Makka Bucha!

Happy Makka Bucha day everyone! This must one of the bigger holidays here in Thailand. It's to celebrate a whole bunch of monks spontaneously showing up to hear the Buddha's teaching one day. Since my memory of reading about this is a little faded I'll leave my summarization of what is actually being celebrated to that. Thursday there was no work for a lot of people to honor that day. Since I work at the government wards we had that day off as well. It was a bit wierd having the thursday off and not the friday. Probably half of the volunteers here took friday off to go visit friends and families down further south in Thailand. The kind of trip that requires more than just the travel you can do on the weekend. Friday it was only me and one of the staff with the guys, then the staff had to go in the afternoon for a meeting, which just left me with the guys.

We did have a pretty fun day though I thought. It was nice and relaxed on friday. On wednseday one of the guys asked if I could bring in an action film for them to watch for friday. I went down to the market and bought a couple films..."Hitman" and "Beowolf". In the morning we brought a bunch of the guys over and they watched "Hitman". It looked like a pretty good movie and they enjoyed it, but I didn't understand a whole lot of it because it was in Thai. Generally the English subtitles on these dvd's do more harm than good so I was quite happy to watch it without. For some reason, the words get translated from English to Thai for the dubbing, then back into English for the subtitling. This translates to a bunch of words that don't make any sense at all. For instance, in one movie I had seen the actor said "you're being an asshole". Thai's don't really have a word for this so when it was translated back into English it was "you're being fecisious in the anus abundantly". Personally I enjoy the second phrase better, but it sure doesn't do any help in trying to understand a film.

After lunch I had to option of going home or staying since it was only me. I wanted to stay though because a few of the guys couldn't come in the morning and one of the smarter ones (smarter in the sense that he can understand the movies and really enjoyes seeing them) wanted to come back and see the other one. Since it was only me I only grabbed three guys total to watch Beowolf. Taking more than three would eat up a bunch of time since I have to run back and forth between the ward and the daycare center bringing them one at a time. It was a relaxing day, and I think the guys enjoyed feeling like they had a place that we could all just hang out and watch a movie. It definitely breaks up their normal routine.

The rest of the week went pretty normal as far as the work here goes. Today me and another lady took a couple guys to church and then out to look around at the shopping mall. They were really excited this morning when I got there and I think they were pretty tired by the time we got back to the government wards. It took most of the day to go around with them but it's a great blessing to be able to take them. I just wish there was enough people to take all the guys that wanted to go every sunday.

Thursday night I'm meeting with the family I stayed with wben I was in the slums a few years back. I spent a lot of time with them and the other people in the slums last time I was here, but since then they have moved up to the Northeast section of Thailand to help start a church there. I'm really excited to go and see them again and see the church they have there. It in a small villiage I believe, but it's hard getting all the details over the phone since they don't speak any English. I'll be staying with them till the sunday and then coming back to Bangkok for work Monday morning. I'm cautiously excited about spending four days without speaking English. Cautiously excited because I know how exhausted my brain feels after just one afternoon speaking only in Thai. Keep me in prayer for the time there if you will, I am really excited about going.

Couple things to be thankful about...my wrist has healed most of the way. I stopped going to see the doctor and my medicine is gone so hopefully it'll be completely healed in no time. It's looking a lot better now. I also after about three weeks of searching was able to find a pair of sandals that were big enough to fit my feet. Odd how hard it is to find anything in size eleven here! If you can also pray that my ankle heals up quick. I was rear ended by a wheelchair today taking the guys to church and it cut my ankle pretty good. I'm not overly concerned about it, but I know how fast infections spread in open wounds when working around these guys and with the trip up north later this week I'm just hoping its no problem at all by then. Thanks for sticking with this one till the end! I'll try to post more frequently so that they don't have to be so long.