Monday 01 June
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I can’t believe I’ve been here 4 weeks already! The weather went back to being really hot & didn’t rain for over a week…The average daily temperature ranges from a low of 25 to a maximum around 35 degrees Celsius. The humidity feels like about a thousand percent, although I realise that’s not actually possible…. I am soaked from the moment I get dressed in the morning, until I have a cold shower before I go to bed. And ankles? What ankles? There are cankles where my ankles used to be, & the only shoes that fit me are my Havianas & Crocs. Even my toes are swollen.
In the midst of all this heat, we’ve been busy bees; painting the inside & outside of our new volunteer house, now that Pern has moved onto the campus of her university; reconstructing the gravel driveway which literally washed away down onto the road during the big storms recently. This we managed with 2 garden hoes (there is no shovel, let alone a backhoe, which would have been the best tool for the job), 2 plastic baskets (through which the dirt sifted in steady streams down our sweaty legs as we hauled them up the driveway), and a bucket. This is no place for anyone worried about a broken fingernail or two. And of course there’s the daily trek to use the internet to complete the work we have been assigned to do for IHF. It’s about a twenty minute walk to the closest internet café, which is cheap (10THB/hour) but is packed full of gamers for most of the day, whose video cards use up all the bandwidth so it takes forever to open an email, and half the keyboards have keys that don’t work because they are constantly getting hammered as a “fire” key or some such gaming thing…. So instead I prefer to go to the McLovin Room, another 5 minutes walk, but has free wifi & good coffee (& great air conditioning). Whenever I can I’ve been trying to borrow a bicycle that belongs to someone else here at the centre, which makes the trip much quicker, especially as I have my laptop in tow. It didn’t take me long to remember that it’s about 2 years since I last took a spin class; my legs were complaining on the second day in a row that I cycled to McLovin - & it’s mostly flat road with one very small hill…. fitness is clearly not my strong point at the moment. I’d really like to buy a bike to give me a bit more independence & am trying to work out if I can afford one. Anyway, walk or cycle, I’m completely drenched in sweat with hair frizz to rival Carla from Cheers by the time I get there & slip into the fabulously cool (in both senses) café. And this is after more likely than not being chased by at best one, at worst various packs of dogs who live along the way. Even the IHF house has a dog, Diniel, who is a very good guard dog, and Caty has adopted a very cute white puppy that she rescued from being trapped in traffic a week or so ago. There’s also plenty of hoeing to do (in the agricultural sense) in the vegetable garden, as the recent downpours have given rise to a riot of weeds.
The great news of the past week is firstly that 3 more of the kids that left were brought back to the house by people from their villages. There was a big meeting with those kids, adults from their village & the centre directors, to try to make them understand what opportunities they are being given by living here, & that they have to go to school & follow the house rules. Any more ditching school means no more chances for them, but hopefully it won’t come to that. The second great news is that Caty’s uncle came to visit from the U.S. & immediately turned into an amazing benefactor. Not only is he going to pay the shortfall in the school fees for this year, he has also bought a brand new family-sized refrigerator for the house. This was needed so badly – there are 2 small ancient fridges in the kitchen, neither of which work properly or fit very much in them, so the whole refrigeration thing hasn’t really been happening…. God only knows how everyone doesn’t constantly have food poisoning.
I’ve been finding some brilliant food in the markets – lots of coconut custard & jelly-type things; fresh (well, I don’t know how fresh they are, but the non-fried type) spring rolls, & all manner of snack-ie type things. Not that I really know what most of them are, but I’ll give most things a go. They seem to be big on frying things in Chiang Rai, so a lot of the street food is pretty same same, so I think it’s a matter of discovering certain things at certain places & remembering where they are. I did see a mobile popsicle cart the other day when we were driving through town, & I’m going to keep my eyes peeled for another one of them – the popsicles were unwrapped & looked like frozen cubes of ice cream on a stick, in many different flavours – I’m all about cold things at the moment…like the frozen coconut shake I had the other day – heaven! I can’t really stress enough how freakin’ hot it is here….
The rain eventually came back & has cooled things down a bit again. The weather here is so intense. When it doesn’t rain for days at a time, we wish that it would, and then when it comes it rains so much that we wish for it to stop….and repeat…. The upshot of the rain we’ve had over the past 24 hours is that the driveway has again washed away onto the road, even worse than before, so I guess it’s back to the hoeing…
The kids that left have now been back for a week, & the change in them is incredible. Where before they were angry & hostile, they’re now friendly & happy, & have actually stayed in school all week. It’s so good to see the change in them, & now we just hope that the other 2 will come back as well.
This week the influx of new volunteers starts, with 2 arriving tomorrow & another 1 on Tuesday. In a few weeks there’s going to be about 10 of us for about a week and a half – that should be interesting…. Male volunteers are in short supply – we’ve got one at the moment and another one arriving in about 3 weeks, and there is much anticipation about how “handy” he’ll be. There are a lot of man jobs that need doing, but no tools or know-how amongst the women folk…. I’ve suggested that IHF starts a volunteer recruitment drive with tradie organisations & publications – it would be so helpful to have the occasional sparkie, plumber, or builder on the scene.
Thanks to everyone who’s left a comment on these ramblings – there always seems to be something going on, or curious thing to document, & I’m glad others are finding it interesting to read. I’ve got to start taking photos, which isn’t something I’m ever very good at remembering to do, but I’ll make it a priority to try!
