really sweet. We were glad we got we got a ride too, because the trip to the temple was a lot more rigorous than we’d remembered.

Tuesday

Taylor and I taught English to teachers today. It was at a different school than the one that we usually teach at on Mondays. It was a lot of fun. We taught about 12 ladies that all teach at this school and we loved them. We both said how we kind of felt like we were at a nice church meeting or something. It was also nice because they knew a little bit of English and there was one woman there who is an English teacher and we could communicate pretty well with her. We kind of just taught about basic grammar though and about typical conversational questions and answers. I’ve actually realized over recent years that I really enjoy English grammar, so it was kind of fun to teach it.

Tonight, was also Taylors last night in Thailand, so we lit floating lanterns by the river after dinner. We were all really excited about doing that. It was so pretty to watch!

I’m so sad that Taylor is leaving though! She’s the best and I loved teaching with her!

I also got to skype my family tonight!! I’m so glad I got to see them for a little bit. Miss you guys so much!

Wednesday

Went to a meeting with Chelsea. We will be teaching at an English camp in Chiang Mai in about two weeks. The meeting today was for us to organize the schedule for the camp. We met with a woman named Lovely. She is one of the main people in charge of a group called World Vision and is the main person organizing the English camp and she will be teaching at it along with us. Chelsea and I weren’t necessarily excited about the idea of teaching English right when the opportunity was presented to us, but I think we’ve become more excited about it because of working with her. 

There is a lot of organization with what we will be doing and I think that helps. It will be a two and a half day teaching camp, so we expect that we’ll be exhausted when it’s over. We’ve talked about maybe doing a few fun things in Chiang Rai though, if there is extra time in the day after teaching.

So side notes on today. Chelsea and were successful at traveling to Fang by ourselves for the first time. Fang is the city that World Vision is in and it’s a city we go to very frequently. The trip was actually very easy, but we were still proud of ourselves. We took a Song Tow which picked us up on the side of the road right by our house. There’s basically one main road that goes straight from our town to Fang and the route for the Song Tow ends at a bus stop in the city. We got out there and someone from World Vision picked us up at the bus stop. So ya, super simple, but fun.

After the meeting, World Vision took us out to lunch. It was so nice of them to do, but it ended up being an interesting meal. Sometimes I have a difficult time with eating certain, but poor Chelsea has it much tougher than I do and she’s been struggling with Thai food lately. So anyway, we were treated to a Thai meal and Chelsea and I excused ourselves from the table once so we could trade some of our food… It sounds so silly, but we pulled it off and we were able to still be polite and finish most of the meal. Then Lovely wanted to treat us to a Thai dessert and the three of us ended up splitting something. It was kind of a crunchy jello type dish and I wasn’t a huge fan of the flavor, but the three of us finished it and it was very nice for Lovely to get all of this food for us. We were very grateful.

There wasn’t anything else that Chelsea and I needed to get back to, so we explored around Fang and then caught a Song Tow and I worked on other projects the rest of the day.

Thursday

Went to visit the health clinic today. When we went before (about a week ago), we got to see an evaluation which was done for the clinic. It showed really low numbers for how well they were doing on their medical record keeping and even with the original physical exams which were given to patients. So my thoughts started spinning about how if I could get to know their office a little better, I may be able to help or give suggestions about record keeping. So we went to the clinic today and I had asked to see the report again. I got to really look through the statistics of how accurate their work was and what criteria they were using to evaluate the facility.  I realized however, that the evaluation was actually from 2009 and when I looked through some of their files and patient charts, they had already improved a lot of organization. I also got to ask a ton of questions to the person who gives physical examinations in the clinic. He didn’t know a lot of English, but he pretty much answered all my questions still.

It is interesting to see the difference between healthcare in the United States and in clinics like this one that we visited. I knew going in that, it would be a lot different, but it is still interesting. The man who does the physical examinations didn’t have a much background or training with medicine or medical school. He went to school for 6 months and then had on the job training at the clinic. He has been the examiner since then; for the past 14 years. It was also slightly strange for me to be able to see so much information about the clinic’s patients. It was fine for us to sit in on a meeting that the examiner had with a patient who came in and it was fine for me to look at medical records of many of the patients. Although they usually keep HIV test records pretty confidential.

