Phurua, Loei!

So, here's the resort! The place we stayed at was called Phu Rua, and above are pictures of the resort. As you can see, it was beautiful! It was definitely in the middle of nowhere, and I felt super isolated from civilization. On the bright side, there was a balcony outside our hotel room, and we had a view of a gorgeous [manmade...] waterfall! YEAH. I'm not sure what river the waterfall flowed into, but the views were to die for.

On Sunday, I had my first Thai lesson. It was a whopping 4 hours long! To top it all off, I am THE ONLY one in the intermediate Thai class. So I will have an ajaan all to myself all semester! Auuuugh. My book is mainly meant for 1st graders, and the story features about a boy named ฦูผา, a baby boy elephant named ใบโบก, and a baby girl elephant named ใบบัว. So far, they've gone to play soccer, take a bath, and had a scary encounter with a snake. Anyway, the first class was mainly a gauge of how well I know Thai. After that, the whole group had discussions on how the rest of the classes and stuff would work. We also had a horrible "bonding" game that featured a tiny cloth that my entire group of 10 people was supposed to both fit onto and flip over while

we were all on the cloth. Please, please don't ask me to elaborate on this. I still have nightmares about it.

On Monday, we had lots of workshops and lectures about NGOs, social justice, human rights, and the Isaan area.We also had a culture + etiquette workshop where the girls and I got pa toongs and the guys got sarongs to wear in the villages. They're basically skirt-y thingies that we're supposed to wear to bathe, sleep, and put on in order to go to the bathroom and stuff. We all also got elephant bags! There were a few with giraffes on them, but I didn't realize it until i saw someone take the last one. Sorry Caroline!

Khon Kaen University notebook, check. Bright pink pa toong, check. Elephant bag, also check.

On Tuesday, there were super boring workshops and Thai lessons. The only different thing was a Thai number BINGO, in which I won some awesome prizes. Woop woop.

On Wednesday, we did a lot of the same workshops and Thai lessons. My Thai lesson was supposed to consist ofwatching a Thai drama (lakorn) and summarizing it in English. But my ajaan accidentally downloaded the episode ofthe lakorn with English subtitles so... That was a no-go. Instead, I had to watch gifs of hilarious situations and describe what happened in Thai into a tape recorder, which my language ajaan at KKU will apparently listen to.Scary. But the gifs were funny; the most notable gifs consisted of a guy skateboarding down a ramp, falling, and then allowing the skateboard to come back and hit him in the nuts; 4 elderly people sitting at a picnic bench, also falling due to the picnic table breaking, and rolling a little while down a hill; and a fat kid (no joke; the caption was "dek ooahn"; fat child) trying to sit in an inner tube that was in the ocean and then falling right into the water. We also had our "Buddha Buddies" assigned, in which the program staff matched each of us up with our complete opposite in order for us to find a way to find a "middle path." Mine is an awesome guy named Brett, and we're definitely, definitely opposites. We kind of clued them in during a discussion of our goals, in which one of my goals

was, "Participate more in discussions," whereas his was, "Speak less during discussions." So our Buddha Buddy time should be full of funtimez. Then, we had a campfire with the rest of the ajaans and program facilitators. We ate American-ish food for the first time since we had been back in the states, and most of us shared a few beers with the ajaans. We call the local beer, "Leo," by a loving nickname, "Ajaan Leo," thanks to Ajaan Jeab. Basically means Professor Leo, but it's a beer, so that's why it's funny. Yeah.

Thursday, I would really like to forget. We had to do an activity that consisted of lifting each person one at a time up and through a tiny hole in a net that was about 4 feet off the ground. I disapproved for so many reasons.

And Friday and Saturday, we spent the night at Baw Kaew Protest village, which is about 2 hours away from Khon Kaen. The village was built last year in a eucalyptus forest that the government built. The reason why the government built it was to create more paper, but in turn, it seized all of the land of the villagers, evicted them, and threatened to jail them if they didn't leave. During an exchange with the villagers, they revealed that the government even charged the villagers with "creating global warming," by living on the same land that their ancestors have lived on and farmed on for centuries. So we got to learn a lot about their struggle in that village. We were also able to eat with the villagers, so we had lots of sticky rice (cao niew), som tum (both Thai and Lao), kai jiew (fried eggs), and other traditional Isaan food. And of course we ate with our hands!

So Saturday, we finally reached Khon Kaen. Next entry!