Some more New Friends

3:30 PM Man these kids have a lot of love. I went outside to get a breath of fresh air, and ended up sitting next to a small boy named Kong to help him with a word search. I’d let him pick the word to find, and then I would use his finger to point out the word in the word search (I’m pretty sure he doesn’t read since he can’t be older than six, but he seemed entertained enough ). After I helped him find a few, he stood up and took my hand to lead me back up the road we were on. When we got back to the home, about four other small ones joined us and we played a game of duck duck goose—which was a bit chaotic. I got picked as “Goose” once, but couldn’t chase the little girl that tagged me because I had a little two-year old boy on my lap, and a four year old girl trying to climb onto my shoulders. Haha….Kong led me inside to help him find something to write with (which took a bit of searching, but I succeeded), and then we sat in the hall to continue work on the word fine. Before too long, I had a little girl behind me playing with my hair, and another one sitting on my lap trying to best me in a face-pulling competition. Haha….I’m back inside the office now, but it’s not nearly as fun, I’m afraid.

I feel a bit overwhelmed today by all of the work there is to do. It seems as if they want me to take over more than usual for at least a month or so because most of the old volunteers are leaving, and we won’t have new ones till late February and mid-March. So far I’ll be working on grant research and follow up, marketing for the weaving center, teaching English to the care mothers, and writing the bi-annual newsletter for the home. That’s not to mention the children’s choir I was hoping to start up in a few weeks. Wow….

I’d really like to look into setting up an internship situation up here. We could really use some people with expertise in a lot of areas to work on different projects. The cool thing about doing an internship up here would be that there is a huge need for help, but there is a lot of flexibility and opportunity to use your own ideas to help the home. I wonder if that would be something others college students would be interested in.

4:30 PM The office has now turned fun….I have a new friend named Aho. He keeps bringing me book after book to read to him. My throat is starting to get sore!!!! Oh no….here he comes with another one….Juk’s Adventure in Chiang Mai. =)