Hey Y’all! SO my first week here in Chiang Mai is complete! Like I said in my last blog post, this whole thing has felt like a dream. Thailand is incredible with so many beautiful things to offer. The people are so sweet, the food is absolutely amazing and I couldn’t even begin to explain to you the sunrises and sunsets.
Even though Thailand has been a dream, at the beginning of this last week I was struggling quite a lot with being homesick. It hit me hard and out of nowhere. I realized how long nine months actually is, and that I’m not on some short term missions trip where I’ll be home in ten days, this is my life now for the next 3/4th of a year. I’ll be missing out on birthdays, holidays, special moments, and events I’ve never missed before with my friends and family. Being half way around the world in a completely different time zone than those I love is SO hard. We actually have to schedule when we can talk on the phone or skype, and doing that makes being this far away from home even more real. I knew this would be hard, but I didn’t know it was going to be this hard this soon, I mean, come on… it’s the first week. My homesickness slowly but surely went away after hearing the voice of my Momma and Dev, it made me feel like they weren’t that far away all of a sudden.
This week has been crazy though. We started our ministry on Monday and we’ve been working outside in their gardens and driveway in the intense heat. It really makes you appreciate cold water and electric fans. The people we are working for are the kindest and sweetest people I think I’ve ever met, not once have I seen them upset with us unskilled Americans struggling to do manual labor. They’re so gracious with us and so generous too. It honestly has been such a blessing working with them and for them, even though this is the hottest weather I’ve ever been in. I think one of my favorite things my team did this week was harvesting their mushrooms. Our ministry hosts have these mushroom huts where inside its dark and wet and there are hundreds of mushroom bags hanging from the ceiling all the way to the ground. The mushroom harvest cycle is once a month, and we got there right at the end so all we had to do was take the old mushroom bags and throw them out so this next week we can replace them with fresh mushroom bags, then do it all again next month. I’m not sure why it was so much fun, it might have been because it was pretty cold in there or the fact that I was doing it with some of my best friends.
We had our first official adventure day yesterday, so my team went up on the mountain to see the sunrise from a temple. We left our hostel at 4:30am and we were able to explore this beautiful temple before and after seeing an incredible sunrise. It was supposed to rain all night into the morning but not ONE drop came out of the sky, so THANK YOU GOD. One of my favorite things about the temple is the fact that there were around 50 dogs just walking around. These dogs are so used to people that they were so sweet and would just walk right up to you while wagging their tales. Even after being told by pretty much everyone back home, including my travel doctor, that I am NOT under NO circumstances, supposed to touch the dogs in foreign countries, I hit a moment of weakness and pet the cutest puppy I think I’ve ever seen, and then was immediately yelled at (in Thai… which is VERY scary) by a Monk. I didn’t touch another dog after that… but I’m not even mad I got yelled at… it was worth it honestly.
As I wrap up this blog, I just want to thank everyone who got me here, either financially or by believing in me. I could never thank you enough! If you’d like to see pictures follow my instagram that’s solely dedicated to my gap year trip @rosies.grand.adventure. Love you guys and can’t wait to share more stories with you all! Thanks for reading! <3
