So much has happened in the last few weeks. I have been exhausted. We moved three times in three weeks so a total of six moves upon arriving in Thailand. (Don't feel too bad for me the first two were with friends in Bangkok ;). This has been several weeks of wonderful highs and some lows as well. We moved out of the village of Sankanta, in Maewang district on July 3rd. This was actually really hard for me. Maewang still feels like my Thai home. I could write 20 blog posts on the relationships we built there and the ones we will continue to make. Our host parents truly adopted us. They were even more protective than our parents (yes, mom you let me ride my bike for ten minutes alone in St. Louis.....apparently here I was not allowed to unless accompanied by Khun Por (host dad), Emily, or a 9 yr-old). While one day this was frustrating, it made me feel so taken care of. Actually, it has been three weeks since we moved out of the village and our host dad still calls us almost every evening to check in on us and ask us if we have eaten yet and then tells us to make sure we shower (that actually became our own inside joke because 'ap nahm' or shower was one of the first words we learned and it took us over an hour to figure out what they wanted us to do....we had to use such funny gestures of pouring water over some one's head that by the end of the stay 
it turned into an ap nahm dance. The picture above is a picture of my host mom and I telling Emily to go take a shower while we cooked breakfast. I miss Khun Por and Khun Mae (Chan kiteung Khun Por Sin leh Khun Mae Sa). But I will see them in just a few days because Emily and I will start teaching again at the village schools next Tuesday. In the future we might spend one night a week in Sankanta because it is almost a 1 hour commute by Songthaew (brightly colored pickup truck that serves as a taxi) and our Thai language teacher's pickup.
Well, I've said so much and I haven't even explained what I have been doing for the last three weeks in Chiang Mai. The day after we moved out of the village a team from California arrived so we moved into dorms with them. This group from California Baptist University was amazing. They adopted us as we were a part of their team meetings each night. They have become very dear friends. Well three days after they arrived, a group of another forty Americans (mostly 
high school students) arrived and moved into the dorms as well. Our group of 55+ divided into smaller crews and spent two weeks on service projects in and around Chiang Mai. My crew spent one week building a house and then the second week teaching in one of the village schools. On the last day of our service projects all the crews came to our village to dedicate the house. This was an amazing time. We talked to Dad together and we got to talk to many of the Thai men and women we had worked with either building the house or cooking the food. The villagers not only accepted Emily and me after we lived there for several weeks, they accepted our group of 40+ Americans. Before we left, the ladies in the village drug the huge speaker over along with the TV and DVD player and they put on the workout video of Thai aerobics which and our whole group laughed and did aerobic dancing on top of the patches of wet concrete in the courtyard alongside our Thai friends. That was a highlight for me.
Other crews taught at a junior college, held English conversation in coffee shops, worked at orphanages, etc. One girl on the CBU team had started talking to Dad about a specific girl she would meet six months before she arrived in Thailand and at the end of her trip this girl met Dad! Please talk to Dad for Bui. This was absolutely amazing. And the ultimate high of the last three weeks for sure. Now we are becoming good friends with Bui and she will hopefully be coming to the townhouse we are now living in (which is also the office for teaching English etc). I am excited.
(In this picture, my Thai friend Goal and I are telling stories about Dad to the kids at the village school Thraymit)
During these three weeks there were times when I felt so exhausted for being a part of such a large team that did so much. We were travelling, working, and having meetings from the time we got up till the time we went to bed. (The meetings were very refreshing in the evening to share what Dad had done that day.) From being so busy, there were days when my back was so sore and head hurt very badly from going and not stopping. (This is something you could talk to Dad about for me if you think of it). But overall, I have been feeling rather well. With all this going on, I must say that I did miss family and friends in the States even more.
Now that I look back on a few of the difficult things the last few weeks they were definitely worth it for such amazing highs. So many relationships were built by the team that we are now getting to develop through opening up Baan Kanuun (the townhouse we live in) for English conversation and hang out for college students and young adults.
So now life is starting to settle into what we will be doing for the next 4.5 to 5 months. The CBU team left today which was sad. We will miss them as we are already missing the large group that left almost a week ago. We moved into the new town house (Baan Kanuun...I'm not sure of the spelling) where we will live on the 3rd floor. The first and second floor will be used for hang out with Thai friends, teaching English, and an office. We are right in the middle of a nice hang out area for college students and young adults so it is a great location to have a center for conversational English. We don't have all the details worked our for what university or college we will teach at so please talk to Dad for us that He will help our supervisor and us find the right place. We haven't been able to set things in place until we turn resumes in to the universities. I finished mine yesterday and we are getting more excited each day.
