And so imagine it's Saturday afternoon, and you just left the gardens of Mae Fae Luang after having a most wonderful time with my housemates and volunteer friends.
Next all of us traveled in the back of the truck to an Akah village not too far from Chiang Rai (about 10 minutes). As we arrived in the village, all of the children were gathered with the pastor of the village to learn songs for the next day's performance at church. First, we dropped off our bags in the bamboo hut, which would be our lodging for the night. There were three mosquito nets set up with two bed-pads in each with a blanket. Quickly, we picked our net-fellows, and went to dinner.
One of the main pastors of the Christian Akah villages and his wife hosted us for a most delicious dinner of greens and pork, roasted pork loin, rice, fresh cut vegetables, and some spicy sauce for the rice and pork. It was incredible. We ate out on a bamboo hut with a roof and no walls. It was a beautiful setting even though we got there after dark.
After dinner, we went to the kids' practice, and watched for awhile. Once they finished practicing, we got to play some games with them. It is crazy how the language barrier doesn't allow for duck-duck-goose or other what we think are common games. Damaris, a housemate, taught how to play a game called cat and mouse where there are four rows of five kids. Two kids are "it": a cat and a mouse. The cat has to chase the mouse through the rows of kids, and they hold hands. The mouse can say turn and the rows switch hands from vertical to horizontal whenever the mouse says, "Turn." Needless to say, there were lots of laughs. They even wanted the adults to play, which caused more laughs! (Check out the picasa web site at the bottom for all the pictures of the village too).
When games were over, we handed out apples to the kids, and went to bed. More specifically, we all changed into our pajamas and tried to go to sleep. I didn't sleep more than an hour, because I was dreaming of all kinds of gnarley bugs biting me and burrowing into my skin, causing me to toss and turn. In addition, around midnight, the roosters apparently got confused and started cockadoodling, which they continued to do until around six in the morning. So not much sleep...
In the morning, we got dressed and went to the village church (started at 7am), where everything was in Thai or Akah, so we sat and listened for words that sounded familiar. After not having sleep, most of us fought to stay awake. It was a beautiful service. I attempted to sing a hymn in Thai, and sang along to a few in English. Immediately following church, our hosts again made us a wonderful meal of rice, eggs baked omelet style with cilantro and spices, pork and greens, and the same spicy sauce. Every meal, I thank God that He is helping me not to get tired of rice!
After dinner, we packed up and went home, arriving around ten am. I quickly took a shower and went to sleep, waking up around 1:00pm in a foul mood as a result of the ridiculous heat...I was a ball of sweat and in need of another shower. The rest of the day, we all kind of hung around the house doing school work, blogging, hanging out, then at night, walked to the market like every night to get dinner. I had som tam (a salad made of cucumber, chilis, peanuts, green beans, and sugar) and two chicken fingers on a stick.
It is funny how you have this ideal in your head of what you won't do...for me it was being in Thailand - I wouldn't have thought a year ago I would be here and most likely would've laughed if you suggested it. Now, I am. When I got here, I thought going without air conditioning would be impossible, and now I live with a fan near me. I also thought all mattresses should be pillowtop, and now I sleep comfortably on one that is quite hard. When I stayed in the Akah village, I slept on a mat in a bamboo house, and thought I could never do that permanently. Then I woke up and saw the mountains around, and thought, "It wouldn't be that bad to wake up to that every morning!" It's funny how things change and sometimes so quickly...
For sweet pictures from my housemate Jessica, check out her picasa site. She will keep loading pictures, so if there is something I don't have, I'll note for you to check it out there!
blessings and all my love...
niqua bonaenae
PICASA SITE FOR PICTURES: http://picasaweb.google.com/jessica.pott
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