A change in the winds

Please plant faster so we can see all these rice fields filled in!

It's hard to swallow the idea of leaving Thailand! In some ways it feels like we've been here forever, and yet our crazy ride into Thaton at 10 pm during a rainstorm pulling up to our house for the first time feels like just yesterday. There's a lot of reflection that comes with knowing we have less than a month here, and we're definitely prioritizing on what needs to happen before we go home.

HELP International sends board members out to each location, and Janet and Shelly have done wonders for our team. They've met with us several times and helped us focus in on exactly why we are here, what we can do, and the steps that can be made to see a project through. This coincides very well with our careful time management of the next three weeks--we wish they had come sooner!

I've mentioned this briefly on our blog, but I'd like to expound on it a little. Justin and I and a few others in our group have had the privilege of working with a very special group of people here in Thailand. There is a reason why our group is located where we are, and it's not so that we can service Thai people. Northern Thailand is home to many hill tribes and migrant worker groups who are severely marginalized. They don't have the same rights and resources as Thai people and some have left their countries due to civil wars and extreme poverty. This is true of various hill tribes here, and with our remaining time we have split into three subteams to try to gather information, come up with solutions, and create partnerships to make a lasting difference.

It's safe to say we will be changed forever based on our experiences with the group we're working with. As a safety precaution, they have asked us to not post anything about them on the internet because of social and political issues. In a day and age where knowledge is readily given and received, it's a little weird for us not to be able to say much about them. We can't even mention people or organization names because of the fear that surrounds these issues. The world can be so cruel, and yet so many miracles have happened that have allowed us to enter these peoples' guarded lives, get to know them, learn 'hello' and 'thank you' in a language that I had never heard of up until a couple months ago, and open our eyes to what real poverty and lack of opportunity are. Sorry to be vague; it's hard to stay general and yet have so much respect and appreciation to express. It really has felt like we've been moved along by an 'invisible hand', as one of the board members of HELP put it last week. So much has fallen into place and we are all anxious to see where it leads us.

We enter our last three weeks with these thoughts in mind. Work to do, people to serve, questions to ask, and solutions to suggest. If there was no such thing as 'the last minute', we'd never get anything done..right? ;)

Not looking forward to leaving this place!

Proud to be an American in Thailand!

We got the day off for the fourth, and Justin and I immediately dressed out in our red, white and blue. We had Coke, french fries, fried chicken, and a bacon and cheese grilled sandwich for lunch. It was as good as home! The whole day, the HELP board members told us they had a surprise for us. It was way better than we could ever imagine!

Waiting anxiously for the surprise. We were told to line the street outside our house so we did!

Surprise! A real life parade just for us!

No joke, this is just like a parade in Orderville or Delta. Gotta love it! 

The parade ended with a big smash when they drove into a fence..but no one was injured, not even the truck!

USA!

We then led the parade down the street to the Sunshine Cafe. We sang the national anthem and people probably wondered if we were doing a peaceful demonstration..but we loved it!

We love the Sunshine Cafe for many reasons but they were so good to us on America Day! They switched out curry for hotdogs and did a great job!

Happy Americans! Baked beans, hot dogs, fries, potato chips, fresh veggies--it was heaven!

Root beer floats! Mmm mm

We shot off some huge fireworks and the day was complete!!  Definitely our most memorable Independence Day yet! Oh and we actually did watch the movie Independence Day too! 


We got so much celebrating in that we didn't even feel like we missed out. In fact, we got to combine two amazing things: Thailand and America! We'll never forget this extra special holiday; although Justin has not been in the good ol' US of A for the Fourth since 2009 so we have a goal to be in America next year for it!

Coolest Kids at School

Sometimes we feel really popular at Huay Nam Yen school.

Then we remember it's probably because we're white and have cool iPhones, and then it makes sense.

But still, we love it!

One of our fifth graders and a first grader playing iSlash.

The chubby ones are the best!

Going through Justin's pictures

Build (?) a bamboo classroom

Sometimes projects don't go quite like we think they will. We thought we would be going to a local migrant village to help extend the roof to a bamboo classroom that we were funding. We tore off the roof.. and watched as a team of way experienced bamboo technicians came out of no where and started digging holes, crafting slabs, measuring, and setting poles. We had hoped to be able to do more, but there really is no substitute for local knowledge. It was good to be involved in the project and spend some time with the people! Not what we expected, but hey, that's Thailand!

Demolition work 

These roofs are more waterproof than you'd expect! 

Best building material around 

 Bamboo can also be eaten! It's not exactly delicious though..

Meal from the locals. Hand full of sticky rice + oily meat and veggie mixture + spicy paste. No utensils.

Stephen and Justin obviously over-exerting themselves. 

Beautiful views on the way home. Rice fields are wonderful!

Blog Explosion

We've been SO busy lately, just getting back from Bangkok, and with a lot of our projects really taking off, that we haven't had time to post about all of it! Well, we just did! Make sure you check back to before Bangkok! There are 7 new posts to see!

Neung, Sorng, Sahm, Action!

After weeks of preparation we had our first day of shooting for the HIV/AIDS awareness video!

The purpose of the movie is the provide members of a local migrant community with correct information about HIV/AIDS: how and how it is not transmitted, where they can go for help, etc. We worked with a local NGO on this project, and while we as HELP volunteers supplied a lot of ideas, the local group had the insider cultural knowledge what was going to be most effective for them. HIV/AIDS is a problem in this community and there is a lot of misinformation, and it was decided the facts would be best conveyed through a story.

After weeks of planning and meetings to come up with a script that was both entertaining and informative, we put our funds together to buy a video camera and tripod, and the NGO found actors and a location. The only people available to give up so much time to film are teenagers.. so yes, fifteen and sixteen year old kids are acting as these presumably older characters! They were really excited about it and brought a lot of enthusiasm for acting, which was helpful. We met everyone on location for filming, and after showing doing some really basic how to on the camera, we were off!

The location was awesome! That's baby rice waiting to get big enough to be planted in rice paddies.

Beer bottles. A surprisingly easy prop to find! They're filled with water, of course.

These guys had never made any sort of movie before, and their excitement reminded us of the movies we used to make with our siblings when we were younger!  We were there to give little pointers, but they really took charge of this project.  It was so fun to see!

Because of the political turmoil in neighboring countries, we are not allowed to post any pictures or videos of the actors’ faces.

Lunch break! Noodles with plenty of mix ins. It was unlike any of the food we normally eat here because it was made by the migrant villagers. It tasted a little like spicy spaghetti!

We finished the scenes that need to be shot at this location and will continue filming at the health care facility next Saturday, and editing can begin during the coming week! We won’t be able to post the final video unfortunately, but we’ll definitely have more updates as the project progresses. The most amazing thing about all of this is that members of this NGO have wanted to do a video like this for a long time and just haven’t had the time or resources. Cue us coming to Thailand as volunteers looking for any kind of service possible who have time and resources, and something that started as just an idea can finally take hold. With the equipment and skills we have provided we hope that a mental health video will eventually be produced, too!

Even after six hours of shooting we still could not believe the scenery!

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.