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Published: June 29th 2008
Riding the truck to the land
Don't worry mom - I'm holding on with both hands!I was picked up by the Warm Heart crew Thursday night in Chiang Mai, and by the time we got to Aomodoi it was pretty late. I met my new roomie, Andrea, who is a fellow IRPSer that had been abroad all year. She's fantastic, and I'm looking forward to getting to know her over the summer. The downside of getting along is that we stayed up until 2 am talking, and had to get back up at 7:30 am the next morning for work.
The work day started out with a morning meeting, a trip to the office (in the back of two pickup trucks) and another group meeting. From there we split off, and I joined a group of engineers without borders to visit the land that is going to be transformed into a small school community. After a leisurely lunch break and our first visit to the town of Phrao, we spent the afternoon surveying the land and taking gps points. Good times. :-)
The evening was low key, and I joined the engineers for dinner at the resort. The food here in Thailand is great. Spicy, all stir fried, and probably going to make me
super fat!
Saturday was technically a day off, but we went to visit one of the district officials to learn about organic farming. The guys worked hard, mixing rice hay, rice husks, urea, buffalo poo and water to make fertilizer, while the girls sat in the shade and took entertaining pictures. We were finally put to work in the kitchen, making lunch for the whole group.
Post-lunch we all crammed into one pickup truck to visit the Bua Tong Waterfall. The waterfall was cool - the water is high in calcium and secretes limestone over everything, meaning that the waterfall was all smooth and incorporated all the rocks and logs and what not into it. It also meant that the rocks weren't slippery and we could walk up and down the waterfall.
From there it was on to more eating, going to a Thai barbecue at another official's house. The house itself was amazing, and the food was even better! We helped out with cooking and then sat around drinking beer and whiskey and eating until we couldn't possibly fit anymore food into our stomachs.
All in all a great 2 days to start out. Everyone
New Friends
The Engineers with Borders that I'm assisting. in the program is great and we're having a great time.
Billy - you'll be happy to know that we're going to start language lessons in a week, so we can practice when I get back!
Expect less frequent updates, as our internet is limited as is our time. Miss you all!
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Billy
non-member comment
Alright!
Pom ja chorp poot pah sah tai gup koon. Guaranteed you'll know more than me by the time you get back--I'm jealous! Now you can work on convincing Levine to take a year's leave of absence to live there.