The Easter Kittens

Since it is midterm break, I am really bored. So today I thought I would get into the Easter spirit and made some Easter eggs. It was a whole morning project as I had to go and buy white eggs, food coloring, figure out the word for food coloring in Thai, and tissue paper (for the grass). It was a fun project.






Look what the Easter Bunny brought;) They are about a month and one week old in this picture. It was tough getting them to stay still and look at the camera for this picture. One more week and they are off to their new homes.

Traditional Thai instruments

This past weekend I went to visit one of the new volunteers who is living in my province now. We went all over her site and we visited her office. There were a bunch of kids getting music lessons. We were privledged enough to get to stay and watch. Here are just a few of the many traditional Thai instruments. They really love percussion and woodwinds in this culture.







This is called a Ranart-ek. Its similar to a xylophone only the wooden planks dont touch the wood base, and the instrument is arched. The planks are hanging like a suspension bridge.









This is called a Kong-Wong-Yai. I really liked this one as its really interesting to look at. Its kind of a mix between symbols and bells. You hit them with mallots, but the metal symbols are a lot thicker than our symbols, so make sounds inbetween a bell and a gong.

Holy Honey

There was this gigantic bee hive on the window of the temple I went to this past weekend. First, I have never seen a real bee hive, and second...this thing was huge! But it did make for a lovely photo.

A month without underwear 1

This past weekend, the volunteer Mike, who lives in province Tak, the province above me, became a monk. He is buddhist and since it is midterm was given permission by Peace Corps to become a monk for a month. 3 other volunteers came up for the ordination as well, which was fun as we got to sleep at his house without him there...he has to stay and live at the temple the entire time he is a monk. I wanted to highlight and explain some of the experiences of what happens when you become a monk. First everyone comes and cuts a piece of your hair. Monks have to shave all of the hair on their head, including their eye brows. This is because as a monk you can not be vain and concentrate on your outter apearance. I thought it was great that we all got to help in the shaving process...its very community oriented and is a way for everyone to participate in this process.

Next Mike put on his ordination robes. These were very funny as they were all white and gold lace with a lovely gold metal belt around his waist.














Then we sat and listened to a monk chant. Listening to monks chant is very boring as we can not understand any of it. All chanting is done in polly which is the original language of the buddhists from India, as that is where buddhism originated. So imagine having to sit on the ground and listen to a monk chant in a monotone voice that you can not understand for 30 minutes to an hour.

A month without underwear 2

Then we all walked in a procession up to the main temple carrying gifts. In the front were people Thai dancing and playing music to let everyone know there was a monk being ordaned today. We walked around the temple three times. This procession symbolizes the walk up to heaven for the buddhist people and monks.







Then he threw money wrapped in ribbons out in the crowd. They do this because they are to get rid of all their earthly belongings and wealth before they are a monk. Monks are to depend on everything from outside help so that they dont worry about money or belongings, as that gets in the way of the true buddhist beliefs of no materialism.







When finally inside the temple the monks all gathered and prayed.

A month without underwear 3

This part was where he chanted with several of the monks from the temple and with the head monk.















Here he recieves his official monk robes.













He prays with one of the elder monks












Here he is as an official monk. After becoming a monk he said the two things he will have the most trouble getting used to is having no hair or eyebrows and wearing no underwear, as monks dont wear underwear under their robes. I told him that after this experience he should write a book called... A month without underwear, memoirs or a monk.

Favorite Foods 2

This is the national dish of Thailand Pad Thai. I get this at my friends aunt's pad thai shop. She often times gives it to me for free as she is Christian and I have gone to church with her and am friends with her nephew. Her shop is famous in Kampangphet, and well deserving too because she makes GREAT pad thai. It is made with rice noodles, spices, egg, green long beans, sugar, and bean sprouts...then stir fried. For to go orders she wraps it in banana leaves for that extra special touch.




This is tofu red pork with cucumbers and sause. I get this at my local vegetarian shop. I often times will get tofu duck as well.











This is pumpkin curry. Its made with pumkin, curry paste, coconut milk, green long beans, some sort of tofu, basil, spices, and sugar...then boiled together to make a very yummy dish. I generally get this at my vengetarian shop too. The pumkins here are different as they are more squat than tall and are green on the outside. They are also not as hollow as ours are...so mostly pumpkin meat inside.

Favorite Foods 1

I thought I would post pictures of some of my favorite foods that I like to eat in Thailand. This is a picture of mushroom stems. They are a little tough and chewy, but prepared to look like some type of meat. I get them at my local vegan resteraunt.








These are fried bananas. I always buy them from this lady that owns a fried banana road side stand. I can never seem to get away very fast as she is a talker and is forever asking me questions.










This is called Gwee Chi. The brown ones are bamboo and garlic with some kind of flour covering that turns glutonous like after its been fried. The green ones are basically the same thing. It is some sort of leafy grean vegetable fried in the flour mixture. I generally eat it with soy sause.









This is mangos and sticky rice covered in sweet coconut milk. Im so excited to be able to eat this now because mangos are now back in season, as I am addicted to them. This sticky rice is boiled in sweet coconut milk, to make it have a sweet flavor, and then put with mangos and smothered in more sweet coconut milk. MMMMMM!

Sukhothai Historical Park 2

One of the many temples I saw.


















Some close of architechture of one of the temples.













Me pretending to be Buddha.

Sukhothai Historical Park 1

Last weekend my friend Bom and I went to the province of Sukhothai to see the historical park there. We just went on a day trip. Below are some of the pictures I took there. The place was truely amazing, and hundreds of years old.















This was my favorite Buddha. It was inside a large stone square temple, which is very unique in itself, and had a slit in the front so that you could only see just the center of the Buddha. It was a very powerful image!













Here I am sitting in front on the hand that belongs to the Buddha statue in the picture above.

3 weeks old

Here they are at 3 weeks old. Don't they look just like Eleanor. One is a boy and one is a girl. Thing 1 (aka the boy) Bom named Stevey. Thing 2 (aka the girl) doesnt have a name yet as Julia, the PCV taking her, hasnt seen her yet.

Centipede

This fellow was found the other night while talking on the phone to my Mom. I walked into my kitchen and saw Mr. Ruth playing with something in the bathroom. When I turned the light on and saw it was a centipede I grabbed him and put him inside the house quickly, as if it bit him he would definitly die. It quickly crawled out into my kitchen and I got a broom to kill it. This thing put up a good fight, as it didnt die easily and was coming at me the entire time I was trying to kill it. My Mother found this all very amusing, but they are still mildly venemous to humans.
Oh and my bathroom tiles are 8 inches by 8 inches, that was something in question with the scorpion picture.

Good-Bye Grade 6!

This is my last day at Klong Hoi Sai school. This is my 6th grade class and I. They will be going on to high school next year. From left to right is Lola, Vicky, Me, Olivia, and Mary. Those are their English names of course. These girls were all really great and I will definitly miss them a lot!

Som Tom means Papaya Salad

Som Tom means Papaya salad in English. It is a traditional Thai food from Issan(the large north eastern section of Thailand that is known for being very dry), and very popular. You typically eat it with sticky rice. It is made from unripened papaya sliced, green long beans, tomatoes, sugar, garlic, fish sause, peanuts, and of course hot chili peppers. Then it is mashed up with a pestal and mortar. It is aloi mak mak ( very delicious), but watch out...its one of the spicier dishes in Thailand.





We did a project at one of my schools where we made it, but we only used English. So they had to look up each ingrediant in English, then I described how to make Som Tom in English. Then the students made it themselves.














Here is the final product....mmmmm!