Fortnight in Chiang Mai

On Wednesday night, after a relaxing day of doing...nothing, our new friend John, who runs a children's home a few miles away, picked Meredith and I up and took us to the home to (at least try to) teach the kids English. On the way there it was POURING rain, but it was gorgeous because the sun was still out so it was reflecting off all the puddles in the street, and said street was lined with tall, thin trees with big leafy branches. I wish I'd taken a picture.

We were basically dumped in the middle of a bunch of children, with no instruction and no idea about what we were supposed to do. I took the older group--I didn't ask their ages, but the youngest one looked like he was about 8, and the oldest was 15.
I was clueless as to their English skill-level, so I started writing letters on the board and asked them to tell me what they were. The kids were really good at that, so I figured we could move onward and upward to spelling. I called each one up and asked them to spell a word. With a little help, they all did pretty well.

Guys, let me just reiterate that I had NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING, so after spelling, we went around naming the colors of their shirts for like, 30 minutes. They probably think I'm an idiot--but hey, at least they're champions at colors now.
After colors, we sat in a circle and I asked them to draw a picture of their favorite fruit. I was surprised, we had some good artists in the group. Then we passed our papers, and the person to the left had to spell the name of the fruit on the paper they got. We did the same thing with animals, and then I asked them to draw a picture of themselves, and then they passed it and the person on the left wrote the name of the person who drew the picture. Apparently there was some mix-up, because at the end when I gathered all the papers up, the boys had drawn pictures of the other boys as girls, and the poor chubby girl in the group  was depicted in a less-than-flattering light. Oh well, they all thought it was really funny and they were laughing their heads off every time I held up a new picture.

Teaching has never been a serious interest of mine--but I LOVED this. I had so much fun and the kids are so cute and so smart. Most of them have been orphaned by AIDS, but they're all just as happy as can be and so eager to learn, even from a clueless pharang. I can't wait to go back.
I didn't get any pictures of the kids, but please enjoy this shot of two stray dogs instead:

Yesterday Meredith was sick, so I went to the center by myself. It was so hot that beads of sweat were dripping down my legs (my legs!!) while I was sitting down. But I guess I'm used to it now, because I never think, "Oh my gosh, it's so hot. I need air conditioning!!" It's just whatevs.

Only Umpaa, Olay, Joe, and Nute were there and none of them can speak English, but we had fun anyway. Joe showed me how to tie-off the bracelets I was making. You have to use a lighter to burn the ends. Can I make a confession? As of yesterday, I had never used a lighter before. Joe just laughed every time I tried and failed to flick the fire on, and then he took it and just did it for me. (When I tried again later, I burnt my finger.) Then he went to bring back lunch and we all gathered around to eat.
Let me give you a little step-by-step of eating Thai-style:
1. Arrange yourselves in a circle, cross-legged on the floor
2. Place food in the middle
3. Tear a chunk of rice off the rice plate, roll into ball.
4. Dip ball into any of the various sauces, or use it to grab any of the other dishes, in this case, fried egg  and crunchy-pig-stuff (nobody could tell me what it really was because duh, none of them speak English)
5. Eat
6. Repeat

It was fun. I think they're finally starting to warm up to me.