Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

or, Welcome Home! It's a Construction Zone!

That was an unintentional rhyme, btw. So, we are out of the hospital! Hooray! 24 hours after we got back, I was missing my mat on the floor of the hospital because the townhouse connected to ours was undergoing major construction. At least at the hospital, they would wake us up and 6am and then leave us be for 3 hours so we could pretend we were getting a full 8 hours of sleep. Not so here! The construction noise is so loud that Sophie had her tv turned up ALL THE WAY and I could not hear it until I sat directly in front of it. This morning at breakfast, we were standing about 2 feet away from each other screaming at the top of our lungs: “WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DRINK?” “WHAT?” “WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DRINK?” “ORANGE JUICE!” “WE DON’T HAVE ANY ORANGE JUICE!” “WHAT?!??” “WE DON’T HAVE ANY….” You get the point. Loud.

At one point Sophie was screaming at the wall WHY ARE YOU SO LOUD????!!!!!  Despite that, it’s nice to be home, OH, wait. I have not told you about what they are doing. So, I go outside to do some laundry and the entire back wall is missing for 3 stories. Like they just jackhammered the crap out of it and now there is no wall. Oh, and no FLOOR on the second level. I have no clue what they are doing, but I guess they really like their ceilings high. Today they built scaffolding out of bamboo and rope. Very interesting. And unsafe. I think. But what do I know? I’m not a builder. 

I also think that the demolition has caused structural damage to our house, because Sophie’s bathroom now is leaking dramatically from the floor and the other day, the plugs holding the pipes into the wall burst and started spraying water everywhere! We didn’t have water for a day because it emptied our water tank. Oy.

Ah, but speaking of construction, we are super excited about a team coming from Canada in February to help fix some of the kids’ homes. We went on a walk through of three of our most needy kids’ homes with an architect friend of Rob and Judy’s, Michael, who was able to give us an idea of what we could do to improve their living situation.

One house is up on stilts because it frequently floods underneath, but the stilts are made of wood, so they have been eroded over the years. We want to replace those beams with cement blocks to make it more stable.

House 2 currently has only one room to sleep in and we are going to divide it into 2 rooms so that the girl of the family has her own room and the boys have their own room.

House 3 is a total reconstruction project. The house has been falling down for months, and will not survive another rainy season. The walls are buckling and the roof has caved in more than once. The plan is to demolish it and rebuild with cement posts in the corners, as well as add a loft for sleeping in so there is space downstairs for the kitchen and a living space.

Hopefully we will have enough builders come to finish all 3 projects and be able to get a lot of the prep work done and supplies purchased before the team arrives in February. Please keep the building project in your prayers, as it is a big one but will give hope to the families involved that their lives can be better than they are. 

Stay tuned for the Christmas program update with pictures.

Chiang Rai, Poo Chi Fa and other Funny Names

So, I have written a little about the complications surrounding Sophie’s citizenship status, but this weekend was the most stressful part of it so far. Basically, because Sophie was born in the village at home, she has no official birth certificate. There is a village book where births are recorded, but apparently her families’ copy of it was lost years ago. In order to gain citizenship here as a hill tribe member, you have to apply for it through the government. For some reason, when her mom filled out the application, she put two names on the form for Sophie’s parents that were not really her parents. She also put that Sophie is two years older than she really is. Why, I have no idea, because it is really screwing with her life now. Even more complicated, her mom had one ID with her Akha name in Chiang Rai but then got a different ID with a Thai name in Mae Taeng. When she opened a bank account, it was with her Akha name, which is not officially recognized by the Thai government and she was admitted to the hospital with her Akha name, so now Sophie can’t access her families’ bank account either. It’s so, so complicated and hard to work all this out. They say it could take up to 10 years to get her Thai ID, which means that she will not be able to work a real job, have health insurance, own property, go to university as a citizen, or many other things.

So, Ning and I drove up to Chiang Rai, where Sophie’s mom’s village is to try to track down these people and get going on her Thai ID application process. We had a blast on the way there, jamming to my iPod with Thai music and Switchfoot (obviously). Ning kept saying how we were teenagers because of what we were listening to. So, we finally get to the province of Chiang Rai and Sophie sort of knows where we are going, but not really. In her defense, she hasn’t been there in nearly two years and has never driven there herself, she’s always gone with her mom. However, I had specifically told her to call the people in this village the day before to get very specific directions. So, what happened next was at LEAST 50% percent her fault.

We drive down this main highway looking and looking for the entrance to the village. We turn off the main road onto a dirt road. At first this is fine. I’m thinking it can’t be that far right? Wrong! SO wrong. We start driving down the dirt road and come to a fork. We sit there for about 10 minutes debating which way to go. The obvious answer is to call the people who live there, but wait! We have no cell service. Awesome. We decide to go right. Bad idea. The road gets more and more rocky and I’m driving super slowly over these rocks trying to avoid the numerous potholes and ditches and praying no one comes flying around a corner while I’m on the wrong side of the road. We are getting further and further from civilization and no people or houses in sight!

We finally come upon a guy on a tractor. He actually knows where this village is so he agrees to lead us there. We keep driving, the road getting ever more treacherous. Finally we come upon what can only be described as a pile of boulders. We are in a small SUV, but not a freaking bouldering Jeep for crying out loud! I was adamant that I was not going over this spot because it was too dangerous for the car. I was like “We leave it and walk” but Ning said that robbers would strip the car if we left it there, so we had to keep going. I wanted to turn around go back to the road, but it had already been an hour by this point, so finally I was so frustrated, I ordered Ning and Sophie out of the car to watch and tell me if the car was going to get the bottom ripped out by a boulder. I put it in 4-wheel drive and drove as slowly as possible over the rocks, but apparently not carefully enough because the exhaust pipe got cracked. (Too be honest, I’m not sure if this occurred at this point or later as we were climbing Poo Chi Fa in the fog on a road riddled with potholes.)

I was so stressed by this point from all the driving and not knowing where we were going, that Sophie got back in the car and was like “P’Heather, are you ok?” (in English). It made me laugh a bit and get a little less tense, but I was like “I don’t know. Is the car ruined?” Finally, we found the village and Sophie recognized the house we were going to. We met with the village elder (by we I mean Ning spoke for about an hour in Akha and I sat there trying to keep my stomach from growling.)

Finally, Ning looked at me and said, “We have to go to Mae Fah Luang. Now.” I was like, “Ok, let’s go.” By this point, it had been about 5 hours since we had eaten. I figured we’d get to MFL and eat some lunch. This plan was not to be. The village elder and another older woman joined us in the car, which required some rearranging, and we headed off. Yeah, so the way out was on a hard packed dirt road with very few potholes and very wide. This is the way we should have come in. It took about 15 minutes to get to the main road, rather than 90.

