Wednesday, June 18, 2003
All right, it's Wednesday, halfway through week 3 in Thailand. The time is going by so fast... I wish it would slow down a little. I don't think I'm ready to start thinking about heading back to the States. Ah well.
Okay, so Monday night we went to Kan-tok, the traditional northern Thai dancing/dinner theatre. It was really fun. The dancers were beautiful and talented, and the food was great. We sat on the floor, and were served a huge plate with several different bowls each containing different types of food. Several of the foods were new, but they weren't nearly as spicy as much of the Thai food has been. The dancers were really neat.. one dance a woman dressed in a shiny gold dress with a fin coming out of her back- she was supposed to be a fish. Then another character joined her, and he was supposed to be a monkey. They both came out into the crowd and got pictures with some of the kids and the audience. I got pictures of both, so hopefully I can post them when I get home.
Yesterday we taught our crash course in English for the office staff for the first time. It went pretty well.. we have to keep remembering that we must keep our English very simple. We went over titles and parts of names, as well as an introduction to the course. He actually sits in the back of the class while we teach it. Overall I think it went well.. I believe that the "students" had a good time. We recognized many of them because most of them work in the office where our table is (we have a table in the middle of the main office where we work on our projects, read, etc.). We have nine more sessions to teach, so I'm sure we'll get all of the bugs worked out. Our next session is actually this afternoon after our Thai lessons.
Last night was pretty laid back. We went and at dinner at the Im Jai House with the kids and the staff. We helped to serve dinner (there are about 50 kids and about 10 guests that we had to put food out for). There are a couple of farang volunteers there, two of which are from America (one girl actually goes to school with a few people on our team.. we saw her on the plane ride here), and one is from Canada. We talked to them and sang/played a few worship songs.. they loved it. It can be tough going so long without hearing English being spoken or singing songs that you know the words to. We also got to play with the kids, which is always fun. They seemed more preoccupied last night, not as eager to crawl all over us and to talk (there are always a few that are consistent, but as a whole they weren't like a whirlwind like they usually are).. We came when they were working on homework (before dinner), so we tried to stay out of the way. I got to play with a little boy that always comes and finds me when we visit for a while. He is probably about 4 or 5. He just wants to be held most of the time.. he tries to communicate with me with a couple of words of English, and with hand motions. Yesterday he wanted to show me all of the photos on the walls, and to point himself out when we came across one. It was fun, and I know that he loved the individual attention. We're going to try to go at least once a week, so hopefully we can get to know more of the kids and help out when we can.
Something else that was really neat last night happened when the Im Jai House took us back to our dorm. There are two security guards that stay at our dorm (they have a little station at the bottom), a man during the day and a woman at night. When we pulled up last night in the van with the Im Jai House logo on the side, the lady security guard came out, and seemed pretty excited. She was trying to ask us something, and managed to say, "You Christian?" and made a cross with two fingers. We said yes, and she pointed to herself, grinned, and said, "I am Christian!" We were completely surprised, and thrilled to hear it. I asked her something in English, but she looked puzzled, so I asked her in Thai if she spoke English. She said that she didn't, which was disappointing. I suddenly felt pretty frustrated at myself for not knowing more Thai. There was so much I wanted to say to her and ask her. But just knowing that about her was really great. Hopefully by the time we leave we'll know more Thai and we can talk to her a little more. I also have a Thai-English New Testament that I may give her.. I got to figure out how to ask her if she has a bible already. Another question to ask Ah-jahn Nena in Thai lessons today..
Tonight our group is going to the Airport Plaza, which is the big mall in the center of Chaing Mai. Sarepta and I are going to get our hair cut. It's a pretty nice place to go.. you get your head massaged, and your hair washed, dried, cut, and styled, all for 200 baht (that's about $5 in American currency). A few of the other girls from other teams have gone, and they loved it. The guys from our group are going too. They say it's for protection, but I think they just want to get to the Starbucks in the mall. :) Actually, we are gonna eat there tonight and make a stop at the Starbucks. It's kinda weird to go to the Airport Plaza, because it's like a little USA mall in the middle of Chiang Mai. People actually stand in lines there (usually it's first person to get to the counter is first served), and you don't bargain in the mall (you bargain for everything else, just about). It's sort of nice knowing that if something says it's once price, that's what you pay for it. I kind of get tired of bargaining sometimes, though it helps when you want to get something cheaper than you originally think.
Anyway, I should wrap it up. Thanks for all your prayers and support. We are meeting and getting to know more students everyday. Yesterday we spent a long time with a student who is half German and half Thai.. he speaks German and Thai fluently, and his English is excellent. He said that he was Buddhist and Christian, which seems to be sort of prevalent here. Anyway, he seems to be very eager to just get to know us and to hang out with us. We also ate lunch with a girl who is friends with one of our buddies. She is extremely sweet, and her English is pretty good, especially for a freshman. She wants us to cook some American food for her, so hopefully we can arrange that. Instead of us trying to get students to go to Toby and Patricia's this Saturday, we may invite them to come to the dorm and we could bring American and Thai food to share with the students, as well as sing and play some more songs. We were thinking about making some chicken broccoli casserole and creamed corn, so we will see. Anyway, I'm rambling again as always, so I will cut this short. Have a great day, guys.
