What a few days it has been!! Thailand continues to be beautiful and an adventure. We are starting to teach English next Monday, so this past Monday we went to the six schools where we’ll be going and visited them. This was a very fun day. The schools are all quite different but each one has the cutest kids you’ve ever seen. Stephen gets the opportunity to teach at a monk school with another guy in our group, Jonathan. (Girls aren’t allowed to teach there.) They went there yesterday to meet the principal and on the way back they got caught in a crazy rain storm. They had to pull over to the side of the road and move a huge tree out of the way so they could pass. The rain here is turns on and off like a light switch.



I’m going to be teaching at a school named Lion School, which is right up the road from our house. The kids absolutely love it when we come. They will play soccer with us for as long as they can and it is so much fun! They also love to teach us how to count in Thai, touch my blonde hair, and jump on us. Yesterday we were at a school painting another playground and a little boy named Long Lie was fascinated with my colorful watch. Sadly, it had broken earlier that day but he still loved it so I told him he could keep it. He was so excited and his smile was priceless.  









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A house in a village down the river



At all of these schools, dogs just roam around and chill where ever. This isn’t only common at the schools though, there are random dogs everywhere you go! I’ve only seen one or two that have looked really sick, but I still don’t dare touch any of them. Except for sometimes I’ll feed our house dog, Chico, some granola J A guy on our team named her that before we found out she was a girl, but it was too late, the name had already stuck. I feel so lucky to have such an awesome team. We all want to work hard and make a difference here in Thailand. We all have become really good friends too. From doing aerobics and yoga in the morning together (well, just the girls) to playing the guitar and singing at night, we have so much fun.



Chico



Ally, Nat, and I



Last night, Stephen and I and a few others had to go get out japanese encephalitis shots but when we got to the clinic it had already closed. On the way back we saw this outdoor market and went and checked it out! It was a big line on booths all connected together on both sides. There were so many different things to buy, and everything was so cheap! There was live music playing and fun lights surrounding the whole thing. Stephen and I passed a booth that smelled so good so we bought whatever it was. It turns out it was Thai cotton candy! Except for you roll it up taco style into a really thin hot crepe. It is so good. T-bone would absolutely love it. We need to figure out how to get it in the states for him.

This week we have started working with other partners to start up some really neat projects. A group of us today went to a village to teach personal finance and accounting. Most people here don’t keep track of how much money they spend and it is a big problem so we’ve started up classes to help out with that. Stephen also found out about an orphanage close by and is working with the lady in our village who runs it. Another organization we are starting to work with does a lot with women’s rights and also gardening and farming. So in the next week or two we are going to have a lot of really neat projects going and we are so excited!



Stephen's heaven



Our village bridge



Stephen's first time driving on the left side of the car and road...with all of us in the back







The kids playing on the playground we painted