Now MFL is a province as well as a city, which I did not realize at the time. So, we exit for the city and get to the bottom of a large hill. We can either turn right or go straight. All the people in the car agree we need to go right. All the people in the car are wrong. So, we drive and drive, up and down windy roads. No, windy is putting it to mildly. They are basically Z curves stacked up so tight that I have to turn the wheel 100% to the left and then basically stop the car to turn the wheel all the way to the right to avoid smashing into the rocky mountain and stay on the road. These roads have no guardrails and in most places are about the width of a car. I am praying no one comes tearing around a corner going downhill. Luckily 95% of people in Thailand own motorbikes, not cars.

After driving for about 3 hours, Ning decides this is ridiculous and realizes that no one has a clue where we are or where we are going. We pull off the road at a village and ask the people for directions. “Oh, no,” they shake their heads. “You should not have turned right.” Three hours ago we should not have turned right. THREE HOURS! They decide that rather than describe where to go, they will just jump on a motorbike and lead us there. Thankfully, with someone who knows where they are going, this trip back down goes much faster. We finally get back to where we started and go up the other way, until the village people see the sign pointing to the village.

At this point, I am getting really irritated, hungry and tired, not to mention the stress of driving someone else’s car through these crazy mountain roads is giving me a massive backache. I am relieved that we finally are at the right turnoff, but another hour goes by before we get to the village and the further into the mountains we go, the narrower and more full of potholes the road gets. We stop at every village on the way this time, making sure we are going the right direction. We finally come to a building at the top of a hill and I’m like “This is it. I know this is it. I’m going up the hill.” But Ning says “No, that’s just a school, keep going.” I stop and I’m like “really? Really it’s just a school? Don’t schools need people? This is the village.” But of course, I know the least of anyone in the car, so I am outvoted. We keep driving another 20 minutes until we hit—wait for it—Burma! Yep, a dude with a machine gun and a gate you would see in a parking garage are just hanging out at the top of a mountain. The soldier probably hasn’t seen anyone in hours, and is a bit surprised to see a farang driving a bunch of Akha people around. We ask him for directions and shocker! I was right. I would like to say I refrained from saying I told you so, but at this point it had been 12 hours since I had eaten, so I totally said “I TOLD YOU SO!”

At this village, the guy we were supposed to be meeting was not there, he wasn’t coming home til about 8pm. It’s now 5pm so Ning and I wander around and meet some of the families who live there and play with the many litters of puppies running around. Sophie discovers that these people have a satellite, so she is happy just watching TV. Because she has to take medication at 5pm with food and we haven’t eaten since breakfast, I force her to eat all the fruit and chips and junk food in the car so she can take her meds. The wife of this village elder is so sweet and makes us dinner at about 7pm. Nothing better than Akha food, I’m telling you. Nothing. So good!! 

After dinner, the elder is still not back, so the entire village congregates around a fire and watches an amazing full lunar eclipse. Despite the many frustrations of the day, I gotta say, if I were almost anywhere else in the world at that moment, I would not have seen that, and it was pretty awesome. Because there are so few lights in the village and we are so far removed from any city the stars are incredibly bright and close and the moon is full so it’s so bright out. I keep hearing guns go off and it’s kinda freaking me out so I ask Ning about it. She tells me that in ancient times, when the moon would have this “problem” (I’m like well, it’s not a problem, it’s gravity, but ok) then they would all shoot guns to scare away the shadow from the moon so it could be free again. Kinda cool, right? Side note: They don’t put bullets in, just powder. That would be unsafe. 

Finally the guy comes back and Ning, the village elders from Sophie’s mom’s place, Sophie and myself sit there and go through all these documents and talk and talk and talk in Akha, so I’m completely lost. Finally, it’s over and we go to sleep. Oh yeah, did I mention it’s like 20 degrees F up here in the mountains? No? Oh, and Sophie and I are prepared for this by having flip flops, capris and t-shirts with a hoodie. Needless to say, I woke up with bronchitis. The fun continues. Strangely, Sophie, the one with the lungs ravaged by tuberculosis, has no ill effects from the cold whatsoever.

Our plan was to wake up early, like 7am and eat breakfast and go right away to get back to the other village and head out. The old people had different plans. I ended up sleeping for another hour in the car waiting for them to come back from finding the old people. Then we ate breakfast and waited some more for them to get some tea. So, only late by 3 and a half hours, we headed back to the Chiang Rai village.  

It only took 50 minutes to get back to the freeway. Then, we headed back to the village. Here is where communication broke down. For some reason, instead of turning into the village on the road we took out we took a “shortcut” that the elders “knew.” We start driving and driving and going up and down what is basically a goat path. Just dirt tracks where wheels have driven over, no road at all. I keep asking “Really? This is the way?” while elders bicker in the back over why they don’t know how to get to THEIR OWN HOME! Seriously? At one point, Ning is laughing, saying that first they blame each other, then Ning, and finally me for driving. I was so ticked, I was like “I will STOP this car and you can WALK yourself back to your village!! Are you KIDDING me?”  By the grace of God, I refrain from actually executing this threat because we come to a rise and see the main road below us. You’re safe for now old people, but watch out for next time. We drop them off and I’m like, ok, no time for chitchat. Let’s go. Ning is feeling the same way, so we say “Peace!” and drove off.

On the way up, Ning had talked about going to see Poo Chi Fa, a beautiful area of Thailand. “Since we are in Chiang Rai anyway,” she said. What does this statement lead you to believe? That Poo Chi Fa is close to the city of Chiang Rai, where we already were? Silly people. Of course it means that it’s another 4 hour drive to the very edge of Chiang Rai province and, incidentally, the edge of Thailand, overlooking Laos. (That’s a country, in case you are unfamiliar with Southeast Asia). Clearly I was just along for the ride, having no idea what exactly Poo Chi Fa was to begin with.

Yet more crazy windy roads, chock full of potholes and danger around every turn. We climb and climb and climb to the top of this mountain. It’s a holiday so when we finally get to the mini resort area it’s packed with people. It’s also freezing. Literally. It’s 0 degrees Celsius. Did I mention our packing preparation? We find a hotel, rent a room with a queen size bed, a door with huge drafts, and windows that are the slotted type, allowing all the cold air to blow right in, for the three of us for 500 baht (this is only about $18US but expensive for this type of setup in Thailand) and attempt to take a nap. We fail. For some reason, we have failed to notice that a huge loudspeaker was being set up in the parking lot/courtyard area of the hotel right outside our window. So, as soon as we start to fall asleep, the band starts up followed by announcements in Thai at 3000 decibels (or something like that).

We give up on sleep and go to buy some things to warm us up. Sophie gets a new hat and gloves while I get socks and a scarf to protect my throat in an attempt to deny the fact that I already have full blown bronchitis. Here’s a weird thing about Poo Chi Fa. Despite the fact that it gets incredibly cold in the winter, there are literally no restaurants that have walls. None. They are all open air. Imagine going to Utah for Sundance and having to eat outside all the time. You’d have to drink so much alcohol to keep warm! Come to think of it, that might be a great way to boost alcohol sales at Sundance (like they need it).

Anyway. So, we eat dinner all bundled up as much as we can and try not to spill our food with all our shivering. We find a place with hot cocoa, which I am excited about, and then head back to the room to take lukewarm showers, which arguably end with me colder than before I showered. I end up with the middle spot in the bed, which is fine by me since I’m freezing. My toes and fingers are white with cold by this point. Any extra body heat iss appreciated. All of us wear every piece of clothing we have with us to stave off the cold.

