I finally feel mostly well!!! This is exciting! I have just come out of 2 sicknesses back to back over a period of 2 weeks!!! This part of Thailand has not been too fun....catching about every common cold or flu. This is my second time to get both a bad cold/sore throat as well as my second time to catch the stomach flu.
As soon as my mom left, I arrived in Chiang Mai on Friday the 10th and we had our weekly party at our townhouse/office. These are supposed to show American culture and this one was really fun and unusual. One of the families we work with brought over their wii and guitar hero. I had never played wii before nor had I really ever played guitar...so I learned right along with our Thai friends. We had so much fun that Nan and Kwan stayed till almost 11:30 playing guitar hero with us....Let's just say I dreamed to rock music that night which is definitely not my favorite. Here is a picture of all of us playing guitar hero. We have it projected onto the wall with our supervisor's projector so we could play
The next morning we drove to Lamphuun with our Supervisor, Quintin, and his son Nathaniel, our friend Brooke, and then two Thai friends, Ess and Ekk. In Lamphuun, which is about an hour away, we joined a group of 40+ university students from Bangkok led by Quintin and Kim's former exchange student whom they met 12 years ago in America. These students were doing a cultural exchange/community service project. We all stayed with host families for the weekend. This house was much much nicer than the one we had had our home stay in...but it did not feel nearly as homey as our home in Maewang. The family had a ten year old girl who became my shadow. I loved her. The other two university students in our house were a lot of fun. One was studying to be a nurse so we hit it off.
It was a lot of fun to be with this group. The people living in the village really welcomed us. Just the fact that Emily and I spoke some Northern Thai and liked the typical food got us accepted. One day all the ladies were fixing food under a mosquito net the size of a room. We went in and joined them and they had us filling bags of sticky rice alongside them. That was the highlight of the weekend for me. They would keep asking us to say something in Northern Thai and then just giggle when we would. It was so nice actually being able to sit around and understand a lot of what was said (though they had to speak central Thai for us to really get the gist of what they were saying since that is what we have been learning. Everyone from Bangkok speaks central Thai as well). I would have loved to spend all weekend with those ladies. It made me feel at home because I felt like I was back in my host mom's kitchen.
On this trip we planted saplings of teak trees which was neat. I just talked to Dad the whole time asking that He would plant seeds in the lives of the university students around us. (For some of them, planting trees and building the dams was a way to gain merit for themselves.) We also helped build 2 dams up in the mountains (or hills, they looked like mountains to me!) It was fun. I was sad that because of my back I could not help much with the dam. I stood in line and passed empty buckets but I was still glad to be a part. Though unfortunately on this trip I got really sick with headaches and spent part of the weekend in bed.
When I came home, the headaches continued for a week and I found out that it was the very first stages of a bacterial infection in my throat....which Emily and most of our team had gotten before me. So as soon as I started on antibiotics that started getting better and I was almost back to normal the following Friday.
Friday night we had another party and we taught everyone how to make pizza. This was fun and very delicious. We always have a great turnout of Thai friends when we teach them to cook American food.
Now last Saturday (10/18) was amazing. First we studied with one of our two Thai language teachers I think
I laughed all through my lesson as she humorously told me all about getting car sick on mountain roads. I learned a whole new set of vocabulary. The word for carsick is maoroat (literally "drunk" "car"). We have two wonderful teachers.
We started studying Dad's Book with two of our friends Nan and Kwan (Nan is in the white shirt on the right and Kwan is in the black tank top on the left. And yes we are drinking tea out of plastic bags). They have not met Dad but Nan just started coming to our townhouse on Sunday mornings. On Saturday Nan and Kwan came over in the afternoon and Emily and I started sharing how important Dad's Book is to us. We were going to go over the very first Story with them but they had a lot of questions about the importance of Dad's Book that we kept talking about that. They wanted to hear examples of how our lives had been impacted by the Book and by Dad. I told the story of how my Grandpa met Dad and how Dad helped him stop drinking immediately. I told them how Dad helped Grandpa recover from a stroke several years ago. As I was telling this story Nan's eyes started filling with tears as did mine. So after a few minutes we were both wiping away tears. I am so glad Dad reminded me of that story. I think it meant a lot to Nan and Kwan because it showed how much Dad helps us. We had a wonderful time with these two girls. After we were finished studying we all went to dinner together. So know every Saturday they will come over and we will study English together and then Dad's Book.
Last Sunday I taught at our morning meeting. That was very difficult because our meetings are mostly in Thai. I spent several hours preparing so that I would explain the story in a way that was appropriate for Thai culture. Our friend Ekk helped me teach. I ended up illustrating the story and showed the drawings as I told about Dad's Son's helpers and His instructions for them. This helped a lot. Nan was so sweet; she told me that my drawings helped her understand. Overall it seemed to go well. I was so glad to have Nan and a few other friends there. Then we ended up spending most of the day with Nan and other friends.
So that brings us to this week. Monday we got to go sightseeing with Kru Sangchan and Ajan Nikom the English Teacher from the Thraymit school in the village and her husband who is the Principal. This was a wonderful morning and I was exhausted when we got home. That night I got very sick with the stomach flu. Emily and I were supposed to go to a city about 4 hours away with our friend Biew to visit her family. Unfortunately I could not go so I stayed home alone....half our team also got this as well. Thankfully by Wednesday I was feeling a little better so I was able to take my bike and go get food. Emily had stocked me up with sprite and various crackers before she left. It was nice to get a good few days to rest but I was really missing being around people. Finally Saturday was the first day I was really able to get together with Thai friends though still a little under the weather. Oh it was amazing. I actually felt like I was doing something!!!