So, I ended up not starting any medical record keeping projects, because they are doing a good job with their organization. However, I may work with their NGO about getting another thorough evaluation done for the facility. Also, Stephen ended up having a few great ideas for helping the work done with HIV education. The man who works at the clinic, giving information to people about HIV and AIDS and giving tests for the disease was really soft spoken, but seemed to really want to improve the work that he did. So he was full of ideas for improvement, which was really helpful.

After meeting with the clinic, we actually walked out to the main road and hitchhiked to Fang and then took a song tow back home (I promise we were safe). Then we continued doing some research at home for the clinic projects.

Weekend!

We went to the Good News church. They are the ones that run an orphanage. I wrote about it a few weeks back. I think they are so great!

Saturday morning, we helped the kids with chores. One big thing that we were doing was basically pruning their linchee trees. One of the kids would climb up to the top of the tree and start hacking at the big branches with a machete. Then then a group of us would clear off and collect branches and bag up the leaves. I mainly worked with a little girl named Moo-Ka (you kind of pronounce the “moo” like you have a cold). She was so much fun and so smart. We taught each other words and phrases in Thai and English. These kids were so hard working too. It took us several hours to clean up those trees and they seemed to just have the best attitudes the whole time. They really understand how to work together and the whole facility understands how to be self-reliant.

One of the other chores of the day was slaughtering a pig… I may have written about it on another day, but the church raises their own chickens and pigs and they kill and handle the meat of a pig every two weeks. The pigs are HUGE too. They’re at least the size of two of me. It’s really cool that they handle I’m okay that I didn’t help with that project today.

(I’LL WRITE MORE ABOUT THE WEEKEND SOON!)

05/28/12 - 06/03/12

Monday

I taught with Taylor again at the elementary school for our 4^th 5^th and 6^th graders. We love our kids. They are so much fun. I also want to get a video of them sometime. When we start our teaching with each class, they welcome us first. All of the kids in the class stand up and say (or yell) “Good morning teacher. Thank you teacher”. It’s really cute.

Tomorrow they also are having their “sports day”. It’s a big deal and everyone one finished class early and stayed late to practice their sports and for the marching band to rehearse and to set up for the events.  We stayed to help with some projects that they teacher needed done and then Taylor helped me to set up some pictures and English words that we all prepared last week for putting in the first graders’ classrooms.

Tuesday

A few of us when to a school in the middle of nowhere and helped with a class teaching excel to students. Again, it was kind of interesting trying to help without knowing how to speak Thai, but I think we were able to figure out how to demonstrate and help. There was a teacher that was teaching the lesson and then we were there to make sure they understood what they needed to do. We would just follow closely and hope that we were re-teaching the students the correct things. It was actually pretty fun. This age group of kids gets one day a year when they are taught the excel program, so there was a lot of information included in a few hours of this class. I was really impressed by how much they were learning.

Wednesday

Today we put on an assembly and some activities to teach the kids at a school about washing hands and brushing teeth. A few people in our group were coordinating it. It was really clever and came together really well. Lots of fun. 

05/21/12 - 05/27/12

Monday

We had our first day of teaching English at elementary schools in the area. A girl named Taylor and I will be team teaching the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th graders. At least that is kind of what it is like… The ages kind of very for each class we teach and we’re not exactly sure how the grade levels work here, but we teach kids about 8 to 12 years old. Today was interesting because we didn’t really know what we were doing. There were a few teachers that kind of speak English and were helping to show us where we needed to go and what topic to teach on. We were kind of supposed to just figure it out as we went, but I think we did a good job. I was interesting to teach English when we didn’t know anyway Thai, but it was kind of fun to get creative and I think we were able to teach everything we needed to.

Tuesday

There is a woman in a village whose house burnt down, so we went to help with rebuilding it. I think her husband passed away, so we worked with her song and prepared for the project. We basically just moved supplies and knocked down the walls still standing. It was cool though, because our group got a system down for moving some really heavy materials up the hill to the spot of land where she lived.

