Rain, sinks, and burned down houses



Homemade ping-pong table! The "net" is a broom.



So far this week has been really rainy! Which is AMAZING. It is such a nice break from the intense heat. On Monday we all went to our schools to teach English for the first time. This turned out to be a lot harder than expected. It is very difficult to try and explain what I am teaching when the kids don’t know much English and I only know a few phrases in Thai! Another struggle is that the teachers know about as much English as the students so I am teaching them as well. But after a while I started to get the hang of it! Teaching them requires a lot of acting, drawing, and very animated facial expressions. I  teach three classes: a 4^th grade, a 5^th grade, and a 6^th grade class. I taught my 4^th grade class “head, shoulders, kness, and toes” and they loved it! As I as teaching the 6^th grade class, a huge rainstorm came out of nowhere. I couldn’t even teach because it was so loud! The kids quickly jumped out of their seats and closed all of the windows and doors. And then about 5 minutes later, it was over. It was crazy. That afternoon as we all got back from teaching, we shared teaching ideas, games, and made lesson plans for the upcoming weeks.



Another game. I'm still not sure what it is but i do know that this girl is way good at it.



Outside my 6th grade classroom during the rainstorm.



The street my school is on



Painting the sink





Tuesday was a great day. We went back to the school where we started building a sink and finished it! It is a really big sink. It has about 30 faucets on it! We grouted, painted, drilled holes, put the pipes up, and and connected the facets on. Next Tuesday we are going back and giving an assembly about hand washing and teeth brushing, which we are really excited to do. That night we all squished in a room in our house and watched Shawshank Redemption (edited of course.)



Cute kids at the school playing on the playground we painted :)



Stephen modeling the sink



Yes, we did build that beautiful sink!



The burned down house



Today a group of us went to this village about 45 minutes away to help build a house that had been burned down. The house belongs to a lady with a teenage son and a baby boy whose husband left them recently. We don’t know the full story but shortly after he left the house was burnt down. The houses in the village are very small, probably the size of my bedroom back home. We did demolition work on it and got rid of all the rubble. We also dug six holes for the wood pillars that hold up the cement walls and the tin roof. It was really hard work, that’s for sure. On the way home Stephen and Jon were standing up in the back of the truck with all of us sitting behind them and Nat turns to me and says “Is it raining?” I look up…nope it was their sweat dripping on us from the wind. Welcome to Thailand J



This is the house the lady and her boys are living in while we build her house.



This is a game we play...and i don't know why. Basically it's a game of luck and your hands get slapped A LOT. Out hands are always bright red after we play but i promise it is fun.





Stephen getting slapped