3.20.11
Welcome to Part 2 of my current series “A day in the life…” Kawan Edition.
Wednesday, March 17, 2011
8:32am – Wake up eventually after Mary and Rebecca have been rustling around for a while. (Man in Thailand I was able to get up at 6:30am for breakfast and stay up all day – without taking a nap, what?! – and I can barely get up by 8:30 here)
8:32-8:40am – Eat breakfast from my mess kit consisting of powdered milk and Corn Flakes. Successfully make 3-in-one instant coffee (the water cooler is actually producing hot water today!)
8:40-8:45am – Get dressed in warm weather clothes but nothing too revealing. First off, nothing we have on the Race is “too revealing” by our standards of life prior to the Race. So when I have to specifiy that it’s not “too revealing” that means that the shorts have to come past the knee and you have to have sleeves on your shirt. Knees and shoulders = too revealing
8:45-8:59am – Walk down the road, take a right at the 7-11 (these are everywhere in Thailand and Malaysia) onto Love Lane to the Kawan Center and arrive one minute before we’re supposed to be there
9:00-9:15am – Have a devotional led by Noah, one of the staff, normally it’s led by Jody but he’s not here today. Group prayer time. Then dividing up the tasks (basically asking who wants to be in the kitchen today). I volunteer for the kitchen
9:15 – about 11:30am – Those not in the kitchen butter the donated bread and pour coffee or tea and serve breakfast to those who come. Those in the kitchen start preparing lunch. This day I cut 7 or 8 giant bundles of “long beans” – haven’t seen these before but they look like the face of Davy Jones (or whatever the name of the octopus guy is in Pirates of the Caribbean)
Somewhere around 9:20am – Get critiqued that I am cutting the long beans too long and need to cut them shorter Somewhere around 9:40am and later around 10:15am – Need to step outside since the massive amount of cut up onions have caused my eyes to water overwhelmingly and I need to get away. They turned the fans on to give relief to Cara and Rebecca, who were cutting the onions, and I was downwind and got the brunt of the onion attack
10:30am – Help peel a large quantity of garlic
11:30am – Finish the part they need help with so go out in the dining area and chat with the clients
11:35-11:50am – Have a chat with Beh (I mentioned chatting with him in a previous blog entitled “I Heart Malaysia”) and realize that he doesn’t remember me. Unable to reach the same level of depth of our previous conversation
11:50-12:10pm – Sega sits down next to me and strikes up a conversation. He smelled of alcohol and admitted that he struggles with drinking. I share that I’ve had a similar struggle in the past but that I’ve been alcohol-free for almost 10 month (see blog entitled “it’s my last day (being 23)”). Sega asks to hear my story of how I quit. I share it with him. Sega tells me he is going to try to stop drinking. I contemplate this conversation later and it seems like further confirmation that I want to work with addicts
12:10-12:25pm – Return to the kitchen to serve the food onto plates
12:30pm – Pray as a large group and then serve the plates to everyone
12:30-1:15pm – Start washing the cooking dishes once everyone is eating, continue washing the food dishes as people finish up, mop the floor of the whole place, tidy up
1:15-1:45pm – Head upstairs to where more volunteers are building dorm areas for future missionaries. Figure out how we can be of assistance. Today it involved carrying large pieces of drywall from one side of the room to the other and then sweeping, a lot of sweeping
1:45pm – Double check if there is anything they need, say goodbye
1:45-2:00pm – Walk back to the hostel and buy awesome street food including a fresh mango smoothie for about $1 USD
2:00pm-6:15pm – Take a nap, read, meet up with the other team, compare stories, sit downstairs and chat with some back-packers
6:15-6:45pm – Team feedback 6:45pm – Head back to Kawan for “Street Church” on Wednesdays (I described this in the blog entitled “Addie Has an Addiction to Addicts?”). 10pm – Head back to the hostel, say prayers, go to bed
Stay tuned for the last edition of this series: A day in the life… Off Day Edition
