OK so I wanted to quickly tell you about some of the sport happenings over here. First one of our track guys won a mini-marathon, this kid rocks! He had pink-eye all week and could not go to track practice and the same went for the rest of the boys track team but he won anyway! Check out his picture, he was so happy. He is going to compete in some other events in Phuket and I am stoked since I get to go and cheer him on. Well, there will be a lot of cheering, the girls will be competing in several event over several days too. The only part of this trip that I am not looking forward to is the 17 hours of driving that we have to do to get there. That being said one of the coaches promised me that I will speak fluent Thai when I get back, he better be right. LOL
Alright an our Cricket team rocks too! Yesterday was my very first Cricket game and they made me responsible for getting the guys suited up and ready to bat, I think they call it batting in Cricket? I now know there’s bowling in Cricket too, funny well to me anyway. So I’ll set it up for you; this was the kids from the Wat’s first game outside of the Temple. They were playing a team at what I would call a Cricket Country Club, the place was beautiful and their kids were set. They had everything, nice uniforms with their names, cleats, everything matched, brand new equipment, they all spoke English and I don’t think they had 1 Thai on the team. Our kids just got running shoes last week and half the team lost them before the game and had to wear their school shoes. They just got shorts yesterday and they have never played on grass, it’s always gravel here at the Temple for them and most of our kids just found out what Cricket was a few months ago…WE KILLED THEM! 96-66, man the other teams coach was pissed, I loved it. I was whistling Philly-style, with my fingers in my mouth, it was great. Shout out to the coaches: Chris, Martin and Puy, way to go guys, can’t wait for the next game…
Alright so if I have yet to tell you now it’s time, there are 9 Hill Tribes represented here at the Wat Don Chan. I will do my best to spell them correctly but sorry if I don’t get it 100%, I’m a Chef, not an English teacher. There are the Mong, AkKah, Galyyone, Yhow, Musurh, Risaw, Chin-Toow, Thai-Yaiand Thai, check out the picture of these beautiful people. They have school uniforms that they wear everyday but once a week they have to wear their traditional tribal gear, so I snapped a shot of most of them fully dressed.Some of these kids are here because their parents have passed away, are in jail for one thing or another or they just can’t afford them. Some of the families only make 1-3 US dollars a day and that is not enough to raise a family. But these people are all from the hills and live as I would say old school, they grow their own food and rice, raise their own chickens for eggs, animals to help farm and to eat, sometimes water is sparse, they make their own clothes, it’s some stuff you see on the Discovery or National Geographic channels. It is quite amazing to me, I went a few weeks ago to one of these villages and I loved it and can’t wait to go back. Everyone is so happy and the stress level is super low, amazing.
These kids that come here are meant to get a good education and then go back to the village to help teach and so they can learn new things to keep their tribal moving forward but still keeping their culture in-tacked. The only problem I see is when these kids get a taste away from the village they don’t want to go back. Most of them tell me that they want to get jobs in the cities and then just send money home to the family, don’t get me wrong there are some that do go back but most do not want to do that. If I could go live in one of the villages, I would, I loved it, they work to live not like a lot of us that seem to live to work, yuk. I also have seen when they say it takes a village to raise a child, everyone helps each other and if someone needs something they just give it or trade it, the exchanging of money is minimal. If you need to build a new house, you just get everything from your surroundings, bamboo, leaves, mud and feed the neighbors and in a few days you have a home. The one thing I see that I would miss is my privacy, everyone sees and know everything you do and if you shave 3 people maybe with you, that happens to me here at the Wat and now I know why. If I want to be alone, I have to lock the door, there is no knocking (unless the door is locked) and I am followed and questioned about where I’m going, what I’meating and with whom. It is so funny to me but I do love it here and all of the smiles and jokes (tons of joking and teasing goes on here) are very helpful in every way.
