Jungle Livin'

      We are back at Musikee center from our stay in HuayPa viallage!  Heading to the village, we were very embarassed when we found out we were riding in the back of a pickup truck with 20 other college students, because our huge black bag was way oversized! Definately the typical 'tourist' foreigner, so we only took 2 water bottles and left the 18 others. The drive was very fun because we stood up the whole time, going over many bumps and ditches in beautiful Thai jungle and rice fields. The first few days in HuayPa (Temulee) was spent at our now dear friend Agape's (we met her at the youth camp in Musikee). It was a little bit of a cultural adjustment going to bed at 9 pm and hearing the obnoxious monkeys, fighting dogs, and roosters at all hours of the night, as well as everyone in the whole village getting up at 5 am to get ready for the day.
Saturday, Agape took us to the Compassion International's kids' day to check it out. Upon arriving, they asked Johanna and Karis to run the whole day (on a whim). Uh what?! Good thing we knew Noah's Ark like the back of our hand with Johanna explaining the story in full animal like motions and Karis drawing the story on the board. The kids were a joy to be with, loving all the songs and games we taught them after the bible story. The next day, we were asked to teach Sunday school and sing a song at church. It seems that we are the only people in all the Hill-Tribe villages who do not play guitar. So when they ask us to sing, we find a guitar player to accompany us and every church event, camp, Sunday, they expect us to have a song ready. (Thankfully Karis was able to lead in this area because Johanna on multiple occasions almost threw up from nervousness :) ).
The camp started at the beginning of the week. We were in charge of the game section and one of the times we taught 200 youth how to play the four part charades. This was very funny when the translator had a hard time understanding our explanation. After many attempts, they got it and had a lot of fun. Sometimes we had a snippet of the preaching, but the majority of it we didn't understand. Most of the messages focused on human rights in Thailand. They talked about trafficking: sex, labor and child. We found out that abortion in Thailand is illegal, but teachers can still hit students for discipline at school. Completely opposite from America.
Another part of the camp was spent playing sports. All the girls said they play "nit noi" (a little) volleyball and the same with the boys in soccer. Once we got to the field, we realized they were all being modest and in reality could all play varsity. Good thing Johanna did not lack in that area, too bad Karis had bruises and was swollen on her arms. The announcer would yell out periodically over the microphone, "Is okayyy America, don be shyy!" Because Karis was twice the height of all the girls, they expected her to be pro. They play volleyball as a way of life here.
After the camp was over, we stayed a week longer teaching English in the evenings, to anyone who was interested. It was harder to make friends with the girls because there culture is intimidated with foreigners. We were able to connect with the children and guys. One little girl was very surprised how white we were and asked if we painted our legs. They all thought our white skin was beautiful, and when we told them about the mindset of being tan in America, they were shocked why people would pay to go in tanning beds. When putting on makeup, all the women put on baby powder as their foundation to become whiter while we put on bronzer!
Our western way of living is tremendously different than here. Some comparisons: banana and coffee trees right outside the house we stayed at, all the villagers going to the jungle on Saturdays to get food (honey, hunting game, tadpoles and snails from the river, morning glory from the bush, medicinal plants etc), so many different fruits you see in the trees to eat that we don't even know the names of or have ever seen before, cooking over an open fire every meal (takes a long time to prepare), washing dishes with no sinks (in buckets), everyone dresses in traditional Karen clothes most days (especially Sunday), their brooms are made of bamboo, no furniture in the houses and sleeping on the floor.
It took getting used to, but after two weeks of being there, we learned to love the village and the friends we did make. Here are some of our favorite times: kids following us everywhere and wanting to sing to us, our late night talks with Mo Mo (Agape's mother) and our match making agreement, Johanna's brother to Agape and her two nephews to us, going to a wedding celebration where they killed 5 pigs for the meal (let's see how many ways we can cook a pig!) and evening English sessions turning into late night sing-a-longs and Thai lessons.
We will update more soon.