Blessing Home, Chiang Rai

Sawatdee Ka! (Hello!)

Practicum in Chiang Rai with Amanda is amazing and it's only been one week! We are living in Chiang Rai and are working at a children's home called Blessing Home. This week didn't go exactly as Amanda and I thought it would, but it's been better than I imagined. This past week all the students still had school, so we didn't get to hang out with them much. This was their last week of school, so we will see them more in the coming weeks. Since the kids were gone for most of the day, Amanda and I were asked to teach English to the staff of the Blessing Home as well as a local pastor and the directors of another children's home, E-Lim Home. At first, we were nervous and not quite sure if we wanted to do it, because neither one of us have ever taught anything, let alone English, but this is what they needed us to do, so we did it! And God truly has blessed this past week as we taught English and learned right along side of the Lahu people. It is amazing how much of my own language I don't even know! They were asking grammar questions and other things that I didn't even know the answer to! Luckily, between Amanda and I together we were able to answer most of their questions. We mainly did review of basic English with them and helped them with their pronunciation. Most people here know basic English, "hi", "how are you?", "what is your name?", etc...but they are bad at correct pronunciation. We went through the entire alphabet and taught them how to say each sound correctly and then we worked on how to have a conversation with some phrases we taught them. We will continue to teach them English, as well as the kids now that they are done with school, and we will be teaching them vocabulary specific to their life style, so that it will be practical for them and easy to practice.

In return, Amanda and I have been learning Thai from Pi Kae, one of the staff members at Blessing Home. We have lessons for one hour each afternoon and we just started learning the Thai alphabet, which is twice as long as our alphabet, 44 characters! It's been a little confusing, and hard to memorize and remember, but so much fun!

Because school is just ending here and senior students are preparing to leave the children's home for good, there was a congratulation's dinner at Blessing Home one of the first nights we were there. They had a small service and then had their own version of a pork BBQ. And let me tell you, that was some amazing BBQ! They had just killed the pig earlier that morning and it works a little different than in America. You sit in little groups of 5 or 6 around a cement bucket that has a fire in it. On top of each fire there is a special pan that holds soup around the outside, and in the middle is where you cook your pork. Each person gets their own plate of pork and you just stick them on the fire until their cooked. Around the outside you put glass noodles in the hot soup to cook, as well as vegetables, and then you might also have rice, depending on who is throwing the BBQ. It was the best pork I have ever tasted in my life! We went to two different BBQs over the course of last week, so I'd say that we are getting pretty spoiled here. I didn't have my camera either night, but one of the other girls did, so I will post some pictures of that as soon as I can.

A little bit about where we are living...a local organization, the Mekong Minority Foundation, is renting a house right in town that no one is living in right now. So the 4 of us that are working in Chiang Rai are living together in this house. And it is pretty much a mansion. It has its own lake with a dock and a covered porch. The house has 2 big living rooms, a kitchen, summer kitchen, 4 full bathrooms, and 3 bedrooms. It seems pretty big for only 4 people, but we are enjoying having our own space. We get to cook the majority of our own meals, which is a lot of fun and Amanda and I get plenty of exercise riding our bikes to work every day. And finally, we have to wash all of our clothes by hand for the next month. So this morning was our first washing adventure....we had two big plastic tubs and one bar of soap. After about an hour I had finally washed everything and felt pretty accomplished, but was also very thankful that back at home I have a washer and dryer to use...it was exhausting!


Chiang Rai is pretty different from Chiang Mai. It's not as big and isn't a draw for tourists as much, so there aren't nearly as many Farang (white people). I like this much more, because I don't necessarily like being clumped together with all the other Farang who visit Thailand. It's also nice because it's more authentic to their culture than Chiang Mai.

Below are some pictures of Amanda and I teaching English and hanging out at Blessing Home :)

Amanda and I with Pi Kae, our Thai teacher as well as one of our English students.

Getting ready for the BBQ with Luke (left) and Vorawut (right).

Helping the kids water the garden during the hottest part of the day!

Teaching

Our wonderful students!

Practicum!

Hello Everyone!

Sorry this post won't be very long, but I wanted to give a quick update on what I'll be doing for the month of March as well as post some pictures. All of us in the group will be going on Practicum for the month of March and we leave today! Two of the girls will be traveling to Laos, two will be in Cambodia, and then four of us will be in Chiang Rai, 3 hours north of where we are right now. Two of the girls will be working with and NGO called Mekong Minority Foundation, and then Amanda and I will be working with 2 different children's homes. We will be working with the staff to put together profiles for each of the kids so that they can use them to raise support. We will also most likely be teaching some English lessons and maybe some art classes. I'm ready to have some time outside of the classroom and be able to play with kids :)

Thanks for all of your prayers and I will let you know in April how everything went! Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure...

