Wake me up when September ends

hey ya'll, Were back In Ngao, where we taught at the High school and...

Yes Mat, I know I got daily fourth for the toon . Pretty awesome huh? Thats better than what some front page cartoons get. ah well, It didn't quite have the right taste to make it to front page. But it was such a quick project it didn't really deserve to make it any higher.
(Lol, I spelt your name with one T, for old times sake... To rark you up. I mean, Its not as if your name hasn't been shortened already, why not shorten it a bit more.. Or even shorten it again. Your name is now M, and you are now eligible to join a secret service of some type.)

But yes anyway, back in ngao, but now our teams double the size and we no longer have Mark and Ema. Sniff. We'll miss you guys. Probably the best rollmodels ever. If you guys wanna meet Mark I suggest you go cause some havok and get arrested. He'll be the one visiting you when you call and say your having a domestic. If its not him the first time just call again. Luck of the draw and all that.

The Phili team reunited with us wednesday last week. They took the night train like we did. Except that this time the night train couldn't make it up the hill. So it rolled backwards for a while. Making a delay of a few hours. So im guessing they rolled backwards back to Bangkok or something. XD
The night before we were like, meh, I don't really care if we meet up again. But by the next day we were all fidgity, and every time a car went past the Juniper tree we would all look up quickly, and then drop our heads in dissappointment for the millionth time.
Its been good seeing everyone again.
At the moment we're all preparing for the english camp which starts tomorrow. 6 lessons tomorrow. 300 kids in total at the camp. 2 days. Now the two days part isn't so good. They had budget issues. But also I think the authorities caught wind of who we actually are, and so their limiting our capacity to work now.

So keep praying for our final days here in Thailand. Thankyou...

*Feverishly runs off to do a as of yet non existant news letter that was due this morning.*

Summer time and the living is busy

So we left our cushy teaching positions of paper pushing and brain press ups to the real deal. Manual labour, probably the first decent batch of hard work we have had all year. Finally, something that doesn't involve planning and reading. Although those are fun.


We mished it to Chang Rai, which shouldnt be confused with Chang Mai, which is where the Juniper tree is. Chang Rai is about as close as you can get to Burma without getting shot. In the space of about 5 minutes we made it into Burmese waters (I refuse to say we were in Burma, water just does not count, try starting a civilization on water. Waterworld being the exception, but thats cause they had nowhere else to go. So for the record I haven't been to burma, and neither has the rest of the team, so when the thailand team tells you we went to three countries in one day just slap them and say that water doesnt count.) three countries you say bemusedly? Yes, Laos was also right there, the three countries all meet at the fork in a river, which consequently runs through China as well. We spent about an hour on Laos, they seem to deal mostly in Vodka pickled snakes. I think its meant to improve how verile you are. Or how much a tourist is willing to pay for a poisones pest sitting in a bottle of vodka. No. I didn't buy one.

So on my birthday I got to visit two and a half countries. well, when I say visit for Thaialand I really mean spend three more weeks in. So in actual fact I got to visit 1.5 countries on my birthday. In fact I cant even legally say I even set foot on Laos. So I actually Visited .7 countries on my birthday... Ok thats just rediculious, Ill stop there.

My birthday was alright, although it was mostly spent in travel to Chang Rai. The team still managed to suprise me with an upside down cake.. It wasnt actually meant to be upside down, its just the way it came out after a few hours travel. But that didn't stop it from tasting alright. And over the day I got given a few bottles of death syrup (AKA, fizzy drink)

Also we got to visit the white palace. Its amazing, until you realize that in buddhist culture it all represents hell. Poetic and grotesque. Inside the main hall is a huge painting, which is still being worked on, its done in a traditional style, but interlaced into it is guns, starwars characters, bombs, Neo, Alien, sexual stuff, Predator, oil fields and other blatantly western things. And up the top are two eyes. If you look closely you can see George bush in one eye and Osama in the other. Haunting, but at least now I have a good excuse to not wear white.



