I Speak, You Laugh

I've learned a handful of new words, but most of the time when I speak, the locals laugh. I have a feeling that this is going to be true for the next 6 weeks!

When we got in last night, I was introduced to the other 15-20 people that are currently living in the house (some are on a mini vacation in Bangkok or Phuket, so I'm not exactly sure how many people I actually met!). The woman next door makes us traditional Thai food for dinner every night at 6 P.M. After dinner, we went to a street vendor who makes "roti" (which is basically dough, sugar, and condensed milk. It's delicious!) and then just hung out at the house.

Today, we took a tour of the town. I truly thought that we'd be back in like 30 minutes, but there's a Buddhist temple at the top of the "hill", so we decided to walk up and go see it. (Let me tell you, in the eyes of a Northern Virginian, this "hill" is really a mountain. If you're from Hampton Roads, you can consider this "hill" to be a really, really big mountain.) Needless to say, two and a half hours later of blood, sweat, and tears (scratch that -- can I say sweat, sweat, and sweat?), we were back in town for lunch.

The temple was VERY cool though. It has nine different levels on the way up the hill, and each level has a Buddha statue. The temple is at the top of the hill, and when we got there, we could see for miles. It was absolutely breath-taking.

After lunch, we had the opportunity to bring mosquito nets to an orphanage down the road that some other people in the organization had bought earlier in the week. It was so neat being able to interact with them and help them set the nets up! This is when I realized just how comical my Thai must sound, as the only things I could say to them were, "Hello," "What's your name?" and "Thank you". Any time I uttered one of these phrases, the kids would start giggling. Hopefully, I didn't mess it up and say something too terrible!

The town that our house is actually in is called Thaton, which is located 20 minutes or so outside of Phuong. (I have no idea if that's how it's spelled, but it sounds like my friend Phuong's name, so that's how I'm going to spell it. Thanks, Phuong!) I like to think of it as the Lucketts outside of Leesburg (or for Hampton Roads, it's the equivalent of Poquoson and Yorktown). It's VERY small, but has everything that we need!

Lastly, I'd like to share that I constantly feel like I need to shower. Never again will I complain about Virginia's humidity!

I hope you all have a wonderful Friday. Just think: you're getting ready for work, but it's 5:00 somewhere! (Yes... the correct answer is in Thailand!) TGIF!

The Thaton temple.

The view of Thaton from the temple.