The next morning I finally understand what this whole crazy detour is about. We wake up at 4:30am. We pack up mostly and head to the main office where a bunch of other people are waiting already. I have no idea what is going on. “What are we doing?” I ask Ning. “They are taking us up the mountain.” Um, ok. We pile into a truck, Ning, Sophie and I scoring seats on the inside rather than in the bed of the truck. We drive up to the top of a hill and get out of the car. “Now what?” Ning replies, “Now we go up there,” gesturing into the blackness. My eyes finally adjust and I realize that there is even more mountain and that people are climbing it In the dark. They have flashlights for rent at the bottom, but why would I have brought money? I look at Sophie’s feet, clad in socks (day 3 or being worn) and her slip on sandals and look at my own crocs. We are not prepared to climb a mountain, but up we go. We keep losing Ning because we have to keep stopping so Sophie can catch her breath. The air is oxygen depleted up here and it doesn’t help that she is still fighting TB. We finally get to the top, or close enough. Let’s say we get to a point where I am fine not going any further. The moon finally breaks free of the clouds above and I realize what we are looking at. We are standing at the top of the world. In the moonlight, all around us we see peaks and valleys and oceans of thick clouds stretching into the distance. I try to take a bunch of pictures, but my camera is just not fancy enough to capture the view. 

It’s very exciting but very cold. Sophie and I are clinging to each other and Ning for warmth as we practically have convulsions from how cold we are. Finally, Sophie points behind me and screams for me to look. I turn around and there is the sun just peeking around the mountain. It gets lighter and lighter and the clouds are spectacular. We cannot stop taking pictures, but none can capture the splendor and beauty of what we are experiencing. Now I understand why we spent so much energy getting here. What an incredible experience to witness the beauty of God’s creation.

About 7am the novelty wears off and the cold and desire to return to warmth takes over. We head down the mountain, slipping and falling a few times, but luckily not off a cliff. At the bottom, Ning has money so we get some instant oatmeal type cups to warm up. At 7am, 1000 feet below where we had been standing it is 0 degrees Celsius. I estimate it must have been about 10 below where we were. That translates to about 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

We get back to the hotel, load up the car and take off back home. I have never been so excited to sleep in my bed in Chiang Mai. The bronchitis takes another week and a round of antibiotics to finally recover from, but the memories will live on. Despite all the stress, anxiety, frustration and downright anger I felt this weekend, I do not regret going because it was a great time of bonding for Sophie and me. I’m really glad I got to see where her mom came from and got to stay in a traditional Akha village and experience the kindness and generosity of the people there.

Loy Krathong

So, November is one of the biggest festivals of the year: the combination of Yee Pang and Loy Krathong. Yee Pang is when you send paper lanterns up into the sky. I’m not really sure what it commemorates, but every year at Mae Jo University thousands of people gather to send up lanterns at the same time. It’s just like in Tangled!! I was SO excited for this festival because we missed it by mere days last year when we were here on the mission trip. A bunch of people wanted to go, so we all met at Troy and Grace’s house (other missionaries) and rented a couple of song thaews to take us up and back. It was so crazy! It’s about 10 miles away and it took us over an hour to get there with the traffic. Finally, we got to the entrance. Only one problem: it was on the other side of a canal. Not the kind that you can just jump across, like a real canal. They had built a small bamboo bridge over the water for people to cross on because it was about a half mile one way to the next road across and about a mile and a half the other way to the main road across the canal. So, when I say bamboo bridge, I use the “bridge” loosely. Envision something out of Romancing the Stone or if you have never seen that movie, then picture two long pieces of bamboo tied together with twine for the walking part, one long piece of bamboo to act as a hand rail and two pieces of bamboo sticking up out of the water to stabilize the foot path and hand rail. Sound stable? Hahaha. Well, we were all up for an adventure and Ahna was desperate to get across because she was trying to meet her students from the school she used to teach at whom she hadn’t seen since she got back to town because the kids had been so busy. We finally all made it across (19 of us!) and headed into the campus.

There were already thousands of people there and more coming as we arrived. There was a really long Buddhist prayer, followed by a few hundred monks walking with candles and then they announced that the special monks were going to send up lanterns first, then everyone would send their lanterns up together. Man, that sight is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Standing in the midst of thousands of lanterns floating up into the night sky toward heaven was just an amazing experience.

After most had gone up, we found Ahna’s students and then reconvened and sat down to eat our picnic dinner that we had brought but didn’t have time to eat earlier. It was a nice time to hang out and catch up with the other farangs who I haven’t seen in ages. As we were finishing up, all these Mae Jo students started walking past and wanted to get a picture with this huge group of farangs. So, about 20 of them sat down with us and took a bunch of pictures. It was so funny! Normally, it’s foreigners who want pics with the locals, but in this case it was the reverse. It was kind of awesome. J

The past weekend (Nov 10-12) was Loy Krathong. The Krathongs are little floating flower bouquets put on banana leaves that you then Loy, or set on the water, to float away down the river. You can buy them everywhere along the river and they are so beautiful. Apparently, this festival celebrates the river goddesses from ancient Hinduism I think.

It started on Thursday with tons of fireworks going off everywhere! The streets were closed already because they were doing a small parade so it was difficult to get around, but so cool to see the fireworks everywhere. I bought a few to do with Sophie at the hospital. After work on Thursday, Ahna, Franziska, Inna, and I took Willow and Bastian from my class with us to see the fireworks from the bridge. On the way, we saw a little amusement park and decided to take the kids on the Octopus ride that I LOVED as a kid. BIG mistake (for me). I hadn’t gone on it for years, and was excited, but I get bad motion sickness, so I was fine for the first normal run, but they kept going, and going, and going, for maybe 10 ro 15 minutes!! Finally I signaled to Ahna, who had gotten off, that we had to get off NOW. They finally stopped it, but I was so dizzy I could hardly stand up, and Bastian was no better, he fell over when he tried to walk. It was not as much fun as we thought it would be. I was so woozy, I almost couldn’t get home. But, I am a trooper, and I had promised Sophie we would do Krathong, so I stumbled to find some and bought two with beautiful orchids and then made my way back to my motorbike as the others continued to the bridge where they stayed for two hours lighting fireworks and had a grad old time. I made it back to the hospital ok, and we got permission from the nurses to go to the moat to do krathongs and fireworks. It was fun and we got some cute pictures!

Friday was a big day for LK. First, Ahna and I took Ning to lunch for her birthday and we got her some running shoes which she has been wanting for months and months. It was nice to be able to get her something that she really needed and wanted and deserves and can’t afford herself. Plus, it was nice to just spend time with her outside work.

