Closing ceremonies!

Today was a day of mixed feelings... it was our last day on the jobsite and we were all approaching the day with a bit of trepidation. It's been such an amazing couple of weeks and we've all grown SO close. It truly feels like a family. The house is almost done (the rest needs to be done by the skilled workers and the family should be moving in sometime next week) and it is such a powerful thing to walk through the house and know that we built those walls. BEcause of our blood, sweat and tears (literally!) this family will have shelter from the storm. This man will be able to protect his family from the rain (but maybe not the scorpions!), this community will see that people are willing to travel thousands of miles to help a stranger they've never met. And this person (aka Me!) will never be the same again. My experiences in Thailand have been emotionally challenging working in such a group setting with such different personalities but I have truly grown in mind, body and spirit. I have done things I never thought I would do (getting peed on wasn't exactly at the top of my list) and experienced wonders that I never believed I would see. I can't even express how powerful and strong I feel after this experience. I feel invigorated and passionate. Interesting that the power of total strangers could bring about such an experience! Jennifer was asking me last night if I would consider coming on her build next year to Ghana... I told her that it would all depend on finances (anyone willing to donate?) :) I've THOROUGHLY enjoyed my time here and would love the opportunity to do this again... life is good! :)

At the worksite, we worked to "decorate" the home. We all drew pictures on paper plates to string up around the house. I drew a globe with a gray house in the middle with Sak (the homeowner) standing in the door. I drew 14 stick figures holding hands on the outside of the globe and put all of our names on there. Tom taught me how to write "one world, one heart" in Thai and I put that on there as well. We also decorated the house with streamers and hung out while Anne and some of the women neighbors cooked up some delicious food! We sat around the table with the skilled workers and it was great. We changed into our new "Habitat Thailand shirts" that Anne gave us and took pictures. The director gave a speech and so did the homeowner. To see this strong, gentle man tear up at the thought that in a week he will have a home and the kind words of thanks he said... powerful stuff!!!! With proud but heavy hearts, we said good-bye to the skilled workers and Sak (homewner) for the last time. WE have shared so much with those men despite not knowing a lick of Thai. :) Beck beck! :) We came home and got to sit out by the pool for a bit. We (jennifer, Matt, sarah and I) also walked down this one path to the statue of Quan Lin. She is the goddess of compassion. It was absolutely beautiful... one can NEVER have too much compassion. Tonight we are going to a nice restaurant on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It is my night to do a reflection and I have chosen my favorite "termination" activity of tracing your hand and having other people write different qualities about you and thne you get to keep it. I drew them all out last night and instead of a hand, I drew a house and put the person's name inside. Tomorrow morning we are going to travel back to our hotel in Phuket. Tomorrow night we are supposedly going to see a show... we'll see what it is. YEsterday we saw a truck drive by with a bunch of monkey's on top dressed in little costumes. Tom told us that they put on drama shows... I hope tomorrow isn't one of those kind of shows. I then leave for Chiang Mai on Saturday morning. I am not looking forward to saying good-bye to all of my new friends :( I'll write when I can... I hope you all are well and Sawadee ka! :)

Scorpions and broken outhouses!

Hello everyone! Sawatdee ka!!! Have I mentioned before how much I love Thailand? I've decided that I am quitting work, moving to Thailand and starting up a dive bar :) Seriously though, I am having such a great time! The team is getting much closer and I am loving every minute I spend with these team members (well except for one.. we all know which one!).


GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! I just wrote this really long, fabulously hilarious blog and the internet freaked out when I went to publish it!!!! All I had saved is this first paragraph!!!Ok, so Monday night, we went to a restaurant on the beach and it was beautiful! WE were all in high spirits and it was a wonderful evening. Diana was talking about feeling so different now that she is here and that she hopes that she wouln’t go back being the same person she was before. Jennifer replied “there is no way you can go back to that person, this experience is changing us all.” I then said “and if you do, I will come pee on you!” It was HILARIOUS! On the way home (STOP READING HERE MOM J ) about 6 of us piled on the roof of the truck! It was a beautiful night out and the breeze felt amazing!!! It was defintely a bit scary but once in a lifetime experience. Luckily none of us fell off (OK MOM, YOU CAN START READING AGAIN J) When we got back to the room, there was a freakin gecko chilling on the wall near my bed! Come on!!! I moved the bed out of the way and went to scare it towards the door. It scurried down the wall and I screamed like a little girl and jumped on the bed! It went over to Diana’s side of the room and she moved her bed. The poor little thing must have been so freaked out! Finally, I grabbed the wastebasket and trapped it against the wall. Diana grabbed the bucket and ran outside. A few minutes later, when she went to get the bucket, she looked into it and the gecko was looking up at her and she screamed! Our room was all out of sorts but We fell on the beds laughing! I was crying by the end of it! The next day at the site we continued to build the walls. I can lay bricks with the best of them! I was in a very musical mood and was signing musicals all day. At one point, Jennifer went to pick up a brick and there was a freaking scorpion in it!!! EEEK!!!! WE found another one today too. YUCK! After work, I went to get a Thai massage to soothe my bruised and sore body. It really helped!! And you can’t beat $9!!! For dinner we went to a restaurant where you cook your own food at your table (ok, is anyone else feeling as freaked out about the idea of me cooking? I can barely cook meat in a place where there are USDA standards!!!!!) The food was really good!!! I was feeling pretty funny and was cracking one liners all night! We were cracking jokes about the money here. It is called Bhat but is pronounced like “butt” with an a sound. Don’t touch my baht. My baht got wet. I have a big bhat. Your bhat is drooping!!! LOL. After dinner a group of us came back to the German restaurant and had a few glasses of wine. We talked about all the team members and how sad we are going to be when we have to say good-bye L The end is nearing L I think we were up until a little after midnight and on the way home, stopped near the lobby of the hotel because the frogs were singing again! Magical. Today at the sit we began to do stucco… fun! As soon as we got there, we found out that the outhouse was broken!!! What!!?? As if going to the bathroom in bags while squatting wasn’t humiliating enough. Luckily a neighbor agreed to lend us theirs… yuck!!! Anyways, life is good here, I am enjoying my time and tomorrow is the last day at our jobsite. WE have the house dedication in the afternoon and I can’t wait. I’m not sure what the internet situation will be like in the next few days but I’ll write next time I can!

Love you all!

To deet or not to deet? That is the question?

Here are some pics from this weekend:

HEre's the moment in action!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! The longtail boats

HEath, Ben, MAtthew, Amanda, me Ashley Don't push over the island sheri!!!!

Here we are in one of the caves... Phang Nga Bay



Diana and I (I'm sporting my new coca cola t-shirt) The bay

This is us at the waterfall on Thursday

So did you all survive my last blog? It was a bit brutal wasn't it? Were you all eagerly awaiting this blog to see how I've survived? Well, my arm is doing better, I still have about a 2 inch by one inch red slash mark on my forearm but it has stopped hurting. It looks like a burn mark or a bunch of little blisters. I still don't know what it was that stung me... and maybe I don't want to know!!! :) That night we just laid low and my tummy was nauseaus. (this is how it looks two days later)

Diana was worried that it might be a side effect of the sting/poison. It's funny, ever since that day, whenever we ask each other for a drink of water from the other's water bottle, or come out of the shower in a towel.... our response is always, "it doesn't matter anymore, you've already peed on me." At least we can have a good sense of humor about it huh? :) When I came back from blogging on Saturday night, I stopped to check in on JEnnifer since she wasn't feeling well. We just hung out in her room talking and processing all the things that are happening on the trip. She is SUPER cool and I really like talking with her. We talked abit about Amanda and how she drives me CRAZY!!! It was good to talk to her about it because she really helped me reframe the situation to look at it from a positive standpoint about Amanda being here to teach me something new. Yesterday I woke up at 8 and went down to spend some time by the pool. Jennifer came down and we were talking about all of the events from yesterday. She said that the whole boat ride back from the island, she was praying that I wouldn't have some sort of reaction to the sting because we were in such a secluded place... I hadn't even thought of that!!! EEEKKKK!!! Sarah came up to us at the pool... she was having a rough morning having talked to her boyfriend through skype and it didn't go so well. We left @ 11:30 to go to this restaurant on the beach. On the way there we passed this poor suffering, starving dog. It fell down halfway across the street as we were pulling up to it. When we passed it, it was so thin that it's bones stuck out and it hobbled. I've never wished for something to die before but I said a prayer asking God to take the poor animal and bring up to heaven to stop his suffering. We got out of the trucks soon after and many of us were crying and talking about the poor animal. I wasn't the only one praying that God bring that poor thing home. We ate dinner at a table on the beach right next to this ladder.

