Thai Lanterns, Chicken's Blood, and the White Temple

Sawadeekah! We both can't believe how fast time is going by. It has been a busy week setting up some English teaching positions in a variety of schools for teachers, students, and stateless children at risk of poverty living near the border of Burma and Masai. We are also both volunteering at the hospital. Yesterday, Chris went with Dr. Gunn to the site of a motorcycle accident of a 17 year old boy. The boy was dead, and Chris helped the Doctor with the body autopsy. I don't know how he did it, or how people like Dr. Gunn do it everyday. Chris said the saddest part of the experience was seeing the crying mom of the boy at the site.
I have not volunteered to help in the part of hospital that involves dead bodies, blood, bones, or anything abnormal extruding from the body, like for example, the tumor that covered a 3 year old boy's face who we passed in the waiting area. We have both helped in the supply area, and earlier this week, i sat with some of the sick children in the pediatrics area. I colored with one boy, and played a card game with another boy and girl. They weren't as impressed with my card trick i practiced all week as i thought they would be...
Yesterday, today, and tomorrow we are participating in a 'Stop Smoking Parade' with the hospital. We all put on 'Stop Smoking' hats, some of the hospital workers are dressed up as cigarettes, others- dead bodies, and we parade the hospital and surrounding street corners.


On Tuesdays and Wednesdays we teach grade K-6 at a school about a half hour away. I LOVE IT!! The kids are so fun- and it has been challenging to come up with creative games and activities to teach a variety of ages- but so much fun!!! After school, we help out with the school soccer team, AKA- we just play soccer with the kids for an hour. You know you're soccer kick needs a little work when not just 1, but 2 4th grade boys pull you aside to show you how to kick the ball. (I ended up joining the girls who were playing volleyball.)

We have had a lot of interesting eating experiences over the past couple weeks. One night, after the lady who we pay to cook and bring us dinner brought it by, i saw that she had made a coconut soup that i reaalllyyy like. I told all the girls, "You don't want to eat that soup- it has chicken blood in it and chicken toenails", hoping they would stay clear of the soup and leave more for me. (I was kidding). Later, I was enjoying my bowl of coconut soup over rice when i discovered not just a chicken's foot in my bowl- but a toe nail, as well. I showed the girls in unbelief, and that night in our group meeting, our program director informed us that there had in fact been chickens blood in the other curry our cooking lady had dropped off. Our program directors promised to tell the lady- no more fish heads, and chicken's blood. I think when we leave to travel on our own, I will only eat Pad Thai. Any other mystery curry or soup could have who knows what in it.

Chris came to teach with us on the first day at the soccer school:

One of the crazy waiting areas of the hospital.

Greatest Birthday ever!!! Pmay made legit "Thai lights" for us to light, make a wish, and send off into the night- just like "Tangled":).

The Walking market of Chiang Rai is every Saturday night. Tons of people, tons of shopping, and tons of great food:). Everyone walking in a mass line up one side of the street with vendor carts on both sides, and loops back to join the walking traffic going the other way.

On Saturday we went the "white temple" and "the black house", both places of worship- the white temple representing birth and the pains of life, and the black house representing death and the hollowness of the material body.

There are just some things that i will never do in my life; and one of them is sitting in a cage with a boa constrictor. Chris, on the other hand.....

The snake had just had lunch before we got there. (See the lump?) We think it was a bird; there were feathers in the corner of the cage.

The artist of the Black House:

Chris and i thought we should be a little more creative in our camera poses. This one is symbolic as we are standing in front of the black house which represents death.

The side of the walkway at the white temple:

The white temple- the inside is still being painted. the walls are covered in a modern art mural of the battle in life between good and evil. There are depictions varying from Spiderman and Darth Vader to George Bush and Osama Bin Laden.