orientation of fruitfriends

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The first official day in VV was awesome! In the morning Davone(21 yr old staff member) showed me a slideshow about fruitfriends( local Lao organization) and there purpose. Basically their purpose is to promote healthy organic farming to all farmers around, in my case because that is what I volunteered for. But they also have volunteers in construction, business management, and teaching. And me being the only volunteer for 2 weeks I will have to any of those at any given time. Now for the rest of the day after that was great. Davone and I walked around downtown VV and she told me where all the important stores were..and bars😉. After we got back we ate lunch(something with chicken and rice) and two hours later sai(team leader) took me to Keo Kuang(small village 30 minutes away) to show me the school Fruitfriends had built within the last two years. On the way their I tried to pronounce many Lao words to Sai and we both just laughed at how bad I Butchered most of the words. Every so often I tried to say money, but failed miserably. Money=nguehn. I was able to pronounce it on the way back after literally 30 times of saying it. Anyway, once we got to the school we unloaded some things(roofing, wires, wood,etc.)and all the while with little kids watching us. Every time I looked over at them they smiled; I would smile and wave and they would wave back anxiously. I felt like some kind of famous person Haha. On our way home I was able to see the sunset behind the karst hills..ngam=beautiful. We made some pit stop before arriving to the house though. We sat(on the ground, they always eat that way) in a lifted hut-like structure with Sai's friend and ate buffalo and drank beer lao. Buffalo was gooood. Beer Lao tasted like beer back at home, but I'm not a beer drinker. Sao taught me that empty=mut. After two glasses(i was trying to hurry to keep up, which they were casually drinking I might add) I said mut and Sai must've thought I wanted more! So we left, after I finished, and I felt a little buzz. I came back to find On and Ved watching Frozen..of course Frozen made it's way into Southeast Asia. Anyways I officially start volunteering tomorrow morning! Pai Gawn!

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