We walked along the beach for awhile and then piled back into the trucks. We next went to a Buddhist temple where we were able to go inside and pray. It was beautiful!!!

One of the monks came across the street and he sat with us. He started to chant and it was so beautiful that it made me start crying. Jen was crying too as it was really moving having this monk pray over us and douse us with holy water. He then gave us bracelets for protection. Since the monks can't touch women, he laid it on our palms and we had to put it on ourselves. When Jennifer put mine on me she said three words "clarity, understanding and peace." It was REALLY cool!!! After the temple, we went to another Tsunami museum. It reminded me of the Vietnam memorial wall. It was really sad. Afterwards, JEnnifer, Jane and I were walking along and this woman came up to us. Her friend (he didn't speak any English) was dancing around and I joined him... it was hilarious!! We were pantomiming things and dancing. Loved it!!! The woman was wearing a Christian T-shirt and she spoke pretty good english. She asked Jennifer what religion she was and Jennifer said "I'm a little bit of everything." The woman replied "you should pray more, Jesus loves you." As we were walking away, Jennifer started to cry really hard and asking "was that a sign?" Hmmmmmmmmm... anyways. People were starting to get cranky and we had a long ride back so we set off. Last night we had a "Free night" and a group of us went to Indian food. We were talking about what were our favorite part of the weekend was. Most people picked the canoeing in the caves but Jennifer picked the craziness Saturday between skinny dipping and me getting stung. Laura commented on what a cool cucumber I was when I got stung... she was like "dang, I couldn't believe how you were jumping around and laughing about it." Little does she know that I was jumping in pain!!! :) Today we headed back to the worksite. We are all a bit more refreshed than last week and ready to rock and roll. We continued to lay the bricks for the walls and the paid workers had put on the roof over the weekend. The bricks are pretty sharp and they've cut up my legs and arms pretty nicely. It's SO cool to see the walls going up!!!! We started at the fourth level of bricks and are now at the 10th. Only three more to go on the inside!! The outside walls have more to do because they have to go all the way to the ceiling. I don't know how we are going to get that far up.... it's not like they have ladders. Today I spent most of the day balancing on a two by four laying ontop of two piles of bricks. My calves are going to be sore tomorrow!!!! I think tomorrow we are going to finish laying bricks and start on the windows. I've been feeling a bit musical today and have been singing everything from Rent to humming the Sugar Plum fairy dance. I particularly like the song from Wicked titled Loathing... I allow it to waft through my head everytime I see Amanda. :) (NOW who's the one being wicked? :) tee hee hee). This morning I was feeling particularly goofy and was teaching everyone the gangsta walk... pigeon toe, drag your foot, pigeon toe, drag your foot. IT was hilarious!!!!! Laura (who's normally really quiet and sweet) was seen sporting the gangsta walk later on the jobsite... love it!!!! :) I've finally decided that the best application for sunblock and bug spray is sunblock first, bug spray later... helps cut down the oil. I wish I could skip one or the other, my poor skin is starting to suffer. Today I was working side by side with one of the workers. At first I was getting really frustrated because he wasnt letting me lay the bricks but then I asked God to give me patience and eventually I befriended him by making a fool out of myself. I started dancing around and he said something like "beck,beck" and I repeated it. He CRACKED up and started telling everyone!!!! I have NO idea what it means but for the rest of the day, he was like my new BFF. We'd look at each other and say "beck beck" and just start laughing! :) Anyway, it's time for me to sign off.. hope you all are well!!!

Skinny dipping and Sharks?

