Now that I am caught up on sleep I thought I would fill everyone in on what I have been up to. Our first day consisted mostly of orientation, unpacking, and getting to know everyone. However at the conclusion of orientation we had a "drop-off" exercise where we split in to three teams,received three tasks and were dropped of in town and told to be back at the house by 5:30. We somehow managed to find prices of clothes, "interview" a shop owner which was more of us babbling in English trying to connect while she bobbed her head with absolutely no idea of what we were saying, our final mission was to buy the most amazing sweet sticky rice with mango and coconut milk, it was so delicious but we had to save some to bring back as proof that we found it.
Day two well let's just say that in one day we managed to visit a Chinese temple, watch a family make rubber from the rubber trees, climb through caves, get eaten alive by sand flies, swim away from jelly fish, eat bright green oranges, walk through mud that was literally (no exaggeration) up to our knees, and plant mangroves. Yes this was all in one day not one week, let me explain. We left the house at 9:00am with plans to go to the beach, only ten minutes in to the drive Khem (our program manager who is fabulous) explains to us that we cannot leave for the beach until 11:00 because the tide is too high, so we stop at a Chinese temple to kill some time. I didn't get any great pictures of the temple because it was so smokey. In the Chinese temple there are four candle stations each representing a different wish, you light your candle on the provided flame, make a wish, and then place your candle in the sandy pool. After you have gone to each station you light a large handful of incense on your last flame. There are then seven or eight stations that where you pray to a particular God then place three incense sticks in the sand. At the end of the candle and incense ritual you go and shake a bucket of sticks until only one falls out, you read the number and then you go and receive the fortune that matches up with your number. The thing that is most special about Trang is that there are many different Thai cultures all living together, there are the Thai Buddhists, Thai Chinese, and the Thai Muslims.
After departing the Chinese temple we drove for about 20 minutes and stopped at a rubber plantation. The word plantation makes it seem like a large operating system but in reality each rubber plantation is just one family and maybe one or two hired helpers. Aside for the many cultures that reside in Trang, Trang is also famous for having the first rubber tree. Rubber comes from the sap of the tree, the sap is collected in the early hours of the morning and then mixed with chemicals to make it thicker. It then sits for about 15 minutes before being sent through a press, after the press it gets a pattern printed on it and then is hung to dry.
After leaving the rubber plantation we drove for another twenty minutes or so and arrived at the pier. While waiting for the boat drivers we applied sunscreen, drank water, and sat in the shade. The temperature here has been around 95 degrees and humid, it's supposedly rainy season but its been all blue skies so far! The boat drivers arrived and we all decided we wanted to see the caves before going to the beach. The boat ride felt like it was straight out of a movie, it was gorgeous. We took a turn into some trees and forest like conditions and we soon bumped up against the edge of the cave. This is not like the lava tubes in Hawaii, it's more like something you would see at a ride in disney land or in indiana jones. I don't really know how to describe it so I will give you lots of pictures, it was unreal. And we could hear the bats.....creepy (Sophie, this is the proper use of the word creepy).
We left the caves and headed toward the beach! The water was a bit choppy and the currents were strong so the boat couldn't take us all the way in, we anchored a little ways out and jumped in the water. Usually when you jump in an ocean there is an initial shock or something, even in Hawaii sometimes but this was literally like jumping into a bath tub. When were were about five feet from the beach one of the volunteers got stung by a jelly fish, she yelped and ran out holding her leg. I don't think it was the same type of jelly fish that Lauren described in one of her blogs because a large part of her leg was swollen and red and it stung for much longer than a couple minutes. Khem and Jack (our assistant program manager, he's Thai don't be fooled by his name) made a concoction of vinegar and morning glory to put on her sting. After the jelly fish chaos was over we all ate our sandwiches and laid on the beach. Every now and then you would feel a baby pinch and whack a sand fly off of you, they are tiny but their bites actually hurt a little. We all had over twenty sand fly bites by the time we left. We played soccer, cautiously waded in the water, and enjoyed the sun. When it was time to leave we swam back out to the boat, I swam behind everyone else so if there was a jelly fish it would sting them first. Climbing back onto the boat was a scene, this is a wooden long tailed boat and we all looked pretty dumb flinging ourselves over the edge. We all have a couple bruises to show for it too.
Our next adventure was to plant mangroves, the trees you see lining the water in those pictures. The thing is you plant them in very very very deep mud, we hopped off the boat into mud that felt like quick sand. I didn't get any pictures of the mud on my camera but other people did and I will try to post some later. Let's just say it was funny, muddy, and we all laughed a lot. We rinsed off, returned to the pier, and headed home. We were all tired and dirty so we got home took showers, had dinner, and relaxed the rest of the evening. It was quite a day!
Today is quite mellow it is only 1:00pm now but we had a language lesson this morning which I really enjoyed, followed by lunch and then we have more orientation for the rest of the day. Today's orientation is more much focused on our placements as we all start work tomorrow.
p.s. im having a hard time uploading the rest of the pics so I am going to try and put them in their own blog
