Youth Camp!

My good friend Stoney put on a youth camp at his site to teach students from his area about Buddhism, Democracy and HIV/AIDS education. Because there were over 300 kids me and 3 other volunteers came to help out.

The kids lined up for the opening ceremony.

We had to wait for the Governor to show up to open the camp so to kill time they had us dance for the kids....their lives will never be the same.



After the Governor spoke there was a flag ceremony.


And then the students had to crawl through this tube and when they emerged at the end they were blessed by a monk. Stoney's counterpart came up with this idea and we assigned face painting duty. Before the students went into the tube they had to walk buy us and get their face painted with powder/water.

Of course we got painted too.



The next day we ran an HIV/AIDS station where we talked about the importance of safe sex. We taught the students to put on condoms and played lots of games.


Demonstrating correct condom usage.

A hockey-like game. Very entertaining.


In this game the doctor would read out a situation and the students had to run to the right board. During this game we learned how little the students knew about risky behaviors.






On the last night there was a show.

Each of the nine groups put on a skit and then the Americans did one too. Ours was another lesson about condom usage but soon turned into us dancing and getting the students to dance with us.

Kate Goes to a Funeral

I had the opportunity to go to a Thai funeral and while the idea is the same as an American the ceremony is very very different. The Thai funeral can last anywhere from 3-7 days depending on the wealth of the family. The funeral I went to lasted 3 days and it was for the mother of one of the teachers at my school. It was an unexpected death but they threw everything together very quickly.


Outside the deceased house large tents are set up and chairs are arragned for everyone in the village. This picture doesn't show it well be there were well over 200 people sitting outside the small house.

The coffin looks like it is ready for Christmas and is air conditioned!!


The monks come and chant for the dead.



After the monks leave everyone takes a turn lighting an incense and "praying" for the dead. This is my friend Ni.


At the end everyone eats and drinks and is in amazingly good spirits. At this funeral not ONE person cried. Another volunteer heard that there are certain days of the week that a Thai person will cry, maybe this funeral just fell on the wrong day of the week, or maybe they are just happy for the dead to start a new life.

Finally, one thing that EVERY funeral has is gambling. Probably why most people attend the funeral is because at the end almost everyone sits down to gamble. Technically this is illegal in Thailand (because the money has a picture of the King on it) so I couldn't take more pictures but I couldn't believe how many people were playing games or how much money was being passed around.



The next day everyone gathered again to take the body to get cremated. I missed the ceremony because a nap was calling my name but I was watching the TV show LOST and there was an episode where it shows a picture of a "Thai cemetery" and I am here to tell you that they are wrong. Most Thai people are cremated when they die, I should work for LOST.