Some of the girls planting rice

Tiffany and I in Chiang Mai

Tiffany, Brittini and I made t-shirts for the Lahu boys soccer team and we went to cheer them on. I'm the crooked "L"

Chiang Rai Weekend

I know that everyone has been waiting for a blog post and I'm sorry that it has taken me so long! There's been a lot going on these past few weeks. We started our first two classes, Thai Cultural Arts and Social Context for Community Development. For our Thai Cultural Arts class we learned how to weave in the Lahu tradition. We learned from one of the women on our campus how to weave, and I think if you look on Facebook there are a few pictures of us weaving. This week we will be learning how to cook some traditional Thai food and the next week we will learn about traditional Thai dancing. And then I think at the end of the course we will be learning about Thai painting. I absolutely loved the weaving and it was great to get out of the classroom and do some hands on learning with the Lahu people.

Our Community Development class has been awesome. I've loved every single minute of it. We spent the first week in the classroom discussing poverty and what it really means to be “impoverished.” We also talked about development and what that looks like when you change your definition of poverty. The second week of class was spent putting together a survey in small groups that was intended to be used in a Lahu village about 3 hours from Chiang Mai. We worked together to develop questions that would help us understand the social context of their village in areas such as security, environment, economic resources, and their social fabric. On Thursday of last week we headed out for the weekend to spend some time with the people in the village and conduct multiple interviews with people there. On our second night there we conducted interviews on a large scale, doing one meeting with the men and another simultaneously with the women of the community. The next day we went around town and went to individual homes and did interviews with families.

The interviews were our main goal of the weekend, but we ended up spending a lot of time with the children in the community. As soon as we got there the children started following us around. Our first night there we had probably 30 or so kids just following us around the village in a huge crowd. Most of them were to shy to even talk to us, but they were happy to hold our hands and show us around their village with no words. When we went in for dinner they waiting outside of the building we were eating in so that as soon as we were done we could play with them. By that point they were opening up a bit so we sang songs with them for probably about 2 hours. And even when it was time to go to bed they followed us into our host house and stayed downstairs until they were convinced we had gone to bed! And sure enough, when we came down in the morning they were already waiting outside for us. They were all so happy and comfortable with each other and within the community. It said a lot about the atmosphere about the community. The people of this community definitely looked more “poor” than what we've seen so far in Thailand, but in reality, physical poverty is not where this community is suffering most. Some other kinds of poverty they are face (economic, relationship with the government) are what leads to the physical poverty that you see. But even though they didn't have all the things that, here in western culture, we pin as essential for happiness, they were an extremely happy people. They are a Christian community and it was obvious that the church has played an enormous role in the lives of the people there and it was great to experience service with them on Sunday, even though we couldn't really understand what they were saying. We did get to sing a few songs for them in English and they seemed to enjoy it.

The end product of our work in this village is going to be a proposal of what could be done in this community to enhance their life and give them some of the things that they really need. Our goal, essentially, is to help restore some of the broken relationships that are present in the community. As a class we will present to our professor who is going to work with us to put together an “Action Plan” that will actually be proposed to some “higher ups” (I'm not exactly sure who) and hopefully be implemented into the community. This all seems so crazy to me! To think that the work I'm doing here in Thailand is actually going to change the lives of some of the people here is overwhelming. It puts a whole new perspective on “hands-on learning!” If you think of it, you could keep the people of this Lahu village in your prayers. One of their biggest needs is water and since right now is the dry season, they have even less. They often run out of water in their village and have to walk to a nearby village to get water. 

Traditional Lahu Dancing

Outside of doing interviews we got to do some really fun stuff in the nearby city of Chiang Rai. They have a lot of markets and so we got to visit those and also some children's homes in the area that work with really poor families and orphans. On Saturday we actually got to go elephant riding! It was amazing! In case you were unaware, elephants are huge! The way it works is that you sit on a bench on top of the elephant and then there is someone actually sitting on the head of the elephant directing it. There is an elephant park near Chiang Mai where you learn how to actually ride the elephants and then you get to bathe with them! I'm definitely going to do that before I leave.

 

This is the White Temple. We visited it during our weekend in Chiang Rai. It's hard to explain what it looks like and what it was like, but hopefully this picture gives you an idea. 

This week is mostly going to be focused on compiling all our information from the weekend to put together a final product before our professor leaves to come back to the States. And today we had our first class for Exclusion and Exploitation in the Greater Mekong Subregion. I'm really excited about that class, but it is also going to be a very hard one to ingest. A lot of what we discuss is heartbreaking and it makes it even closer to home because we are living in the country where some forms of exploitation are very prominent. As part of our class we will be making some trips to the red light districts of Chiang Mai and really getting a taste for what exploitation looks like in real life. 

On a lighter note, this weekend we get to go to film festival at Payap University in Chiang Mai, so I'm looking forward to that. And it's been a fun experience to get more comfortable in our community and go out on our bikes to get coffee or explore. We usually get laughed at by the people in our town for our horrible pronunciation, but the people love teaching us how to speak Thai, so they never fail to correct us and help us learn new words and phrases. And the food is still amazing. I'm really looking forward to cooking class this week so that when I come home I can make some of my own Thai food. I don't want to be in withdrawal completely! 

