A Day in the Life of Mary Magoni: Thailand Edition
At 6:28 am Rebecca Weaver’s voice jolts me out of my sleep. “Mary! Are you awake?�
“Yeahhhh�, I mumble, fighting the urge to roll over and snuggle deeper into my sleeping bag. The sound of rustling tents and yawns inform me the rest of my teammates are waking and bracing themselves for the exit of their warm tents into the early morning cold.
The walk to the Remember Nhu house is quick paced as everyone hurries half-awake to the warmth found inside the home’s main room. A warm plate of white rice and green veggies await us, along with real coffee brewed in my French press (best purchase made on the field, may I add!) The Remember Nhu girls are awake and finishing their plates as we enter, greeting us with smiles, and choruses of “Good Morning!” accompanied with hugs before they leave for school.
Around 10, Ron and Peggy (a couple from Portland who have been in Chiang Mai for the past 4 months overseeing the projects on the Remember Nhu property) arrive and direct us in our continued work on the chicken coop, or Egg Production Center, as we affectionately call it. In past weeks, our afternoons of work have looked like mixing concrete, digging holes with pick axes, shoveling dirt, putting up mesh netting, putting up a cement wall, pulling weeds, capturing escaped chickens…and all kinds of other things.
Around 4:00 Ron decides it’s a day, and my team heads back to our tents to get ready for our favorite part of the day: team exercise time! 🙂
There is a beautiful trail that parallels the main road and each day all 6 WOW women strap on our tennies and go for our run/walk through the mountainside. I adore this time. Each day I listen to a new section of my Chronicles of Narnia audiotape (haha, maybe that’s nerdy but I don’t care! It’s CS Lewis!!) and it’s like watching a movie in my head. Seriously, it’s amazing!
We return, and b-line it to take a bucket shower. For those of you who are unaware of this type of shower, it’s basically this: a faucet located above a large bucket. Step one in the shower process is to fill the bucket with water. Step two: take the smaller baby bucket, dip it into the frigid cold water, which feels wonderful after a run, and pour it over your head. Add soap and repeat the dipping and pouring procedure until you feel adequately clean!
Dinner is at 6:00 and alternates between the two Remember Nhu houses. One is on the land where we are living; the other house is across the street. Time at the homes are filled with a rice meal (and sometimes the coveted fat noodles!) for supper and time playing with the girls. Uno, Connect Four, and jump rope are the games of choice. Another favorite activity is DANCING! “This is What Dreams Are Made Of” from the Lizzy McGuire Movie is their all time favorite song to play…possibly because the first night we were there they put the song on and I was the only one who knew ALL the words, so I of course did a solo intrepretative dance to the entire song. Haha! They also love braiding our hair, and teaching us Thai phrases…its an all around a glorious time!
We end the day with feedback in Addie’s tent. Feedback is just a time for our team to get together and pray and check in and make sure we are all doing ok, flush out any needs or frustrations, etc…and yes, you read it right, we have it in Addie’s two-man tent. It’s in these moments that I’m so thankful to be on a team of all girls! After some cuddling & feedback time, I brush my teeth with the garden hose, wash my face, and jump into my tent for the night, snuggling into my sleeping bag and feeling no shame that it’s 9:00 pm and I’m already half-asleep.
And that’s basically a day in the life of Mary Magoni: Thai edition!
