Hello faithful blog-reading friends! Thanks for your emails, first of all, and all the ways you've been in contact with me! It means a lot.
I am doing well. What is normal here for me is off-the-scale foreign to me at home in America, but I love my life here so much. Strolling down Huaew Kow Road is one of my favorite things to do on a Sunday afternoon.
This week was full of going to classes in the morning - Thai language and Thai culture. We are currently learning Buddhism with this adorable old man, Professor Saeng. He talks so slow and has so many great stories. I've really been enjoying learning about Buddhism. We also started an internship seminar, as well, which has been more of a time and place for processing our experiences, especially in light of our internships. In the afternoons, I ride with a few other students on a song-tau to the school near Agape where we teach English for an hour and then head home to the orphanage. There, I typically sit with Pi Jim and Pi Warapong with my friend Kaitlin and we bumble through conversations in English/Thai. After that, I take a song-tau back to CMU and walk home. Usually, I'll help my host mother (Khun Me) make dinner at that point, sit down with my siblings and Khun Me, and eat, smile a lot, make some jokes, try some new words in Thai, before I retire to my bedroom. This past week I made jewelry with my sister Ning and Khun Me and Nom (my 17 year old brother). The limited communication is fine and we are all feeling much more comfortable with each other. My Khun Pa is rarely home (I haven't seen him since last Thursday), but I've heard that that is typical here.
This weekend has also been really busy but really fun. On Friday, following classes, some friends and I went out for lunch to a little restaurant off campus and then decided to get our nails done (toes and fingers for $5)...so decadent, I know. For someone who NEVER gets her nails done, this is a big deal. Probably not something I'll do regularly, but a fun treat for sure. There were five of us girls and following nails, we went to our favorite Cafe (Cafe Mong Pearl) where we talked about our "boy histories" for three hours! It was a lot of fun! A friend of mine, Lindsey, had a friend who is finishing her YWAM program this week and is in Chiang Mai. We went out with some of them to a nearby mall and ate dinner and watched American Legend at a very Western movie theater. It was a really great evening.
On Saturday, I did some laundry, hung out with the fam, and then ventured out alone to the infamous Flower Festival that comes to Chiang Mai once a year. It was incredible-I saw the most beautiful orchids I have ever seen in my life! I met up with some people from my group and then met the other interns who work at Agape downtown. On Saturdays, we are going to be going to Agape to do programs with the older kids (who are at school the afternoons we're usually around for during the week). Yesterday was our first time and we had two cooking classes, a music class, an art class, and a computer class! It turned out to be a lot of fun!
It was also such a GREAT surprise to see Ricky and Karen and their family...and all of the nannies and kids from Abundant Life Home in Chonburi! (Which is where I was this summer). Apparently, they have a really close connection with Agape because they are both AIDs orphanages and the first child that started ALH four years ago now lives at Agape. This is a crazy story: My team this summer had learned about this little girl named Jintana who Karen had visited in a goverment orphanage a few years ago. She was laying in her own filth and banging her head against her crib, crying, and they weren't feeding her or caring for her. Karen asked them why she was left to be like this and they told her that children with AIDs aren't worth investing in. Jintana helped found ALH and her story was the one we heard this summer. I knew that she lived in an orphanage in Chiang Mai...but I didn't know that this little girl that inspired so much hope in me was living at the same orphanage I am working at. I met her yesterday. It was a very powerful experience for me to come face to face with this little child I've been praying for for the last several months. She's absolutely beautiful and she's doing really well, which Karen and Ricky were pleased to see. They came up with all of the orphans to see her and to do a break-dancing program with the kids at this orphanage. I still can't believe I was able to connect with the Sanchezes! It's such a small world! I'm excited to visit them down south at the end of my program.
My good friend Katie slept over last night and we went to a new church this morning. All the nannies and staff at Agape go to Abundant Grace Church at the local YMCA. We checked it out and the last thing I expected was to hear the prosperity gospel preached in Thailand! It was a strange experience, to say the least. The pastor had some good things to say, but I was a little disappointed. It did feel good to be with some other believers though.
Another week starts tomorrow and I'm ready! Also, I will be on Skype my Tuesday morning (your Monday evening, NYC time) at 7:30ish-8:30ish...If you are available and have an account, let me know and we can talk!
Hope you have a wonderful week! Love you all!