Okay, so Monday night we went to Kan-tok, the traditional northern Thai dancing/dinner theatre. It was really fun. The dancers were beautiful and talented, and the food was great. We sat on the floor, and were served a huge plate with several different bowls each containing different types of food. Several of the foods were new, but they weren't nearly as spicy as much of the Thai food has been. The dancers were really neat.. one dance a woman dressed in a shiny gold dress with a fin coming out of her back- she was supposed to be a fish. Then another character joined her, and he was supposed to be a monkey. They both came out into the crowd and got pictures with some of the kids and the audience. I got pictures of both, so hopefully I can post them when I get home.
Yesterday we taught our crash course in English for the office staff for the first time. It went pretty well.. we have to keep remembering that we must keep our English very simple. We went over titles and parts of names, as well as an introduction to the course. He actually sits in the back of the class while we teach it. Overall I think it went well.. I believe that the "students" had a good time. We recognized many of them because most of them work in the office where our table is (we have a table in the middle of the main office where we work on our projects, read, etc.). We have nine more sessions to teach, so I'm sure we'll get all of the bugs worked out. Our next session is actually this afternoon after our Thai lessons.
Last night was pretty laid back. We went and at dinner at the Im Jai House with the kids and the staff. We helped to serve dinner (there are about 50 kids and about 10 guests that we had to put food out for). There are a couple of farang volunteers there, two of which are from America (one girl actually goes to school with a few people on our team.. we saw her on the plane ride here), and one is from Canada. We talked to them and sang/played a few worship songs.. they loved it. It can be tough going so long without hearing English being spoken or singing songs that you know the words to. We also got to play with the kids, which is always fun. They seemed more preoccupied last night, not as eager to crawl all over us and to talk (there are always a few that are consistent, but as a whole they weren't like a whirlwind like they usually are).. We came when they were working on homework (before dinner), so we tried to stay out of the way. I got to play with a little boy that always comes and finds me when we visit for a while. He is probably about 4 or 5. He just wants to be held most of the time.. he tries to communicate with me with a couple of words of English, and with hand motions. Yesterday he wanted to show me all of the photos on the walls, and to point himself out when we came across one. It was fun, and I know that he loved the individual attention. We're going to try to go at least once a week, so hopefully we can get to know more of the kids and help out when we can.
Something else that was really neat last night happened when the Im Jai House took us back to our dorm. There are two security guards that stay at our dorm (they have a little station at the bottom), a man during the day and a woman at night. When we pulled up last night in the van with the Im Jai House logo on the side, the lady security guard came out, and seemed pretty excited. She was trying to ask us something, and managed to say, "You Christian?" and made a cross with two fingers. We said yes, and she pointed to herself, grinned, and said, "I am Christian!" We were completely surprised, and thrilled to hear it. I asked her something in English, but she looked puzzled, so I asked her in Thai if she spoke English. She said that she didn't, which was disappointing. I suddenly felt pretty frustrated at myself for not knowing more Thai. There was so much I wanted to say to her and ask her. But just knowing that about her was really great. Hopefully by the time we leave we'll know more Thai and we can talk to her a little more. I also have a Thai-English New Testament that I may give her.. I got to figure out how to ask her if she has a bible already. Another question to ask Ah-jahn Nena in Thai lessons today..
Tonight our group is going to the Airport Plaza, which is the big mall in the center of Chaing Mai. Sarepta and I are going to get our hair cut. It's a pretty nice place to go.. you get your head massaged, and your hair washed, dried, cut, and styled, all for 200 baht (that's about $5 in American currency). A few of the other girls from other teams have gone, and they loved it. The guys from our group are going too. They say it's for protection, but I think they just want to get to the Starbucks in the mall. :) Actually, we are gonna eat there tonight and make a stop at the Starbucks. It's kinda weird to go to the Airport Plaza, because it's like a little USA mall in the middle of Chiang Mai. People actually stand in lines there (usually it's first person to get to the counter is first served), and you don't bargain in the mall (you bargain for everything else, just about). It's sort of nice knowing that if something says it's once price, that's what you pay for it. I kind of get tired of bargaining sometimes, though it helps when you want to get something cheaper than you originally think.
Anyway, I should wrap it up. Thanks for all your prayers and support. We are meeting and getting to know more students everyday. Yesterday we spent a long time with a student who is half German and half Thai.. he speaks German and Thai fluently, and his English is excellent. He said that he was Buddhist and Christian, which seems to be sort of prevalent here. Anyway, he seems to be very eager to just get to know us and to hang out with us. We also ate lunch with a girl who is friends with one of our buddies. She is extremely sweet, and her English is pretty good, especially for a freshman. She wants us to cook some American food for her, so hopefully we can arrange that. Instead of us trying to get students to go to Toby and Patricia's this Saturday, we may invite them to come to the dorm and we could bring American and Thai food to share with the students, as well as sing and play some more songs. We were thinking about making some chicken broccoli casserole and creamed corn, so we will see. Anyway, I'm rambling again as always, so I will cut this short. Have a great day, guys.
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