Sorry for the delay in updates (if anyone other than my mom is actually reading this). It's been a busy few weeks and I don't even know where to begin. Rainy season has begun which I have really been enjoying so far. When a storm rolls in the temperature noticeably drops several degrees and I might even stop sweating for a minute or two. This also means that I got to buy a pretty awesome looking rain outfit for riding my bicycle around.  All I can think about is how similar I look to the tin man from The Wizard of Oz.

In other news I went to a river blessing to thank the river for everything it does for us. In the  middle of the ceremony a snake came out of the river and someone murdered it. I went to teach english at a camp in another district and got to hang out with a few of my volunteer friends. Went to Chiang Rai and ate pizza. Worked at the health center and am developing programs about teen pregnancy, drugs, and HIV/AIDS to introduce at the schools. Gave a speech in Thai to some very important people about a program I am planning. Working on more dengue mosquito traps. Went to a waterfall and national park and hiked with  some neighbors. Started weekly bike rides with one of the youth groups. Teach english twice a week. Set up my new home. Started a gigantic vegetable garden. Killed a scorpion. Saw a mosquito the size of my fist (I'm still not convinced this was actually a mosquito but the kids kept telling me it was). Fended off many attempts of people to marry me to their brother, father, nephew, uncle etc. etc. 

And now I'm off to play with kids at a nursery school, enjoy the pictures!

My neighbor. She stands in her door and yells La to get my attention while I eat breakfast. How could I not be happy waking up to that?

Playing in the sand outside my house. They love to plant weeds and then water them hoping they'll grow. I'm always terrified that they are going to unearth a scorpion, but so far I have only found one massive one and am hoping that I never encounter another.

My beautiful new home! I live in this big house all by myself. It's in a family compound so I always have neighbors over and eat dinner at a neighbors home or someone comes over to eat with me. I'm pretty sure I could get away with never cooking since people bring me plates of food every night.

Living room.

Kitchen.

Laundry room/kitchen sink/bathroom sink. This washing machine is the kind that you have to put the water in drain it, run it, drain it, run it, drain it, run it, and then spin it to get a bit of the water out before hanging the clothes outside. Unfortunately the spin part doesn't work and it's rainy season so the clothes I washed 3 days ago are still not dry. I have to wash a lot of my clothes by hand because my washing machine is a bit violent but I love having it for towels and things.

Bedroom.

More pictures

 The three pictures above are from an earth day program I held with one of the local youth groups. The public health officer came and discussed recycling and waste management in our village, where it all goes, and what they can do to help cut down on the trash. Then I taught the kids how to make picture frames from recycled materials, and toys for kids from plastic bottles. We also made headbands and hair supplies from scraps collected from the local seamstress. Originally we were supposed to spend the morning cleaning up the area and picking up trash before doing the crafts but it had been raining for 48 hours straight and showed no sign of stopping so I had to cancel that part of the project.

Some of the finished products from the youth group. I am going to help them sell the hair clips and headbands they made at the market and around the village to help raise money for their group

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 Mien hill tribe women in their traditional clothing. They wear these outfits every single day no matter what the weather is. I don't know how they do it.

 Mhong hill tribe women. Their outfits are incredibly intricate and take them months to make. I am going to be working with one of the community groups to help them market their designs to tourists.

 One of my saturday english lessons. I have only been able to teach twice so far and have had around 40 kids each time. Yesterday a woman I didn't know came up to me and told me her kids love learning english with me and wanted to know if she could come to the lessons as well. 

 Island in the Gulf of Thailand. Went here for a 3 day business trip with everyone from the government office.

 Village health volunteers helping me make the dengue mosquito traps. Rainy season is fast approaching and the public health officer is worried about a large increase in Dengue so I am really hoping that these traps work and we can put them out into the communities. We just had the first case of Dengue for the season, and from peoples reactions I am assuming it is much earlier than expected.

 A typical afternoon or saturday/sunday at my house. I gave the kids some paper and colored pencils to keep them entertained for a few minutes. Yesterday before I could even unlock my door I was surrounded by 7 kids asking me to play with them.

 When it rains my house is swarming with bugs. For some reason all of the bugs die during the night and the ants come out and eat or drag away all of the bodies but leave the wings. This is a picture of the wings left behind in just one of the rooms in my house. I have to hide in my room under my mosquito net as soon as it gets dark. I turn no lights on upstairs and bring snacks, water, my book and anything else I might need with me to try to avoid getting attacked. I can't even shower after dark because I will be covered in bugs before I can dry off. 

