Oh my gosh! That was the longest plane ride ever! Fourteen hours! Gesh! Online it says that the “economy class” (formally known as coach) chairs recline deeply – lies! By this they mean here, lean at a 93 degree angle. It was super hard to sleep! I took a melatonin and passed out before we took off, but I woke up every hour for the 5 or 6 that I slept. I woke up and because China Air is super cool, they give each customer their own TV with a choice of movies, music, and games. Among the movies was “The Book of Eli”, “Avatar”, “The Leap Year”, “When in Rome”, “Shutter Island”, and more. I watched “When in Rome” super cute and super cheesy movie. I stayed awake throughout the while, too. Later on, I tried watching “The Leap Year” but fell asleep and “Avatar” with the same consequence. Obviously they were not attention grabbing enough (or I could just be uber exhausted!) The food = nasty. I slept through dinner, which apparently was good, and Jess thinks that there was another meal that we all slept through, so the meal I had was breakfast (served at 4am local time – 2pm Colorado time). It consisted of eggs, sausage, and soggy hash browns. I do not eat eggs or pork so I ate the soggy hash browns and fruit cup. There was a tea which I did not like, so I had orange juice. Eli really like the tea, so he drank mine. I sat by Eli and JD on this flight. I had the window seat! Bomb this meant that I had something to lean up against and sleep :o) Bomb! I do not have the window seat again – bummer, but I’m hoping that by the time we come back, the team and I will be close enough that it won’t be awkward for me to sleep on their laps :o) ha
On the layover in Taipei, Taiwan, Eli, Kelsey, Jess, and I played Phase 10 – Best game ever! I lost the blue flower on my watch so I abandoned the game to go look for it, without luck – wah wah wah… maybe it fell into my bag or something (crossing my fingers)
Sigh – right now, we are on the flight from Taipei to Chiang Mai! Woot Woot! I am sitting in between Trayce and Eli. Trayce and I are going to teach Eli how to make bracelets on this flight (3 and half hour flight). We are scheduled to land around 12:30pm Thai time (11:30pm – yesterday – US time). The time differences are starting to confuse me.
Thus far, I feel as if I am doing a good job to accomplish my goals! :o) Granted, we haven’t made it to Thailand yet, but it is a process and journey. If I work hard to achieve goals early on, I think that later on they will be easier to grasp. They are now handing out food! Yum airplane food – looks like chicken! I’ll let you know how it is: Not yummy… haha
Well we are here!!! In THAILAND! Whoooo!!! We arrived about a half hour early which was cool. It took us a bit to get our luggage and we got stopped at customs because of the vitamins we brought for the orphans, but alas we were let through. Nate met us at the airport and we took two song taos to the Thong house. Wow! Much better than we were expecting – it is Gorgeous! Only a few spiders so far – one at the baggage claim at the airport – HUGE! I kid you not, the size of my closed fist. I am on a mat on the floor to sleep and I am not excited for the creepy crawlies that are gonna wanna snuggle with me tonight! Nooooo thanks! Lizzards are great because they eat the bugs but stay away from us. I sincerely hope some excited lizards come hungry!
I just showered – without hot water but it was still warm! Crap! We have A/C but it just isn’t working fast enough. Haha
Tonight/Today we did some culture/FCF training. Nate got us lunch from the market. I are fried rice and fried chick – yum! After her told us some basic history items of the Thai culture and about the places we’ll be working at. It’s so interesting and devastating at the same time. After that, we went to Big C which is like a Thai Walmart! They had everything we needed. I needed shampoo, conditioner, and body wash, and I had to find it there. We went to exchange currency and I learned that you get a better exchange rate with 50’s and 100’s than with 20’s but in a matter of a Baht. The exchange is 31/32 ish Baht per USD. After exchanging we went upstairs and looked for our needed items. I found Herbal Essences (in Thai) for 79 Baht for Shampoo and 79 for conditioner and then I got some Floré body wash stuff for like 40 Baht. Get this! In the Thai culture, the people would rather be really light skinned, whereas in the US, everyone wants to be dark tanned. In Thailand, it’s a sign of status. It says that you are not a laborer by profession (if you are light skinned). Nate told us that the Thai people and culture is very racist and biasted. They judge people based on their appearance, their background, everything. Nate said that since black people are so discriminated against, there are not many in the whole country! It is so sad. He also told us that the boys (Eli and JD) will probably be seen as sex tourists because they are white men, not dressed uberly professionally. It disgusts me how that is even a stereotype because of how many people come to Thailand to use and sexually abuse women and children.
The theme for the trip is “Talk is Cheap” which is something I really have to work on: being quick to listen and slow to speak. We get this theme from Ecclesiastes 5:1-7. It talks about how in the throne of God, we have to remember that we are human. We need not say a bunch of words because God is supreme, he doesn’t ask for us to talk. It says that when you promise God something, follow through, don’t present empty words. This makes me fall back on the idea that faith without action is dead and that action without prayer is pointless. We should never go on our own accord, but instead come to the doors of heaven with open ears. God’s will will be shown if we allow him to show us. We must be aligning our hearts with his.
For dinner, we went to the market. We were given 50 Baht which is like a buck sixty. I bought sticky rice and a watermelon juice. Yummmmy. The rice was 10B and the juice was 20B. After we picked up dinner, we went back to Thong House and ate and discussed Buddhism. It is so crazy how Thai Buddhism is. It’s like animism, Hinduism, and Buddhism all together. They take a bunch of beliefs and mash them all together to form an uptimal way to get into some sort of self pleasing place. It is way confusing! Sigh. Christianity is easily accepted to add to their other beliefs, but they don’t practice following only Jesus. He said that he is THE Way, THE Truth, and THE Life, no one come to the Father except through him. It’s all about Jesus. He is jealous for our hearts and doesn’t want to share… which is the way it should be. It’s just so hard to know that less that .5% follow Christ in Thailand.
After dinner we showered and then went to Nate’s house to learn Thai sounds and numbers. There is so much confusion, but I am trying my best!
Here are the numbers:
0 – sun (soon)
1 – neung (newng)
2 – song (song--)
3 – sam (sam--)
4 – see (see)
5 – ha (/ha\)
6 – hok (halk)
7 – jet (chet)
8 – bpe:t (bet)
9 – gao (gow)
10 – sip (sip)
11 – sip e:t (sip et)
20 – yee sip
21 – yee sip e:t
25 – yee sip ha
30 – sam sip
31 – sam sip e:t
36 sam sip ho:k
40 – sam sip ho:k
49 – see sip gao
50 – ha sip
60 – ho:k sip
70 – jet sip
100 – neung roi
I am going to learn some more today and I will fill you in late with how that goes!