Ok, so this blog is not for the faint of heart... small children and the weak stomach should just stop reading now. I have a story to tell that you will not believe!!! Ok, do I have all of your attention yet? The first question is... why me? The second question is... are you freaking kidding me? The third question is.... what the freak was that? Ok, am I dragging it out enough for you all :) Ok, here's the scoop. Don't worry mom, I still have all my limbs and digits... but they are all a bit sad looking right now. Today was our first free day and we went to Phang Nga Bay for a canoeing trip. We left @ 7:45am because it would take about an hour to get down to the bay. We arrived at the bay and were astounded by the breathtaking views of the bay. The water is a light green color and the limestone cliffs/formations stand up out of the water and reach up into the sky. We all loaded up into two longtail boats (they are long wooden boats with a motor attached at the end.) We went for about 20 minutes into the bay and pulled up to a huge double decker boat with a bunch fof inflatable canoes attached. We hopped into the canoes two-by-two and I got to share my canoe with Sarah. There was a guy that came with us to do all the paddling... after a long week of us working out butts off, it was nice to have someone else do all of the hard work! Since the tides were low, we were able to canoe into these caves that opened up into little secluded pools of water. It was serene, quiet and peaceful. We went into about four or five caves, some we had to lay down in the canoes to get into. IT was AMAZING!! AFter that, we hopped back into the longtails and went about 30 minutes to a floating village. It's a muslim fishing town that has been converted into a tourist area. The houses/restaurants are all on stilts. We ate lunch there and afterwards hopped back into the boat. I sat up front and it was gloriously sunny!! Our next stop was at "James Bond Island." In one of the James bond movies (something about a man with a gold mask), there is this towering limestone rock that looks like an upside down triangle shooting out of the bay. It completely defies gravity and looks like it is going to tip over. We left there and headed back out into the bay to go to a secluded beach. The water was a bit choppier and we were all a bit wet when we beached one a private beach. We all went into the water and it was really NICE!!! AFter a few feet, the ground got really slimy. IT was freaking out Jennifer, Sarah and I so we went back and got out some life vests to float on. WE went out to meet up with everyone else. When we got out there, everyone else ws just treading water. Carol (who has been a lot more friendly the past couple of days) suggested we all take off our swimsuits and wave them over our heads to get the guys attention (they were on the beach). So all us girls took it off and yelled, It was hilarious. I made some joke to Sarah about hoping that there weren't any fish nearby that may come and get me (you will later learn why this joke is NOT funny!). We got all dressed back up (which by the way is really hard to do when you are wearing a one piece swimsuit and floating ontop of a life vest!!). We started to swim back into shore and Jennifer was about 10 feet in front of me. I was laying on my stomach in the lifevest doing the froggy stroke(the breaststroke) when all of the sudden I felt this SHOOTING, pain of electricity stemming from my right forearm. It was like NO pain I have ever felt before!!! I yelled "ow" really loudly & Jennifer said "are you ok little buddy" and I said "no, something just stung me" and she said "stop joking around" and I yelled "I'm not joking." So does she turn around to help me paddle in? Nope, she high tails it towards shore! So here I am, totally gimpy with one arm shooting fire all the way up into my torso trying to doggy paddle (one handed) my way back to where I could touch the ground. I finally make it to shore and there is a huge, 3 inch slash which was slowly turning into a welt on my right forearm. There were blotches of red splotches developing around it. It hurt