well makhampom is sadly over. It was such an amazing experience and i cant really believe that i have just done everything i have done in the past two weeks. i have learnt so much not just about theatre and community development but about myself and my own abilities and made some wicked new friends.
we are all a bit sad about leaving. makhampom really grew on us more than we expected. a number of people are already talking about coming back later in the year to work on the bangkok theatre festival with them.
i have now changed my plans. rather than heading north from chiang mai to laos, i have decided to head south to ko chang with a group of people from makhampom, so we can just laze about on the beach and have some more fun for a few days, then when they fly home i'll head off to laos, starting from the south.
last night was the farewell party at makhampom, and it was a great night. we made up a bit of a song about our experiences, some people did a bit of a skit, and there were awards for all. i won the award for best performance in our devised piece. it was a bit suprising, but i guess i did manage to make kids scream and run away in terror- which im still very proud of.
afterwards there was the really nice ceremony thing, where in the candlelight the thai people of the group, went around to each of us in a circle, and tied a piece of string around our wrist, blessing us and wishing us the best. you are not meant to cut or remove the string, as it will break the spirit, so you just leave it to unravel. afterwards everyone started going round to everyone else, so now we all have a stack of string around our wrists that could be there for a few months.
i think one of the things that i will miss the most is riding around in the back of the truck. its such a great way to get around.... except for thismorning when we had to come in chiang mai. we were running a bit late, and abbie and beth had to check in for their flight by 11:40, so we were going quite fast. with all the luggage at the front of the tray, shien el and i who were sitting at the back copped a fair bit of dirt and grime. by the time we arrived our face felt like it was covered in dry mud and our hair was just shocking.
bad hair never felt so good.
