Easy As "ABC"?

Yesterday, Shawney and I started the morning by making a "To Do" list. The good news is that we got a lot of these items taken care of. The bad news is that we still have a lot to do before we leave on Thursday. Needless to say, I'm going to be spread very thin over the next few days.

We began our "To Do" list on Friday morning by going to one of the schools and meeting with the headmaster. After having HELP volunteers teach English for two months, she said that the students in her school love English. She wants to keep this love for the subject going, so she used the school's funding to build a language center. It's scheduled to be finished this weekend, and she wanted advice as to "fun" English things to put in this building (and by building, I really mean a structure that's no bigger than my bedroom). Shawney and I gave some suggestions such as materials for the activities we've written out, some English books and videos, etc. Right before we left, I looked at the bland walls and said something like, "Maybe we could paint the alphabet and some English words and phrases on the inside? I mean, the more exposure that the kids have, the better."

One statement was all it took to have another project on our hands.

Granted, I'm very excited about this project and I think a splash of color containing practicality will make the language center look awesome; however, I can't help but think that painting the ABCs won't be as easy as we hope...

Maybe now is a good time to add that one main reason that I'm thinking this is because of the time constraints. Maybe now is also a good time to talk about how our activities for two of the schools aren't quite finished... because the curriculum for grades 4-6 is missing. Because I'm always the optimist, allow me to throw some positives into this situation...

• We know how to obtain the curriculum... but we won't have it until Monday afternoon.
• Other volunteers have offered to help us.
• We DO have until Thursday night to do this. And, most importantly...
• We will finish these activities if it kills me. I didn't work all of this time for nothing!

So, while that project was on hold, we decided to head to Fang today to print out the things that we do have and then to make copies of it for the schools. (Techincally, we have weekends off, but when you're short on time, you gotta do what you gotta do!) The first internet cafe that we went to was closed. The second one didn't have ink in the printer. The third one had a printer that literally had no internal parts. To discover these three things, it took us like two hours of walking around the city in the mid-day, sweltering heat. I was drenched in sweat and frustrated. That's when I came up with a brilliant solution (that was at least two hours too late): Let's burn everything on CDs instead. This idea should have been much easier than it was. I'll attribute my lack of thinking to my hair color. Or the heat. Your choice.

Because I don't want to write an entire blog post about me complaining, I'm going to include random awesome things here.

• Today, four of us made French toast in a wok in Thailand. Upon this discovery, you too will realize how awesome our "international" lunch was.
• Yesterday, Shawney and I walked into the drive of the closest school to our house when Rob, one of our country directors, pulled up in the truck (thanks for the ride, Rob!). We were there to talk to the teachers for our project and asked what he was doing. I didn't believe him when he said that he came to borrow some speakers for a dance party at our house. Twenty minutes later, Rob, Shawney, and I were driving back to the house with smiles on our faces and a huge subwoofer in the back of the truck. As you can probably imagine, the entire town heard the dance party that we had on our deck last night. They may have also seen it since everybody used flashlights to create something like a strobe light effect. It. Was. Awesome.
• Today, I was looking for a snack and closed a cabinet in the kitchen. I saw something fall onto the counter and went to check what it was. As you can probably guess, it was a lizard's tail! Yes, I severed a lizard's tail with a cabinet door in my quest to find a fruity snack. But that's not all! It was still moving for like five minutes after it was severed. It was so cool and disgusting at the same time. You can't tell me that that's not awesome enough to mention on my blog. You're welcome.

Lastly, a question for you to ponder: Is it okay to date your fourth cousin? If not, where do you draw the line of "acceptable family members to date"? (Oh my gosh, that question sounds terrible and hilarious at the same time!) And for the record: I'm asking for a friend. Seriously.

So, exactly how easy is "ABC"...?