The Volunteer Project

Sadly, tomorrow is my last day at our volunteer project. So far everything has been amazing! There are only eight of us on the project, but it is nice having a small group because we have all gotten to know each other better. Samantha Sanderson, Mecca, Behn, and Gillian are from Canada, while Andrew, Paige, Lauren, and I represent the Americans. Our project leader is Kaptan, who is from Thailand and luckily speaks Thai and some Burmese. Kaptan is a character and loves photography, so he provides optimal entertainment and takes heeps of pictures. We are the only westerners that I have seen in Mae Sai, the town we're in. It is a very unique experience getting to be a part of the local culture. We have gotten to where we recognize many of the childrens' faces on the street, and the local store owners are starting to expect us to come by each day to buy our daily ice cream. Working at DPDEC has been so much fun teaching the kids English and playing soccer with them each day. I even scored a few goals! Today we played our final game with the kids in the pouring rain.

Teaching is fun but very difficult because the children know almost no English and their teachers do not know enough English to understand us, so every activity we do has to be able to be explained with just hand gestures. I am going to miss hanging out with the children each day, but I will also miss the precious puppy who lives at DPDEC.

 One thing I won't miss as much is all the hard work we do when we are not teaching the children. We are building a wall around the school, and it is hard work! We carry buckets of concrete and have to do heavy lifting. I'm pretty sure my arms have gotten a lot stronger. Yesterday was the first day that my arms weren't killing me. Luckily Thai messages are very cheap! I have already gotten 3!

 I think I might have already gained ten pounds being here because I loveeeeeee Thai food, and I love fruit which is served with every meal except breakfast. I have tried so many new fruits like guava, leeche, rambutam, long kong, and long gon. One of the highlights of being here is all the new foods I get to try. Kaptan says I must have been Thai in another life because I love all the food so much.

 On our days off we have gone on great sight seeing adventures, like visiting the museum of the Golden Triangle. We learned about the history of the wars fueled by the opium industry. I didn't realized how much opium influenced so many countries around the world. We have also been to local markets, and the local teenagers took us around to see local Buddhist temples. This past Sunday we went to a lake a discovered a cave, that was awesome to explore. One of the cool things about some of the local temples is that some of them are actually in caves.