Second day of camp we wake up at 6:30 to the sound of roosters crowing. We get dressed quickly and head out for morning prayers and exercise. We say prayers and we play some relay games before breakfast. Breakfast, of course, isn't steak and eggs; it's chicken and white rice in soup. We hang out a bit after breakfast and people grab some showers. Then we begin our first workshop around 9:00am. The workshops go for about 4 hours with a break in between. For break we get bananas in a grey coconut soup. It looks a bit weird but I try it and it tastes great! For the workshops some of my friends translate for me so I get the general idea of what's going on. We have lunch and then some activities and another workshop after that. During the second workshop break we have black jelly and ice. I don't understand the ice but I eat it anyways, also turns out to be rather good! (Me and Jit)
In the evening before dinner we all go to an obstacle course. We walk into the jungle surrounding the camp and there are obstacles that we must do. By now it's gettin dark and the mosquitos are going crazy on me. The obstacles were a little too much for me at the time...some were over very murky water and the bugs were driving me nuts so I didn't participate in all of the obstacles I'm sad to say but at the moment I was way to paranoid about falling into gross water and getting parasites or something! Dinner is large flat noodles with pork soup and veggies. I choose to eat the pork soup because the last thing I want is to be malnurished and hungry; I pick around the pork as much as I can though. After dinner I finally get to take a much needed shower after hiking through the jungle and being hot all day long. Sleep is much needed by the end of the day. (Yu, Mail, and Maprang)
Day three at camp is the same schedule as the first except we get to wake up a bit later. By now I'm a little frustrated with the camp to be honest. It's not their fault at all but I don't understand anything that's going on and I'm frustrated just having to sit there and listen to Thai all the time. Sometimes people translate for me but usually their English is so broken I don't really get the whole picture. I also get really tired in the middle of the day..I don't know if it's jet lag really or if it's just adapting to such a hot climate and everything. After lunch I sleep a bit though, instead of going to the last workshop. They undersatnd and let me sleep until there is an activity I should participate in. (Starting from top left > Noon, Pat, Yu, Sita bottom left> Pbang, Maprang, Mail, Pu, and Jit)
At camp it would rain everyday in the afternoon. Crazy rain..like hard core rain drops the size of gumball! The pavilion we sat under had a zinc roof so when it rained it made the whole pavilion echo. It was so loud! We were also asked to turn off our cell phones because being under a zince roof made us very suseptible to lightning strikes and even more so with cell phones on. A couple other things I found interesting about the camp was there were wild dogs everywhere! All the time the would just walk in the middle of our work shop and start scratching themselves in front of everyone or start fighting with one another. It was pretty comical at times. I also found that people use baby powder all the time on their faces to keep the sweaty look at bay. People who didn't rub it in well would come out with white faces. Haha. (Oh also in Thai the word for the number 5 is 'hah' so teens write '555' like 'hahaha'..thought that was funny) Everyone I met was very friendly and helped me to speak Thai. Maybe its and East Coast thing but I've never found people to be so warm and touchy. People I just met were hugging me and kissing me on the cheek, it made for a very friendly enviroment. Also Thailand is known as the 'Land of Smiles' even when they get upset Thais are always smiling. Finally I found that Thai women don't shave their legs. This, I guess, isn't that unusual considering Europeans but I never thought about how many things can be different. It's amusing to learn all these things. (Me, Pat, and FM) (This is a board of messages we all put up, on one of the hearts I praticed writing some Thai saying it was great to meet everyone and to help me speak Thai!)
Second day of camp we wake up at 6:30 to the sound of roosters crowing. We get dressed quickly and head out for morning prayers and exercise. We say prayers and we play some relay games before breakfast. Breakfast, of course, isn't steak and eggs; it's chicken and white rice in soup. We hang out a bit after breakfast and people grab some showers. Then we begin our first workshop around 9:00am. The workshops go for about 4 hours with a break in between. For break we get bananas in a grey coconut soup. It looks a bit weird but I try it and it tastes great! For the workshops some of my friends translate for me so I get the general idea of what's going on. We have lunch and then some activities and another workshop after that. During the second workshop break we have black jelly and ice. I don't understand the ice but I eat it anyways, also turns out to be rather good! (Me and Jit)
In the evening before dinner we all go to an obstacle course. We walk into the jungle surrounding the camp and there are obstacles that we must do. By now it's gettin dark and the mosquitos are going crazy on me. The obstacles were a little too much for me at the time...some were over very murky water and the bugs were driving me nuts so I didn't participate in all of the obstacles I'm sad to say but at the moment I was way to paranoid about falling into gross water and getting parasites or something! Dinner is large flat noodles with pork soup and veggies. I choose to eat the pork soup because the last thing I want is to be malnurished and hungry; I pick around the pork as much as I can though. After dinner I finally get to take a much needed shower after hiking through the jungle and being hot all day long. Sleep is much needed by the end of the day. (Yu, Mail, and Maprang)
Day three at camp is the same schedule as the first except we get to wake up a bit later. By now I'm a little frustrated with the camp to be honest. It's not their fault at all but I don't understand anything that's going on and I'm frustrated just having to sit there and listen to Thai all the time. Sometimes people translate for me but usually their English is so broken I don't really get the whole picture. I also get really tired in the middle of the day..I don't know if it's jet lag really or if it's just adapting to such a hot climate and everything. After lunch I sleep a bit though, instead of going to the last workshop. They undersatnd and let me sleep until there is an activity I should participate in. (Starting from top left > Noon, Pat, Yu, Sita bottom left> Pbang, Maprang, Mail, Pu, and Jit)
At camp it would rain everyday in the afternoon. Crazy rain..like hard core rain drops the size of gumball! The pavilion we sat under had a zinc roof so when it rained it made the whole pavilion echo. It was so loud! We were also asked to turn off our cell phones because being under a zince roof made us very suseptible to lightning strikes and even more so with cell phones on. A couple other things I found interesting about the camp was there were wild dogs everywhere! All the time the would just walk in the middle of our work shop and start scratching themselves in front of everyone or start fighting with one another. It was pretty comical at times. I also found that people use baby powder all the time on their faces to keep the sweaty look at bay. People who didn't rub it in well would come out with white faces. Haha. (Oh also in Thai the word for the number 5 is 'hah' so teens write '555' like 'hahaha'..thought that was funny) Everyone I met was very friendly and helped me to speak Thai. Maybe its and East Coast thing but I've never found people to be so warm and touchy. People I just met were hugging me and kissing me on the cheek, it made for a very friendly enviroment. Also Thailand is known as the 'Land of Smiles' even when they get upset Thais are always smiling. Finally I found that Thai women don't shave their legs. This, I guess, isn't that unusual considering Europeans but I never thought about how many things can be different. It's amusing to learn all these things. (Me, Pat, and FM) (This is a board of messages we all put up, on one of the hearts I praticed writing some Thai saying it was great to meet everyone and to help me speak Thai!)
1 comment:
Hey Sharo,
I know how tough the language thing is, your stories remind me of when I first got to PR, no clue about what was going on and tired all the time from listening so hard.
It took me a long time tho', because there were quite a lot of people that spoke English. Look's like you'll be faster just because you're in the middle of it.
The kids you're meeting sound like a lot of fun and I'm really glad you're finding out how real people are in other parts of the world.
I guess you're on the way to Yasothon by now, so I'll look forward to your next entry. Be sure to take lots of pictures on your trip out there!
Love you,
Dad
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