It has been fun to get back to work after a few days in Krabi.
Education Assemblies
One of the week's highlights was an assembly that we put on for six tribal elementary schools on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Along with a partnering NGO and several other volunteers, Lizzy and I taught about child rights and the importance of staying in school. Because we can't speak Thai, we acted out a skit that followed the lives of two friends who took two different paths; one staying in the school and the other dropping out to work. It was a HUGE success.
Some of the schools had nearly four hundred children in attendance, while others had just a handful. Some schools seemed to be functioning well while others seemed to be just scraping by. But the common thread between all six schools is that the majority of students are tribal. This generally means that they don't speak Thai as their first language, aren't documented citizens, and have a higher rate of dropping out of school.
It was difficult to see the children lacking so many of the simple educational tools that I took for granted. But they were all adorable and were so happy to see ferangs (foreigner in Thai) come and help at their schools. One of my favorite parts of the assembly was a period after the skit when the leader from the partnering NGO would ask the children questions regarding what they had learned. The incentives for the children to answer questions were a treat, a notebook, and a chance to hug a ferang! The kids LOVED hugging us. Since it is not really common in Thai culture, they audience of kids would scream and squeal and giggle when we would give hugs. It was hilarious, and I basically felt like Justin Bieber for a couple days.
 |
| Teaching the kids "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" |
 |
| Acting out the skit. |
 |
| Lizzy and some of the other volunteers teaching the kids the Hula. |
AIDS Education
One of my favorite partners that we have worked is an AIDS awareness organization called Fortune. We have been working with them to make a movie that can be given to Shan villages to watch through out the year. Some of the volunteers assisted in starting the filming process this last Saturday, filming Shan actors who talked about the affects and ways to prevent HIV.
In addition to the movie, I have been working on an AIDS flip book for the organization to use while teaching. They gave me very specific directions about the page numbers and content of the flip book. Because the pictures they wanted would be too graphic to google and print out, I sketched the pictures over the weekend. Tomorrow, we will give them to the organization who will color in the pictures, and then we will laminate the pages and bind it into a nice little book.
Mud House
We generally have at least one construction type project going on at all times. This week, we assisted a school in building a mud house. It is a school that focuses on teaching the students sustainable techniques to get by with out a lot of money. We hope to take the skills we learn and teach them to other villages.
We built the bricks last week by mixing mud and rice debris and let them dry in the sun for over a week. This week, we built up the walls using--yup, you guessed it--more mud, as concrete. It was surprisingly easy to do. In the coming weeks, we are going to work on finishing the other two walls using mainly bamboo
Looking Forward
Well, we only have about ten more days left in Thailand. Time flies! It has been quite an adventure, and we are excited that it is not quite over yet. One project we have going on this week that I am particularly excited about is an English Camp at the YMCA. Lizzy and I will sleep over Friday and Saturday night at the YMCA in Chiang Rai (about two hours away from our house), teaching English to camp participants.
