January 15, 2010

The unharvested rice straw has all been burned off and the soil turned under. Fields are being flooded and the nursery fields have a haze of green as the new rice begins to come up. The days are beginning to get warmer and more humid again, although they're still quite pleasant. I got very brave and killed a cockroach in the dog food today (just a small one, and I'm waiting for Dan to get home to dispose of it because it's still wriggling and I can't seem to get it completely dead). We stopped at the local market today and picked up allergy medication for Dan, which he can get very inexpensively here. While there we picked up sliced papaya and little Thai donuts, which are mouthwatering. They put Krispy Kreme to shame, especially when eaten dipped in sweetened condensed milk, a staple desert ingredient here. One woman was selling live toads, presumably for eating. She laughed at my startled reaction.

Today was a teacher inservice day. I have been working with the elementary director to try and get the science curriculum in shape. We have developed a flow for the various types of science at the various grade levels and are working to get the curriculum we need to fill in the gaps. Today we reorganized the resources we had to fit the changes. It was fun for me, since teaching science is my passion. It looks like we might get some K'nex from the States next month. I can hardly wait to play with those!

There was a solar eclipse today. We were wondering why the day seemed to be getting dark and a little cooler when Julie, our elementary director heard that there was an eclipse. One of our Thai staff found a welding helmet that allowed us to look directly at the sun safely. Evidently it was the longest eclipse of the century and was full just north of us in China. It was really amazing to see. We just wish the students were all there to see it, too!

Lindsey has made it a goal to make dinner once a week since she has more time here. Last Sunday we had meat loaf and cheesey mashed potatoes. Tonight it was cream cheese pesto with pasta and fruit with cream cheese dip. She has discovered and fallen in love with Recipes.com. I just hope she keeps this up, it makes all of us happy!

Yes, we live in Thailand

This has been a week of knowing we live in Thailand.

Right now it's Sunday morning about 8:00. Our maebaan (housecleaner) and her husband are here to fix our kitchen sink. Our landlady is here also to chat with them. Our sink has been clogged for several days. It took us a couple of days to locate Draino. After detailed descriptions of packaging and location at Makro (Thai Costco) from American friends I finally managed to find the last bottle hidden behind several varieties of floor cleaner. Unfortunately it didn't work. We called a friend who speaks Thai well and had him call our landlady and explain the problem. She was hoping he and Dan could fix it, but they insisted they couldn't. Our maebaan's husband, who does some gardening for us, is also a great handyman (he fixed our broken toilet a couple months ago), so they came this morning. The plumbing for our kitchen sink is interesting. The drain pipe goes out the wall, along the back patio and empties into a small cement trench along our back fence. When they opened up the drain and flushed it out with a hose, a dead toad came out. I guess we'd better put a screen over the open end of the drain pipe! While he was waiting for the glue to dry on the pipe, he also fixed our front gate so it rolls better, at least temporarily. Since we have to roll open and closed this big gate every time we go anywhere, that will be very nice.

Our washer has been leaking out of the bottom for awhile now, but a week and a half ago it got to the point where it wouldn't hold water well enough to wash a load. Shortly after we discovered that we got an email about a missionary family that is moving from Chiang Rai to Pattaya, down in southern Thailand. They had a washer for sale, so we immediately called them and told them we wanted it. We picked it up yesterday and have done about 10 loads of wash. Yea! Clean clothes! We were lucky, it is sunny and quite warm. Yesterday even had a slight breeze, so the clothes dried very quickly hanging on our racks. We have room for about 2 loads of wash on our racks, so when there is a large quantity of clothes to wash, warm dry weather is very helpful!

This has been one of those weeks when I am very frustrated at my inability to speak Thai. It makes everything so much harder. If we were going to be here any longer than a year, I'd definitely be studying. We are so very thankful for friends here who speak Thai well and are so willing to be helpful to us over and over and over again!

Flight of the Gibbon

We have had a wonderful, relaxing Christmas vacation. This week, we spent several days down in Chiang Mai with Chiang Rai friends, Michael and Hope Johnson. He is a pastor of the Thai/English church we attend here, Hope is the counselor at FLC and teaches classes as well. Their daughter is Megan's age and they have 7th and 5th grade boys as well. We had a great time with them, I could listen to Hope's southern accent forever, but it makes me jealous that I can't get away with saying y'all. We enjoyed going to the Sunday Night Market, which is different than the regular Night Bazaar that is open every night. It was crowded! We also got to see the pandas at the zoo, although we got there too late to see the baby, we had fun watching the daddy lounging in a chair eating bamboo. He was very picky about which pieces he would eat. The highlight, however was the Flight of the Gibbon. Both families splurged on this experience with Christmas money from home. Thanks to our wonderful families! The Flight of the Gibbon is two kilometers of ziplines, bridges and platforms. There is a very brief video below of the experience.

The Sunday Night Market

The daddy panda at the Chiang Mai zoo.

Dan holding a classic Thai pose.

Cindy going straight down, a little scary even for this adventurous type.

The three girls zipping all together.