Starting projects and meeting children

Today our plan was to get acquainted with the local schools. First we went to the one we helped out at on Saturday. It was awesome to see all the little kids loving the “new” playground equipment. The principal told us that before none of the kids wanted to play on it, but they were all over it today. It was fun to see the kids in their uniforms, line up, say a pledge of allegiance, say a prayer, and then head off to their classes. We went to the other 5 schools we’ll be teaching English at after, and at each one the kids smiled real big at us, the people offered us water (and sometimes fruit), and they offered to take us to the next school. 18 people piled into, onto, and around a pickup truck is fun! The times we got to sit inside were the first times we’ve felt air conditioning since Taipei.

Some interesting things we saw at the schools: One had an agricultural section where they taught the kids life skills like pig, chicken and mushroom farming, fish hatching, and proper hut building. With all we learned there and our new-found love for hand-washing clothes, we decided we’re moving to the mountains when we get back from Utah. Another school had just bought 5 cows from the slaughterhouse and was planning on donating them to someone, but they were just keeping them on the front lawn until then. And at one school we got to play soccer with the kids! It was a ton of fun, but our feet weren’t calloused enough to play barefoot, and in the blazing heat/humidity we could only stay on the field for 10 minutes at a time. After we finished the Thai kids put their jackets back on! I don’t understand how they can handle the heat.

Overall it’s been an awesome couple of days. This week we’re going to start some more individual entrepreneurship projects- contacting local NGOs and assessing needs, then planning more projects. We’ve been amazed at what we’ve already accomplished in such a short amount of time, and we look forward to a very busy and very rewarding summer. Hopefully by the end we’ll be tolerant enough to the heat that we won’t have to sweat ourselves to sleep every night!