Then, Friday night, there was a huge parade where all the different schools make ginormous floats and then parade them down the street from Thapae gate to the big open air market and then up to the river where they put the floats on the water and they float downstream. It’s pretty amazing. We were there for 3 hours and the parade still hadn’t gotten to the point of the river where they actually put the floats in. I guess it goes all night long and there are literally about tens of thousands of people who watch it. It was great because we started at Thapae Gate and walked along Thapae Road to the river. Along the way, we saw the families of a lot of our kids from Taw Saeng and we ran into a bunch of our friends scattered along the road. I went with Ahna and her students from last year. Their float got first place, and it deserved it, it was a-MAZ-ing! We got a bunch of food, including cotton candy(!) and bought some Krathongs to send down the river. Ahna was conflicted about taking part in a Hindu festival, but I told her to rewrite it to be like reenacting the sending of baby Moses down the river and then she felt better about it.

For photos, see my Facebook page under the album: Yee Pang and Loy Krathong.

Kai is for Camp!, or An October Update

First, a quick medical update: Ok, so even though Sophie doesn’t have an active infection anymore, the doctors think she is still resistant to the drugs because it took so long to kill the active infection. Dr. Peninnah wants to keep her on the IV drugs for another 2 weeks to try to get her lungs better because IV drugs work faster than pills. Also, she wanted to add back in one of the two drugs that can cause Hepatitis and wants to keep a close eye on her and her liver function to see how she reacts to it. If she can go two weeks without having bad side effects and her liver is not affected, they can keep that as part of the regimen when she goes home. If that is not part of the regimen, then she will have to take all the other medicines for a year. If that is part of the regimen, then she will hopefully only need to take meds for 6 months.

We are hoping that she will get released this Friday (Nov 18), as Akha Thanksgiving is Saturday in Ning's village in Chiang Rai and  we would like to go! 

On to October happenings: 

First, it was my birthday in October and I was so happy that we got to be at home that week. I was like “All I want for my birthday is to sleep in my own bed,” and I got my wish. Sophie was so excited, she was like “We should do moogataw for your birthday and invite Winnie and her family and my friend Mook and people from Taw Saeng…..” on and on. I was like “ok, whatever.” I thought it would be fun, but more for Sophie than myself. A couple days before, Sophie said she thought Winnie’s family wouldn’t come because Winnie’s uncle was coming to visit, so I made sure to invite all the people from Taw Saeng because we had already spent about $40 on food!

That day, I took Winnie with me from Taw Saeng because she said she could come after all, and as we drove up, we saw candles and balloons on our front patio and both of us were like “wow!” It was so cute and decorated, with the moogataw (Korean BBQ grills) set up and lots of food and mats to sit on, with drinks ready and music playing. The music cracked me up because it was Justin Bieber, so I was like “yeah, it’s totally my 14^th birthday party.”  But it was all such a nice surprise because I was so tired from work and three weeks of staying at the hospital, it was nice to have something special for my birthday. Sophie had decorated everything herself but was really modest about it.

So, we started to get some plates and cook some food when all of a sudden Winnie’s family showed up: her mom, brother, cousin Nok and even Cody from Taw Saeng because Winnie’s mom was babysitting him! It was so surprised and happy that they got to come after all. Then, the crew from Taw Saeng showed up: Ning, Ahna and Inna. Plus we had Maiko, Sophie, me and Sophie’s friend Mook, so 12 people in all. It was such a great time. They even had gotten an ice cream cake for me! The cleanup took forever, even with people helping, but it was worth it because it was such a great birthday! 

The next morning, Taw Saeng was headed to camp with the Penguins and Tigers class, so I was up early for that! We had a team coming in from Denver, CO to help with the camp, and we had hired a special speaker to give a message to the kids. It was so nice to basically act as counselors and not have to really do a lot of planning because I think all of us (me, Inna, Ahna, Ning) were just exhausted from running everything for 2 weeks with just the four of us. It was nice to not have to think for a couple days.

Of course, that’s not to say we didn’t plan ANYthing. We had been working on plans for a couple of weeks, so we had an outline of what would happen when and were really excited to put on the camp for the kids. We had some games planned, but the team also had a LOT of games so we did a mixture of their games and ours and the kids had a blast. We did Capture the Flag, Water Balloon Toss, lots of balloon games from the team, an egg relay race, a Thai game called ShareBall, Red Rover and many more. The only problem was, it was SOOOO hot that day that we did all the games and were exhausted and drenched in sweat by 3:30, and we had planned to do games til 5! We decided to just give the kids free time to run around and play or sleep or just hang out with their friends til dinner at 5. That way we all got to take showers before dinner and relax a bit.

The other nice thing was that meals were catered there and we didn’t have to do dishes or anything. So, we had dinner after free time, and then headed to our meeting room where we did a couple rounds of Chubby Bunny (shoving as many marshmallows in your mouth as you can and still say “Chubby Bunny.”) It was so funny to see the kids doing it! Everyone wanted to try, but I only had two bags of marshmallows, so instead, everyone just got to eat a marshmallow.

Then we had a Thai band from a Thai church come do worship. It was awesome to hear songs I have sung a million times at camps throughout my life being sung in Thai! I got some of it on video and it was cool to see all the kids worshipping along. Then, Cynthia spoke about freedom in Christ while I snuck upstairs to put together gift bags for the end of camp the next day. The team from Denver had brought SO much stuff to give us; it was amazing and wonderful! We got to put more stuff in the goody bags than we thought we’d be able to. I had gone to the Christian bookstore to get some little gifts the day before, but they were gender specific, so I had to label all the bags so we would know who to give them to. The boys got magnets, yoyos or keychains with words like “peace” and “love” on them, while I got the girls little perfume bottles with Bible verses attached to them. For the kids on the winning team from games, I also got little notebooks with Bible verses on the front. Then, we put in stuff from the Denver team: candy, stretchy bracelets, pencils, and glow sticks.

After Cynthia finished speaking, the kids headed up to get ready for bed, but I was suffering from some sunstroke since, as usual, I had not drunk enough water that day during the heat. It was not fun trying to wrangle 13 teenage girls to get them into pj’s, brush their teeth and get into bed with the lights out. When we had finally gotten them all settled, Ning asked who wanted to tell a bedtime story and Peyton from my class wanted to. I couldn’t really understand it all, but later Ahna told me what she had said. Apparently, she started telling about a prince and princess and this kingdom they ruled. Then all of a sudden, an alien came and kidnapped the princess and the prince had to enlist the help of a magic bunny to get her back. It was the funniest thing listening to the story, because all the girls were silent while she was telling it, to the point that I thought most had fallen asleep, but when Peyton told the part about the alien and the magic bunny, everyone just cracked up! Finally, the story was over and they went to sleep.

We had rented one of the dorm rooms with 26 beds, so earlier that day, it had taken forever for the girls to pick where they wanted to sleep. Eventually, I ended up in between Faith and Amelie. Faith had night terrors all night, so I kept waking up to her crying and rubbed her back to get her to calm down. I don’t know if it is just being away from home, or if she has them at home too, but boy did it make sleep difficult. I couldn’t believe nobody else woke up! When everyone got up in the morning, I was barely able to open my eyes, I was so tired, but Faith just popped up like she slept like a baby all night! I could not believe she wasn’t tired at all.