We are already making some wonderful Thai friends. We just spent the last two nights hanging out with Ekk (a Thai friend who knows Dad) and his friend Toey who he works with. Toey has been telling us a lot about what she believes. She is a very strong Buddie and even lived in the temple for 5 months after she finished the university. She was explaining a lot to us about meditation. We just listened and it helped us to learn about the culture here. I want to talk to DAD about her. Please talk to DAD about Toey when you talk to Him. (Toey is the girl directly behind Emily, Jum is beside her. The two guys next to me are students at a junior college, Ham, and Ray. We were teaching them how to play spoons tonight during one of the times we open up Baan Kanuun for English conversation etc.)
Well, I think this is long enough for now ;) Now that we are moved into the townhouse and have access to dependable Internet, my updates will not be as far apart.
I hope all of you are doing wonderfully.
Lydia
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Ok, P.S. here is the Update I "lost" it talks about our last week in the village and the spirit ceremony our village hosted. If you have a chance to read it, it gives a lot of information about the culture and religion.
I hope this video gives you a glimpse of what we've 
been doing in the village schools. We've had a lot of fun with these kids. Thankfully we got to use YouTube videos at the one school where the first and second graders were really rowdy. I have never been so thankful for Youtube...this is actually once where it can be very useful. At this school (Saraphee) we'd have each age group for about 2 hours at a time. I know college students that have trouble staying awake for a 2 hour class. We had to get real creative in teaching English in the younger grades, but we've had a lot of fun as well.
I miss Maewang/Sankanta! Our home stay is over for now. We had the most amazing time living in the village. Our host mom was even crying the day before we left. We have grown to care for them so much.
We have moved from the village into a "dorm" here in Chiang Mai(studio apartment is a lot close to what it really is). It will be different to not be with Em for every waking moment....gosh, I'll miss her! Emily has been the biggest blessing. We make the perfect team which is such an answer to both of our prayers. We seem to compliment each other in everything. She has the most guts to ask the more difficult questions about the culture and I've always got the notebook to write EVERYTHING down. I'm on my 5th notebook so far of language and cultural notes. I feel like I get a more well rounded understanding of the Thai language when I study with Emily because we each approach learning in a different way. Through it all we have had so much fun together. When our supervisor picked us up from our home stay, he commented on how well we get along. DAD has really drawn us to HIM as we yarp together and read HIS BOOK. We have actually needed a lot of DAD's encouragement lately and HE has definitely given it to us. 
Alright I want to tell you about a little of what we have learned about the culture and religion here in the village. Basically to be Thai is to be a Buddie, but there are still a lot of animistic beliefs including sacrificing and worshipping ancestors and spirits (the Thai word for respect and worship is the same from what I understand so sometimes what looks like respecting ancestors is really worshipping them and vice e versa). The animism is much more evident in the village than it is in the city of Chiang Mai but it is still everywhere. (This is a picture of our host mom offering food and incense to the spirit house in the front of our courtyard.) Every house, business, school, temple, or even the village water tower has a spirit house and food is offered on it each morning.
I had talked to a few people and ask them to talk to Dad about a spirit ceremony Emily and I were invited to watch. It was on July 1st which was considered an auspicious day to have a ceremony. Each year a different village hosts the ceremony for the region. They expected people from all over to come to the spirit leader's house of our village. They said that 300 individuals would come throughout the day to dance, drink whiskey, smoke, bless people etc. These individuals were believed to have invited spirits into their bodies for that day. They told us that the spirits inside them were the ones drinking the whiskey not the individuals dancing (we still have so many questions about what really happened which we hope to talk about with our supervisor more now that the team from the states has left). It was really sad. The fourteen year old boy who lived next door to us, Niyu, was one of four people from our village that was said to have a spirit in him that day. He is the one in the light green silk shirt that stumbles towards the camera at one point during the video of the dancing. We talked to Dad whenever we walked by the house that day and for many days before and after the ceremony.
When I find out more about what all really happened at the ceremony, I will try to write about it.
Thank you for reading this and talking to Dad for us.
As I have time I will try to write more about what we saw in the village.
Lydia.
