All about the extra fun stuff :)

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There have been so many activites and such that were both planned by the staff for us and that we did on our own.
The first weekend here we went to the national park that is only a ten minute walk from the GVI base. It was so beautiful and there were baby waterfalls and natural pools where we went swimming for ages. In thailand they don't wear bathing suits so we were all wearing shorts and a tshirt... fine by me! Ashley has a waterproof digital camera, so most of the pictures were taken with her camera 😊
the next weekend was our village homestay project. we went to this tiny village where there is a hot sand beach next to a large river. So we make it to this village and hop into the back of one of the villager's dump truck to be taken to this hot sand beach. we stop at the mouth of this tiny little pathway and find out we have to hike to it. cool. Then we find out that halfway we go through this swath of mangroves. mangroves = mud. lots of mud. up to and then wayyy past your knee mud. so there were were, ten girls struggling through this sucking mud laughing hysterically because it was all you could do as your shoes were sucked off your feet and you had to finish the trek barefoot. and then we get to the hot sand beach. there was no sand. there was mud. lots of mud. and the mud was hot. very hot! so we ran across it as quickly as we could and jumped into the river which was absolutely lovely! not very deep, but there was a pretty strong current. after a while in the river we did wander back to the mud and started to bathe in it and sling it at eachother. eventually we were tackling everybody and smooshing mud into their hair and any other part of their body that wasn't covered. many pictures were taken and it's almost impossible to tell who was who 😊 after the mud there was another jump into the river to try and clean off. and then we realized we had to hike back through the mud path, so it was a half-hearted cleaning attempt.
after the river we split into our house groups and went to our respective homes to really clean before joining everyone at the main house for a big dinner party. our homestay family was really nice, the dad knew a wee bit of english, but not enough to have any sort of a conversation. we (we being Taryn and myself) had two little homestay brothers who were absolutely adorable. the youngest one reminded me of my cousin dalton so much! and their favourite band was linkin park! they had a dvd and made us watch it the next morning 😊
the dinner party was amazing, there was so much food and it was all soooo good. everyone in the village showed up, including the village crazy lady. that was fun, she really liked to dance and she had the creepiest cackle i've ever heard! after dinner they showed us how to make some Thai Sweets and I don't think i've ever been so full in all my life. then a bunch of guys got out their guitars and drum kit and struck up an impromptu concert. I think they mistook volume for talent, but it was all in good fun. it was really hard to say goodbye the next day.
on the next friday we did a clean up around a temple and saw monkeys that were trained to climb trees and pick coconuts. they were sooo cute, but two of them were very grumpy monkeys.
and i'm running out of internet time so I'll write more about the fun stuff later!

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