Now I started talking about building, yea, I did that to. Lol. We spent most of the week helping to build a rabbit hutch. Its going to be used for a breeding program, The christian organization we were working with wants to make hilltribes self suffisient, and not having to rely upon drugs and prostitution. They are bringing over NZ rabbits, which are apparently very plump for eating, sorry Bex, they eat rabbits, not pet them and give them wack names. But Like most New Zealanders the wee jumpy things have problems with the weather, so they need a cooler shed than most other animals so they can multiply properly.

Man im tired of writing, Ill finish this later.

Sorry for the lack of updating. Lets just say its a gauge of how busy/how much life I have at the moment. Im gonna try and split the updates into weeks. so heres the first.

week 7(?) we spent in Ngao. pronounced "now" which made for quite a few cheap jokes for the here and NOW. woa. that one still sucks. Ah well. Better luck next time huh.
Last I left off I was freaking out about teaching. Well it wasnt so bad. Because I got Jo. So she talked, I drew like a mad man on that board. Our first lesson was pretty hilarious. The board had scrawls all over it, and we were furiously rubbing out what we had just written up and woa.
One thing about schools in Thailand. In NZ we are coming to realize that the education system is more suited to females. Well Apparantly they realized this many years ago here in Thailand. In an average class there is usually about 3 guys in a class of 30 or 40. Two of those guys are most likely lady boys. Meaning they realized they were out numbered so they decided that if you cant beat them you may as well join them.

The Hostel we stayed with were really awesome. They are actually closely linked with the first hostel we stayed with in Bangkok. A lot of the guys from Bangkok actually started off at this one. Each night we would do a worship service. The hostel guys would just rock out. and all the songs would be uber awesome. Albet garage band sounding. But fun none the less. I got to learn a few songs. And we would jam out all the time. Since leaving I have been craving a guitar. Ah well. We'll be going back on our last week for english camp. So it should be swell to hang out with em all again.
On one of our last days we had an NZ birthday style day of games and stuff. I got to make the kiwi for pin the beak on the Kiwi. lol. but the best part was when we started a water fight, which then turned into a mudfight, because not long after the water fight started, the rain decided to have a go (And ultimatly won) and the mud also came along for the show. Although it felt like I was actually pelting Terresa and Grace with gravel rather than mud. Ah well. Its not cheating if they don't catch you.

the Primary goal

Last week we were hanging out in the Juniper tree. Nice resort place for burnt out missionaries, as it likes to be described. Its more like a private club, but thankfully their nice people, so the little gappers were aloud in. Oh yea, the train trip was aight. We had beds that popped out of the walls and stuff. It was awesome. Although the sleep was pretty bad. Bumping around and just in general not being able to sleep.



We have been hanging out with a primary school in chang Mai. Twas a fun place. Me and Jess got the little little ones. One the last day we took them to the Zoo. So much fun. I got designated leader of our small group, so they push me and Jo out into the Zoo with a hastely nabbed map to get a bunch of little kids. My basic leadership model was to look at the map thoughtfully for a while then point in the direction and say "PANDAAAAAAAA." where the kids would follow suit and go chasing off in the right direction. I was a bit gutted we didnt get to see the panda in the end. Ah well, we got to see a show with the seals. and another wildlife show. Where parrots climbed ladders and went down flying foxes and did in general, un birdy type things. Oh yea, there was an eagle who did two reggle swoops over the crowd then stollidly decided it didnt want to move any more, and just sat on its roost and eyed small childrens, uh, eyes?

J had his 20th on the 30th. We blind folded him and took him into town to have big icecream.. Then we went home and ate icecream.. Then we had icecream for breakfast.

Today we went to the school we were teaching at today, not knowing ANYTHING. We had little to no teaching plans laid out or anything. Thankfully God heard my prayer this morning and they let us skip out on our classes, Were going hard tomorrow though. Good thing, Jo and me are teaching together this time around and this morning she was just so wasted. No one slept good last night. I Swear we wandered into a bugtopia or something. Zac keeps finding massive spiders and I got a firefly in our room last night. I was so amazed, I had to wake the guys up "look look look look, check it out isnt it awesome!" And then Zac got a toad in his bag this morning, it jumped out while he was getting junk out.

ooooooooooooooh k, gotta go.