Stupid Old Navy Flip Flops

I taught the primary kids a song today. Not as hard as I thought it'd be, seeing as they didn't understand what they were singing! But it had motions, and we had a blast. Uncle Sam & I then thought up games off the top of our heads. We had another hurdle to jump over in trying to explain directions, but oh such fun!! Some of the kids, like Saksiy, also wanted to do more origami. :) So we set up an origami station and made lions, tigers, and... elephants. Waraporn, the sweetheart, made a boat. Then she drew a girl, cut her out, put her in the boat. Made a paddle and a purse, and said, "Go to America!!" At first, the boat was on the table. Then she got a blue piece of paper and put the boat there. Then we all came up with the [brilliant] idea...what about real water? So the boat was floating in real water for awhile, heading to America, before it started to sink.

Tete, her husband, another woman, Uncle Sam, and I also went to a rice paddy today. We were scoping out the paddy that the HRDC owns & looking for its water source. The person who owns the paddy above ours doesn't take good care of it, so water isn't going down into our land. But in order to get to the water source, we went on quite a trek weaving through craziness. Old Navy flip flops just don't work. I was sliding all around & almost fell into the stream 3 times. (At two of the crossings, there was only one thin piece of wood for us to step on...whoa, right?)

What an experience.

Then we drove on the bumpyyy dirt road to another village to visit with Tete's friend. Saw coffee trees, jackfruit trees, PIGS!, everything it seems. As we went back up the path, we saw Tete's husband visiting with a random family. The Karen people are so laid back and hospitable. I mean, they spend their days growing what they need to eat and enjoying life. There were 3 or 4 generations under this little wooden apparatus, and one of them was a true authentic Karen grandma. I mean, if you Google "Karen tribe, Thailand", you'll see her. She's 100. And just the sweetest lady ever. We took pictures with her, and when we found out she's 100, we all did a thumbs up. :)

They also served us tea. Tasty. But the people here don't exactly use soap. So it was mostly just hot water & fingers cleaning out the cups. I took two sips. I really only should've taken one, but I took the second one to make sure the taste was a finger-induced saltiness & not the natural taste of the tea. Ha. It was tasty enough to take the chance.