Hey Everyone

Sorry that I’ve been leaving you hanging. Jodie has been able to post from our room but I don’t have the same patience as she does to sit and wait for the connection. So we have returned from Chaing Mai and have been lazing around for the last couple of days. We rented some movies and went out to see a movie. We also visited the boys at the Father Joe’s villa on the outskirts of the city. It is house he owes about half an hour out of the city. Half of the boys have been staying during school holiday. The other half of the boys went to visit the villa tonight so we caught a bus to join them for the celebration. The villa was so awesome. It reminded me of a mini camp for the boys. They have room to play soccer and they can go fishing and they have planted a garden. I think the most beautiful thing about the villa, is that these kids have room to explore and have room to play. The kids and staff do face a lot of challenges at the villa though. The kids don’t have mattresses and they sleep on the cement floor and they don’t have running water so they have to buy their water and food from the nearby town. We were there in the evening and I was really hoping to catch a glimpse of the stars but the sky was cloudy and no stars were found so hopefully next time. There is a large Muslim community in this area and as we were sitting by the river, a group of Muslim men and women passed us on a long motorized wooden boat. Pi Thong, one of the house parents told us that a man had died earlier in the day and they were going to funeral procession of some kind and the men and women were travelling by boat to the gathering. It was really neat to see and definitely one of those moments unique to Thailand moments.

The rest of the weekend hasn’t been that eventful. I got my hair cut on Thursday and the hair dresser who was a man pretty much shredded my hair into an Asian style hair cut with a bit of a mullet. Haha. I actually like it and my hair really needed the trim. I was really terrified though and there were moments when I questioned why I decided to get my hair cut. Mom, I definitely wish you were cutting my hair instead of Mr. Shredder. Anyways, it needed to be done and hair always grows back so I won’t complain about it anymore. Besides that we have been hanging in our room, catching up on emails and getting into a really bad sleeping habit of going to bed late and waking up really late. Yesterday, we had a picnic in the park and there was a music festival going on and we got a special shout out and an English song dedicated to us. I actually was really embarrassed, and I didn’t think the singer was talking to us but then I look behind us and noticed that we were the only white people in the crowd. I guess we just stand out in a crowd and sometimes the attention is fun but other times I just want to hide under my sit. I guess I was naïve to think that my new Asian hair cut would take some of some of the attention off me…haha. Having someone dedicate the Carole King Song, “You’ve got a friend” was one of the moments when I wanted to hide under my seat. That song is really cheesy and old and I’m not a senior citizen….haha. I’m joking.

This post is really scattered, so I apologize but ideas keep popping into my head and I don’t feel like editing my post.

In other news, as of today it has been two months since we left Canada and we are quickly approaching the half way marker. The Atwell girls will be landing in Thailand in less than 2 months and in less than a week we will have some fellow ed students visiting.