like CRAZY!!! In total, the thing was about three inches wide and about 6 inches long including the red parts. I hadn't seen anything in the water so we didn't know if it was a jellyfish or something else... we still don't know. All I know was shooting, searing electricity shot through my arm like fire. We didn't have the first aid kit w/ us and everyone was trying to be helpful but it hurt SO bad that I wasn't listening. Finally it was decided that someone should pee on it in case it was a jellyfish sting. So my roommate... the best roommate in the world offered it up :) Diana and I went behind some cliffs and she peed into a cut open water bottle. She then poured it all over my arm, I was in so much pain that the gross out factor didn't even affect me! It helped a little but I still had shooting pains searing all over my forearm. Finally, when I was about to get into the boat, Tom (another one of the hosts) asked one of the boat drivers in Thai and he came over and opened up some baggie with red powder in it. HE put it on my arm and it turned into a powder. Tom said that it was ground up herbs. It didn't make the pain go away but now, four hours later, it's tolerable. So anyway, that was my day... just another easygoing day in Thailand :) Let me now catch you up on the rest of my week since I last wrote. SO I wrote about how wonderufl the Thai massage was but that night, when laying in bed, Diana told me that after Laura and I left, she watched them fold up the outfits they gave us to wear and set them out for the next person. EW!!! All I could think of was sweaty old man junk (hello, it's hot here!!) in the pants I had just put on... ew!!!!!! On Friday, we started laying the walls for the house.. it's really starting to take shape now.. yea!!! At point during the day, we ere in our typical chaingang formation and Ben and Heath decided to be funny and sent down an empty bucket. When you are used to 20 lb buckets of cement, an empty ones throw you for a loop!!! We chuckled as it made it's way down the chain. On the way back, we filled it with a hammer and when Heath went to scoop concrete into it, hey was lke "hey, very funny." :) Friday was REALLY hot and I drank 9 bottles of water and didn't have to pee the entire 8 hours were were on the site!!! After work, we went to a watefall and it was beautiful!!! Unfortunately, the sound brought back all of the 9 bottles of water!!! let's just say that I am getting really good @ using nature's toilet and squatting :) Laura and I wanted to swim in the pool @ the bottom and so we jumped in, clothes and all. It was beautifully clear and refreshing. I noticed when we got out of the water that the cut on my shin (one of the many scrapes from the bricks) was looking a bit ugly. When I got back to the hotel, I checked it out again and it was all hard and inflamed with yellow junk oozing out of it... yuck!!! Poor Sarah scraped her leg Friday as well, and at one point after lunch, she looked down and there were all these gnat/bugs flying around the wound... yuck!!! When we got back to the hotel, we found out that our laundry wasn't finished. CRAP!!! That left me with one tan tank top, one black bra, my bathing suit, one pair of black capris and one pair of underwear. We wouldn't get our laundry back until tonight (saturday night). I borrowed a t-shirt from Diana to wear to dinner last night and Anne (the host) and I went across the street to buy me another shirt to wear tomorrow. I didn't have any PJ's either... eeek!!! We went to the German place and had a few drinks. at one point, I went to the bathroom and someone stole my camera because when I came back, I had like ten pictures of everyone's arm crack (where your elbow bends). I died laughing!!! Oh, and I've learned that when you order food... you never get what you order. Today I ordered french toast and fresh fruit. Instead, I got 6 pieces of toast. YEsterday I ordered waffles andI got pancakes. LEarn to expect the unexpected!!! :) Well anyway,I am going to head off to nurse my wounds :) I hope you all are well! Tomorrow we are going to a buddhist temple for prayer... I can't wait!!!

