Days 1,2,3 and part of 4.

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Hello Everyone!!

So its been two days here so far and I'm IN LOVE! with Trang of course. The people working here at CCS are so unbelievable. There is Jack (not his real name but thats what we all call him, the assistant program director) and Keum (pronounced Kim, the program director) and Mamma T (the cook, and sorta like our seregate mother while we are here) and On(I'm not totally sure what she does but she is always around) and a few others who's names I sadly do not know. So on saturday after we landed we got right into it. They had us do a scavenger hunt through town without their help, we were put into teams of three and just sorta thrown into the den of wild lions. My group had to find the bus terminal and ask them the prices to certain places phuket which is 5 hours away is only 500 baht for VIP which is less then 33 USD. Then we had to go to the movie theatre and find out what movie was playing (bangkok dangerous) and the price, less then a dollar. And for the part that no other group before us had accomplished we had to find this cake that is sold in only one store in town, it took us about 45 minutes but we actually found it. It was a lot of fun, all the locals were very nice and very helpful. That night we all just pretty much went to bed, we were all exhausted.

Sunday was a great day. I woke up pretty early, sadly around 630 am here, so 730 p.m. there. But we had our first language lessons at 9 am which were really interesting, Thai is a very difficult language and it will be interesting to see how much of it I pick up by the end of 2 months. Then we met with the other people working in the same placements as us and so its Me, this girl nicole and another girl Ashley. They are both very nice and excited to work with the children. Later that night we went into town with Keum and Jack and they took us to this bridge were you through bread to the fish below and these fish are HUMUNGOUS!! I've never seen a fish as big as these ones before, but we all came to the conclusion that they are only that big because EVERYONE keeps feeding them fish. Then we all went out to dinner at this local restaurant. The service was amazing and literally 10 minutes after ordering our food was on the table (not sure if thats a good thing). But the food was amazing and everything we ordered was good, except for the spicy stuff, I DON'T do spicy.

Monday was yet again another action packed day. We all went to bed pretty early sunday night so that we could wake up bright and early to go to the temple. It was some holiday yesterday(i feel really bad that I can't remember what it is called) but it was insane. Never before in my life have I noticed just how white I am. It was sorta sureal, because all the people here want to be white and its funny cause we all want to be tan. But you walk into a store like walmart (tesco, its from europe) and all the sudden your surrounded by whitening creams and all the models and everything are white, its kinda of scary. But then you realize that our culture is all about tanning and getting darker. The grass is always greener... But anways so we went to this temple and the people were so funny, they were taking pictures of us and asking to take pictures with us. It was pretty sureal. After about an hour there we went back to the house and had lunch then headed off to the beach. Its a 45 minute drive from here to the beach and then we took a long boat to an island, well we attempted too at least. It was raining pretty much all day so the ocean was pretty rough but we did go to the mangroves and we got to plant mangroves and play in 2 feet deep mud 😊 it was a blast. And then we went back to the main land beach and walked around for a little bit. They have HUGE jelly fish here, its pretty freaky.
Then last night was also the start of the Chinese Vegetarian festival which lasts for 10 days. So for the next 10 days I will be eating as a vegetarian, lucky for me Mamma T can make some scrumptious tofu. But anyways we had to wear all white and walk pretty much the length of the town in this precession of Thai people. It was really cool but non of us knew we were going to be doing so much walking and there for did not really wear the right shoes 😞 . Then we watched a Thai beauty school and went back to the house and to bed. It was an exhausting day 😞


So today we started at our volunteer placements and lets just say....I'M IN LOVE!! I'm working at this day care with 3 other volunteers and 4 teachers with 50 kids ages 2, 3 and 4 year olds. I am already in love with this one kid and sadly I could not tell you his name. But all day long he would come up and grab my hand and when it was time for a nap he wouldn't let me walk away, if I did he would get up and come and find me. It was so cute. But more about all that stuff some other time. There is just so much to write about the day care and right now I'm late for the Thai cooking lesson 😊

I love you all and miss you so much!!!

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Photos

Motor Bike
only in Thailand would you see a whole family on a motor bike :)

Andy
this old british guy. he is amazing though, so nice and so funny. He has two kids back home and is in between jobs.

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The Temple

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The temple

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The offerings to the dead :)