Saturday, April 25, 2015
Friday, April 17, 2015
Saturday, April 11, 2015
The Rest of the Thailand Trip
We spent nine very hot days in Sangklaburi, visiting with friends, seeing the sites, eating great food - and working. Thank goodness we had air conditioned rooms, at least at night I could feel cool and comfortable. Sitting here now in my house in Seattle with cool cloudy weather outside it’s hard to remember just how hot it was.
Only my grandson Oran seemed to be immune to the heat, or at least he was the one least able to articulate his complaints. The evenings were better and we would sit outside drinking beer with ice and eating fresh fruit and think ‘this isn’t so bad…’
We did a one day workshop in Sangklaburi at the home of a British colleague - the house was cool and there was plenty of electricity for fans to cool the attendees (and presenters,) but the next two days we did another workshop in the primary school in Palan Japan, inside Burma. The building had little desks for little students, and the diesel generator wasn’t powerful enough for more than one fan plus the computer and projector. The students tried hard to remain actively involved in spite of the heat, but it was hard.
Then it was time to leave. We took two big slow buses back to Bangkok where we stayed at a beautiful resort hotel on the river for the last three nights. Every morning I had wonderful hot coffee, fresh papaya, watermelon, pineapple, and freshly baked pastry, delicious bread and cheese, and plenty of juice. It was so good. One night we ate at the Benihana restaurant, which Oran really liked - lots of activity to keep a three year old interested. Overall Oran, who just turned four this week, was very good, especially when he was rested. He made lots of friends and was not at all shy about playing with the local kids where ever we went.
After my family left I waited in Bangkok for my friend Joyanna, who is an officer of TBBHI and has a lot of public health experience, to arrive. She and I worked together in Shiprock, and she agreed to help us with an assessment of the health needs of the communities we serve, and with managing all the data we have been collecting for the past few years. It was much cooler that last week, and Joyanna is energetic, so it felt like we (she) got a lot done.
And then it was back on the big slow buses to Bangkok for a last dinner in the Sky Bar on the 38th floor of a hotel in a different world from the one we left that morning. At 4:00AM we checked out, went to the airport in a taxi driven by a maniac, and started our long trips home.
It’s been a week since I arrived home and this is the first day I have stayed awake all day, and last night was the first night I slept through, so perhaps my jet lag, at last, is resolving, .
Only my grandson Oran seemed to be immune to the heat, or at least he was the one least able to articulate his complaints. The evenings were better and we would sit outside drinking beer with ice and eating fresh fruit and think ‘this isn’t so bad…’
We did a one day workshop in Sangklaburi at the home of a British colleague - the house was cool and there was plenty of electricity for fans to cool the attendees (and presenters,) but the next two days we did another workshop in the primary school in Palan Japan, inside Burma. The building had little desks for little students, and the diesel generator wasn’t powerful enough for more than one fan plus the computer and projector. The students tried hard to remain actively involved in spite of the heat, but it was hard.
Then it was time to leave. We took two big slow buses back to Bangkok where we stayed at a beautiful resort hotel on the river for the last three nights. Every morning I had wonderful hot coffee, fresh papaya, watermelon, pineapple, and freshly baked pastry, delicious bread and cheese, and plenty of juice. It was so good. One night we ate at the Benihana restaurant, which Oran really liked - lots of activity to keep a three year old interested. Overall Oran, who just turned four this week, was very good, especially when he was rested. He made lots of friends and was not at all shy about playing with the local kids where ever we went.
After my family left I waited in Bangkok for my friend Joyanna, who is an officer of TBBHI and has a lot of public health experience, to arrive. She and I worked together in Shiprock, and she agreed to help us with an assessment of the health needs of the communities we serve, and with managing all the data we have been collecting for the past few years. It was much cooler that last week, and Joyanna is energetic, so it felt like we (she) got a lot done.
And then it was back on the big slow buses to Bangkok for a last dinner in the Sky Bar on the 38th floor of a hotel in a different world from the one we left that morning. At 4:00AM we checked out, went to the airport in a taxi driven by a maniac, and started our long trips home.
It’s been a week since I arrived home and this is the first day I have stayed awake all day, and last night was the first night I slept through, so perhaps my jet lag, at last, is resolving, .
Friday, April 10, 2015
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