Bug bites the size of Thailand?!

laying the cement

Here's me giving out ice cream

Here are the pre-schoolers. After their morning nap, they douse their faces with powder... I have no idea why!

Ok, so leave it to me to be the one that gets the first injury needing medical attention (sigh).. relax mom, it's just a bug bite. IT's pretty gnarly though. I think it must have been a spider or something because it is huge! The actual bite itself is only about the size of a quarter but the red, hot, swollen area is no joke the size of a softball (for those of you who know about my exaggerating tendencies... Heath is just sitting here with me and when I asked how big itwas, he said "yeah, it really is.") I got it sometime yesterday and it has just gotten larger and different colors. YIKES!!! Our host here, Anne came running over this afternoon when someone told her about it and she immediately busted out some serious medical kit and put some AWESOME magic lotion on it and it has stopped itching. I am hoping it goes down tomorrow. Everyone on the team now is teasing me about malaria, dengue fever and amputations... not funny!!
See the big ring around it?
Anyways, today was AMAZING!!!! We woke up ridiculously sore and tired after having stayed up last night until 11:30 hanging out at the German bar. We had SO much fun!!! At one point I went to the bathroom and had left my camera on the table. When I looked at my pics about a half hour later, I found all these pictures of everyone's elbows!! What the heck?! :) Today was only a half day at the site which is good because we are all a bit sore. I swear, I will NEVER again complain about the work they ask us to do at Habitat... it doesn't even hold a candle to the back breaking work here. We break a sweat even before lifting a bucket and we all have hyper-color shirts that are a different color after about 30 minutes of working. Today the skilled labor crew we work with was much more playful... they were trying to say our names and cracking up at us. Mard (one of the workers) likes to make fun of us and he has a wicked laugh... he cracks me up. We left the site @ 12 and went to a hole-in-the-wall place for lunch. It was ON the beach!!! Thai food again... my favorite! We threw on our bathing suits and went for a quick dip. Ashley was in charge of today's reflection and she had us draw a picture about our experiences her thus far. We then piled into the trucks and headed off to a school. The school is a K-6 and the kids were all waiting patiently for us when we got there. In one of the classrooms, we peeked in and there was a freaking cat chilling in a suitcase!!! I love it! We taught them (about 30 kids) how to do the hokey pokey and head, shoulders, knees and toes. They taught us how to do some funny song about an elephant getting stung in the butt by a mosquito!! The motions were the best part! :) The kids all wear uniforms and they remind me of girl scouts. Here we all are, sweating like crazy in t-shirts and shorts and they look cool and collected in knee socks, long pants, dress shirts and Crocodile dundee style hats. We brought them soccer balls and stuff for the school. We also brought bags of potato chips and the way the all bowed when they came up to get their bag was as if we'd given them a ticket to disneyland and not just a bag of chips. None of the kids ate them either, they all held onto them like they were a prized jewel. We then took them outside and scooped ice cream for them. They all wanted us to sign these autograph books they had. SUPER precious! We left the school and headed for home. I was riding in the open air wooden pick-up truck today and got to ride home on the roof (hahaha, just kidding mom). Nah, I just rode on the tailgate (ok, not kidding about that one). Nothing like living on the edge :) There was one semi that came up about two feet from our back bumper before passing us... eek!!! HE was all up in our grill! When we got back to the hotel, a bunch of us decided to get Thai massages. There was about 5 of us that went across the street to the place. No joke.... a one hour Thai massage, NINE dollars!!! Having some stranger undress you, priceless! We go in and there are little dividers so Laura and I go into one "cubicle." The woman immediately starts taking of my pants!!?? WOA!! I didn't think I ordered THAT kind of massage! Seriously though, they take your clothes and then put on scrub-like clothes over your undergarments. You then lay on a thin mat on the floor and begin your ascension up into heaven. :) I swear, that lady did things to my body you'd never believe. They do more than just massage, they use their entire bodies to massage yours. Jennifer described it as they are doing yoga FOR you with your body. They lean on your body and use pressure points. It was amazing!! AFterwards they let you dress yourself (thank goodness!) and bring you some tea. After tip, I paid$12 for an hour massage!! HAve I mentioned that I LOVE thailand?! We had "free time" tonight and a few of us went to dinner at an Indian food place down the street. YUMMY!!! Hmmmmm... as Heath and I are sitting out here blogging, some guy and a woman just pulled up on a scooter and he started yelling at her and beating her. Heath and I were devastated but didn't know what to do as no one jumped up to help her. Damn being culturally sensitive.

I'm sweaty, filthy, sore and completely IN LOVE!!!

(L-R) Laura, Sarah, Matthew, Jane, Our Host, The homeowner, HEath, Ben, Jane, Liz (front row)Diana, Sallyanne, Amanda, Me, Jennifer, Ashley





Outside our hotel in Phuket







Sunrise over Phuket








The view from the first restaurant

Me after a hard day's work!