Wednesday

Wednesday

We have networked with a group called World Vision. A small group of us worked with a few of their volunteers and some women in a village today. They promote ideas and projects that teach self-sufficiency. Today we made hats out of card board boxes. They teach this so that people can save their milk cartons and boxes for food and use them to make sunhats. It was pretty clever.

Thursday

We visited the nearby school districts and worked out with them that we will teach English to their teachers. There are so many people and groups who want our help with teaching English. These districts wanted us to teach their students as well, but one of our group members threw out the idea that we should teach teachers. Our group needs to be helpful in ways that are sustainable and helping the teachers who will continue to be there will be much more useful than teaching kids for a few weeks in the summer before our group members start leaving.

Friday

A few of us coordinated our own smaller projects and finished them up. I worked with the school that I teach at and decided that I wanted to decorate the windows of the first graders’ classrooms with pictures and English words. Their windows had this kind of stuff on them, but they were faded and needed to be replaced. I had thought it would be cool to teach the first graders and incorporate the window project into a lesson with them. However, the school ended up having us teach older kids. So We’re just going to make the room cute and put up the words that the teachers will teach them throughout the year.

Saturday

Most of the group spent the weekend in Chiang Mai, but a few of us stayed in town. We went to visit an orphanage on Saturday morning which was a really good experience. The place is actually run by a church and they take in kids dealing with various circumstances. Some are orphans, some have been in bad situations with their parents or only have a single parent that can’t take care of them and some of the children are victims of trafficking. The campus takes in children from all over Thailand and many people want to use their services every year, but they can only accommodate 100 kids. We were really impressed by how things are run there. Everyone contributes to the work that needs to be done and they are like a big family.

It’s also neat because the church does not do any kind of fundraising or advertising, but they pray and are somehow able to have the means for growing the campus. When we asked about how we could help them, we talked about some simple programs to do with the kids, but they also said that they have a problem with clean water and electricity. They are in the middle of nowhere, so it’s really expensive to bring electricity to them and they have hoped to get a well because their water gets too dirty to drink during parts of the year. We are looking into options for a water filter and that may be something that we can help them with. It’s neat because Mom just told me about a guy that does water filtering projects and I’m really interested in researching his work more.

05/13/12 - 05/20/12

We took a two hour boat ride to an elephant park in Chiang Rai. Apparently these boats we took (which look like a canoe with a motor on it and fit six people in them), are a very common way to travel in Thailand. Anyway, it was a beautiful ride with green hills/mountains everywhere around us. We stopped off at the elephant sanctuary place which was right off the water and I got to ride one of the elephants! We sat in a carriage thing on its back and we had someone that rode at the head of the elephant to steer (I guess). They walked the elephant into the river a little bit and then down a main road in their village. So fun. And I can now check “elephant riding in Thailand” off my “bucket list”. On the boat ride back, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant and we decided that it was the coolest place a person could say they’ve had Pad Thai. We also stopped at a village off the side of the river. I guess our country director wanted to talk to someone there and wanted us to get a feel for the culture. I’m not sure if we’ll go back for a project or not though. It’d be neat if we did.

Monday (Back to Work!)

We visited schools in the area. There were about six schools that we went to and we will be teaching English at these schools.

The first school was the one that we help at on Saturday. It was fun because we got to see the kindergarten children play on the playground that we cleaned up and painted. When then got to see the kids line up outside for the rising of their flag and for the national anthem. I loved watching it. The kids are so cute. Interesting cultural thing… At this public school (along with the others we visited), the children were expected to where a uniform along with the boys having the same haircut and the girls having the same haircut. The main teachers would also where uniforms and I think they were basically seem as respected public officials.

The second school we visited was really impressive to me. The principle toured us around the campus. Beyond giving the children their regular education and English education, the school also focused on instructing the kids in self-reliance and learning many trades. The grounds behind the school are used for teaching the kids how to fish and farm.

