7
Location: New Life Project, Chumporn Province
This morning we had the pleasure of waking up at 5 am to exercise with the kids at the foundation. We were expecting it to be much worse than it was. After our workout, which we were finally allowed to wear shorts too, we broke up into our color groups and did the days work of either planting and watering, picking up trash, or feeding the animals. My group fed pigs, chickens, and fish. We asked them if they eat the pigs and they said an occasional piglet. We also learned how to make rubber from trees, which was very interesting.
After that, we went on a hike through the property where two of the New Life Project boys, Mos and Boy, showed us the ponds, mushrooms growing cabins, and tree farming fields. We were walking next to the cows which they use as living lawn mowers. They pull them around by their nose eating the grass. Then we had about an hour of free time and then went back to the outdoor place where we play games and eat our meals. We always sing and dance to certain “team songs” in our three lines: purple, green, and red. The kids get so into whatever it is we’re doing whether it’s dancing or playing a game. We played scavenger hunt games in the afternoon, and my team got full points! Once we had some downtime and ate dinner (which is always amazing), we had a dance party and more English lessons with the New Life Project youth. Maddi, Aaron, and I danced with all the Thai boys to American music, and they taught us some of their dance moves. Whenever the Thai emcee, Brown, stopped the music we had to group into groups of 2,3,4,5, or 6. Each grouping had a different pose, and Aaron for the group of three got on the backs of Emily and I. When you have a group of 6 you had to sit on the ground in a triangle and yell “hey!”. I’ve had such a great time here so far, but I’m looking forward to going back to Bangkok to go elephant trekking and visit the sacred places. No worries mom, I’m doing fine. 🙂