Thailand Month 4 is over, just like that. I had a unique experience in Thailand, my team and another one stayed with Buddhist host families in a rice patty village called Mae Ai about 3 hours outside of Chiang Mai. We lived two to a house with families that spoke absolutely no English. Just in the rare case that you might be unfamiliar with how life is in a Thai rice village, I'll take you through our typical day:
-Wake up at 6am. Why? Because no one in Thailand sleeps past 5:30 in the morning. For some reason this country is filled with morning people, a concept I cannot grasp. 6 in the morning is the only time the temperature is reasonable enough for any kind of movement so I go for a run through the rice fields. Seeing the sun come up over the fields with the mountains in the background is pretty breathtaking. Then every now and then a man drives by on a scooter and hands me a couple bananas.
-7:30 am breakfast served by our host mother Mae Lai. This isn't your typical breakfast, it's usually a big bowl of rice and vegetables or some kind of meat/egg dish. Mae Lai puts our food out and then we awkwardly say thank you and make even more awkward conversation in English while she obviously is speaking Thai to us. We smile and laugh a lot. There's enough love to cut through the awkwardness.
-8 am means time for work. Most of our work consisted of weeding in the rice fields or hiking 20 minutes into the jungle to do some yard work at an orchard. It was hot and it was hard.
-12pm, get home and eat lunch that was prepared by Mae Lai. More rice and more vegetables. Sometimes I sat there and thought, "I'm eating Thai food in Thailand made by a Thai woman." Weird.
-After lunch was the hottest part of the day so what did we do? Find the closest place with internet, air conditioning, and coffee. Take about a 15 minute walk out of the village and hitch a ride on the back of a pick up to get in touch with the outside world. I've never enjoyed an iced latte as much as I do when it's a million degrees outside and I've been doing manual labor all morning.
-6pm means dinner time for everyone. Both teams would come together and eat after a long day. It's nice to relax, eat, and talk about how crazy our lives are. Then we all take an after dinner stroll to the 7 Eleven. I know what you're thinking, who cares about 7 Eleven anymore? Thailand does. They are everywhere. And it's the only guarantee for cool air and cheap snacks. Let's just say, we were there every day.
-Bed by 8pm. Why? Because you have to do it all over again the next day.
My Thailand experience was crazy incredible when I look back on it. I was living with a family who were complete strangers, knowing about 10 words in their language and not even believing in the same god. I have no way of knowing the impact we had on that village but I know it's something greater than I can imagine. God is moving everywhere and it's happens to be everywhere I'm going. Cool.
