Adventurous attempts

Since last night was our first real experience with the rainy season, the pool party for all of the volunteers ended up canceled. Ten of us ended up walking around the block to try what we think was a Korean barbecue restaurant. After about 10 minutes of awkwardly trying to communicate that Colleen doesn't eat meat and the Scottish girls don't eat pork, we ended up with fish, pork, veggies and fried rice to cook for ourselves. It was quite the experience!

Today the clinic held a hypertension and diabetes clinic. We were split up into teams for wound care, check-in and vitals, and glucose/hematocrit testing. Some people had glucose levels over 400 and still claimed to feel fine! We are working on our Thai words, and are more comfortable with hello/goodbye and thank you. It's much harder than any other language we have tried to learn because using a different alphabet makes it impossible to even sound things out.

After another lunch, which may have been the most delicious yet, we stopped at a souvenir shop in the town. Three stores in a row sold handmade jewelry, belts, scarves and other pieces of clothing. 

This afternoon we were split up from three of the Scottish girls and the UCONN girls. While they did home visits, we got to learn about alternative treatments for rehab, like Thai massage and herbal saunas. We each tried to learn how to give Thai massages, but our skills are nowhere near developed. Maybe when we go to get a real one for ourselves we will learn a little more. Kelsey, Colleen and Patrick (from ND) were the only ones who would brave the heat and try the herbal sauna. They put on fun outfits and sat in aromatic heat for 10 minutes, which made the outside actually feel cool afterward for once. 

After clinic, we are getting in the habit of hand washing some of our clothes everyday. It wouldn't really be sanitary to wear anything twice considering how much we sweat in this weather. We also ventured to an evening market without knowing what to expect. It was filled with second hand clothing, random gadgets and plastic trinkets and all kinds of meat on a stick. To be fair, everyone except Colleen really enjoyed these various pieces of meat (but she found vegetarian noodles and a salad with lettuce, beans, corn, exotic fruit, and bright pink dressing...we think it's meant to be a dessert). We passed the time reading the popular shirts written in English wondering if the people here really know what they mean.

After the market we headed to Jahbar, a reggae bar in town that one of the Starfish workers bartends at, for a party for one of the childcare volunteers since it was his last day. Nikky made us cocktails, and we drank several buckets of sangsom rum, redbull, and coke with the UCONN girls. Live music started later in the night and Cyle got into a dance off with some Thai guys. It was fun hanging out with all the starfish volunteers and workers after a long few days of work and adjusting to Surin!