Hot, beautiful, ant larvae

There is not time to write a book, so here are a few words to summarize the experience so far: wonderful, sad, challenging, stretching, beautiful, caring, sharing, hope, need for love, community, fellowship, God, desperate, heat, water, electrolyte packs, roasted beetles, silk worms, ant larvae, and screaming hot chili peppers.

Yesterday we visited two schools in the Chai Wan region to which we donated a computer for satellite-broadcasted classes, clothes, money for school lunches, and books to help fill a library that burned down. We have found that it is essential to give to meet a specific need, as otherwise the money can get lost in bureaucracy and never be used to help. It is simultaneously wonderful to see the kids, who all share their smiles so willingly and heartbreaking to see their living conditions and hear about things like their difficulty in getting wells dug deep enough for sufficient water. We gathered a list of needs from the schools and are now considering how we can best help with them.

One note about the last four items on the list: they are all food I’ve eaten (there is nothing quite like fellowshipping over some insect grub). I first discovered the chili peppers at a Vietnamese restaurant when I picked one up, thinking it looked like an oddly shaped green bean. After taking a bite, I realized that I was mistaken. While much of the food is flavored with some form of chili, the one that was truly screaming hot was at the first school, where they fed us lunch after two groups of kids gave us performances to show their gratitude and after they showed us how they make clothes (and fed us some silk worms they had used to get silk). One of the dishes at the buffet was a basket of whole, cooked fish (complete with head, skin, bones, tail, and intestines), and next to the fish was a sauce that I now know should be used sparingly to flavor said fish. I was not aware of this at the time, however, and ate it like soup. I can say that I have never cried nor sweat as much from something spicy as from that. The burn faded after about 30 minutes, some fruit, and a bit of water. I think you can’t say you’ve had a complete Thai experience without something similar.

As Ryan has already described, our experience at the orphanage has left few hearts no heart untouched. The girls are so friendly; they love playing games, learning English, and teaching Thai. Is it so sad to know that they have no family to support them and that they receive so few visitors - we heard that we are the only visitors who have come to interact with them in the past three months. Many people who give donations just drop them off without playing or interacting with the kids, thus filling the physical, but not the emotional need. Each member of the group has developed a following of girls. My first day I had three younger girls (seen the photo of me from an earlier post with the girl asleep in my lap), and the past two days, I have developed a teenage following of about five girls, from 14-19. One of them is attending a college in Udon Thani and has enough English to converse a little. I have also learned a new version of checkers and a pretty sweet version of Pattycake for four people (though I haven’t mastered the song to go along with it yet, as it is in Thai). Tomorrow we are excited about an all-day water fight.

I will end here before I reach book-length and so that I can get some breakfast before heading out for another full day at the orphanage and then to the country for a traditional Thai meal with Pi Phoon (sp?) and her family, some local Thai friends who have been helping us all week.

Blessings to you all,

- Andrew Moedinger

Also, for the geographically inclined, here is a mile high view of our hotel.