Dekdek-dokmai-wainam.

Dekdek, dok mai, wai nam. Little kids, flowers, swimming. This describes my Thursday.

The morning started around 8am (got to sleep in because I didn't go to school!), got ready, packed a swimsuit, towel and my camera in my bag and headed downstairs expecting to eat some cereal and head off. Instead when I reached the kitchen my Grandma had cooked "muu pad pik" for me! It's definitely one of my new very favorite dishes, spicy pork, my host Grandma is only staying with us for a few weeks and then heading back to her home in Chonburi province, but because I (and everyone) likes it so much she has been cooking "muu pad pik" everyday for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I thank her and start eating the delicious pork with rice, before heading down to the bottom floor to head out Grandma asks "Don yen gin ik mai?" (In the evening, will you eat more of this?) Yes! I answer and with Grandma's promise to make more deliciousness in the evening and simply her pure kindness I leave with a smile and a spring in my step.

Downstairs I meet my host dad and he drives me into the old part of town, where school and Prang Sam Yod and my last host family's house is. We talk the whole twenty minute ride until we arrive at our destination, the home of one of the other exchange student's in Lop Buri. She lives very close to school and Prang Sam Yod at a motorcycle shop. Here I meet four other exchange students and then we head off. Today we are going with Rotary to help some schools in the area that have been affected by flooding last year. (We go with the Rotary Club of two of the student's in Lop Buri, it is not my club though.) The ride is about half an hour and the five exchange students ride in style in the back of the truck. A few days ago the club had dropped off some furniture to be used to create a nurse's office in each school, today we clean and paint the furniture and also talk with the children some. We go to four schools. The children, though very shy, ask us questions and preform dances and songs for us. It is very sweet. When we finish at the last school we head back to Lop Buri and one of the exchange student's Rotary Councilor takes us about twenty minutes out of town the other direction. We stop at the famous Lop Buri sunflower fields which are now fully blooming... and absolutely gorgeous. I can't describe how beautiful the miles and miles of yellow contrasting against the dark of the mountains in the distance is so I will attach some photos so you can see for yourself. After running through the sunflowers and running into another friend there with her host mother we all head on a few minutes to a large lake to go swimming.

We swim, see an enormous spider (largest I've ever seen) and eat. It's a wonderful evening and when it comes to an end my friends councilor drops us all back off at home.

The next day is Friday so it's back to school. My friend Alex (exchange student from Oregon) comes to my school in the afternoon and we leave together. Before going to my house we stop at Big C (the large grocery store chain in Thailand) so I can buy candles. When I get home I find that a package has arrived for me! I can't open it yet though because that evening we go to Angtong (a neighboring province about halfway between Lop Buri and Bangkok) for a large Rotary celebration/fundraiser put on by the Angtong Rotary Club. When we get home I open my box (from my Aunt and Uncle, thank you so much!) I find wrapped Christmas presents! One thing isn't wrapped though and that's a CD of children's songs by a band that my Uncle plays in. Alex and I listen and dance to the songs which are about animals mostly, quite informative and super fun! We decide I'm allowed to open one gift now and save the rest for Christmas. In the morning we listen to our favorite song from the new CD and if that wasn't a great start to the day, then we made blueberry pancakes and played with my dog! After Alex went home I spent a lot of time with my host mom and dad and then with my oldest host brother, just talking. In the evening, I used the candles I had bought the day before to make my own "Menorah", though I wasn't able to light the candles every night, I made sure I did on the last night, Happy Hanukkah everyone! It was a great day! And theres a new one tomorrow! Life is good!

Photos! <--- Here's the link again! Photos of the schools we went to, the sunflowers and lots more! :) I think about 40 new ones. Please let me know whether or not the link here is working out.

-Kearn