A wandering, meandering update

I feel like writing random, wandering updates so here we go...

I just got back from visiting Sarah's site and helping at a youth development camp. It was really fun and a good experience. She has an amazing youth group in her village and these high school girls basically ran the camp for 160 other students. It was really cool to see these girls taking on such a huge leadership role.

When I got home from Sarah's site, I was really excited to see Grandma Next Door. When she saw me she gave me the biggest smile and I loved that. I realized she's my closest "friend" at site. This morning I was feeling lazy so I decided to just go sit with her on her porch. Two other old neighbor ladies came over too and we seriously sat out there for over an hour and just hung out. I'm not even sure what we talked about, but I swear I understood them. One lady read my fortune on my palm and she told me I'm a good person. I also learned more about Grandma's "clock" with the shadow on the porch. She actually stood up and explained what time it is when the shadow hits certain points. She cracks me up.

I visited the occupational group that makes Thai snacks today. They want my help with logo and packaging design and maybe even product expansion. I might also try to do a business training with them - about accounting and such. We'll see how that all goes, but in the mean time I'm just visiting them and learning about how they do things. I even got to make some snacks today!

Yesterday and today the kids came over and cleaned the outside of my house. I think my landlord is paying them or Grandma told them to. I can't quite figure it out. I feel sort of bad, but they seemed to have fun - it turned into a small water fight. I gave them a bunch of snacks as a thank you. So random.

I started teaching English at my office on Friday afternoons. It's been really fun and now my coworkers are trying to use English with me. It's silly stuff like "Good afternoon" and "How are you?" but it's still fun because I can tell they are enjoying it. For some reason, they love playing Bingo so I make up Bingo cards with the new vocabulary and they have a blast. Who knew Thai adults would love home-made Bingo, but they do!

Overall, life is good. My ups an downs seem to be evening out a bit and the one year mark in Thailand is fast approaching. My parents arrive in less than 2 weeks and I'm so excited to see them! It's going to be a really fun trip and I can't wait to show them around and let them experience Thailand. In so many ways things are just making more sense here and clicking. A lot of returned PC volunteers say the first year is the hardest. Myfirst year is coming to a close and I am beginning to understand that. I'm happy (and relieved) to say that I'm happy here.