Bamboo, Bees, and Bananas

The mornings are so enjoyable here. Spending time with the kids as they do chores and get ready for school. Nice & pleasant.

I spent the morning weaving my shirt and creating the template for another shirt. It was this intricate template. Purple, black, and white--they look really nice together! But right before lunch, Methom realized we miscalculated it. So we took it apart. All my hard work rolled up into thread balls. But I am a lot better and rolling balls now, which is a plus.

Lunchtime. All the staff gathers together and just eats in an area outside the store. Lots of food and fun. But today, Tanin shows up with a cross section of a bee hive. I'm thinking that maybe they're getting the honey, yum. But no. Tanin's cousin went out at night and threw fire into the tree, all for the purpose of getting the bees. TO EAT. So some guy cooks the bees in a soup...you see the white larvae, the middle-aged bees, and the old guys. They all say that the bee is their favorite 'animal' to eat. (Animal? More like INSECT!) Then pig, then chicken.

So I'm inches away from eating one--my eyes are closed, my mouth's open, and someone's holding a spoon right there--until Wanakam (a really sweet lady who does the accounting here) yells, "NO!" Apparently some people get really bad allergic reactions to eating bees and she didn't want a visitor taking the risk. Whew.

Then I see a guy bringing in a huge bunch of bananas. It looks like monkey heaven. So cool. And then someone brought part of a bamboo tree for us to eat. This all just blows my mind.

About 10 girls went to Chiang Mai today. The Jem Luang school kids are divided into several groups; each village has groups, and our center has 3 or 4. The teachers choose the best overall group to go on this excursion. So I'm proud of these girls! They took off in the back of a pick-up truck...hopefully none of them get carsick.

The dancing girls & I also made the final video today. YES. They are such good sports and work hard, so I took them to the store down the road afterwards. That made them very happy. :)

I'm speaking tonight. And I'm supposed to cook spaghetti. (Karen spaghetti). But I have no clue how to work their cooking things, so hopefully I can get out of it....hehe.

P.S. I have pictures of the bees. And the bee soup. Not quite pea soup.