Traveling is so up and down! Like a roller coaster (Summer Search mentors that was for you:) I am struck with wonder as I have my first prayer in a Wat and then weary to the point of tears while trying to cut vegetables for dinner (I still have all my fingers, but it was a close one!)

It is exhausting using all of my senses trying to make sense of and absorb the sights, sounds, words, objects and new ways of doing even the simplest things. It is exciting and overwhelming, and at times I feel like a student in a class that is over my head. I wonder how long (if ever) it takes to feel less 'other' and foriegn. I feel that people are not looking me and yet watching at the same time, I hear 'farang, farang' and laughter, but I'm not quite sure what it means, I assume it is good natured as Nalinrat assures me, but it is definitely a new experience.

Bueng Kan is smaller that NongKhai, right on the Mekong river.e There is excersice equipment right on the river, for everyone to use and it is always busy when we go early in the morning. We went to the cultural center and I am excited to get to work, our first project is cleaning and then building a replica 'bon' or old style house inside... as well we'll be traveling to interview local people, displaying antique tools etc. and setting up areas for the community to teach classes and learn English, lots of work. We cleaned the floor today, it was so-gah-pok mahk! (very dirty!)

I am already feeling alot of ownership even though I've only been here a few days, and also feeling like 1 month is not enough time to do all I want to do!

Hah! At dinner a teacher from the local school says "Look, we are both ahanjay (vegetarian) but not skinny, fat, because we love to eat!" True, but not something I like to hear:) Mai bpen rai, it was said with love and just another cultural thing I might* get used to!

Also, never ask a woman her age...unless you're in Thailand, and then you ask it before you even know her name:)

Sitting outside talking and the mosquitoes swarm around, Nalinrat comes out armed with an electric tennis racket/bug zapper: "I give them another birthday!" She sings, "It's the Buddhist way!"

#23 was my fortune today, "I am like a ship full of merchandise floating the seas, if sick I will get well, if I ask someone to marry me they will surely say yes...hmmm:)