At another school, we talked with a gentleman about a project we’d do for them aside from teaching English. We are going to build an outdoor sink for the kids to use because it is something they really need. We may also post pictures next to it teaching hand washing practices. After the learning about the school and about this project, we had some time and got to play soccer with a bunch of kids. It was so much fun. Although, the thing about playing soccer in the middle of the day in Thailand is that you are bound to get a little warm. I was drenched in sweat. Of course, I was sweaty at the first school we visited at 9am, but we just get used to the sweatiness being an all-day/regular routine.

One of the other schools we visited was so much fun too because we got to interact with the kids a bit; who were completely adorable. We played rock paper scissors with them and counted to ten together. We also took pictures because they love it when we show them to them on the digital camera screen. When it came time to leave though, I was unsure that I’d make it out of there without losing a limb. There were a few of us that the kids grabbed and tried to hold hostage at in their classroom.

Tuesday

We went again to the last school that I wrote about from our Monday visits. We cleaned up and painted their playground as well. We then got to play with the kids for quite a while again. There is a little girl named Jamelee that I met on Monday and I think I clicked with really well (Which is so funny because we were only able to communicate two phrases to each other and then just played). We played again today and after some struggle we started to teach each other Thai and English words. We taught each

other to say (at least, I think) “shirt”, “eye”, “mouth”, “ear”, “nose”. It was really fun. Then I started to play another game with Jamelee and another little girl. I would squeeze their hands and got them to say “hand” and then got them to say “run!” and we’d run down the field and then say “walk” and then walk in big steps and then stop and do it all over again.

 Wednesday

Today was kind of cool. A small group of us went to a village that was probably forty minutes away from our town where they actually spoke their own language other than Thai.  They are trying to implement their own kind of bank system in the village. They want to teach people basic principles of keeping records of business/financial transactions and receipts. It was pretty cool. I guess they wanted our small group (we’re students that are studying business/finance in some way) to be involved with helping to correctly implement these financial practices. We’ll be working with the village throughout the summer on the project too. Our group got to go to a village meeting about the project which I thought was a really cool learning experience. Our small group did a mini skit during the meeting and our translator translated. That was fun. I think they were mildly entertained.

I personally felt like I gained a few things from the experience…

(Ignore me if I get preachy or fluffy in my writting! :) )

One - it was really interesting to see people’s personalities and even pick out their roles in the village even though we didn’t know a word they were saying.

Second - was that I felt had a few things reconfirmed to me. In the last year, I feel as if I have almost gained a greater testimony of education. In the church, we send away missionaries to spread the gospel around the world. They gain a testimony of the gospel, spread it to other people and then see miracles as the blessings of the spirit affect their lives. I love and envy anyone who has had the experience of spreading the gospel as a full time missionary. I feel as though there is another truth that needs to be spread around the world as well. That is of education. Light, truth and inspiration are also the fruits that come from basic education. The spirit and God’s love work through these endeavors as well.

As we drove over to the village, for some reason my thoughts went toward the idea that we can be inspired to improve and develop our circumstances and the lives of those around us. Often when we help other people, we want them to be empowered to help themselves also. I feel that innovation and development really come after we have had a chance to open and stretch our minds in the first place. And I feel that this comes after a person is exposed to education, new ideas, and has had opportunities to be creative. It seems that the areas of the world that have these gifts available to their people and children are the areas that are most developed and civilized.

As we attended the meeting with the village, I thought of ways that we could involve more of the people who were there and help them to better understand how the accounting practices actually worked. However, as I talked to our interpreter, he explained to me that most of the people in the village did not know how to read or write. Most of the village came to this meeting; however only a select few would actually make their banking plans function. It further instilled in me about how important basic education is. I can’t fully understand a life without learning new things about the world around us; without creating and developing ideas; and even without reading and writing (even though those used to be my two least favorite things!).