Ah, so I have a bit more time tonight to write and the email situation has gotten decidedly better! We have befriended the German gentleman across the street from our hotel. He married a Thai woman and they run a Thai/German restaurant. They have free WiFi and I am borrowing Sarah's computer. Sitting out, drinking a glass of wine and enjoying the warm, nighttime :) I have SO much to catch you up on!!! Oh, so let me introduce you to the team. Jennifer is the team leader and she is from Wisconsin. She is HILARIOUS! We have the same sense of humor and she is super fun and wise. Diana is my roommate and she is from Stockton, CA. She is a first grade teacher and although she is a bit on the quiet side, she's super cool! BEnjamin is from Seattle and is a single father of twin 10 yr old sons. He is a paramedic. MAtthew is from DC and he is 25. He is a compueter programmer. Heath just got engaged and he is from Dallas. Liz is from I don't know where actually :) She has lots of experience with the peace corp in Africa and comes off as a bit snotty. Her roommate is Sarah. Sarah is a Social Worker that works at Habitat For Humanity in Kentucky. Ashely is from Long Beach and is finishing up her last year of college to be come an architect. Laura is from Canada and is studying to become a Radiologist. Carol is living in UAE and is a bit older. She is super drama and very ignorant. Amanda is a 7th grade teacher. She is VERY immature and says the most ridiculous things. She definately tries my patience and although I try to keep moving away from her, we always get stuck in the same car or near each other at dinner. Jane is a mother who gives parenting seminars. On the day we arrived, she found out that her 19 yr old nephew died and she has been having a hard time. I have to say, when I travel... that is my WORST fear!!! Sallyanne is funny, she is a lawyer and lives in northern California. So there you go... that's the team!! The overall climate here is super hot and humid. It is pretty unbearable during the day at the job site but we are all SO sweaty that it doesn't matter. It's super funny... we barely know about each other and yet, here we are talking about butt sweat and such. It's now Wednesday and we have just stopped mopping off the sweat. Our clothes are drenched clean through from the moment we get there and we never seem to dry off. Yesterday we went to the site and dug trenches for the rebar which goes around the outside of the house to support the foundation. We then broke up more of the old blocks. Benajmin got the fun job of digging out the area behind the outhouse to put in the septic tank. The best part was when we put the concrete circle (the septic tank) in the hole and then had to jump ontop of it to push it down. It must have dropped two feet. It was an awesome ride!!!! The team works really well together. Amanda and Carol can be a bit bossy but overall everyone works SUPER hard. You never see people slacking on the site. We spent the last three hours on the site setup carrying buckets of sand, trays of rocks and in a chain-gang set-up passing 20 pound buckets of mixed cement. I am SOOOOOOOO sore! And we got to do even more of that today! YIPEE!! :) We stayed after 4:30 so that we could finish it. On the way home we stopped at the bank to exchange money. They looked at us like "what are these crazy white FILTHY people doing here?" We next went to a supermarket to get stamps (if anyone wants a postcard, email me and let me know) and Jennifer, Diana and I had to use the bathroom. Jennifer and I are mid-pee when we both realize that there is no toilet paper. EEK!! How did I become this unprepared!? Luckily, there was some random hose dangling in the stall (poor man's version of a bidet?) so Jennifer dared me to hose off. HAHAHA... BEtter to have wet pants than pee pants! It was actually surprisingly refreshing :) We went to the internet cafe after and I had to wait for eveyone else and I totally had to rush through yesterday's post. Last night we went to dinner at the German restaurant across the street and they totally gave me the wrong order! Instead of Spitzel I got VEAL!! Luckily MAtthew helped this sister out and grubbed it down for me :) I ate the potatoes and Jennifer gave me some of her spitzel. On the way back we stopped at the front desk to order breakfast for tomorrow. The guy didn't speak hardly any english and kept laughing at us. I had to choose between pancakes and waffles and he started laughing and said "no waffles" after I requested them and he cracked up!!! It was hilarious. Jennifer and I ended up cracking up just watching him!!! This morning we got to the site and had to break up some more rocks and throw them into the house. I think we found every creep crawly thing native to Thailand. Somehow I got to be the brave one and pic up whatever it was! I found a crab, a gnarly looking spider, a centipede, something unknown to me, and scare off a cricket. After we had filled the center part of the foundation with broken bricks, we had to cover it all with sand (here goes the chain-gang action again!), douse it with water to get it all to sink in, add more buckets(um... more chain-gangage here!)of sand and then took a lunch break. They bring lunch to the site everyday. Today was chicken and rice (kind of like a curry) and hot potato soup (WHY IS IT THAT EVERYTHING HERE IS SERVED HOT?!?! Do they not know it is like 4, 000 degrees?!). After lunch we continued to stomp down the sand and began to get things ready for mixing the concrete. BEfore laying the concrete, we had to cut up bambooo and then lay it on the floor in a grid pattern. We then nailed the bamboo together (I was all over that!). WE only got to pour one (out of three) sections of concrete before the end of the day. On the way home, the taxi driver (who is the same one everyday) wanted to show us a boat. We got to the boat and it is a huge police boat that was washed 2 miles ashore during the Tsunami. It is just sitting in the middle of a grass field. It's this huge boat... I can't even imagine how scary it must have been for the crew and residents to see this boat washing in on this huge wave. The boat is too heavy to move so it is just going to be stuck there. There was all this info about the Tsunami and pics of this area. It was very sobering. Well, that's about it, it will probably be a few days before I can write again but I hope all is well with you all. I miss you all! Keep the comments coming, I love reading them! :)

I'm in heaven!

