We are at the end of our second work day. We are exhausted but still going strong.
To give our work some context, a brief explanation is in order. The farm we're working on is located about 15 minutes from Asia-Pacific International University. Some members of the university "adopted" this farmer ("Uncle" Prasarn) and his wife (Nang) and over the years have helped them with their housing, farm, and various other needs. Some time ago Uncle Prasarn was run over by a train and lost both his legs. Since then its been up to his wife to run this very large farm. She does so with some help from her sister-in-law, but its been very challenging. For the last four or five years Pedrito's groups have worked on the farm doing whatever needs to be done - be it harvesting, weeding, building a shelter, installing a new water pump etc. Our project on this trip is to rebuild some of the roads on the farm.
The rains in Tha
iland have been especially bad this year, and over the last few years they've wreaked havoc with the roads throughout the farm making it nearly impossible for Nang to access her crops. The corn is nearly ready to harvest and she needs to be able to get her little old tractor to where the corn is before its too late. So we are working to make the roads passable.
What we do first is take the truck down the road to a place that cuts rock and has a pile of
leftover pieces of rock that they're letting Nang take for free. These will be used to build up the road where the ruts are the worst.
From there we take a very bumpy ride b
ack to the farm where we unload the rock to fill in 
muddy areas and mud puddles -- some of which are 
over 6 inches deep.
If we get a couple more days without rain then we'll be able to bring in some truck loads of smaller gravel and spread it over the big pieces of filler rock that we've laid. It's good hard physical labor and we're making progress. But it is HOT and HUMID. Yesterday some of the group wanted to return for the afternoon - we have some young and energetic people on this trip!!! I too was excited to return, even though I was so tired from the morning work I could hardly move. However yesterday was overcast and slightly cooler, which helped. We got two more loads done by returning for a couple hours in the afternoon. Today however we only worked in the morning, and I don't know that I could have returned in the afternoon. It was in the low 90s and the sun was blaring down on us. I don't know that I could have stood it again this afternoon, but that was a mute point for today as we had other appointments to keep.
After a quick lunch (french fries and a smoothie - which I discovered I can have sans milk or yogurt!) we showered, changed, and headed out to a local school. Our team divided into four groups of three and each of us took a classroom. I teamed up with Vie & Pedrito (though they proved to be of no help at all) and we headed for the fifth-grade classroom. I suddenly found myself a teacher with no preparation at all. But it turned out OK. The purpose of our time there was to help the students with their English. They seldom get to work with native English-speaking people and although our time is short it gives them a chance to really work
with their English. So I interacted with them getting them to tell me their name, their favorite animal (and the corresponding animal sounds), and then I tried to teach them to tell time. Well THAT was certainly a more complicated concept than I'd anticipated. I was just wanting to work with the big and little hands and numbers but they'd didn't know how to tell time yet. It just was not working to get them to understand half-past the hour (i.e. 12:30). But then I realized they didn't know about an hour having 60 minutes. I didn't realize that time would be such a difficult concept to grasp. But it's challenging to explain to someone who speaks a completely different language than you. We muddled through though and just worked with the top and the bottom of the hour. Then we played Simon Says for a bit and that went well.
Following our time in the classrooms some of the children performed traditional Thai music for us using some instruments I've never seen before. Eastern music is so different from Western. Different tones and sounds than what I'm accustomed to. But the children did very well and I appreciated it.
After finishing up at the school we headed back to the university for a quick dinner then headed back into Muak Lek to an Adventist Center where kids can come in every night and work on their English. We'll be at the center Monday through Thursday nights to work with the kids. The team members organize games and activities to interact with the children and encourage them to practice their English. I'm afraid I haven't participated much in this program these last two nights. I'm so exhausted by evening I can hardly think straight. I'm not sure how much help I'll be in the evenings. I'm definitely NOT twenty something anymore!
Note: I'm too tired to read this blog through for grammatical or spelling errors. I can hardly keep my eyes open so I'm just offering this up as a way of explaining any possible errors that may show up.
My pictures from this trip are available in their entirety at this site (they're posted with the most recent ones first): http://www.wallawalla.edu/campus-life/spiritual-life/gallery/lorraine_photos_thailand_2011?page=1
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