วันงานฝีมือ - Craft Day

Today was a craft day. We made little cute monsters and they turned out so cute!! I was so happy that the kids like them. I even saw them playing with them after school when I went downstairs. It was a great day. 

MY CLASS

Fei - Fei

Phuvit, being cute. 

Max with his monster... and of course a peace sign.

Gui and Yada, best friends

Praewa being silly

AFTER SCHOOL

Praewa and Yipso

God hiding in the giant Christmas tree we have... I love his little smile!

Brother and sister team: Yindee and Yipso

Chester rushing in to... squeeze my face?

Like I said... SUCH a great day!

การเต้นรำแบบดั้งเดิมของไทย - Thai Traditional Dance

A few weeks ago Tang told us that there would be Thai traditional dancing at the Buddhist temple so three of us decided to go and watch. We didn't expect much with Phichit being so small but we were blown away! It was a traveling dance school who was doing the performance and it was beautiful! Right when we got there we stood out like sore thumb.. nothing new right? For the people in Phichit... yes. For the announcers that worked in the show.. not so much.

Before we knew it the spotlight was on us and the announcer (in the red) was right next

to us with a microphone... maybe expecting us to speak Thai, we still aren't sure.

This picture was taken by one of our student's fathers who speaks English

and we stumbled upon the picture on our schools Facebook page one day.

It didn't take long for the announcer so realize that we didn't speak any Thai so he called one us up to the stand to reward us for playing along. Charlotte, in the stripes, the one of us who is actually studying Thai went up to the front and was given a teddy bear. We still have no idea what he was saying just that the crowd sure was laughing a lot.. which is always a good sign right?

Charlotte, what a brave soul.

Then the dancing began!

It was incredible.

We were also lucky enough to go behind the stage and take a few pictures with the dancers!

It is kind of hard to tell but he was  fish and had a huge tail behind him. 

สามโรงเรียนอนุบาล- Kindergarten 3

My class that I teach is the K3 class: The oldest and most advanced. The kids are either five or six and already learning how to read in their second language of English. These kids are incredibly intelligent! Some can even do multiplication! I teach them English for two rotations and then after their milk break I teach reading to the same group of students in two separate rotations. There are twelve children total so my classes never exceed six children at once... SUCH a blessing.

Thai school is very different than schools in America. They have very strict rules where physical violence such as hitting can be a common punishment in the average classes of fifty or more students. Mistakes are not permitted of any sort. Tang said, that in her opinion, that is the biggest flaw in Thai education: Children are not allowed to make mistakes so they are too afraid to try at all. But in our school, Imperial Bilingual School of Phichit, there is nothing of the sort. The kids get not only get one-on-one attention and help but get to play and make as many mistakes as it takes for them to understand. We also have shower breaks! The children here in Thailand get so hot during the day that all of the young children here take a shower and change their clothes everyday. It is SO cute seeing them lined up in their towels walking to the bathroom.

We see Thai students from public schools all over town. Here are some shots that we have of them.

These are girls who we think were in town for a sporting event, 

they laughed and giggled so much at us that we decided to get a picture.

Here were some school girls inside a mall in a town about 40 minutes 

from Phichit. They were playing DDR and I thought it was so cute! 

Don't worry.. I'm fully aware that they thought I was a creep.

Typical Thai uniform. They aren't allowed to have hair past their ears

and their skirt have to be past their knees.

This is a very common site here in Thailand. 

WELL. Today my classes were American soldiers. My boys LOVE anything with the word "army" in it (or anything with guns) so I thought it would be a good activity. We started out with just "sweatbands" (That turned into literal sweatbands) and then once they were done with "training" they received an American badge (American flag sticker). We did everything from wall sits to arm wrestling and they loved it! Here are some shots of them posing for the camera after they received their stickers and after we practiced getting called to attention and saluting, they are the cutest!

Mhew, Pias, Yindee, Bonus, Praewa, Sydney

Ongry, Gui, Yada, Max, Fei-Fei, and Phuvit

Posing with their guns.