After breakfast, we had an egg relay race and then a 3-legged race and then the Denver team took over and taught the kids some new songs that Ahna and I grew up with. Songs like “Halalalalalalelujah” and “God is Good all the time.” It was so fun to do them with the kids and reminded me of all the songs that are still buried in my subconscious that we could teach the kids. I’m not out of ideas for worship day after all! Then they did some skits about the Bible and taught about the whole history of the world up through Jesus death and resurrection. All in just 2 hours! 

When the Bible teaching was done, we played some games, and then headed to pack up and go to lunch. After lunch, I handed out the gift bags and the kids were all excited about them. We headed back in our Song Thaews and half the kids fell asleep. I nearly did too after all the excitement and exhaustion. All in all, a very successful camp experience for the kids. I think the next time, we will send them to a full weekend church camp with kids from all over Thailand, like Lake Retreat (the camp I went to when I was a kid).

After our return, I took Lucy to the bus station to buy us tickets to Mae Sai. I hadn’t gotten to hang out with her in months because she was so busy with school, so since we had a week off, I asked her if she wanted to go up and go shopping with me. She was SO excited to go! We had a really fun time, but the bus was almost 40 minutes late, so we had limited time to shop. Even so, it was a pretty successful trip. I got a bunch of stuff I needed and some stuff for Christmas and birthday presents too. It was nice to spend time with Lucy since we hadn’t had a chance to catch up in so long.

At the end of that week, I took Lucy and her little 4-year-old cousin Annie to the zoo. I had wanted to go for such a long time, and Nahng Annie had been begging to go, so I said I’d take them. It was so much fun! Here you get right up next to the animals and can feed a lot of them for just 75 cents! We fed hippos, elephants, giraffes, and you can even feed jaguars with meat on a skewer. We didn’t do that. The only thing separating you from them is a chain link fence, and their claws are probably sharp enough to cut through that, so if they got it in their head that you were being stingy with the meat, they might just eat the people for dessert. All of us were so excited to see the pandas too! They have three here, the mom, dad and baby girl panda, Lin Ping. They were all asleep when we went, but they are still cute!

We saw basically all the animals you normally see in zoos, only they are a lot less contained than in American zoos. The monkeys could easily just swing out of their cage and into the next ones, but for some reason they don’t. Also at zoo that we didn’t see: the aquarium, complete with those huge plastic balls that you can go inside and run around on top of the water. They also have a SnowDome where you can rent winter jackets and go sledding for a real winter experience or if you are having snow withdrawal as a foreigner. I was excited that I got to hang out so much with Lucy this week to make up for the fact that I don’t get to see her often. And Nahng Annie is such a cutie, I love hanging out with her too.   

 


 

Still in Hospital? Yep, that's us!

So, after a week at home, during which Sophie's fever reappeared, we checked back into the hospital for another 2 week stay. During the week we were home, Sophie's body went back to normal. Apparently the docs consider a jump in liver function from mid-20s to over 800 to be "slightly elevated." Of course I didn't find this out until I met with them 5 days after being readmitted with no medication starting up.

The newest information is that there are 2 drugs in the regimen for TB that can cause hepatitis. That is why as soon as her liver test came back abnormal, they removed her from all medication. Now we have stopped both of those medications. The problem (of sorts) is that before she was taking 4 drugs in one pill once a day, but two of those drugs were the liver affecting ones. In order to not take those, now she is on an IV drip twice a day and has to take 3 pills 3 times a day. Sophie is taking it all in stride though, and she is happy that these pills are so much smaller and easier to swallow.

Today marks two weeks of being back in the hospital and last Friday was one week into her IV antibiotic treatment. If all goes well, this coming Friday (Nov 4) she will finish the IV, they will test her sputum and blood as well as do a chest x-ray and if her tests come back at a level 0 for infection, we will get to go home on Monday, where she will continue to take pills for the next 4 months. At this point, they want to reintroduce one of the liver affecting pills in a smaller dose to see if she can handle it.

Happily, she has gained 4 kilos back, which was a prerequisite for us going home, so I'm excited about that. Also, her fevers have stopped, so the infection is definitely diminishing, if not gone already. I'll post separately about the amazing time we had at camp with Taw Saeng as well as getting to go to the Yee Pang festival and see thousands of lanterns sent into the sky at once, a la Tangled!

Tuberculosis or Wanarot

Disclaimer:  I have been trying to post this for about a month now, but the password software has been not cooperating, so I finally just removed the pictures so I can post it.


Well, the past three weeks have been less than fun. That is an understatement. At times the past three weeks have been downright terrifying. It all started when Sophie had a fever for a week straight. Well, really it all started when I got here and Sophie was having intermittent fevers of over 100 degrees on a regular basis. After her mom passed away, I said that as soon as she moved in, I was taking her to the hospital to get her checked out. Well, she kept having fevers and this terrible cough, but she kept convincing me that it was because of the rain, because of her asthma, because of marching in band all the time. Plus, she was scared to go due to both her parents dying in a hospital, which is understandable. Finally, I bought a thermometer (who knows why it took me so long) and started checking her temperature several times a day. She had a fever of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit every single time I took her temp for a week straight, other than Wednesday morning. She kept claiming she was fine though and she wanted to go to school so I let her.
Finally, Wednesday morning, she had a normal temp, so I felt better about sending her off. Sure enough, an hour later she calls from school saying that she had a fever and had thrown up, so I came to meet her at school and sign her out. I was like "OK, that's it. We are going to the hospital right now." We came to the best hospital in Chiang Mai called Suandok. We had never been here before so we had to fill out a new form. I made Sophie put her real birthday on the form because I knew that if she put the date that was on her school ID, they would send her to the adult ward, and I wanted her checked out in the pediatric department. I don't know why, but for some reason when she registered for school, her mom put that she was born in 1995, making her 16, not 14. Since she has no Thai ID, they would use this for identification purposes, so I made sure that she told them that her school ID was wrong.

Anyway, we finally got sent to the pediatric ward and saw a doctor. Finally, I could speak English and he could understand me and vice versa. I told him about the fevers, the cough, the sinus congestion, that she had been losing weight and had trouble breathing at night while she slept. I told him about the 4 rounds of antibiotics that she had taken over the course of the summer, none of them doing any good. I told him about her parents and the stress that had been on her. He decided to do some blood work and see if they could figure out what was going on.

Sophie freaked out when she saw the needle. I mean FREAKED out, crying and holding her arms away and begging me not to let them take her blood. I literally had to hold her down to let them stick her; it was traumatizing for both of us. We had to wait an hour for the labs to come back, so we went down and got some lunch. Then, the most surreal thing happened. We could hear music from where we were sitting and when we went back toward the hospital, Sophie said "P'Heather, music!" We looked over and there was a nurse, in full nursing uniform, and a police officer in full uniform (including sunglasses and baton) singing and playing away in front of a crowd of patients waiting for the doctors to come back from their lunch break. Not only singing, but singing Patsy Cline of all things! It was crazy. We sat down and listened for the rest of the show and lunch break. They didn't sing any more English, but the nurse had a really good singing voice and the cop also played the harmonica! It sounded like any acoustic indie band in the States and I kept expecting to just understand the songs.