Ok, so the internet deal super stinks! I am going to do my best to keep the site updated every few days but don't worry if you don't hear from me for a few days~! We are currently at an internet cafe but we have very little time before we have to meet for dinner. I don't have enough time to introduce you to all the team members so hang in there for this blog and I will introduce them to you next week. The team members are all really interesting and I am loving getting to know all of them!!!! The people here are also all very kind and helpful, it's hard not to smile when you are in the "land of smiles." On Sunday we just tried to adjust to being in Thailand and that evening we went out to dinner at this outdoor restaurant next to a dried up bay. It was really picturesque with boats laying in the sand. The food was Thai and it was AMAZING!! Nothing like the stuff we get at home! After dinner we all headed back to the hotel and sat out at the bar. On the way to the bar, I asked Jennifr if I could change roommates because I am living with Miss. Priss. I swear, I can't stand her. She's super young, really immture, condescending, vile, the list goes on. I told Jennifer I would poke my eyes out rather than room with her for the entire 2 weeks. She said "well, I put you with her because I figured you would be the only one that could tolerate her." Luckily one of the other ladies (Carol) is a serious DRAMA queen and wanted her own room so she is paying for her own room. That meant that Diana was also by hersef so I Jennifer said it would be ok to move into Diana's room. THANK GOD!!!! On Monday mornng we all woke up early (5:30am) to watch our first sunrise in Thailand. We stood on the beach in Phuket watching the beautiful sun rise over the mountains. It was magical!! After that, we loaded into the vans and started our two hour journey up north to Khao Lak. The country is BEAUTIFUL! We got to our hotel and checked in./ The hotel is nicer than I thought it would be but the air conditioning could use a bit of work. We had 10 minutes to get ready before heading down for a meeting. We went downstairs and they showed us a video about the history of Habitat Thailand. Anne our host gave us name tags and they have our names in Thai so that other people on the job site can read our names. My name is super short! :) We had lunch at the hotel and it was SUPER fresh! I ate something with tentacles... lol!!!! Afterwards I said "wow, that was super fishy, it's like it came straight from the ocean to my mouth." They are all starting to learn my funny little random Sheri-isms. :) After lunch we went back to our rooms and got ready to head to the jobsite. We loaded up into these 2 trucks... they are like pick-up trucks with benches in the back. They are covered up top and open air on the sides. We got to the site and got to meet the man we are making to house for. He had made us lei's of the most beautiful flowers and he teared up when thanking us for coming to build his house. We immediately got to work throwing concrete blocks into the middle of the house. they use the old house blocks to create a 2 foot foundation under the house. We then smashed up the bricks with sledgehammers to make them into smaller pieces. We will later pour concrete over the pieces to make the floor of the home. OOh, the bathroom situation @ the site is hilarious! It is just a hole in the ground that looks like the bottom half of a toilet. We have to opour water down after we go and poor Jen found out that you can only go #1. Poor thing had to fish it back out... talk about taking one for the team!!! HAHAHAH! Don't even ask me what we have to do if we have to go #2!! You don't want to know. We left the site@ 4:30 and took the half hour ride back home. When we got back, Ashley, Sallyanne, Jane and Amanada and I walked down to the beach (about 15 minutes). On the way, there is a ton of new construction and we found a tree with pictures posted of Tsunami victims. It was a very sobering moment standing on this beach that so many people died on. I never realized 5 years ago when I was watching the news on the TV, that I would be in this country standing in the spot I had only watched on videos. IT was a nother reminder of how grateful I am for my life, and the opportunity to be here in Thailand. We swam in the waves and the water was really warm. The waves were powerful and I again, was reminded of whatit must have felt like for those poor people to hve been swept away. We heard today that they hotel we are staying in was hit by the Tsunami, the entire lower floor was underwater! I am relieved that we are on the 2nd level. We walked back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. We ate dinner at a pizza place and we played the Two truths and a lie game. It's funny that we don;t really know anything about each other and yet it feels like we've all known each other forever. After dinner Jen and I walked to the 7-11 and browsed around. We found some fish on a stick and she wanted to take pics of it... silly Jen. Then she saidf "uh oh, should I have asked to take a pic of it(you are not supposed to take pics of people here wihtout their permission)" and I replied "I don't know, did you ask that fish if it was a government official (you should NEVER take pics of the officials herE)" We were rolling with laughter!!!! I ended up talking to some guy outside the next store for awhile as well, he is from Burma and wanted to practice his english. I got back to the room @ 9pm and went to sleep. I am running out of time, I have to be at dinner in 20 minutes and I am still COVERED in concrete! Gotta run... maybe next time I can tell you about today! :)