Thursday Jan. 18

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Thursday



Today, we went to a senior center for healthy elderly people. Many of the men and women are brought in from the community by bus to the facility and provided with activities like worship or exercise. The Thai people give respect to the flag every morning and night at 8am and 6pm so we participated in that (much like the pledge of allegiance, except they sing their national anthem). We all went outside and faced the flag and sang as it was being raised. They then welcomed us and shared how excited they were to have us there and took us on a short warm-up walk. After the walk, they had what I would call a worship service honoring Buddha. It was filled with songs led by one of the men who seemed to be in charge. They also had the opportunity to go up and give money at any point during the 30 minute singing. After the worship portion, there was a ceremony dedicated to one of the staff members leaving her position. Each of the elderly people tied a white string around her wrist and sent her off with words of love and encouragement. I could definitely tell that she was loved by a lot of the people there. After the ceremony, some of our Messiah students led the elderly in a physical activity. We stretched and danced a little bit. They seemed to like it a lot and at the end of our time taught us a Thai dance. I just copied what my partner did because it’s a lot of hand motions and she seemed so happy that I was (kind of) getting the hang of it. The second half of the day was dedicated to Sport Day back at the college. We played lots of games including Superman (you wear underwear and race around), sack races, a weird one where you push a lime with a zucchini tied around your waist, and finally volleyball. It was BCNC vs Messiah and it was quite the game. Not really. They went super easy on us because they’re nice and we sucked. Okay, we weren’t that bad, but they are really good. During the whole event, the two teams were having a cheer off (or that’s what it felt like). There was a lot of yelling and dancing and hip movements, kind of like America but not like it at all. I honestly don’t know how they had that much energy. I was pooped after being in the sun for like 20 minutes. Don’t worry, y’all will see some great pics of me sweating in my orange polo (they wear orange polos every Thursday). At the last minute, we all decided to go out to another market so we grabbed a red taxi and drove over. There were some cool finds, including crocodile. Yum. It was a nice and cool night after a hot day.

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