So, surreal lunch over, back upstairs we went to await our fate. The tests came back fine for her liver and kidney function but they did detect a bacterial infection in her blood. We saw a new doctor, a woman this time, and she said there are several tropical fevers that present with just a fever and no other symptoms, so she was prescribing a strong antibiotic that should drop the fever in 24 hours. We were supposed to take her temp every 4 hours and come back on Friday to tell them how she was.

Well, that night, no fever, the next morning no fever. Yay! Or so we thought. Sophie came to Taw Saeng after school with a fever, but said she felt great. She was the most upbeat and energetic I'd seen her in weeks, so I thought it was all ok. By the time we got home, she had spiked a fever of nearly 104, so I knew it was something worse. Much worse, I feared.

That night, I hardly slept at all, plagued by dreams of worst case scenarios.

I took her temp during the night in her sleep and in the morning. Her fever never broke. We went to the hospital for our appointment and waited for 2 hours to be seen. Finally, the nice lady doctor from the other day saw us. The tests came back negative and because she still had such a high fever (38.3 or 100.26F) the doctor wanted to admit her for more tests. I was like “What do mean ADMIT her? When?” The doctor says “now.” I start flipping out. I’m like “What do you mean NOW? Can’t you just take more blood? Can’t it wait?” She’s like, “Uh, no.” So she sent us for a chest x-ray because of the suspicious cough. I was glad for that because I have been wanting her to have a chest x-ray for ages. But, I was still freaking out. The last time I had seen this combination of symptoms was in college when my friend Kathryn was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease.

I called my friend Mon (who is a nurse and works at Suandok a lot) while Sophie was getting her x-ray and sort of freaked out and she talked me down saying she was sure it was just an infection and they would give her some IV antibiotics. So, we go up to the children’s ward to get admitted and wait for the x-ray. While we are waiting, they say, “OK has she had other symptoms? Weight loss?” and I’m like “Yeah, she’s lost 7 kilos in 2 months.” The x-ray comes back and her lungs are white. Not black like they are supposed to be, but really cloudy. So, they say, OK she has a chronic infection. We think it’s tuberculosis. At which point I think, “Ha, I was right! I hate being right about horrible things.” About a month ago, I had thought, “What if it’s TB?” but then she never coughed up blood, so I thought, how could it be TB? But at least TB is not cancer, right? It’s treatable, she will be fine.

After a decade of waiting, they finally decided to put her in an isolation room on the children’s ward. No TV and it looks like it’s a storage room, but at least we have our own room and no big rooms with 25 babies in cribs like all the other rooms on this floor. I had called Ning when they were going to admit her, so she came to the hospital and of course arrived just as things were starting to happen. They were taking blood so I had to go with Sophie cause she was freaking out again and I handed the phone off to a doctor to give her directions. The head doctor wanted to talk to me after they took Sophie’s blood and I was like “OK, great, I would love to know what is going on.” I asked her to wait for Ning to get there so we could hear at the same time. She was kind enough to speak in both English and Thai so we could both understand everything. She asked if she had thrown up at all lately, and I told her all the days I could remember that she had in the past month. I felt guilty that I hadn’t brought her sooner but every time she had thrown up, either I didn’t know about it til a day later or so or it was just before school and she said it was because the food from the day before was bad. Always it was just once, never throwing up like flu symptoms.

She said again they thought she had TB and she would have to be admitted for 2 weeks! What?! Where is that money going to come from? Plus, I have to get tested and Maiko and maybe everyone at TS. Then, the bombshell that was not even on my radar, not even in my brain, not even the slightest concern: “We also think she has HIV.” HIV? What? What do you mean HIV? How would she have even gotten HIV? Then I remembered. The blod transfusion when she was 7 and in the hospital. That has to be it. Things started to fall into place. Her weak immune system, Abby saying that as long as she has know Sophie (5 years) she has been sick and had a weak immune system and had this cough. Plus, her parents had “suspect medical history” so maybe she contracted it that way. Although, I feel like if she was born with it, they would have caught it much earlier and she would not be as healthy as she is now. Basically, the doctor needed our permission to test her for it, so of course I gave it. She was like “Don’t worry, now there are good drugs. She’ll lead a normal life. Life expectancy is very long.” Yeah, but that means that every day for the rest of her existence she has to take a handful of drugs, expensive drugs, drugs we have to pay for from where? Her whole life will be altered. Altered, but not ended. At that point, I was like “Um, can I have cancer back? I understand cancer. Cancer is beatable. HIV is not.”

Ning and I decided not to tell anyone yet until the test comes back in the morning. I headed home to get some stuff and on the way back, called Mon again to tell her. She was like “Uh. Yeah, I was trying to figure out how to tell you that you should have them test her for that. Her parents died from suspect reasons and from what you have told me about her history in the past 6 months, I was thinking that.” She told me to talk to a social worker and explain the situation and that we serve an awesome God. I had my little meltdown on the phone with her as she was talking and saying that God definitely put me in her life for a reason and this is it. That I am a tough cookie and really strong and not everyone could handle this and not to freak out.

Well, long story short, after 3 days, not one, we finally found out that she is HIV-negative. Hooray! No more sleepless nights. Ha ha, yeah right, anyone who has slept at a hospital knows that you never get a full night's rest. So, here we are, one week into isolation, praying that her tests will come back improved on Friday so that we can go home on Monday. Unfortunately, we still have two months of house quarantine to deal with, but at least people can come visit. Luckily, I was able to speak to Sophie's teachers and they will come to the house to give her finals tests and help her stay up with her homework for the two months she will be out of school. Thank the Lord for gracious teachers, which are rare in Thailand! 

Also, I am thankful for the head doctor on her case, who is also a Christian! She was talking to us about how happy she was that the HIV came back negative and that she truly believed we were all here because God put us all together at this moment in time and God has a plan for us. It was kind of awesome actually, and made me feel so much better knowing that our doctor is a Christian. 

Now we are in isolation, hopefully with only one more week to go before we go home for a two month quarantine stay and 6 months of medication.  

Well, I guess I'll update before posting this. We have now been here for almost 3 weeks and are going home on Monday for  just one week while Sophie doesn't have to take medicine. The doctor thinks the dosage is too high because it is giving her jaundice and headaches and stomachaches. She wants to let her system flush the meds for a bit and then we have to get readmitted and figure out the correct dosage. When we were admitted, her TB level was 3+, now it is down to 1+ but we can't go home and stay home until it is at 0. 

In other news, our house flooded with waist deep dirty river water from all the flooding happening in the north. Fun times. So, between working, taking Thai lessons and staying at the hospital trying to keep Sophie from losing her mind with boredom, I now have to take my motorbike to the shop, and go home every spare hour I have to try to clean everything with bleach before we go home on Monday so that it's sanitary for Sophie. Not trying to say pity me, but just wanting people to know why it's been a whole month without a post. :) 

 

August update

Wow, it has been over a month since I posted or wrote anything down! And I used to be so prolific. Having a kid is quite the time suck. haha But, it's also the best thing I have ever done, so I can't complain. So, August was a whirlwind of things happening, but of course when I try to pinpoint exactly why I was so busy, it takes some thinking. Life just happens, I guess.

