Last night in Thaton

We were so sad to leave the adorable little town we'd lived in for three months! We'd worked up to the very last minute on the water filter, and drove through the rain to enjoy a farewell meal with our group at a ...barbeque place.

Riding in the back of the truck in the rain in style

Stump of coals with a heat..plate..thingy. Melt the fat on top and cook whatever meat you desire! So sanitary..not.

Shrimp for the barby

We were being super cautious to not mix the raw meat utensils with the cooked meat utensils, but you can't deny the cross contamination that must have been going on in the boiling pot thingy. {shudder}

 We were getting so sad to leave our awesome friends :(

Tonya and Sydney

Nat and Jonathan

Heidi and Tonya (again..haha)

Justin and I

I'm not sure how I missed the memo on guava fruit the whole time we were in Thailand, but they are delicious! In Northern Thailand they are called 'farang' which is also the word for foreigner, so it's quite humorous for Thai people to see a farang eating a farang. That didn't stop me though!

Us and wave three. We wanted so badly to stay with them!

 We spent the rest of the evening saying goodbye to our friends.

Mr. Honey, the roti man and most popular guy in town. Nothing beats his fried deliciousness!

Oy, Gam, and Pi Ue. These ladies fed us almost every night in Thailand and learned like two words of English the whole time. Pretty wonderful.

It was hard to say goodbye to our little home! We had spent more time here than anywhere else in our whole married life and it was really hard to leave it!

Next stop, Chiang Mai!

Thailand video of greatness!

We took a whole day last week and whipped up a tribute movie documenting our time in Thailand. For our sake (and yours) it's only one song long, but we had enough video footage to make a much longer one. For that reason it's pretty fast-paced, so watch it a couple times ;) It shows the best of our time in Thailand! We also chose this song before it got popular in the U.S..that's annoying, but we used it anyway.

Eventually we'll catch up on all of the blog posts we've missed (...), but a movie is probably more exciting anyway. We sure miss Thailand and the adventures we had there every day, but we are happy to be home with family and friends and catching some summer before school starts up again. Be sure to catch up with us on our regular blog! just-an-adventure {dot} blogspot {dot} com.

Enjoy ^_^

Mosquito nets, diabetes, and lice

On Wednesday we jumped right back into working and went with the group to a local housing facility for kids from hill tribes who live in town to go to school and learn Thai. They leave their families for the week and stay at a run down house with other children to help them assimilate better into Thai culture. We dropped off a load of mosquito nets to hang over their beds to keep them from getting bites during the night.

The girls snatched the pink mosquito net right up!

We’ve been working with the health clinic here in Thaton on several projects, but when we heard about their diabetes screenings we asked to go and observe. We woke up at 5:30 am to be there by 6 am, and rode with the clinic workers on their scooters to the screening at an outdoor community center. It was really exciting to see an actual public health program in action! Volunteers for the health clinic are assigned to 10 households each and were responsible for making sure everyone from their assigned group came to the clinic. Everyone who was to be tested had to come fasting to make sure their blood test would give an accurate reading. People were given numbers, weighed and measured, and asked to wait their turn. Two public health officers took blood samples that would be sent to the Mae Ai hospital for a cholesterol analysis, and finally their fingers were pricked to measure blood sugar levels. If anyone had high blood sugar, the clinic referred them to the hospital for follow-up testing and treatment. Awesome to watch! We were hoping to be able to come up with a project based on observing the screening procedures, but as far as we could tell the clinic was doing a great job.

Next we went with public health officers to the school that Justin and I teach English at for health checks. The clinic visits each school in the district once a year and checks the kids for lice, ear problems, eye abnormalities, dental caries, gum disease, iodine deficiency (which appears as a lump on the throat known as goiter), and skin diseases on the hands. The first graders were especially lucky and received two immunizations for protection against tetanus and other diseases, and also got drops taken by the mouth to prevent polio. Since none of us are certified to give shots, we helped by giving polio drops and doing the health checks for physical problems.  Doing the health checks reminded us that this area really is in great need of help! We found lice, skin diseases, gum disease, and TONS of gaping cavities.  And that was just for one small school!

Afterwards the 5th and 6th graders got booklets about how to stay healthy.

Day-to-Day Fun

There is so much for us to learn about our little city of Thaton and the surrounding cities, Mai Ai and Fang. The other day we were taking a sorng tao, or taxi truck, back from a meeting about our HIV/AIDS awareness video and we found this random market with tons of fresh produce. We’re always finding something new and exciting!

One of the first meals we ate in Thailand was a fried egg over rice with sweet chili sauce, and to this day remains a favorite meal. Justin and I have tried to re-create it here at the house and it’s a pretty good imitation! We’ll definitely be making it back in the US.

The other day at dinner, the servers at our landlady’s restaurant invited us to go across the river with them to a party with a bunch of old people who dance to try to be “chosen” by a ghost. Apparently it's a religion that just exists in this region. Some people in our group had gone before, so we figured what the heck, and set off to check it out. When we got there we were ushered up to a room where the holy lady was waiting to give us bracelets, a rice and bean snack, and some lynchee. She put bracelets on our wrists one-by-one, saying a prayer of protection and good will as she went and finishing off by blowing the knot. Definitely not the standard Buddhist ritual we are used to seeing! 

They handed us lychee fruit (which is in season and really starting to bore us; it tastes sort of like a grape but it’s more rubbery and you have to peel the hard outer shell) and rice and beans that are tied in a banana leaf and cooked for a few days. I’m not sure what the Thai name is, but I’d had something similar in China so I knew what to expect! 

Then they asked us for donations..nice. We went back downstairs where a live band was loudly playing a crazy Thai song. Before we knew it we were invited on to the dance floor with a dozen old Thai people waving their arms and swaying. We joined and fit right in by moving in the most awkward way possible. 

We stayed for a couple of songs and left before it got too late. Long story short, there weren’t any ghosts at that party but the old folks sure do know how to have a good time! Ask us later for a video of the dance party! It would take too long to upload here, but is definitely worth watching.