thailand blog

We had our weekly team activity this morning. We joined with some of the Akha preschool kids & teacher. We went around to a couple different temples. We basically just watched them do their thing. There's a monk waiting inside the temple when you get there, you sit down & he starts doing weird chants & they give the monk gifts & they pray. I'm not exactly sure what's all going on & what everything symbolizes. But it was cool to watch & kinda cute watching 3 year olds pray. The second temple we went to had a casket with a dead monk inside. I don't know how old the body was but it was kinda disturbing. Not really sure why they kept that monks body over others. Haha weird. So even though they are Christian, I guess they still participate in Buddhism traditions because it's part of their culture. Plus tomorrow is a holiday for them. So that had something to do with it.

We worked on the playground some more at the Lahu village. It rained (surprise surprise) so the dirt was softer & so much easier to dig. At first it was just a few of us volunteers working on it, then slowly but surely 1 million kids showed up. They helped a little bit.. then things got a little out of control. The pictures will explain. But we had a mud fight & were covered in mud. Things are always a little obnoxious at Lahu. I love it though. I feel like I have a better connection with the kids at Lahu, so I enjoy going there. They also taught a acne/skin class to the girls at Lahu today. I wasn't really there for that but they taught skin health & did papaya facials on all the girls! So fun. In fact I think boys even joined in. They did facials on at least 50 people!  Success!

SO MUCH RAIN.

The first temple we went to.

The second temple we went to.

Holding his hand at the temple so he doesn't run away!

Dead monk.

He wouldn't let me take a picture of him. I thought his outfit was just the cutest though.

<<Right after I took this video he grabbed his I pad & I think he took a picture of me & another volunteer during the middle of his chant... You'll see him start to grab his I pad at the end of the video. Haha

Papaya facials.

I love Mar.

Dinner - actually one of my favorites.

More Tim Tam slammin, of course.

A cute girl at Lahu drew me this. (I forget her name) but it says I love mar. Mar is me. They call me Mel, but it sounds like they say mar. I guess thy spell it mar too. Haha then on the other side it says from Tanaporn. Oh that's right. Tanaporn, her name is Tanaporn. You see why it's so hard to remember names! Okay actually I'm not sure, maybe her name is Chagtanaporn. Idk. I'll figure it out.