Junior Youth Camp

Ah! I've been so busy, trying to keep up with a blog is truly a task. Okay well the junior youth camp was absolutely great! I had an awesome time with the kids!! :) Alright so we left Nonthaburi around 3pm on Wednesday. I sat in the van with about 8 Thai kids (ages 10-15). I tried to sleep the whole way but the kids were all excited and I still can't get over the crazy driving in Thailand!

On the way over, one of the little boys was teasing the only girl in the car besides me. She was the youngest one and sooo cute! I didn't know how to tell them to stop bugging her and that got me kind of frustrated but then I kinda just started to mess around with him. Tickling him and making faces and stuff and soon he forgot all about bothering the girl. It's amazing how far body language and tickling can go! :)
When we're about 5 minutes away from the camp we stop so the kids can get some snack and drinks and stuff. Vaughan got me my first drink in a bag! Yes, in Thailand sometimes they fill a small plastic bag with ice and then they pour your drink into it, add a straw and there you have a drink in a bag. I havn't figured out the reason, maybe just because bags a cheaper than cups? Who knows. Anyways, it was delicious!

Finally we arrived at the camp around 5ish pm. To my surprise, and secret delight, we arrived at a very nice, small house in the middle of a really nice neighborhood. I thought we'd be going somewhere like the last camp, something rustic and half in the jungle but this was quiet the opposite! The house was beautiful. It had a cute little gazebo in the front court yard and a rock garden. So cool. The inside was only one floor, 3 bedrooms 2 bathrooms. Turns out a Baha'i from Thailand had actually donated the house to the Baha'is of Nonthaburi. How cool is that?

I helped unload the van of everyones luggage and then head inside to register for the camp. I meet Pjip, Roshan and Rahoul. They were the people who organized and were running the camp. They were all really nice, and they all spoke English. They all joked around with me and made me feel really comfortable. From then on I could tell camp would be great. We all got set up in our room. The boys got one small room and us girls got set up in the slightly bigger and air conditioned room. I think this was only fair considering there were 12 of us girls in a maybe 10x14 room, sleeping shoulder to shoulder on the floor. There were only three mattresses and the girls wanted me to have one but I couldn't take it from them. The result was me sleeping on a paper thin mat on a hard tiled floor. I've had better nights of rest but it was fine actually. I would have taken that over sleeping with bugs and no air conditioning any day.

Later on we ate dinner and played icebreaker games. The kids had a lot of fun. Soon it was to bed for the next day of class and activties. For Thusday and Friday there was the same schedule. Wake up at 6:30am for exercise and morning prayers. Then an hour to shower and get ready. Breakfast at 8:30 until 9:00am. Usually that meant a little free time after eating. Then workshop from 9:00 to 10:30 where there is a half hour break for snack time. Second workshop goes from 11:00 to 12:30. Lunch time! After lunch there are group activities (dance/art/drama workshops). After that free time until dinner at 8:30pm. After dinner we have an outing. On the first night we went to see "hing hoy" or fireflies. We drove about 15 minutes to a market. Soon as we got out of the car most of us got coconuts to drink the milk from a stand right on the corner of the market. Walking through the market was so cool! So much food and people and so many different kinds of things being sold.

We got to the place where we were suppose to get on the boat. After waiting for the boat for a bit all 28 of us got on. We headed away from the town down the canal. During the trip we motored past trees that were illuminated by the fireflies! They looked like Christmas trees it was sooo cool! It was a really fun time. I learned also that fireflies only mate once in their life and when the female firefly lays the eggs she dies and then the male takes care of the eggs for 11 months until the hatch! After all that they only live for 15 days! How crazy is that?!

Anyways after about an hour on the boat we got off. By that time (around 10pm) the market was closing up. We headed back to the house for the evening. We ended the evening with prayers and people taking showers. The ground was hard to sleep on and the girls were up chatting all night..but it's easy to fall asleep listening to them...(seeing as how I didn't understand what was being said). Overall the first day was really good!

The second day was the same as the first. This time I slept through the workshops though. They were children workshops and all in Thai so I couldn't even help, which sucked. But I observed as much as I could. So that afternoon we went on a couple outings. First we went to a lake where the kids took out paddle boats. The rest of the adult fed fish, there were soooo many! They were literally swimming on top of each other!! That took about an hour. During that time Yu and I got freshly made coconut ice cream on top of sweet sticky rice and topped with peanuts. OH MY GOD it was sooo good. Delicious. My new favorite desert! :)

After the lake we went to a temple where people prayed and stuff. The kids got fortunes from the temple. It was a beautiful temple covered by trees growing all around it. The kids and I took some funny pictures with some figures of men fighting outside the temple. Then we went to the most famous Catholic church in Thailand. It was a Protestant church. Apparently they don't believe in the Pope, I thought that was interesting. There was a guy there who told us a bit about the history of the church and the Catholics in Thailand. Catholics have been in Thailand for about 500-600 years and still only 3% of the population is Catholic. Very interesting. The Thai are very firm in Buddhist beliefs.

Finally after a long day of travelling around in the car and visiting different sights we headed home. That night being the last night, was the night for performances ( of the things the kids worked on at the dance/drama/art workshops ). One thing that drove me just about nuts was that for the dance workshop the kids were learning a dance to "Low" by Flo Rida.. "apple bottom jeans and boots with the fur" and ever since that first work shop the kids played it NON-STOP until that performance. One thing that was funny though was listening to the girls try to sing the words in the song. So cute! Well they did their performances and played some games and then it was off to bed.

The last day it was the same until after breakfast. We cleaned up the house a bit and loaded up the cars with the bags. On the way out of camp we stopped at a place where they breed Siamese cats. They were adorable but we were only there a short time, seeing as how cat urine and hot weather don't mix well. After that we went to the ocean! We went to see "Don Hing Lot"...some kind of sew shells but the tide was in so the water was too deep to see the shells. Anyways there was a little market where we stopped and there the kids and I saw a baby elephant and ate shaved ice with syrup and condensed milk. I even ate fried shrimp with the head and eyes and all! It was actually quite good. Finally we were headed home after another, long hot day!