I'm famous

This afternoon I was walking by someone's desk at the village health clinic and saw that the website they had up on their computer had a big picture of me right in the middle. I stopped and stared for a second before someone came up and said oh you like? I frequently wondered what they did with all the pictures they take of me and now I know. I'll post the link to the site below. If you click on the picture of me on the main page a lot more pictures come up. Underneath the photo it says "Health Innovation, Mosquito Traps." They are all of me teaching people how to make dengue mosquito traps. We only made a few traps and set them up around the health center. In a few weeks I will go back and check the traps to see if they contain a lot of larvae. If we think they are effective than I hope to hold a training for all the health volunteers in my community so they can implement it in each of the neighborhoods. I think I may also be starring in a video on the website soon. Yesterday I dressed up as a doctor and examined someone with TB, then diagnosed him, and gave him medicine. All of this was in Thai and I was really struggling trying to say it so the video should be pretty funny. The video is to raise awareness of TB and encourage people to call a doctor.

This week I went on a trip with the government office to the Gulf of Thailand for 3 days, which involved sitting on a bus for about 40 hours. I also moved into my new home! It is starting to look pretty nice and I love having the freedom to eat cereal for breakfast and go to the bathroom without someone asking me how it was. I have a lot more stories and photos that I promise to post next week but I have no time today or tomorrow (it takes a long time with the slow internet)  and won't have internet again until next Tuesday. But enjoy the website!

http://www.ck203.chors.org/

At this point some of you may be wondering exactly what I am supposed to be doing here, something that I often wonder myself. As a CBOD volunteer I am working in community development. This means that I am working through the local government office, similar to town hall in the states. While technically I work out of the government office, I am supposed to spend most of my time the first few months, and really the whole first year going out and meeting people. This means visiting schools, health stations, community volunteers, youth groups, community groups, and the chiefs of the villages. Sometimes I spend the whole day at the government office talking to the people here, practicing my Thai, doing research online, or making lesson plans for English. Other days I go out and interview the village chiefs about their community. Today I spent the morning at a health center, asking the doctor questions about health problems in the community, programs they have, what they excel in, and what they could improve. Yesterday I spent the morning at the office developing the questions for the health center and then the afternoon and evening at a wedding. Going to things like monk ordinations, weddings, and funerals are actually a part of my work and are an excellent way to meet people and have more and more people know who I am and why I am here. In the last three months I have gone to two weddings, 3 monk ordinations, and 3 funerals. When I ride my bike around I hear people yelling my name all the time and always bump into people I know at the market. Most of the time I have no idea who the person is or how they know my name but I just smile and pretend I know exactly who they are. In order to make myself feel slightly useful during these months of going out and meeting people I have started teaching English two days a week to kids in the community and also have planned my first project which is coming up next week.

On a different note here is my story of humiliation for the week. Friday was elder appreciation day which means a couple of hundred elders from the village came and had a party. They danced, sang karaoke, and then I had the honor of pouring water on their heads and they all got to dump water right back on me. At lunch someone asked me if I thought there were any handsome men at the event and I responded by saying "they’re old why are you asking me that". But of course it doesn’t end there, they then say a specific persons name and ask me if I think he is handsome. I didn’t understand the question and responded with Yes. Horrible idea. Next thing I know I am up on stage in front of hundreds of people and they are announcing that I think one of the village chiefs is handsome. Then of course he comes on stage stands right next to me and all the elderly people start yelling and clapping. I can’t even imagine what shade of red my face was at that point.

I have a few pictures of me teaching English and pouring water on elderly people to show that I really do work once in a while but unfortunately I left my camera cord at home and I won’t have internet again until next week so I will just have to post this without them.

Songkran!

It's a typical thursday afternoon as I leave the office to bike the 4k back home still wearing my work clothes. The ride home is entirely downhill and as I'm cruising along on my bicycle I suddenly hear shouts of "farang, farang" coming from around the corner. Next thing I know 8 kids jump in front of me, dump a bucket of water on my head, throw a bucket of orange colored water all over my shirt, and smear white paste on my cheeks. The whole ride home there are kids and adults lining the road dumping water on anyone who happens to be riding a bicycle (although I'm pretty sure no one else was that stupid), motorcycle, or sitting in the back of a pickup truck. While the motorcycle riders are defenseless against the water, pickup trucks are packed with people sitting in the back with huge trash barrels full of water that they scoop out and throw on the people lining the streets. The water isn't just regular water, it has big chunks of ice in it so it's as cold as possible when it hits you. In the town all you can see is water of various colors flying through the air as people engage in the most incredible water fight I have ever seen. This doesn't just go on for an hour, or an afternoon, or even a day, but 3 full days of water throwing all over the country. 

This three day festival is known as Songkran and is the Thai New Year. I spent the three days going to wats, dancing, throwing water, and walking in a parade. Oh, and being the official "Miss Songkran" for my village. I am already excited for next years festival and plan to somehow start a massive water fight in the states when I get back home.

The first night of Songkran festival I was a Sao Ramyong. They made me wear that ridiculous red skirt, put on insane amounts of makeup, and dance on a stage in front of the village. Fortunately I danced with a group of women, but they had their moves all choreographed so I looked pretty ridiculous trying to follow along.

Offering we made and brought to the wat in the village. It has money on the sticks on top and bars of soap, rice, chili peppers, garlic, and various other supplies hanging from it. 

