As much as I love all of our trips up into the mountains, there is always one downside to them: ROOSTERS. This morning, they didn't start painfully early, but what they lost in time they made up for in volume. They were so loud! This time they were actually about six feet away from me. I thought that I would take matters into my own hands, so I grabbed both of my tennis shoes and went chasing after them. They must have some kind of an agreement with the dogs there though because after a few feet of me chasing them, the dogs came running and barking after me. At that point, I gave in and decided to go for a run, seeing as I had my tennis shoes in hand. I didn't really think that through very well though because one whole half of my run was uphill. I managed to survive and make it back to our cabin though. When I came back, there were a few people that had given up trying to sleep through the crowing, so I talked with them for a while. A group of us decided to go and get a cup of fresh coffee next door. It was so good! I bet there aren't a lot of people that can say they have had a cup of coffee straight off of the plantation! I made it back to the cabin in time to help P'Wah and P'Pui prepare breakfast for everyone. We were only having toast and eggs, so it wasn't too difficult. I was in charge of boiling the water for coffee and cocoa. When it was ready, Rit came up to me, and I asked him if I could fix him a cup of coffee. He declined my offer and only took me up on the hot water. I must say, I have not met too many people that drink hot water straight like that. It was pretty entertaining though.
After breakfast, it was time for the games to begin! P'Wah and I were the ring leaders of all the festivities. The first game we had lined up was a relay that involved every one taking turns to brush their teeth. The object of the game was to see which team could use up the most toothpaste. My team, which had totally dominated in the game the night before, also easily beat out the opposing team in this game as well. I was so proud! I think that game got everyone into the competitive spirit, not to mention the added advantage of having a clean, fresh mouth.
Following the game, P'Yut led a short devo for everyone. I really like singing all of the Thai church songs. I may have to snatch a song book to take back with me to the states so that I don't forget them. After the devo, we played a game that was focused more on vocabulary and spelling, because after all, this is English camp. For this game, each team had to spell the given word correctly by running down and finding a single letter in the word and then bringing it back to their team. To slow things down a bit, we made them have to run back and forth with a book on their head. Sadly, the other team won this game, but we were not discouraged. After the games, we gave everyone a few hours to chill out and relax before lunch. I talked to P'Wah for a bit during the break. It is always good to talk to her, but she is so hard for me to figure out. She does manage to keep life interesting though.
At about noon, I helped P'Pui fix lunch. We had noodle soup with vegetables. My job was to cut up the vegetables, and my cooking inexperience was quite evident. It is kind of hard to mess that up though, so I guess that was a good job for me. Once everyone had had their fill, we made our way down to the basketball court to play the last few games. The first game consisted of a person from each team racing the length of the court in the specified manor, and the first person down would have to try and splash the other person with water. P'Pui didn't really want to get wet, so I gladly played in her spot. When my number was called, I did not manage to crab walk fast enough down to the end, and I ended up getting pretty wet. The next game that we played worked on spelling. The four farongs that were playing all stood at different spots in the court and tried to tag people as they ran back and forth with their cups trying to fill up their bucket of water. If a person was tagged, then the farongs would give them a word to spell. If the word was spelled correctly, then the Thai could splash the farong with water, but if the word was spelled incorrectly, then the farong could splash the Thai with water. Most of them spelled pretty well, but there were a few tricky words-kangaroo, Arkansas, hippopotamus.
I think overall, everyone enjoyed the games. One thing did puzzle me though. Halfway through the water games, it started to rain, and all the Thais, even though they were already wet, ran for cover. Apparently, some Thais are really superstitious about the rain and think that it will make them mai soo kha paab (unhealthy). It didn't make sense to me, but then again, I guess I do a lot of things that probably don't make sense to them either.
Once the games had concluded, everyone got changed and packed up to go home. I decided to stay and go back on the second truckload so that I could help clean everything up. All the other farongs ended up going in the first load back though, so I was there with all Thai speakers. After a while, I got kind of overwhelmed by trying to figure out what was going on. I guess Ball noticed my confusion, so he came over to talk to me for a while. We actually had a legitimate conversation that made me really excited. Ball has been hanging out at the zone for about two years now, and he hasn't every really showed a whole lot of interest in becoming a Christian. In fact, most of the time he won't come to activities that involve us praying or singing songs, but he has been coming to a lot more things now that do-which is kind of cool. He ended up asking me quite a few questions about my faith and various other religious and spiritual aspects of life. This was the first sign of interest that I had seen from him towards this sort of thing, and it was so encouraging.
P'Pui eventually made it, and we loaded up the rest of the supplies for the trek home. The way home was kind of treacherous-all of the freshman students at Chiang Mai University had walked up to Doi Suthep for a Buddhist worship activity, so they roads on the way down were packed with 6,000 CMU freshmen. I eventually made it back though, and by that time, I was tired and hungry and ready for bed.
I have recently discovered a love for facebook chatting with the Thais at night. I have stayed up all hours of the night being thoroughly entertained by their stimulating conversation. They definitely keep me on my toes. Rather than keep all of you in the dark about this, I thought that I would share some of my experiences. This particular conversation is with a young man named Bomb. Most of the time our communication makes no sense, so we usually just throw in random movie quotes and American cliches that we have taught him. This was right after we saw the movie Get Smart so you may recognize several of the quotes from that. I hope you are able to enjoy reading this conversation even half as much as I did experiencing it:
