Americans, Ice Cream and Motorcycles

Sawadee Ka from the beautiful country of Thailand. The top picture was taken of me on Sunday on the porch at the school. You can see the beautiful countryside of Thailand behind me. The second picture I took today at this very unique and gorgeous outdoor restuarant that I ate at by myself. I had my class this morning cause I thought I might be able to go into town with a coupla americans that are here...but they are going into B___ and there could only be 2 americans...I thought I could go, but I couldn't...sigh...so instead I took the bike to the really cool exotic restaurant, (the food's not great, but the scenery is) and now I'm here in MaeSot doing internet. Yeah for a changup of the schedule:) Some verity is great. At the resturant most of the tables have a roof over them but there's little waterfalls and all these plants, tropical plants, like orchids and palm trees and palms, and even water, like a lake and there were even 2 big white birds making themselves at home on one of the patios where people could eat...one was roosting on a table actually:) that part was "closed off" I think cause of the birds. Since Thailand is soo mild in temperature they can have an "outdoor" restaurant like that. I was like if I ever got married in Thailand this is where I'd want my wedding reception to be (laugh at me now:)...it was soo cool! Right now I have the pleasure of serving with 2 young americans over here. They are 2 brothers from North Carolina, Ben 19 and Andrew 24. They are here making a documentary on the life of a Karen Student. Last week they worked with the kids making short little movies. They had each kid write a fiction story and then they choose or combined stories to make a "movie" and added and subtracted some stuff. One storey was the storey of Sa Ba. One day Sa Ba was out in the field with his parents working, they are a poor family. Three Burmese soldiers come up to them and attack them while they are taking (that's how the kids refer to eating:) lunch... the mom and dad are murdered and Sa Ba gets away. Sa Ba is very upset, he comes back when the soldiers leave. He looks at his parents and knows that they are dead, he cries. Then he tries to get some rice off a table at a rich womans house. She runs him off her land. He than sits on the side of the road crying. A nice woman comes along sees him crying and has compassion on him. She gives him food and a new shirt. She takes him home and he becomes her son. The kids did a good job on the movies... they aren't finished yet but I think will be before too long:) Someday I hope to get a copy of the documentary. :) and maybe the "movies." Andrew came here a few years back for a conference held at the school for like 3 days. This time he and his bro are here for like 2 months. I thought they were comeing in Nov. but it's been really nice having people around that speak English as a first language. There are so many words the students understand and so many they don't. Also I will loose the ability to speak English correctly cause I shorten things down and leave out words (I'm exaggerating, but I am choosy what words I speak with cause there is alot they don't understand:), so I can still speak English like normal and get all the practice I need! So with Ben and Andrew I can use my full vocabulary! and I even understand when they are talking to each other! Yeah! Andrew had his 24th birthday a few days ago, I think Saturday. In Art class the kids made him Birthday Cards. They actually put more time into them than just my class. They are excellent workers. So at dinner one of the girls brought the cards up, in this huge envelope and he looked at them, before eating actually. He said he'd be keeping these for a while....they were very special. Ben and I bought him this tiny cake that had big candles put on it:) and he got mango for breakfast...he likes mango. It was fun celebrating a birthday in Thailand. Htee Ku (Tea Coo) brought the cake out for him with the candles lit. When I asked her to bring it out and showed it to her waiting in the refrigerator she got excited:) Tad led us in an enthusiastic singing of Happy Birthday! My coming home time has changed since I last updated. I'll be flying home on October 16th. That is my plan at this point. Boy it will be strange getting back into the swing of things in the US. I've been living in a "Thailand/Karen" bubble for over 2 months now. I've eaten tons of rice, I think this is actually the heallthist (sp?) I've ever eaten in my life. Rice and veggies and greens... every day and eggs too and some pork and chicken, but there aren't really preservatives in alot of what I eat.... Wow not eating rice every day for breakfast and dinner....know what's funny, I went to that resturant today, first I ordered a salad with chicken, wasn't enough protein so I got RICE with chicken. Can't escape the rice:) I like rice, what can I say. My parents sponsered an Ice Cream day. So I had Day-Day order this home made ice cream from this place. So on Friday she brought this HUGE canister of ice cream. The height of it hits a bit below my waist. It was enought ice cream for at least 100 people. So we had it for lunch...with sticky rice and bread. If you order it from this place it's served with sticky rice and bread. (They would even put bread in the bottom of the ice cream cone and top it off with ice cream...strange....but tasted fine.) Also we had these dried out little fish.... and then a number of the kids had seconds and some had thirds and fourths and fifths, etc.... (not alot at one time...small helpings) but it was amazing HOW MUCH ice cream there was! It was awesome. The flavor of the ice cream was coconut ice cream. The kids don't have ice cream alot. It was fun being a part of that. It was THE Ice Cream day. We had it for lunch on Friday than later after school they had it again, and again and than on Sat. for lunch. Yeah! Extravagant ICE CREAM! Thanks mom and dad! I asked them how much they liked it. And some kids would put there arms out and even behind them and say "this much." One of the kids wants my parents to send me back next year and more ice cream;) (he was joking, but if that happened he'd be happy.) Keep praying for God's blessing for the rest of my time here...the kids go back to their camps I think on the 9th. I don't have many more classes with them... I'm goin' to go into Mae Sot, the town part and do some errands with my trusty little blue motorcycle. Yes Lisa Lou, I'd enjoy giving you a motorcycle ride:) I actually drove a very short distance with a passanger on it. It totally changes the balance of the bike....don't have a lot of practice with passangers:) I wouldn't mind more practice. Thai people get 1-5 people on one bike...you might see 3 adults on one...thai people are smaller too, when I saw 5 people some of them were kids:) Man there have been some American men over here doing missionary stuff and some of them are BIG...one of the boys had just seen a doc. that volunteered over here a coupla weeks back and he commented on the doc's size. Philip, the boy is a small boy even thought he's like 15/16... and the young american men, Andrew and Ben are very tall too. Actually I'm taller than almost all the kids:) I'm "tall" in Thailand. Ok! I'm off to MaeSot soon:) Cheerio!