This month has been great. I have had Sophie for 5 weeks now and we have gone from being sort of unsure of each other to her telling dentists and doctors that I am her mom. This month we had a scare that she nearly had to have a root canal! Thank goodness for second opinions. She just needed a cavity in the end, but it required her to miss a whole day of school waiting to be seen, so I had to write my first “Please excuse my kid’s absence” note, which was fun. Then she got the flu for a few days, so I had her stay home one day with a 103 degree temperature. This poor kid gets sick every time it rains. I think it’s a combination of a stressed immune system and the stress of losing both parents in a year. All in all though, she is nothing but a joy to have around. I thank God every day that he bestowed this great kid on me. My friend Ruth compares us to Rory and Lorelai on Gilmore Girls because we both talk super fast and we share so much stuff. I have become one of those people who talks about their child incessantly too, I have noticed, so sorry in advance. :)

Maiko, Sophie and I have started a routine of going grocery shopping at the big Target-esque stores one Monday a month and then having prayer meetings and just chatting about our weeks on the other Mondays. It has been nice to have some hangout time and check in with what everyone is doing.

August highlights/events:

We have a new director/COO named Larry who is really cool and interested to hear everyone's opinions and input for new ideas. He sat each of us down individually for a long talk about how we got to Thailand, what we do with Taw Saeng and our ideas for the future of Taw Saeng. He also has a Master's degree in Camping and even wrote a book on the subject, so our camp next month should be fun!

We visited the Anaban school behind Taw Saeng's current location and it is awesome! It would be perfect for us. We had a good talk with the owners, and they really like our program and want us to have it, it's just a matter of coming up with $1.6 million US. Yikes.

I had Ryan make me an Admin on our Facebook page so I've been trying to update that more often. Like us! We rock! There are also pictures of the Anaban school up.

I met with some other Covenant missionaries here, and had a nice dinner with their family. They have lived here for nearly 16 years! It's nice to have some contacts with other people from my denomination nearby.

We visited the location of our camp for next month and it should be perfect! There is a big soccer field, a dorm room for 26 people to sleep in, and space for meetings and they would feed us too. It really feels like a scaled down version of my childhood church camps. so I am super excited!

Ning, Ahna and I went to Pai for our August holiday and spent 4 days in the mountains. It was beautiful and fun, but not as relaxing as I had planned, haha. We rented motorbikes and drove around the countryside, seeing waterfalls and constantly thinking we were lost. We got massages, went to the hot springs and ate a lot of food. We went to Mae Hong Son for one day, which was another 3 hours from Pai and it was gorgeous! We got mud facials, saw a fish cave (so full of fish, you can't see the water for the fish) and went to the top of a hill that overlooks the city where a beautiful temple is built. It is a spectacular view! Our hotel was right on a lake and it was such a nice day. We were so lucky to not get rained on at all the whole time we were there! Of course, it poured the night we were in Mae Hong Son, so we missed out on the walking street there, but I got plenty of souvenirs in Pai, so no worries. Ahna and Ning went back to Pai for a fifth day, but I went home early to take Sophie to the dentist. Fun times. :)

Other exciting news: Winnie's dance team won first place at the nationals competition! I am so so proud of her and her team. They are really amazing dancers. I am devastated that I didn't get to go see her perform in person, but the contest was 12 hours away by car and there is no airport that I could have flown into. Supposedly, there will be a dvd though that i can watch, but it's so not the same

We did have some sad events too: Rob and Judy went back to Canada for 4 months and are ending their time as directors of Taw Saeng. We will still see them when they come back and they will still be involved to some extent with us and the kids, but on a smaller scale.

We also said goodbye and good luck to our Aussie teachers, Em and Marie-Clare, who are going back to Australia to have a baby boy! They were great, so we will miss them a lot. Ahna is now teaching the little Dolphins class and we have a new 18 year old volunteer, Franciszka, who is helping her and is also going to teach hip hop dance classes!

In just a few days we will be losing Field, one of our staff members, to another organization in Mae Taeng. This is so sad because she is the English Curriculum director at Taw Saeng and does so much other stuff, I don't know how we will cope without her! Life will not be the same, that is for sure. But, hopefully we can find someone to try to fill her shoes and carry on with the curriculum. Of course, I wish her all the luck in the world in her new job, even though it will be hard to lose her.

Well, at this point, that is all the news I can remember in brief. I'm sure I'll remember something later that was super important, but I'll just post later.

Oh, in case you read this but are not on Facebook: In honor of my 32nd birthday in October, I'm asking all my friends to donate $32 to our camp fund. Camp will cost about $500 for everyone to go and stay for 2 days and one night, so I think we can swing it if we have enough donations! You can donate right here: just press the donate button to the right of this post!

End of Quarter review

July 23, 2011

This week was ok, but the kids were complete nightmares on Wednesday, fighting with each other, not listening to me or anyone, poking the bird outside with rulers, etc, etc. So frustrating! I have the feeling that even if I could speak perfect Thai, they still would not be obeying. It’s utter chaos! So, I had Ning come in on Thursday and of course, then they were perfect, so it’s hard for me to show her what I am talking about when they are in utter chaos. However, they did do their dramas and it was great! They all know their lines almost perfectly. Four still needs some help with some of her words, but the others know their little lines so well! I think we will rock the competition at drama day next week. Now the exam is another story…

We got two new kids this week: Bradley, who it turns out is Willow’s little brother, and Bonnie (I picked this pseudonym because she reminds me of the little girl in Toy Story 3). They are so adorable and the first day, Bradley came up and just gave me a hug at the end of the day. I hadn’t even spent much time with him. But, now that I know he is Willow’s brother, maybe she told him that he can get hugs from me, haha. Little Bonnie is so adorable and is now our youngest kid at 3 years old. She is so cute, I just want to cuddle her all the time! The older girls in the Dolphin class tend to look out for her, but on her 3^rd day, she just came over to me and wanted me to read her stories all afternoon. Such a cutie! At the end of the day Friday, we were waiting for someone to come pick her up, and Ning’s nephew (who is about as old as we are) came to take her home because he lives near her mom, which is also near Ning’s sister’s hair salon.

Well, Bonnie didn’t know Ning’s nephew very well, so she was crying and wanted to go with Ning on her motorbike, but NIng is so nervous about driving anyway, she did not want the added responsiblility, so I was planning to get my hair cut anyway, so she ended up riding with me. I had to laugh because I am driving progressively younger kids on my motorbike. First Sophie, then I drove Bastian home the other night, and now a 3-year-old. Next thing you know, I’ll be strapping a baby to my back and driving through traffic. Needless to say, I was terrified of having some motorbike accident while driving this precious cargo, and I had no idea where I was going, so it was a good thing that Ning drives really slowly so I didn’t have to worry about losing her, just keeping my balance with the little one. Luckily, she is used to riding on her mom’s motorbike, so she hung onto the mirrors like a pro.

