Still kickin'

I bet you all are enjoying the time crunch for internet.. it makes my blogs much shorter to read. So to do a brief catch up, on Monday we went exploring near the girl's shelter. We went for a bike ride and headed back as my bike gave out on me. Then went for a walk towards the mountains and got lost so were escorted back by a wonderful Thai man who took us to COSA in his pickup. For the record, we were on the right track.. just didn't know it. Tuesday we headed up to the hill tribe village Ban Kuhn Soy where we would be teaching back health, maternal health and general healthcare. The first day in the school teaching general healthcare to ages 4 to 16 was great. The next day we were supposed to teach maternal and back health to the men and women of the village, but because of the recent rain they were all working in the fields and unable to attend. So we taught some back health to the two men there and taught nutrition to the children that came as well... not to shabby for on the spot. The next day we did a nutrition lesson at the school to all the students. While we were in the village, we got to do some trekking nearby and were fortunate enough to have attracted a few leeches as well. The wonderful Micky came to the rescue though with some gunpowder solution that got them off and killed them. Micky is the founder of the girl's shelter COSA and an incredible guy. He has some of the coolest stories. After Ban Kuhn Soy, we went to another village not too far from there to check up on two girls in that village and stayed at the village leader's house. Today and tomorrow are our days off from the program. We did a 'cultural experience' today by taking a Thai massage class! I no longer suck at massages, hopefully. It was a lot of fun and our teachers were so great. Tomorrow I am undecided on what to do. In a moment I am going to look into some programs for mountain biking, ATV tours and zipline tours to go check out and take up my morning. We head back to COSA tomorrow evening then will do some lessons in the school near there as well. Saturday we go to another hill tribe village with some nurses from a partner clinic and get to do some shadowing there for a few days. The time is going by entirely too fast.. only two weeks left (my family probably disagrees).
Love
K

Real quick.

Hey! Really quick update. We got to the girl's shelter today on the other side of Chiang Mai. We got to meet the girls ranging from ages 5 to 19 or so and they are so great. Friendly, kind, beautiful.. amazing. We are in the guest house here now which is again really great... some of us kind of wish we were roughing it a little more ha. But we are being taken care of very well. Tomorrow we have relatively all day to plan our lessons then Tuesday we go to the village to do lessons in maternal care and back pain to the villagers there for 5 days. We will also be doing general healthcare lessons to the children there. That's all I have time for now! There's the brief update.

Love
K

Arrived.

Guess who is in Thailand!? I still can't quite believe it. I arrived at the Denver airport at 4:30 a.m. July 11th and arrived in Chiang Mai at 11:30 a.m. on July 12th. Plane rides were long but not too bad, just tried to catch up on some sleep- not all that successful. Got to chat with some chill people and ate uh 'wonderful' airplane food, yum. Three of us arrived in Chiang Mai on the same flight and were taken back to the guest house where we are staying for the next few days. We have great accommodations right now. Each of us have our own room with our own bed, shower, toilet... all the luxuries. When we got in, me and Elle (a girl on the team) were just stoked to be here so sleeping was not the first thing on our minds. So, at 1 a.m, we decided to go get a little feel for Chiang Mai and walk around. Don't worry family, we asked, they said it was safe to go, and we stayed in busy areas- not dark allies. Elle's first words of our walk were "there's some religious girl here," little did she know she was referring to me haha. She said she enjoy's picking people's minds so was excited, so we had some good chats walking around and enjoying the nightlife here. The term 'religious girl' is so, well, annoying to me ha. A friend I met on the plane used the same term. People should start saying something like "There's a girl here who really loves Jesus"- I would gladly take that title. I have decided that the title really doesn't matter, as long as the reflection is the same. I pray for courage, faith and endurance as I continually meet people of differing views and opinions. The great thing is that everyone I have met is very open-minded and curious, not judgmental or condemning. We got back to the guest house, got some sleep and got up this morning to find some breakfast. We really dove into the Thai culture with a french toast breakfast :). Today then consisted of venturing around, program orientation and a Monk Chat. Earlier, a few of us went into a Buddhist temple which was cool. After orientation, we all wanted to go to a Monk Chat and talk to them some about, well, Buddhism and monk lifestyle and whatever we wanted. So we took a half hour walk to the chat and spent an hour and a half talking to a group of about 15 monks. From everything we'd heard, monks definitely didn't fit our stereotype. They were incredibly friendly and social and glad to have us. We all just talked and asked them questions and they asked us some as well, it was a cool experience and I learned more about their religion and culture. For instance, we learned that because feet are the dirty, unholy part of your body, pointing them at anyone or anything is rude and disrespectful. I have odd sitting habits, believe it or not, like putting my feet up and whatnot, so it is definitely something I have to be conscious of. Our tentative schedule for this next week or so is girl's shelter on Monday, mountainside village on Tuesday, stay there for 5 days, then Monday and Tuesday off. Our team consists of 5 people, 4 girls and 1 guy. We all get along fine, 4 of us are from the U.S and one from Canada. I am excited to get to know the team more and chat with them in the weeks to come. Although my family would love me to come back now, I am already super jealous that everyone here is staying at least 5 weeks in Thailand. But that's okay, thank you Lord for the time I have. So far, getting to have time easing into the program and just venturing around has been great and a nice transition, I am also ready to start the program! That's really all I have for right now, Thailand is great, the food is great and the language is difficult. Tomorrow we start our Thai language classes, it will be interesting. But I am excited to be able to communicate a little bit better. The time here is 9:47 p.m.- no idea what time it is at home. I will probably not give many updates since I did not bring a computer or anything along, but will comfort my family as often as I am able. One day down.

Be Bold. Patient. 

K