Sorry for the slow
pace of blogs, it seems to be harder to get all my thoughts together as the
Race goes on. Here’s a look into what August was for my team and I. (composed with inspiration from two lovely Waka ladies: rachaelallen.theworldrace.org & andreaabslag.theworldrace.org)
August = Thailand. We went from 7 months of winter temps directly into the Thai wet season! Definitely a change of pace to be sweating gallons everyday, but I’m still glad i missed the hottest Texas summer on record. After some brutal travel days including an overnight stay in a dodgy bus station, this is what our normal routine looked like
6:30 am – Wake up/Breakfast– usually rice & leftovers from the dinner before. My favorite breakfasts were just a fried egg, rice, and a mix of the sauces they always put out (usually soy, sweet chili, & others). other breakfasts weren’t so fun (cabbage).
7:00-Quiet time/check email/move tents outside during the beginning of the month
8:00 am – Start work! the beginning of the month included work on the volunteer house we were staying in. We put up sheetrock, stained & installed windows, tried to avoid staring directly into the blowtorch whenever Rock was welding (why is that so tempting?), filled in the holes in the road, dug up big rocks like burly mountain women, and cemented various things. After the first week, we usually loaded up the songtails (awesome trucks with coverings over the bed) and headed over to the “new land”. The organization recently acquired this property to build a new girls house on, and it was a messy lot of overgrown orchards, waist high grass, and various dead branches everywhere. By the time we left, we had made a dent int he craziness, but there’s still a lot to go! I enjoyed doing labor & working hard, especially since we got to see immediate progress.
12:00 pm – Lunch- some combination of rice & veggies…sometimes we were treated with these amazing tamarind cookies– one of my favorite things about thailand!
1:00-3:00 pm – Free time. usually a combo of a quick workout, shower, nap, or internet time.
3:00-4:00 pm – Team time. the usual. we started doing a Daniel bible study this month, and I’ve really enjoyed it so far!
us visiting this random lady’s longan fields… great view of chiang mai!
4:00-7:30 pm – Hang out with the girls/Dinner- go to one of the two houses and fellowship with the girls. Usually play Uno, badminton, monkey-in-the-middle, volleyball, and help with English homework. Basically, we hung out with them and marveled at how darn cute all of them were.
me with two of the girls– each house drew pictures of us and wrote us little notes! so sweet.
7:30-usually someone is having a glee party in their tent or watching a movie. I read some, but ran out of reading material quite fast. We fell asleep to the loud frogs, strange bird noises, and random roosters crowing.
