Fishing with the Thais

Jan 22

Saturday was quite a day. I went fishing with some of the Thai staff here at CCD, and a couple other guys who I didn’t know. We traveled about an hour by motorbike to get to the lake which was a trip in itself. I still don’t know the name of the guy whose bike I rode on the back of, but he was pretty good at going through the middle of traffic jams. I guess we were fishing for some pretty big fish because we were using some 12 inch catfish as bait. I was using an eel (at least that’s what I think it was) for bait, but that didn’t work. The driver for CCD seemed excited to have me come out and seemed to do the most fishing. He tied a catfish onto the end of a rod and cast it out into the lake with a bobber attached to it. I had a suspicion that the fish was probably eating our baits because I kept seeing the bobber attached to the catfish swim up next to our other bobbers and rest there for a while before moving on. Our lines were tangled too since we had 9 rods on the ground next to each other. The catfish swimming around didn’t help that problem. After about six hours of only catching three small fish, we decided to go to another lake. Apparently the fish in this other lake eat bread because that’s what we were using as bait. At least I think it’s the fish who ate the bread off of my hook, but possibly it was something else because we didn’t catch any fish at that lake to prove anything.
I did manage to get a lot of sun that day though, and the ants were biting a lot more often than the fish. After the two catfish we used as bait and the 3 small fish of about the same size we caught, I think we only came ahead by 1 fish. I guess that’s better than leaving with less fish that what we came with!

Sen

Sen’s name means 100,000, or it can better be translated as meaning, “extreme”. I think this is a pretty suitable name for him since he seems to have more of an extreme personality. I have to say too that Sen probably has one of the biggest mouths I have seen on a Thai person, which makes his smile extra big. I wonder what Sen would have done with his life if he weren’t disabled. I tend to think that he would have been the class clown, the guy that always makes you laugh no matter how bad you might be feeling. Sen loves to wrestle with me, or anyone else for that matter. He also shows no fear of hurting himself and loves to play games that see who could stand the most pain.
One day we were doing paper mache and I looked over at Sen and saw him painting glue on one of the other guys’ head rather than on the boxes. I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw how Sen just laughed like anyone of my friends would when they play a trick on me. That’s Sen though. What makes his antics even funnier is the fact that he almost hast to move in slow motion to have the ability to control his arms at all. It’s really funny to watch him shut the door on one of the other guys (who also lack the ability to move quickly) before they can get through. He always has such a great smile and laugh when he does it too.
His speech is also really slow and sometimes it takes him a few breaths to muster up what he is going to say. I do think that he’s getting quicker at speaking though and I always wait for him to answer my questions before I move on. The more stimulated and excited he is, the faster and more frequent the words come from him. He’s pretty good at remembering English words too. One day after playing games and wrestling with him I took him back to his ward (where he spends most of his time) and he shouted out “See you tomorrow!” That was one of the first times I heard him speak since being here so I keep trying to teach him more English each day. He loves to write in Thai and English too, so sometimes I give him my notebook and write a sentence or two for him to copy. This could be an activity that takes most of the morning, but he always seems really excited when it’s finished.
I heard from a friend that last year during cold season Sen got really sick and almost died. I feel extremely blessed to be able to enjoy his friendship while I’m here because this place wouldn’t be the same without him. Praise God too that he hasn’t been sick this cold season at all. Please pray for Sen that God would increase his ability to speak and the movement in his arms and legs. Also pray for good health and lots more fun memories.

New House

Jan 9

Saturday we had a new volunteer move to Thailand. Her name is Meg and she’s a 33 year old teacher from England who worked teaching the disabled there. About 7 more volunteers will be moving out here in January sometime so I moved into the other volunteer home on Saturday to help with the new volunteers that come in. It’s been a bit of a change, but still a nice change of pace. I’m excited for all the new volunteers to get here. Allison (my friend from America) is coming out in a little over a week to be here for 5 weeks. That’s going to be encouraging too. This house is closer to the work site, but further away from everything else it seems. Still, there is plenty to do around here and it doesn’t take much of a bike ride to make it to the other house.

Yesterday I went back to the other house to help with some “yard work”. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but when I got there Taktan called and asked me to cut down the papaya tree. I hung up the phone rather excited as I grabbed my machete(s) and went out to cut the tree. It was then that I realized I had no idea what a papaya tree looked like. I waited for her to come home and she told me it was the mango trees. If you ever have a chance to cut down a mango tree with a machete, I highly recommend it. I cut down three mango trees with a total of three swings of my machete. They are so soft. Then she asked me to cut down four other trees that were in the way I guess. It was a rather fun time and when it was done I think I was more thankful than she was.

Sports Day!

Dec 29

The last two days have been a bit out of the ordinary. On Monday, I was told by the CCD people that me and Carina would be going to a university on Wednesday to speak about our volunteering experience in Thailand. It was supposed to be for an hour and we had to have a computer presentation. This made for some quick last minute work as I finished mine Tuesday night about midnight or so. The next morning we’re being driven away in a van about an hour north of the city where we were speaking. I was planning on spending some time during my talk explaining what CCD does, but right before I was to speak one of the staff with us took some time to explain CCD to the students. Some last minute changes made for a rough talk, but at least some of the students were interested. Afterwards they demonstrated some games for us that the different regions of Thailand would play and invited us to join. They also had some Thai dance done by some of the Art students that we were able to see while we were there. Altogether it was a good day and it was definitely great to talk with some of the students there.
Today was sports day at the government homes. I can’t really explain well what all took place in such a short space, but there were all kinds of people dressed up, cheerleaders, majorettes, an important lady sitting on a leather couch, banners, and a spectacular opening ceremony. The ceremony concluded with them releasing a banner into the air, which unfortunately was a little heavier than they calculated because the balloons holding it up we only strong enough to float it across the field at eye level into the trees rather than spectaculously up into the sky and out of sight. The games consisted of eating contests, potato sack races, egg tosses, water balloon toss, etc. Not really the sports I was excited about, but it was still a lot of fun for us and the children who were all divided into separate teams with us. I was supposed to wear a white suit for the opening ceremony, but surprisingly, I had left that out on my packing list for coming to Thailand. I did wear the tennis shoes I brought, which marks the first time I have worn socks since coming here.