Wat we went to at 6am for a ceremony. In this picture the monks are walking by with bowls and everyone throws rice from their own bowls into the monks bowls. The night before we went I  asked what I needed to wear to the wat and my family said anything that covers your knees. I then specifically asked what color shirt and they said any color. I was the only one not wearing white, once again. I really can't figure out why they refuse to tell me what color shirt to wear so I don't look like a fool all the time.

My family trying to teach my how to wrap the snacks we made in banana leaves. I failed miserably so they decided to go get my camera and take pictures of me struggling.

Water fights in the streets of Phayao.

My host sister and I dressed in traditional Northern Thai clothing for the parade. I'm not sure why I had to wear makeup and they did my hair since the second we stepped out of the car a bucket of water was dumped on me.

Leading a parade. At this point I am completely soaked and I have various colors of some type of past smeared on my cheeks. People all along the way bowed before me and then dumped ice water on me. I was completely defenseless since I had to carry a sign in one hand and an umbrella (not for the water for the sun) in the other hand. I have to admit it was incredibly fun and I can't imagine a better way to walk in a parade.

One of the fire trucks along the parade route that sprayed water on us as we walked.

Just another day in Thailand

Yesterday I woke up late (around 7:30) after drifting in and out of sleep since 5am when the roosters and pigs start their daily morning ritual of shrieking outside my window. I wander downstairs to see what strange food experience awaits me and find grilled chicken and sticky rice. While this may seem like an odd breakfast, it is far more normal than most meals I eat here and I was so excited to wolf down some regular grilled chicken. But alas, before I can finish eating my Meh comes in and says Kaylaaa do you want to go to "ban soap" with me. I say sure so she whisks away my grilled chicken and clicks her tongue at me to tell me to hurry up and get dressed. I throw on some knee length shorts and a light blue t-shirt and head out the door. This whole time I really have no idea what ban soap is, but I am assuming it is just the home of someone named soap, since ban means home. But of course I misunderstood yet again. We walk into a family compound with around a hundred people all dressed entirely in black. Large groups of women are cooking ridiculous amounts of food (whatever you're thinking think more) and groups of men are arranging chairs and carving wood. My first thought was maybe it was a catering service (stupid I know), but nope, it was a funeral. I am quickly surrounded by women grabbing my arms and hands, turning them over, rubbing them, and exclaiming at how white I am. At one point someone even slapped my butt. Then I am sent over to the older women to have the experience repeated. The older women are all splitting small pieces of wood and then carefully putting money into the wood and shoving it into coconuts in pretty arrangements. I help them do this while they all shout questions at me and I try to answer question after question in a language that I am not at all comfortable with yet. This whole time I am sitting on a bamboo mat on the floor with all of these women in their 70's and 80's. My legs are killing me and no matter how many times I rearrange them they fall asleep and get stiff. When I stand up I can hardly walk and all these women jump up and appear to be in no pain at all. I end up staying there for 4 hours, and still have no idea who the funeral was for, whose house I was at, or why I was sticking money into coconuts. 

My afternoon consisted of trying to read my kindle but having kids constantly come up and tap the screen so I lose my page, eating honey from a beehive that someone just happened to find and extract from a tree, eating a coconut that a monkey just happened to knock down from a tree in the yard, and hanging out with all of the people in the neighborhood. My days in Thailand never go quite as expected and each day has its own little bit of craziness. 

Picture time!

I've been hearing that everyone wants to see more pictures, so here they are! I'm not a great photographer and rarely remember to bring my camera but here are some of my favorites.

A few pictures of my village.

Traditional hill tribe clothing from the Mong tribe. The women make all of this by hand and it takes them months to make one item because the needlework is so intricate. I am going to work with one of these groups to try to help them sell products in the market to tourists.

On Sunday my family took me to a temple at the top of this big hill. They all went on a motorcycle to get there and I biked behind them. 

My host mom cutting up a banana tree for dinner. I was about to offer to help and then decided I would rather not end up in the hospital again after I lose a finger from that huge knife.

My host dad walking through his cornfield. He owns two acres of land that he grows corn on half the year and rice the other half. When it's harvesting time I'm going to be working in the field "helping" them.

Anti-drug bike rally I participated in. Drugs are a big problem in this area because we are on the border of Laos and drugs are trafficked across the border. A couple hundred people participated in the ride.

To get to the other side of this river I have to walk across those bamboo pieces tied together that roll when you step on them. My paw and I decided that I wasn't quite up for this yet, I've only been here for a little over a week and everyone already knows how clumsy I am.

Meeting with over 400 women that I had to speak at. I had no warning that this was about to happen I just heard my name on the microphone and then was put on stage, handed the microphone, and told to speak... in Thai of course. Oddly enough I was not nervous at all. If this had happened and I had to speak english I would probably have had a panic attack. Thai people love that I can even say hello so any mistakes I make don't really matter. Oh, and no one told me about the pink shirt dress code either so of course I was wearing a nice baby blue polo to help me stand out even more.