 Sorry this is such a long post, but a lot has happened! Thanks for all of your prayers and feel free to comment on here, email me, of Facebook me if there's something you want to know about or if you just want to say hi :) I also can't remember if I posted my address here, but I'll post it again just in case. I was told that it could take 2 weeks to a month for mail to get here in case you wanted to send me a letter :) 

Emily Cronk

194 M. 5 T. Luang Nua

A. Doisaket Chiang Mai Thailand 50220

Mountains, Camping, and Waterfalls

The past couple of days have been an adventure! Yesterday we drove up the tallest mountain in Thailand. It's called Doi Inthanon. Part way up the mountain are two Chetis. They were built for the king and queen on their 60^th birthdays. From far away they look like temples, but they are just gifts to the king and queen. They each have beautiful gardens behind them and have a wonderful view of the mountains. Inside each of the Chetis are statues of Buddha and inside the queen's Cheti are colorful murals. 

After we visited the Chetis we drove farther up the mountain to a campground with rows and rows of tents. There were 7 of us girls all packed up in one tent and we definitely needed to body heat to stay warm! It got pretty cold where we were staying.

The next morning we drove part way down the mountain for breakfast. Thai people don't really have the same kind of breakfast food that we do. They eat rice soup, which to me tastes like chicken noodle soup with rice. On the menu they actually had “American Breakfast” so most of us got that. I had an omelet with mushrooms that tasted a bit like it had been deep fried...

After breakfast was the adventure to find the waterfalls. There are several waterfalls that you can visit and we stopped at 3. At the third one there was a pretty good sized swimming hole so we all jumped in and swam around. It was freezing cold, but after a few minutes your legs go numbe, so it's no big deal. There was one part of the waterfall where the rocks were very slippery and soft from all the water. We had the great idea of going down it like a waterslide and it proved to be a fantastic idea. I think it has been my favorite thing so far :) So much fun! After swimming by the waterfall (in Thailand, in January!) we went to a restaurant for lunch that served food right by the waterfall. They actually had these bamboo table things that were on top of the water on rocks and stilts, and then little tiny tables that you sat in front of. We had fish and chicken with sticky rice and then we had sticky rice with bananas for dessert. Delicious :)

The taxis here are called songthaews. They're basically a pick up truck with a cover on the back that has benches on the inside. We rode in songthaews all the way up and mountain and back. On the back end of the songthaew there is a platform where you can stand, a couple of the other girls and I stood on the back of the songthaew for most of the ride home. It helped dry out our bathing suits and give us pretty awesome hair...

Tomorrow morning we start our Community Development class, which should be a lot of fun and very interesting. There's also a Buddhist temple just down the road that a couple of the girls and I want to visit. I hope everyone is doing well!

This is the view from the road on our first bike adventure. You can see the mountains in the background.

This is what was given to each us when we first arrived at the airport in Chiang Mai. I believe that you're supposed to hang it up and let the flowers dry out. They smelled so good!

Bike adventure

This is where they do cremations. It is located at the very back of our campus.

Our bikes!

Sawat-dee Ka!

Sawat-dee Ka! (Hello!)

We've safely arrived in Chiang Mai and I can't even to begin to explain everything that I'm seeing! The past few days have been a blur of airplanes and airports and the fresh air today was such a relief.

The 8 of us girls are staying on a campus called BVTC (Bi-Vocational Training Center). The campus is also a training school for Lahu (a hill tribe of Thailand) people who are wanting to become pastors and church planters. We will get to cook with them and some of them will be giving us Thai lessons and we will be helping them practice their English.

There are 7 bikes here at the center for us to take out into town and ride around. We went out today as soon as we got here to explore. Where we are staying is very safe and we can even leave our bikes out and no one will bother them. Knowing this makes me feel better about us girls going into town and into Chiang Mai. There are so many adventures waiting to happen!

It is absolutely beautiful here. I'm hoping to post some pictures soon of where we are staying. Tomorrow we are going to take a trip to a mountain that is the highest point in Thailand. We'll get to do some hiking and apparently there are some beautiful waterfalls where we can go swimming. It gets a bit cooler up in the mountains and the Thai people where parkas because they're used to such warm weather! After we get back from our excursion we will start classes.

I'll post the address as soon as I can in case anyone wants to send letters or packages. It's recommended not to send really big packages because they might get destroyed or just never get here. But letters are more than welcome and I will write you back!

DC Orientation

I've successfully made it to DC! The girls that I'm going to Thailand with are absolutely wonderful. We're going to have a great time. Tonight for dinner Go-ED took everyone out to dinner at a Thai restaurant, which was ironic, and we all stuffed ourselves with satay with peanut sauce, pad thai, penang currry, num tuk, som tum, spicy eggplant, dumplings, tom kha soup, tilapia, and thai iced tea. The thai iced tea is thai tea with condensed milk so it's pretty sweet, but delicious! I think my favorite dish was the satay with the peanut sauce which was chicken on skewers that you dipped in a peanut sauce. Granted, it wasn't the most authentic Thai food, but it gave me a taste of what to expect, and I have to say, I definitely won't go hungry while I'm there!

I have no idea what the rest of orientation holds, but just being here with all the girls is making me so excited to travel. We leave DC at 11 am Friday morning and it sounds as if I might have pretty regular free internet access while we're in Thailand. God is good!