What we're here for...

So, the past few days we've had some really cool experiences doing what we came to Thailand to do. On Saturday, we had a day camp for teenagers who either suffer from AIDS or know someone who has it. Our partner organization, AIDS Access, gives these kids all sorts of cool opportunities to learn, find friendships, and be accepted into the world. At the day camp, we did yoga with them, taught them marketing skills, and Holly and I taught them some drawing and painting, lessons it turned out they didn't really need.

We worked in a building on the grounds of a Buddhist temple and told the kids to go outside looking for something to draw that was inspiring to them. They came back with incredible sketches of the temple, Buddhas, trees, flowers, and tons of other stuff. We couldn't believe how good they were and then they started painting and they were just as good. The thing about these kids is that they all live pretty hard lives. I have no idea what people with AIDS go through on a daily basis...it can't be easy. But they were all so happy. They smiled and laughed and played games together like nothing was wrong.

The arch of the wat. Probably cost close to $30,000 to build.

Today, we taught English again. Kindergarten, 1st grade, and 6th grade. Kindergarten started out nicely, ended looking like a warzone. Kids crying, biting, putting bugs down Holly's shirt, screaming, laughing hysterically...who knows what kind of moms we'll make. The 1st graders love us though, the 6th graders think they're the shiz. We're getting to them though. After we taught, the principal was planting some flowers and needed some help so we got down in the dirt in our skirts and dug holes with our bare hands in the sweltering heat for a couple hours. No exaggeration. Ha.

A really cool thing happened after the first hour though. The kids finished with school and when they came out and saw the farangs (white people) doing all this planting, they started helping, hoeing, shoveling, carrying flowers around. Thai people are extremely hard workers. And these are Thai children, not even asked to help, they just did it voluntarily. Pretty sure some of it was to impress us, but a lot of it is just in their culture, too. They are really just very polite, kind, and genuinely friendly, happy people. Makes it pretty easy to live here :)