Project updates—English, Water Filters, and HIV (oh my!)

As far as projects are going, every week is different and we never know quite what to expect. Our first couple of weeks were hardcore manual labor, which was exhausting but satisfying to see the end result of our hard work and sweat. The past several weeks have involved more planning and communicating with local NGOs to create projects. Here’s an update on those!

First of all, teaching English to our 5th and 6th graders is going great. The kids are learning a lot and we are getting pretty attached to their funny personalities. They are getting used to us coming, and really enjoyed when we showed them pictures from home. 

 Thai kids meet the Grafs

Thai kids meet the Lambs

We teach each class for two hours, which is admittedly a lot of time, so for the last half hour we always play a game. It breaks up the time for all of us ;) This week we taught directions, so we played "Go forward, stop!" or in other words, "Red light, green light."

 It got pretty intense at times!

Justin and I teach English to two classes and some teachers on Mondays, which is great, but we also teach a group of teachers from a district about a half hour away on Tuesdays. It’s probably a rule somewhere that teachers should never choose favorite students, but if we did choose a favorite class to teach, it would be our Tuesday group. They are very anxious to learn and have a basic foundation of spelling, grammar, and vocabulary, but need help with speaking and pronunciation. They are willing to practice and make mistakes, which is exactly what we need from them! The idea of teaching teachers came up as a result of wanting the group’s English teaching to make the greatest impact possible, and this will come as we teach the people who will be around students year after year and hopefully make a difference there.

Our school is tucked back in the mountains about 40 minutes from where we live. We ride that little van out every Tuesday.

Justin showing off the school

This picture tells so much. During the middle of our lesson, a dog just walks into the room. This happens in Thailand ALL the time--whether it's a restaurant, a school, or the internet cafe. There are dogs everywhere!

Justin is pro at teaching! They have a sweet set up for us, complete with projector, laptop, and microphone.

A major project that has been in the works but that we can’t quite get into the implementation phase is installing water filters in communities where they collect rain water and use it as drinking water. We’ve been very excited about this project but we can’t find any Thai people who know exactly how to build the filters and would be willing to oversee the construction for us. It’s hard working with a culture that is much more laid back and less business-oriented than ours, but hopefully we will be able to start this soon!

UHDP headquarters

And the biggest project news of all! Justin and I are working with a small team on creating an HIV/AIDS awareness video to be distributed throughout the hill tribes of this region, people who have immigrated to Thailand from Burma or Laos because of political problems. HIV is a problem in these areas, so we are working with members of a local organization who help at a health clinic where people can go to be tested for HIV/AIDS, and they hope to spread the word about prevention and also treatment availability. They visit the tribes and hold community outreach meetings, where the video will eventually be shown. We came up with an idea about a man who has HIV and how it changes his life, had the Thai people we’re working with make necessary cultural changes to make sure it will be well-received, and we will hopefully begin shooting as soon as we find locals who are willing to act in our video! To make this project self-sufficient, we want to make this video for the group and then sit back and let them make a mental health video by the end of the summer based on what we teach them. We’re really excited for the opportunity to be involved and hope to make a difference with this project! It will probably take up the majority of our time from now on, which is fine. It’s actually really hard to not have enough to do here! It makes us long for American food or summer in Utah, so we’re happy for the chance to work hard. The time goes by at a perfect speed!