It's been a fun couple of days here in Chiang Rai.
I hope you're all well! I hope you had a great Christmas and brought in the New Year in style!
We haven't really been teaching that much over the last week or two because of the end of year wind down. I spent one day at a local school helping out marking lines on a soccer field and then painting lines on a dual volleyball and basketball court which was good fun. I have also spent some time at the hosptial which was really hard actually. There was a 3 year old girl who was very sick with acute lymphatic leukemia but she was the sweetest girl I've ever met. For a three year old, she was so switched on and so smart and we spent the whole afternoon laughing at each other. It was such a great feeling to make just the smallest difference in someones life for a few hours.
Christmas was a really good couple of days and certainly very different compared to anything at home. On Christmas Eve we went to one of the local villages in the hills and spent the night walking from one house to the other singing Christmas carols. The villagers would sing us a Christmas carol in their traditional dialect, and then we would sing a song in English, and then the Japanese volunteers sung in Japanese! It was really great hearing the different songs that everyone sings, and we were really blown away by the local singers - they had harmonies galore and made us western volunteers sound like a bad audition from Australian Idol! On Christmas morning we woke up to a delicious breakfast of jam sandwiches as our cook took the day off to celebrate Christmas! We made up for with it at lunch when we went to one of the local villages and had a great feast with lots of spicy dishes accompanied by a Chang beer! That night we hit up Chiang Rai city for dinner and a spot of shopping, and had a beer watching a few men dressed up as women "sing" (read: badly lipsynch) to a 90's Jennifer Lopez album! The Thai's are all about class! Certainly the most bizzare and funniest way I've spent Christmas night!
Yesterday we held our New Years celebration for members of the surrounding hill tribes. We had about 350 people come and celebrate with us which was a really great experience. There was a lot of preparation involved - we spent the day before cleaning, constructing marquees, cleaning chairs, decorating trees with Christmas decorations (go figure!!) and painting many many banners in thai! That night we spent a long time making sticky rice parcels in banana leaves! Really good fun but got a bit boring after the 400 parcel mark! The next morning we got up at 5am to help cooking for the many many people we were having over for lunch. I was given the task of cleaning boy which I didn't mind, and then the head cook asked if i could help chop something, so i thought GOD YES i love to chop! anything is better than washing dishes in the freezing cold. So she brought me a knife and board which was accompanied by a huge bucket of pig intestines, hearts, livers, lungs and kidneys and I had to chop them really finely. It took me about an hour and the smell, still after 24 hours, is imprinted in my nose! I think I've used all my dettol in the morning trying to wash my hands. I even washed my hands with toothpaste to see if that helped and it didn't do anything really. It certainly was an experience and I have no desire to become a butcher anytime soon! I avoided that dish like the plague and for the last few meals, I've opted for the vegetarian option for some odd reason.
That morning we also got blessed by monks for a healthy and prosperous new year. We also made an offering of a lot of really nice food to Buddha at the spirit houses we have here. After the delightful task of cutting up a pigs intestines, I was given the task of carrying a pigs head on a platter to the shrine which was just delightful!! I had to fend off a number of dogs who really wanted to take a chunk out of the pig (one even got a big chunk out of the pigs ear but I turned a blind eye to it!) The day with the villagers was really good fun, we spent the day just talking to them, participating in their traditional dances and serving their lunch. That night we had our own personal NYE party for the staff and volunteers which was good fun! We said goodbye to a few of the staff who are leaving the organisation which was a bit sad. We listened to a lot of thai karaoke and after listening to it for 3 hours, I decided to hit the hay. They sung well into the night and with more and more beer under their belts, the louder they got! They're a roudy bunch, those Thai's!
This afternoon I'm off to catch a 9 hour bus ride to Bangkok to spend NYE and explore the city which I'm really excited about. Not so excited about a 9 hour bus ride but it should be alright.
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