กษัตริย์ - The King

So here in Thailand they have a constitutional monarchy under a parliamentary democracy system. Which means they have a prime minister and a king, and oh how they love their king! His name is Bhumibol Adulyadej and his wive's name is Mom Rajawongse Sirikit Kitiyakara. Both are VERY much respected here. The king has done a lot of good for the country and everyone loves him. It is actually against the law to speak badly of him. Everywhere we go, no matter how small the town, we see these:

Life-size pictures of the king and queen.

This was in front of the police station in Chiang Mai.

This is an overpass here in Phichit. In Bangkok they were much bigger and more ornate. 

The respect and love they have for their king is beautiful. It really unifies the country. I talked to Tang and Ake a lot about it and it may be the case that those who dislike the king are unknown because they can't express those feelings but Tang and Ake really believed that no one could dislike him because how much he has bettered the country under his reign. This is a very large part of Thailand's culture and I just wanted to share it. These people are passionate and have so much love and it has been fun to see that love expressed through their respect for their king and queen.

ทัวร์ - Tour

So our first day in Chiang Mai this weekend we went on an all day tour in the Chiang Dao District. The guide's name was Bob (well that is the English name he gave himself) and he picked us up at the train station around 8am and dropped us off at our hostel at 7pm. The first attraction on our tour was an elephant show and an hour and a half elephant ride.

This was the first thing we saw.

And this was the second...

After the bridge we saw the elephant show!!

It began with the smallest elephant raising the flag. 

Them getting up from bowing.

Helping the trainers back up. 

Putting his trainer's hat back on.

We finished with the elephant painting!! He painted everything from 

the tree branches to the grass. It was incredible. 

Next was the ride!!!

The trainers directed the elephants by nudging their feet a 

certain way underneath the elephant's ears. 

Our view. 

We stopped at a village half way to buy some souvenirs... 

and take pictures with our elephants!

This little boy was playing an instrument in the town but he

 refused to play it when we pulled our cameras out. Too cute!

The village.

The baby...

... and me feeding him!

Second on our tour was lunch! And it was SO yummy, with a fantastic view!!

Dessert!!

Next stop: Temple!

First few steps.

Many of these lined the stairs. Our silent climb was lined with these 

Buddhist phrases.It really added to the tone of the temple.

Inside the Temple

One of the first woman monks that we saw!

Inside the top structure.

Serpents in Buddhism are known to be the connection between life and 

the heavens. Many line stairs at temples to represent the ascension of spirituality.

It was overall a very spiritual experience. We saw no other tourists there. Only monks and other Buddhist who had come to worship. It was a very beautiful temple and the view was spectacular.

We stayed at the top for a while to just reflect on how blessed we were to be there. 

Caving.

These caves were found by Buddhist monks around 300 years ago. The monks used the caves as a temple where they could meditate. They carved statues in the rock as well as brought in their own statues. This hidden temple was found about 80 years ago and excavation began about 40 years ago. They left the statues inside and people can still pray and mediate inside. 

Bats!

The caves were VERY fun!! We only had one lantern so it was pretty dark in there. 

I couldn't believe that we were inside a mountain in Thailand, crazy!

Lastly, the long-neck tribe. The tribe is originally from Burma, (or Myanmar) a neighboring country to Thailand, but many are now refugees in Thailand. The village we saw was mix of different tribes. Some were known for stretching their ears out, but they all had the same feel to them. The ladies were interesting; they all had their own shops to sell us things and some even had props for us to wear as we took pictures with them. It was different than I had expected but incredible nonetheless. 

The first grouping of rings is put on at the young age of six.

This young girl is wearing a Disney princess night gown.

Their village/market for tourists.

This young girls was very sweet and talked to me for a while.

You can kind of see the rings around her legs; this was very common.

Young boy who wandered the village without pants on.

This woman seemed to be the most famous. She had fake rings ready to go to

hold up to our necks. We later noticed her picture in the advertisements around Chiang Mai. 

This woman was very cute as well. She was constantly smiling. 

We still do not know what had happened to her teeth but they were either rotted away or rotting.

She had this hat to put on me ready when I asked if I could take a picture with her. 

Our tour was phenomenal! We had a great tour guide and saw and experiences things that I will NEVER forget. My eyes were opened but so was my heart. I realized that the people we saw on our tour, whether it be the elephant trainers from the mountain tribes of Thailand or our tour guide I saw my Savior's love for me. I saw how blessed I was to have the truth in my life. My life was changed.