Sa waat Dii! Today was our 4th full day in Chiang Mai. We started our day by finally making the visit to the elephant camp that we were not able to visit on Sunday when we went to the Tiger Kingdom. Our team was in a state of incredible excitement this morning as we loaded up the vans to head to the elephant camp. I don't think that anyone could believe that in a little while we would be riding on real elephants, touching and standing next to these huge majestic creatures. We arrived at the camp and were disappointed to hear that they were full for the day. However, P Dang is an amazing woman and can pretty much do anything she wants to, so she talked the employees at the elephant camp into letting our group in to ride the elephants. We all got our tickets and were so excited to be walking through the grounds, seeing all the elephants waiting and getting their pictures taken with tourists. Kayla bought a bunch of bananas and a package of sugar cane to feed to the elephants, but when she went in for a picture, one of the elephants grabbed all of the bananas out of her arms and ate all of them in one bite.
Getting on the elephants was an interesting experience. There are box seats strapped on to the elephants that you sit in, and you have to climb up onto a platform, and then step on the elephants back and sit down on the seat in order to get on. Here is a picture of Paige and Jordan getting on their elephant.
Our ride was about a half hour long, but it was such an incredible and surreal experience that it felt like it was over as soon as it began. It was a little scary at the same time because the elephants walk along a path where there are steep inclines both up and down, and going down it feels like you are just going to slide right off the front of the elephant. Also, their footsteps are so wide that you sway back and forth a lot, and at times it can feel like the whole box is going to slide sideways off its back.
After the ride we got to enjoy a show performed by some of the elephants where they painted pictures… yep, they painted pictures (I bought one), threw darts at balloons, played basketball and walked around holding each other's tails. After the show, the elephants and their rider came right up to our section and we got to take pictures with them and feed them bananas and sugar cane. Getting a picture with them, you would stand next to their head and they would wrap their trunk around you like a hug, and then they would put a hat on your head with their trunk and tap it and then take it back off. It never really occurred to me how moist and snotty an elephants trunk is, but let me tell you, they were dripping everywhere. We were all covered in elephant snot by the end, but it was so cool, I don't think anyone really cared. At one point Marshall (Betsy's 11 year old nephew) was at face level with one elephant's trunk, and it waved at him with his trunk and flung snot all over his face, which I thought was hilarious!
Afterwards, we decided to walk back to the elephant nursery where they keep the baby elephants (who are still bigger than we were by the way). There we saw two young elephants that they were training how to put their trunks around people when taking pictures and put hats on them. They were also teaching them how to give people a kiss on the cheek with their trunks. They put the end of their trunk on your face and suction to it, and when they pull it away, it makes a kissing sound. This was definitely a unique experience, and as you can tell by my face, the sensation of elephant snot on your face is definitely interesting.
This was definitely a once in a lifetime experience that I will never forget as long as I live.
Next, we all headed back over to the youth center which is our building project for the week. We have all of the exterior painting finished, and I believe all of the interior painting is almost finished as well. The electrical outlets are now installed as well. For the past two days I have been helping with installing the wiring for electric in the buildings, but today, Josh Ben and I helped P Waan lay the foundation for our adobe house which will be used for guest housing on the grounds of the student center. We literally are building this adobe house from the ground up. When we started today, it was literally just a spot on the ground that we picked out. Waan marked out a circular diameter from a center point on the dirt, and we were given hoes and spades and instructed to dig a trench 30 centimeters wide and 20 centimeters deep which would be the foundation for the house. This was really an awful experience, as it was in the mid 90s and sunny, and the ground was the hardest, rockiest ground I have ever worked with. Ben described it as "mud and clay that has baked in the hot sun for thousands of years" which pretty much captures what it was like trying to dig through the ground. It was so ridiculously difficult that Ben said a prayer for us asking God to give us the strength to get through the project. We broke pretty much every tool we used to dig into the ground, but God gave us the strength to do it, and praying first helped keep it in perspective why we were doing this. Here is a picture of Paige taking a whack at it while we were taking a break.
After finishing the electrical work inside, David and Scotty joined our pain out in the sun, and the extra help made the work much easier and faster. Working with P Waan was a cool experience because he cannot speak English as well as P Dang and P La can, but he was still able to do a great job of communicating with us what needed to get done and how to do it properly. There were a couple of times that we weren't sure what he was asking us to do, but we were always able to figure it out, which made the language barrier feel like a lot less of a challenge. We worked until about 5:30 or so, and finished with the trench dug, steel rebar set inside the trench, concrete mixed and poured into about one half of the perimeter. Tomorrow we will mix more concrete and finish the foundation.
After finishing our work for the day, we dragged ourselves, all dirty and covered in cement and mud and blisters over to the temporary living site of Pastor Prajak and the students who will call our work site home when it is finished. They had prepared a wonderful meal of rice and chicken, fish, vegetables, and soup for us. I sat next to Sarah and three younger Thai students at the table. Sarah and I thought everything was going well as we ate politely and talked to the girls with what little Thai we knew, until I decided I would try the soup. I reached across the table and scooped up some soup with my spoon like I was told to, when I glanced up and noticed that two of the girls (who were 10 and 12) were laughing at me. I was skeptical that I was taking something that I shouldn't eat, but I took it anyway. They started laughing harder. Sarah and I had no idea what was going on at this point, so I asked the older girl sitting next to me if it was ok to eat, because the girls were making me nervous that I was about to eat something that was inedible or something like that, but she reassured me that it was ok, so I ate it, at which point the girls are laughing so hard that they get up from the table and go tell all their friends what I just did. So at this point, I am terrified that I either just ate something really bad, or did something so rude that it was funny to them. Sarah and I asked Betsy if she knew what I did, so I described the whole situation to her, but she didn't know what I did, so she asked Pastor Prajak's son who explained to me that the girls were laughing at me because as I took the soup, I had a scared look on my face as if I didn't know what I was taking and I was scared to eat it, and when I saw them and started asking questions about it I looked even more scared which made them laugh even more hysterically. Sarah and I thought it was hilarious and I was relieved that I didn't eat anything that was going to kill me.
After the meal we got to hear some Thai worship songs played by the students. The students (10-18) wanted Marshall to sit at their table so they could talk to him. Marshall has really light skin and ridiculously blonde hair, so naturally Thai people find him fascinating and the young girls all thought he was pretty dreamy. Of course we embarrassed him by announcing to everyone that he doesn't have a girlfriend and so he is available. The girls went crazy at this tidbit of information. Then we heard about the ministry from Pastor Prajak translated by P Dang. This was really cool to hear because from what I understood, the ministry and the school might have had to shut down if our team had not been able to provide the donations and the labor to built the student center, and as we found out just the other day, the per person cost of our team coming to Thailand provided the funds to build the center. That was really awesome to be able to finally see the fruits of our labor and see who our work is affecting and hear the stories of the kids that we were helping. Then we got to share some songs with them and we shared a Bible study with them as well. Then they showed us their temporary living space while they are waiting for the center to get done. They also asked us all for our email addresses so they could find us on Facebook. After a fond farewell to the Thai people, we headed out to come back to the hotel, and of course our van ride back was full of Justin Beiber references and Marshall's ridiculous comments and stories, and our driver P Bop laughing at us.
It has been quite a day and we are all exhausted, but we are so thankful to be doing this great work to provide a place to live and an opportunity for education for these young people on the outskirts of Chiang Mai, Thailand, 8218 miles away from home.
God's blessings, and we'll have more about our adventure for you tomorrow.
-Kyle Salesky aka "Spicy Cheese"