On Wednesday night I got really sick… Just to prep this mini story, I will be using the phase “time in the bathroom” to describe some experiences and I’ll let you figure out what that means.
So Wednesday night was fun at first. We went to a night market down the road… Just fyi, I grabbed some souvenirs for Mom Dad and siblings… I’m really excited about them. I hope you like them J but THEN… We get home and I’ve started to feel nauseous… I think I had one too many items of junk food that day… So anyway, I thought I’d try to sleep it out, but woke up an hour later and “had to spend some time in the bathroom”. Felt a lot better, but not 100 percent better. Stayed up for a bit, but went back to bed at 1am. Couldn’t sleep. Eventually got back up at 4am “to spend some time in the bathroom” and felt a lot better again… I felt like I lost every ounce of Thai food and water that was in my system, but it felt like I got all the yuckies out!

…Then I stayed up for a while and suddenly it was 6:30am on Thursday. I took a thirty minute nap, and thought I’d take it easy that day, but felt pretty good and decided to go to a meeting that some of the group was attending. Once we got there though, I realized that I couldn’t stand or even sit up in a fairly air conditioned room without getting dizzy and blacking out and feeling nauseous. I think my body was just dealing with my loss of nutrients and water. With this, some people brought me home and without meaning to I slept until dinner.

Friday

The team went to build a sink with one of the schools we were working with. I ended up staying home and working on my own project for a different school. I was a bit dizzy that day, but took it easy and felt really well by the end of the day.

05/11/12 - 05/12/12

05/11/12 – 05/12/12

Traveled for hours and hours on planes and arrived at the Chiang Rai airport on the night of 05/10/12. Then a big group of us piled in a van and drove for an hour to the house we will be living at for the summer. It’s funny because with the traveling, it’s like we skipped a day.

So we’re staying at a house in Chiang Mai Providence. It’s made up of a couple of rooms with doors that open into a patio upstairs and downstairs. We need to make sure we keep our doors closed; Otherwise our rooms will be filled with bugs. The first night I had to adjust to the bathroom/shower situation. The shower is in the same room as the toilet and we just have a lightly running shower head that puts out cold water. The drain doesn’t work so well either, so you usually have to go to the restroom with a puddle of water under your feet. I also figure that each evening will include killing at least two bugs in the shower… and the spiders jump sometimes and they don’t die with the water. Anyway, it’s really not a big deal. I don’t mind.

We live along a river and there are beautiful mountains all around us. The town we live at is pretty small. I love it though. On the first day we were here, our plans were changed, so we were free to explore a bit and get used to a new place. We hiked up a mountain to a temple and saw a few other temples and huge Buddha statues along the way. They were so beautiful. It was cool.

Today, we helped out at an elementary school.

Yesterday I got really timid about saying any phases in Thai, but today I decided to do better. It’s usually the tones that go with the phrases that I worry I will get wrong. Anyway though, there was a woman I met named Lucy who taught me some things and she practiced a few English words with me. It’s funny because (talking with some of our team members) we realized that the group of people that we worked around today all knew a bit of English but none of them were really comfortable with speaking it to us. It’s just silly because we are all a little shy about using each other’s language. Anyway, Lucy told me about a bit about the new school which we were helping out at today. Then we figured out how to say, “Saturday”, “Sunday” and “See you Monday” in Thai and English (at least I think that’s what we talked about). She also taught me about proper bowing… I’m still a little confused about the etiquette for that. I’m sure I’ll get it down. (Below is a picture with Lucy)

So, like I was kind of saying, we helped out at a school today. They built a new part to it and we moved supplies around to help get ready for school which starts on Monday. We thought it was a little funny how the people that were helping to run the school were apparently not that concerned about the school not being ready for the kids to come Monday… Or they were just planning on using our group to help… Just a different culture J We also helped to paint up a kindergarten playground and a basketball court. I’m hoping to go back with some of our team and help clean up a few classrooms too. Anyway, it was fun and I think we did a good job. We were working outside in the humid heat for eight hours or so though, so we’re all excited to get to sleep for the night. PS – I promise I’m trying to stay hydrated mom and dad!

Tonight, there was also a festival in town. I think for celebrating monks or something like that. We just went to see some of the booths set up. We were going to stay for a show that they do, but we weren’t really sure when it would start because the timing of things here isn’t too strict. I can hear all of the music from here on our patio now though. I like it J