Mae Soon wedding

Tim, Divya, Nit, Pia Da and me heading up to Mae Soon

On the twenty forth of February we went up to a Karen hill tribe village called Mae Soon.  The reason we were their is because of a wedding for one of our house mothers up in the Warm Heart Children’s Home.  The brides name is Ann with her new husband's named John.

The bumpy back and forth up and down adventure was a long tiring ride (2 hours) in the back of a pick up truck. Even though we were in a truck it was comfy because we had pillows under us and surrounding us. Lots of kids from the Children's home came with us. Meme and the ring bearer boy both live at the Children's home because Mae Soon does not have a school for them to go to.

flower girls

Suda, Meme, New and me

Anne getting ready

wedding party ready to go in to the church

village wedding guest and baby looking in to the church

The Church was pouring with people trying to find a seat.  But that was only because the church was small and the whole village came to celebrate. The people in the front including the bride, the groom, the maid of honor, the best man, the flower girls and the ring boy all wore their ceremonial outfits. The bride wore black and MeMe got to wear white, that is very different.

Warm Heart crew with Meme and Anne

Mae Soon house

Evelind and Dad

mom in Mae Soon village

Evelind, mom and me

wedding feast 

After the wedding we all sat down on floor mats at Ann's family house and had a feast of spicy pork in chile sauce, cabbage, sunflower seeds, coke and of course sticky rice. 

  

FURNITURE

Them measuring and thinking

Half way done

Dad drilling and having fun

Tim and Laurie thinking "........."

My dad seeing if it sturdy anough

Adding the final touch

 HOI SAI AND FURNITURE......


One of the projects at Warm Heart, the Organization that my family is volinteering at, is developing a Comunity Center at a place called Hoi Sai. 

To make this happen they have to build furniture and gardening to plant things like hibiscus,  roses and aloe vera . In this post I will tell you about furniture that has been created and the progression of the project.

Some of the things that they are making are awesome unique tables, a strong bookself, and some short short chairs. The materials they are  using to make these thing are only bamboo, wood (from pallets) and nails to hold all of the things together. The tools you would need to build the furniture, include a sharp dangerours used-to-be-shiney saw, a long dirty yellow measuring tape with a gray cover, a black handled hammer with a bright yellow body and a rusty gray top, and a LOUD noisy dangerous power drill. Some of the happy workers at Warm Heart that have developed the strong pettie furniture include Lurking Laurie, Tall Tim, and Greg the Great.


The furniture that has been made by Tim, Laurie and my Dad is very very unique. But before they are displayed they must make them be pretty by sanding and  oiling them.  Even though they are  very noisy to make, they will be quite when they are put to use.

Chiang Dao

Us in the cave

All of the girls in front of our hotel sign

We went to Chiang Dao for the weekend.  Chiang Dao is famous because it has a Cave-Wat and a Elephant park. We drove to Chiang Dao, the ride was up and down,  left to right.  These are some of the things we did through out the weekend.

Us on elephants for my moms belated birthday present

For the first picture this is me, Nit and New.  Nit might look familiar because she is from "a girl and a best friend". New is the other girl  mentioned in that post.  The cave we are in is called Chiang Dao Cave. This cave is F-A-M-O-U-S, people from all over the world come to see this Cave-Wat.  It was little creepy because it was dark and even though we had a guide we didn't know where she was taking us. Unfortunately the guide did not speak our language so we really have no information about  the cave. The only information I got was from a book my mom read.   

Steamed or Boiled?

A Lady Planting Rice

To plant the seedlings of rice they are bundled into lots of groups of the other soon to be planted rice. They are planted in a place called a rice paddy which is a lot of land spilt up into little rectangles, squares and arrays of any numbers. When rainy season is done the rice is ready to harvest. To harvest you could do it by hand which is the harder way but the cheaper way, or you could do it with a machine which is the easier way and the expensive way, also if you want a break of hard work :). Here in Phrao we mostly see them do harvest by hand because most of the families that do it need money for their family's food and education if they have little tots (kids). Where I live right now we have a rice field (already been harvested)  right in front of our apartment. They may do the process again and if they do then I will take lots of pictures and make a rice movie out of it!!! :)

One Starfruit Two Stitches

Starfruit and meds

It all started one night when we were supposed to go out to a nice lovely dinner but, my mom (Eileen) desired a snack before we went out to an expensive (not really expensive) dinner. (A nice dinner here is about 200 baht which is about $6.00 US money)

Thai Baht

Here's The Story For You To Know.........

1 STARFRUIT 2 STICHES

 As we started out the gate I was on the back of my father's motor scooter, and stopped to wait for my mother. But when we turned around we saw my mom grabbing a starfruit off of the tree on the way out. My dad and I called over to my mom of corse she was at the tree choosing a starfruit to pick. When she picked off a starfruit she tried to get a way fast because she was scared that someone was watching her other then us.  But she did not realize that she had put pressure on the gas instead of the brake, so the next thing she knew she was kissing the wall. Then my dad rushed over to my mom and looked at her boo boo. He told me that it was a BIG gash. Before my mom knew it she fainted twice and off to the Hospital we went for her two stitches.

A girl and a best friend

Me and Nit

ME AND NIT

This is me ant Nit Akanit she is 15 and her best friend is New Sareerat who is 15 too. They both are from the Karan tribe and live at the WarmHeart Children's home. Nit's summer is between March and April. She will go home and live with here parents. Her parents sell corn in the market. Her favorite subject is languages. She is studying French, English and Chinese, how does she do that!!!!!!? In this picture we are standing in front of the white board at the office with all the names and why the volunteers are here. On this day Nit had off from school for Teacher's Day, I guess they have those in Thailand too.( I wonder if they have SUN days instead of "snow days" ?)HA HA HA

Cooking Class

This is me making Pad See Uw

These are our Spring rolls before we deep fried them

This is a dish called Khao Soi

These pictures are all from a cooking class we took in Chiang Mai. I really liked getting to use a wok and cook some of the yummy food myself. We used some very interesting ingredients such as, galanga (Thai ginger), turmeric root and kaffir, a lumpy lime. I even got to make curry paste from scratch. My mom and I have learned to say, mai pet (not spicy)

Chiang Mai

My dad and me at Wat (temple) Chedi  Luang in Chiang Mai 

Big Buddha

In Chiang Mai wherever you go/look you will see lots of wats. Most Thai's are Buddhist. The wat I am in front is one of many important wats in the city. Thai people believe that spirits live under the threshold, so Thai people step over all of the thresholds because of that belief. And to respect there customs we do the same. Every man in Thailand has to be a monk for part of their life. Monks go around every morning for free food.

In the second photo there is a big buddha. There is a story to go with the picture. Once there was a monk, he was so handsome that all men and women fell in love with him, many people looked up to him and not the main monk. The handsome monk did not want this so he turned him self in to a fat, ugly Buddha.