Christmas Parties, Bikes and Language Barriers

I think that I came at just the right time for all the Christmas parties. Yesterday we all went to a christmas party for one of the community projects. There was lots of food and by lots of food I mean LOTS. Starting at 9 in the morning we were presented with all sorts of sweet snacks and drinks, as well as some satay and noodles to get use started for the day. After that we slowly moved through the entertainment for the day which included some dances from some schools in the area, christmas carols sung by the CCD staff, a puppet show and also a dance performed by the volunteers. Fortunately I didn't have to participate yesterday BUT I will have to on Tuesday as one girl is leaving to go home for Christmas (I'm not that coordinated so we'll see how that goes).

The main way we get around here is by bike. Getting to Rainbow House is a 30min bike ride in the crazy Thai traffic. Fortunately the roads aren't all that busy on the way there but the bike ride still involves passing through and around cars, motorbikes, other bikes and whatever else may be on the road. To add to all of that I haven't ridden a bike in ages and as a result I have a sore bum. After I rode a bike for 5 mins on Thursday for lunch I have had a sore bum each time I sat on a bike again. Hopefully the pain passes and I will be able to effectively ride a bike to each of the places I must be going to.

Slowly I have also begun to learn a few words of Thai. Sa-wad-di-kup is greetings or hello and we say it when we meet some one and also when we say goodbye it is said with your hands held together . Mai-pben-rai is you're welcome or no worries, jep mai? means are you hurt, kup khoon ka is thank-you (I think) and that's about all I have learnt so far, I do hope that I learn some more words soon because it is really quite a challenge especially when the english of many of the people I will be working with is limited. On friday I took 3 children up to the sensory room with another volunteer who is also new to CCD, she came about a week before me. It was a really big challenge to get some of these kids engaged with you, not only were they difficult to engage due to the fact that they had autism there was also the problem that we don't speak that language that they understand and a spoken to most of the time. We were able to do it by playing with them and I really tried to follow their lead so that I would know what they were interested in but it was a big challenge.

Anyway, that is about all I have to say for now. Sunday was a really nice day today and I went to a Christmas service at  one of the churches that some of the other volunteers go to. It was great o be reminded once again of the true meaning of christmas.

xxx