Kantook Dinner

Last night we went to a traditional northern Thai style meal called a Kantook. We went shopping to the day market the day before and with help from our Thai buddies bought traditional Thai outfits! For females it was a wrap skirt and a shirt. It's pretty cool. It was a bit of a challenge to find a shirt that fit because the Thai people are tiny tiny. Each shirt I looked at the shop keeper would look at it and at me and say no, too small. But I found a nice white one. And a beautiful red skirt with gold elephants on. I liked it. Our Thai buddies came over and helped us get ready and did our hair. They put pretty flowers in our hair... I think they were orchids. Orchids are everywhere here. I love it! At the dinner we sat on the ground which is difficult in a skirt and with nothing to lean on. Oh yeah, and through in that you can't point your feet at anyone....try it. It's a challenge! The dinner was good. I had my first real experience with sticky rice and I loved it. It was so good! They put large platters on the ground and we all ate off of them putting the food on our plates. In Thailand you eat with the spoon and use the fork to help load the spoon. It's quite a clever way to eat. Very helpful. But again a challenge to do so on the ground. They had traditional Thai dancers that preformed during the dinner. It was basically a dinner show for tourists. There were lots of white people there. And instead of a coat check they had a shoe check because you can't wear your shoes anywhere. I like it! It's also a very good idea to sit near a Thai buddy and learn how to do all this. Otherwise you will be lost. I sat across from one of the girls and she told us all about the dancing and the food and how to do things properly. It was fun!
It was a good ending to a day with 5 hours to Thai language class. Yes I did say 5 hours! It's insane. Everyday this past week we've been having intense intense intense language study. There is so much to learn and it is so different that it is all the more challenging. We've learned like 60 pages of our book in 4 days. Each page has something new on. It's insane. I have a lot of memorizing to do. It'll be good when I can practice more with my Thai family. When I go to the canteen (the cafe) to get lunch I try ordering in Thai and they just look at me like I'm crazy and I end up speaking English... but someday I'll get it.
Yesterday I went to visit the first internship. It's called Agape Home. It's an orphanage for HIV kids and this place was probably one of the coolest ministries I've seen. It had a great facility and the people who worked there were so lovely. I might intern there. It was founded by a lady who adopted a girl named Niki who they thought was going to die but she took her in and she is still alive and is now 18 years old. It's amazing. There are about 80 kids there. They all have bed rooms that are painted awesome (not their own room, but they share it). They have a clinic in the building and it doesn't look like an orphanage at all. If I intern there I'd be teaching English in the school. It also has a facility for HIV mothers who are able to stay with their kids and are rejected by the rest of their families. It seemed like a very awesome ministry. Another aspect that I found really inviting was the staff that worked there. There was an Australian women, a Canadian and a lady from Boston. They seemed like great people to work along side and get to know. They were so sweet. I'm going to look at one other place tomorrow. Its a simliar type of place but it's in a school with slum children or really poor kids. I'd be teaching English there too. Both would be a challenge as I have never taught English before but I'd learn. :) I'll let you all know what I choose!
I think that's all the news from the past few days. I uploaded some pics from Kantook dinner to the new dropshots site.... http://www.dropshots.com/mkinthailand2 because the other one is full on videos. I'll be adding more pics to the first one too. So check both from time to time!