Buddist Lent

July 18th marked the beginning of Buddhist lent. Last year, we went around to all of the temples in the area & gave them huge candles. This year, we went up to the reservoir for a celebration.

They had a huge tent set up with this set up under it. I'm not sure exactally what it is, but I saw them last year at this time as well.

Here's where the monks sit. The yellow buckets are gifts to the monks. They usually contain soap, toothpaste, robes, and a few other essentials.

We spent the day doing "good stuff" for the environment. Here are people releasing fish into the reservoir

And planting trees.

While everyone was planting trees, some of my students were providing entertainment. The boys were providing the music.And the girls were dancing.

Here are some of my coworkers eating lunch.

Here are two of my students...or should I say one former student & one current student.

The Nose

I had been thinking about getting my nose pierced for a while & Tara had had her nose pierced a while ago, but took it out when she started teaching. I told her that if she ever wanted to get it done again, I would go with her & get mine done too. She mentioned getting it done as a "birthday treat," so we agreed to do it on our next trip to Chaing Mai.

Tara went first, but I was too nervous to watch her...but she got pictures of me.

Getting ready.

I was just a little nervous.

It stung & made my eyes water, but didn't hurt too much.

The finished product.
We went out later that night (see Mom, you don't even notice it).

Randomness

Here are some random pictures.


Some rice paddies in my village.

My neighbor's house.

My back yard is a jungle!

These have to be the smallest bananas I have ever seen!

Wai Kru Day

I had a meeting at one of my schools a couple of weeks ago. We are working on setting up a teacher training/English Camp & were meeting about the grant application. Throughout the entire meeting the Paw Aw (school principal) mentioned Wai Kru.

Wai Kru is a day where the students honor their teachers. Last year it completely took me by suprise & I had NO idea what to expect (it freaked me out a little). This year, I knew what to expect, and it still made me a little uncomfortable. You see, I always get there after they have done the ceremony with the other teachers, so I have no idea what I'm supposed to do.

They made me sit on a chair in the front of the classroom & the students came up in groups and gave me flowers & wai'ed me. Here are some pictures.

After they were through, the principal loaded all of the flowers in a bag for me to take home. It's a nice concept, but not being used to it, I'm still a little uncomfortable sitting there while the kids wai to me.

English Camp

A couple of weeks ago, I put on my first English Camp. Now don't get me wrong, I've helped out with quite a few camps, but this was the first one that I've had to organize. It was a lot of work, but I think it was a pretty good camp. Here are some pictures.

The camp had an environmental theme & one of the activities was a scavenger hunt.

Then they had to make posters labeling the items they found.

During the lunch break, the other volunteers & I were talking. I happened to glance over to some of the students that were sitting right next to us & saw this little girl trying to put a jewel on her nose. You see, Tara & I had just gotten our noses pierced (yes I did, and no, Mom is "not happy about it").
We had a few different schools & of course they made us take pictures with them all.

I had a couple of other volunteers come to help out. We made bagel pizzas for dinner!

And played cards.

It was nice to have some other volunteers over to visit & see my site. They were pretty shocked at how loud my roosters are (even though I told them they were loud). Anyway, I had fun...but I'm glad that it's over!

Tea Time

Quite a few months ago (I'm still playing catch-up), we went to Bangkok to celebrate Tara's birthday. We wanted to do something that we hadn't done before, so we decided to do high tea. It was great!


The birthday girl.



Here's Sarah (and the tray of desserts we were served)...

Here I am.

Another shot of the dessert tray.

Later on, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner.

And of course there was cake!