Dear Charles #11,

This last weekend I had the opportunity to go to an Aka village with the principle of my school and a few other teachers here. The principle and her husband's main ministry here in Thailand, is working with the village, and employing some of the women there with an arts and crafts project. So they have been involved with this village for the past 9 years or so, visiting them, and also paying 2/3 of the transportation costs to bus the kids in and out of school everyday so that they don't have to stay there during the week. In some of the villages there isn't enough money to get the kids to and from school everyday so they stay at school during the week, and only come home on the weekends. So that's cool.

So our accommodations were...awesome. We stayed in a bamboo hut, a few feet off the ground, and slept on the floor under mosquito nets :) I personally, loved it. We got to have dinner and breakfast with the Pastor of the village and his family, and hang out with the kids and other adults there in the evening. The Pastor and his wife were working with a few men that had been addicted to opium, and are recovering from other addictions, so we got to meet them as well. I had a lot of fun playing with the kids in the evening and taking pictures of them and just being goofy. There is something so cool to me about going and playing with children that you have never met, and especially when you don't speak the same language. It's so much more simple. I love how easily kids will just accept that you are a new playmate too, they don't ask questions, they just play, play, play. Especially these kids...their playground is a big dirt field and their toys are their imaginations. I so envy sometimes the simplicity of their fun, and it really makes me think about all the stuff we think we need to have a good time. Those kids have an honest-to-goodness good time, everyday.

After playing with them, and talking with some of the other village people (if you're wondering if they were wearing hard hats, police outfits, shades, and a Indian head dress...you're correct) we headed off to bed. I was looking forward to a long nights rest, to have enough strength for the next day when we would go to a waterfall, and my mom and brother were due in. Of course that is not what I got. Why would I have a perfectly good nights rest in a village in the hills of Chiang Rai, Thailand? It was all going well until 2:30 am when the roosters, apparently, thought it was time to get up. I swear they have some sort of vendetta against the human race because they were..not letting up. There was one rooster, who might as well have been under my pillow, who would crow once....then a few seconds later another one from across the field would start it up. You can guess this was a domino effect...all the while part of me praying that they were just practicing, and that I could go back to bed. This sort of happened...I blocked out what I could (ha) and tried for some more shut eye. But oh no...at 3:30 am, lo-and-behold my alarm went off! I shot up, feeling...really un-stoked, thinking it could not possibly be 6:30 already. What I did not know was that the day before, my friend Kyle, that works as a chemistry teacher here, got in to my phone and set my alarm to go off. Obviously I kicked his butt. So after that ordeal (which woke up the other 3 ladies in the room...) I once again did my best to roll over, put it all behind and get some rest. The roosters had something else in mind. They went strong all morning, AND at 6:00, the village bells went off to wake everyone else up...you know, just in case the freakin roosters didn't manage to do that at 2:30 am. What made it worse was the the rooster that was hangin out under my pillow started going hoarse. He couldn't even finish a whole crow after about an hour. Poor little fella, I felt like I should of gone and gave him a cough drop or something, but hoarse or not...he was showin off for some hott chicken.

The rest of the morning went alright, we finally all got up (well, we were all already up, obviously, so we got out of bed, is what I meant to say), went to church and then enjoyed a nice breakfast with the Pastor and his wife. Around 11:00 am I got a call from my brother, Kyle, who said that him and my mom got an early flight our of Bangkok, which was GREAT. So we finished up and headed out to the airport to pick them up. I wasn't expecting them to get in until about 3:00 pm, so I made the executive decision that they would get to go the waterfall with us all straight off the airplane. We all know the best way to cure jet lag is to go straight to the top of a 900 meter waterfall. It ended up being great, we all got all sweaty and stinky, but it was beautiful.

So mom and Kyle have been here since Sunday, and it has been great showing them around, and having them experiencing this part of my life. It's bizarre sometimes to think that they are actually here, in my house, in my city, eating my favorite foods, but it's also really fun. It's nice to be able to have someone else experience the same people and places I do, so they can back up my stories so I don't sound like some crazy lady, who you wonder might be drinking the water like she's not supposed to. I think they are really enjoying themselves here.
We're headed down to Chiang Mai this weekend for a bit, after we go to the Elephant Village, and a pottery making place called Doi Den Dang. I'll be sure to tell you about that when we get home. Sending my love to all :)