This month team Kintsugi is learning the definition of rural, which is a drastic change from tourist center of northern Thailand that we came from. I honestly don’t know the name of our village, but I know the closest city is Sisophan Town. The schedule each day doesn’t change very much, so I thought it would be best to explain it with time.
5:45am – Wake up from my slumber in my tent, one of 6 tents in our tent city inside our tin church, and have a very important debate with myself – to go out to the squatty potty or hold it.
5:48am – Lose debate. Go to the bathroom.
5:51am – Kill cockroach visitor in the bathroom.
6:45am – Wake up to the world “breakfast” from one of my teammates. And then laugh about how breakfast gets earlier and earlier everyday. We think we will eat at 6am by the end of the month.
6:48 am – Pray over our breakfast of baguettes, fried baguettes (Navi, our host grandma, really wants us to gain weight), condensed milk, Ovaltine, instant coffee and bananas. The most important ingredient in breakfast is the condensed milk. You can dip anything in it and it becomes quite enjoyable.
7:30 am – Leave the breakfast table and brush my teeth.
7:35 am – Grab my bible and journal and head to a hammock. We have a hammock city on our little compound. If trees are close enough, our family has made sure to put a hammock there. It is very much a cultural thing in our region – they’re the most popular type of chair because houses are almost all made of tin and they get really hot so people always sit outside.
8:35 am – Head out for morning ministry. Anything from teaching hand washing and teeth brushing at the primary school, walking around to visit church members and praying with them, gardening for our host family and yesterday, fishing? … I think they just wanted to watch the silly foreigners try.
Alternate morning – if we do not have morning ministry.
9 – 10am – Once we have opened all of the windows in the church, we have very cute creepers. Sokna (12), Not (10) and Sena (5) are our pastors grandchildren. (It is a mystery where their mothers are.) The three of them plus a growing number of friends just hangout and watch us function inside the church. One day, I thought it wise to invite them in and start a disney movie for them. Oh man, am I the coolest or what? (They do not own a TV plus they get English exposure, so I don’t feel like a bad babysitter when I let them have screen time.) So for the past week, Not says, “Aly, watch TV?” and smiles…. he gets me with the smile. Around 10 I say, “sorry, no more today” and they all leave smiling and without question. So far, “monkey” aka Tarzan in their favorite, but “hair” aka Tangled is in second place.
11am : Lunch. This is also getting earlier and earlier. Rice, vegetable soup/medley, maybe little pork patties, cucumbers, watermelon or mango or clementines. Lunch is 10x healthier than breakfast.
12pm: Begin to meander until 1. Maybe read. Maybe sketch. Maybe write. Maybe hammock. Maybe hangout with team.
1pm: Children begin to assemble. Our English class begins at 2 but kids just start to make their way over when they feel like it and hangout for a while.
1:15pm – Break up a little bullying. Watch teammates scoop up kids and spin them around.
1:50pm – Start teaching using our white board with holes in it and on the tarp outside in some shade. Review from last class and throw in a couple new things. Maybe new sight words or more numbers, or Head Should Knees and Toes etc. Kids bring their own little notebooks and write down most things on the board.
2:40 pm- Game time. Our kids love the Group game to practice numbers. One of us calls out a number and the kids have to stand in group of that amount and if they don’t then they’re out. So I say 5 and kids scramble around grabbing each other, and if there is one group of 3 left then they have to sit down. This continues until we have 3 winner. This has actually turned into a “battle of the sexes” game and the poor boys barely ever win. Girls just win with cliques we’ve decided.
3 pm – MUSICAL CHAIRS. The game to conquer all games. Kids jump and up in down in place when we start to grab our stacks of red chairs. We do three rounds but I think kids would do 12 rounds.
3:20pm – Say bye to our students and send them on their way with a small snack.
3:30pm – Have our snack of something sweet. It’s a mystery what will come our way. Sometimes a two liter of coke with cups and a pitcher of ice. Some times “Big Cola” instead of the name brand. Or more fried bread. Or very interesting little cookies. Or watermelon.
4pm – Must bathe. Bucket showers aren’t super appealing normally but when the average high is 93 degrees, there isn’t a blade of grass in site and my feet are perpetually sandy, and you’ve play with kids… bucket showers are quite refreshing.
4:30pm – Team time. Could be deep questions, a silly game, or prayer but it is specific time to be with my teammates in community and not doing ministry.
5pm – Sokna comes up to our window and says very sweetly but robotically, “Hello. Good evening. You come eat rice now.” That is the dinner announcement. Nursing home dining schedule complete!! Repeat lunch food.
5:45pm – Feedback: Giving complements and constructive feeback to our teammates as a way of building each other in our Christlikeness.
6pm – Leave the dinner table and laugh because it feels like 8 but it’s only 6 and we’re thinking about bed time.
6:15pm – Think about watching an episode of Friends or the Office or reading some more. End up laying on my sleeping pad and discussing the month with my teammates.
7:05pm – Our cat joins us for leg rubbing, occasional flops on the floor and a lot of conversation. His name is Khmer (pronounced Ka- mair, it is the Cambodian language) and our host kids think it’s weird that we like him. One night he was feeling a little neurotic and would ask for affection and then claw us. Mostly he’s great.
7: 30 pm – Plug in a laptop to watch the Office with the team.
9pm – Bed time sort of. Brush my teeth and lay on my sleeping pad.
10:15pm – Actually fall asleep.
11pm – Wake up to “bumping” music somewhere near bye. Quite hours are not a concept here. Really terrible music can be heard coming from somewhere most hours of the day.
(Special one night ordeal) 1am – Wake up to…. Really loud cat fight? Khmer met a foe and ushered him out violently. My response was dramatic, I thought I would be safest if I threw my sleeping bag over my head and rolled towards the wall. I don’t know why that would have kept me safe but it’s what my body did.
Repeat!
This month, as you can see, we have a lot of down time and NO way of traveling on our own. There are seriously ZERO places to walk to. At first, I was really frustrated by this – I love doing. I love helping. I love serving. Why isn’t there more to do? But, after a lot of encouragement from my team and intential prayer, I know we are here to learn to use very hour intentionally even if that hour is in a hammock. I have time to grow in reading the Bible. I have time to serve my teammates and learn about them and from them. I have time to love our host family. 50% of the race is attitude and even when I’m bored and long for independence, I am choosing intentionality and joy.