Once we got to the salon, her mom was there, but she just wanted to sit on my lap and tell her mom about her day, while tying a blue sparkly pipe cleaner around my wrist. When she left, she was so cute, waving and saying “See you again!” in cute little Thai accented English.

Saturday, Sophie and the rest of her stuff finally moved in to the house. I went to meet her at 8am, (ugh) and we loaded up her fridge and the last of her clothes onto a Tuk Tuk owned by the family who bought her house. We caravanned to our house and unloaded. Then, we had some breakfast and I went to Taw Saeng to meet the rest of the peeps and go do home visits. I thought it would take much longer and I thought Ning had called ahead to the families so we could pray with them, but not so! We did meet with several of my kids’ families: Faith and Penny, Willow, Peyton. We also met with Naya’s family, as well as Aaron, Nat and Buddy’s dad and grandma and Ewan’s family (including baby brother). We saw but didn’t meet with Yvonne, Nell, Gabby, and Molly and Matty.

It was cool to see where all the kids lived, they are all so close and I drive past most of their houses on my way to work every day.

After we were done there, Ning and I took Sophie and Winnie out for ice cream and tried to go see Harry Potter, but it was sold out and we didn’t want to wait for a late show. We had a fun time hanging out at the mall and eating yummy Swensen’s ice cream and did a little bit of shopping too. We finally ate dinner and headed home.

For those of you who have been waiting for photos of me on a motorbike, here you go!

Last week was a big week for us at Taw Saeng. It was the end of our first quarter teaching the new curriculum, so we all had tests and we got to see everyone perform their drama! My Penguins were awesome at the drama but less so on the written test. I think I made it too hard for them. We went over it for a full week in preparation for the test and I gave them a copy to take home and study but clearly they did not. Even the best kids did not do well, so I think I just had too high expectations for them. However, in the Thai school system, 50% is a passing grade, so at least most of them passed! Haha

We had the test on Tuesday and did a dress rehearsal of our dramas on Wednesday to perform them on Thursday. The kids were so excited to do their stuff in front of everyone. We did three skits, one for each Bible verse the kids had studied. The first skit was everyone about how everyone is a part of a bigger whole in Jesus’ body and everyone is important, so each kid was a body part and told what they could do and what they couldn’t do. Then, Jesus comes at the end to tell them they are all important. I was very proud that they all remembered their lines. They were great!

The second skit was just Willow and Miriam talking about how we should give thanks in everything. They did a great job, even though they had to read off their scripts.

The third skit was based on the verse “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” Each kid was a different animal that we had studied the name of and they each said “Dogs (or Cats, frogs, etc) praise the Lord like this: bark bark” or whatever noise their animal makes. It was so cute! The girls had all learned how to play the song for the Bible verse so we pulled the piano down and they all got to sing the song for everyone. It was super cute and we won the prize for best drama.

Overall we got third place between the test, behavior points and the drama, but to be fair, the other two classes have twice as many students so the lower students’ grades get boosted by the better students’ grades when you average them out. Also, Bastian literally missed every single class in this section and only came back for the test, but his score was still counted in the average, so that didn’t help matters any. Anyway, the point is that all the classes scored over 80% so they all get to do something special that Field has to decide on.

Friday night I only had one kid for piano so that was nice to get to just practice with her the whole time. Yvonne decided she didn’t really like piano as much as she thought she would, so she switched with Miriam because Miriam really wanted to learn. This week Amelie was doing school stuff, so it was just Miriam and I. She is really good at it and has a great memory too, plus she really enjoys it.

Saturday was quite the day. This week was the first week that Sophie stayed with Maiko and I the whole week, and it went great. It has been a while since I had the schedule of going to bed at 11pm and getting up at 6:30am so it took some adjusting for me, but I discovered that it lets me have so much time to go running, do errands and prep for class. Plus, it’s been nice to have some one-on-one time with Sophie to talk about her day and her friends and just life stuff. Sophie wanted Winnie to spend the weekend this week, and we were fine with it because we love Winnie too. Both girls had school events early on Saturday morning, so we were all up at 6:30am, drove Winnie to dance practice at her school, then went to Sophie’s school for a parent meeting and to get the kids’ first quarter grades. Sophie is doing ok, considering the year that she has had. She is getting the top score in three of her classes, so I am very proud of her.

Sophie had a school project due for Social Studies on Monday, so her friend Ying came over to work on it. First, we went to the mall to buy tickets for Harry Potter for that night! Ning and I were taking Lucy, Fiona, Winnie and Sophie to see it, but it keeps being sold out, so we wanted to get advanced tickets. Then the three of us had lunch at the food court and went back to the house. As soon as I got home, Winnie called and was done with dance, so I ran over to pick her up so the girls could stay at the house to work on their project. I dropped Winnie back at the house and raced over to Taw Saeng where almost all the kids were there and ready for swimming at Rob and Judy’s house!

I had the forethought to organize the swimsuits for all the kids earlier that week, so I had a list of every suit and every kid it went to and they were separated by class, so handing them out went fast. They were all suited up before we left, which was perfect because every time we go, it takes about 40 minutes to get everyone in clothes that fit and into the pool. This way it maximized their swim time. The day was way less of a disaster than I had feared it would be. First of all, we had Elizabeth, Kyla and Marie-Clare as lifeguards on the side, then we had Em, Rob and I in the pool and Judy came in for a bit too. We made all the little kids start in the lap pool, which is shallow, but deep enough for the kids to have fun in. Eventually, they split and started going into the big pool, but I played lifeguard in the water and kept dragging them back to shallow water if they started swimming into the deep end. They all had such a blast, and it was fun to see them enjoying the freedom of a big clean pool, since most had only ever swum in the moat before.

After we dried off and cleaned up, we headed back to Taw Saeng and Ning and I ran to the house to get Sophie and Winnie and go to the theater, where Lucy and Fiona met us. We all loved Harry Potter, and I loved seeing it for the second time. Haha. Of course, as soon as we got out of the show, Winnie had a text message saying that she had to go back to school at 7:30am for more dance practice! Ugh. It was almost 11:30pm when we got home, so I was not looking forward to getting up early to take her. And of course, the girls wanted pancakes for breakfast, so how could I say no to that?

Up early again on Sunday, I drove Winnie to school and came home to eat some of the pancakes I had made for all of us. Sophie had a bunch of stuff to do for school and things to buy, so I decided we would skip church this one time since we were both exhausted. It was a really nice day taking it easy. I got to nap in the afternoon, helped Sophie finish her homework, did a bit of writing, and just chilled out before I went to pick up Winnie from dance practice.

In the evening, Maiko had some friends over for dinner, so I helped prep stuff for sushi and Japanese pancakes, which was fun. Dinner was delicious and I ate SO much! We had shrimp sushi and egg sushi which was great because I am still not sold on the whole raw fish sushi idea.

Finally, I dropped Winnie back at her house and came home and crashed!

An exhausting but exciting couple of weeks!