Thailand May 22: Ban Yang Kaew School - Day 1

This entry is going to seem boring after my Sam Raimi-inspired post from yesterday.

Before describing today's activities, I'd like to first thank Isabel and Lily's grandparents for following along--I hope you weren't too grossed out by the post-leech aftermath photos.

Also, I've been known to tell a pun or two or 4,000 in my day. If you're wondering where I get it from:

While I appreciate the effort, let's be honest. That pun kind of sucked.

SEE WHAT I DID THERE??

I'm just kidding, Dad. It was a fine pun. I love you very much.

Moving on.

Today, we loaded into a very capable 4WD van and pick-up truck to drive to the Ban Yang Kaew school to start some of our service work. The Ban Yang Kaew school is located about 25 minutes outside of Omkoi--already a very small town--in the middle of the woods. Getting to the school is a challenge--particularly in bad weather because it requires travel on rough, unpaved dirt roads.

For many years, this program has had a focus on nursing education and practice. One of the things we do at the rural schools is to complete health assessments with the kids. We have a much smaller student group this year than in previous years, so rather than only having nursing students involved, it was very much all hands on deck. Some students took height and weight measurements, other students completed step-by-step assessments of things like skin, teeth, hair, etc., and another group of students helped wash and de-lice hair. It involved a lot of pantomiming and help (when possible) from our Thai translators.

Conducting a health assessment

Helpful list of Thai phrases while doing health assessments

I'm definitely DEFINITELY not a kid person, but I will admit that these incredibly sweet and well-behaved kiddos were like...kind of cute, and it filled my heart with joy to see our Westminster students--who do like kids--have such sweet and funny interactions with the Ban Yang students. Students played soccer, Sepak Takraw (it's like volleyball but with your feet!), and had a lot of arm wrestling contests today.

Playing Sepak Takraw

Joe had quite the entourage today

After breaking for lunch, we started work prepping one of the older class buildings for a big paint job. We'll start painting tomorrow, but today was spent washing the building and doing our best to scrape existing paint off the building to prime it tomorrow.

Prepping the building for paint. Photo credit: Noi V.

It dumped absolute buckets on us this afternoon, so work was halted for about an hour while we waited out the thunderstorm. We had a quick weather window to make a fast drive back to the hotel, but we still got caught in the deluge in our open air truck. 

Waiting out the storm

We ended the night by re-connecting with Principal Choosak, who is the director of the main school in Omkoi that we'll be visiting on Thursday.

I'll probably hold off on posting for a day or two but will try and post one more Omkoi update before we leave for Chiang Mai on Friday.