Rice Harvesting

My first weekend back at site after the October vacation, I helped harvest rice in a neighboring village.

Rice fields waiting to be harvested

Rice, rice and more rice! That eventually ends up on the breakfast, lunch and dinner table

Cutting the rice

Rolling the rice into bundles

The farmer showing me how it's done

Beating the rice

Beach Bound October

We had three weeks of vacation in October (the difference between the Thai and American academic calendars still throws me off) so I went to the beach for the first time since arriving in Thailand 10 months ago!

I tried my hand at Muay Thai on Ko Samet.

Ready... go!

Did you expect any less of me? ;) Although to be fair, we were probably not so evenly matched.

There were fire dancers on the beach while we were eating dinner.

This boy couldn't have been older than my primary school students.

And what better way to end a day at the beach with good food, good company and good entertainment than with a spectacular sunset over the ocean?

Life is good.

Lizards, Gibbons and Scorpions, Oh My!

(I think every volunteer's blog has a similar post title of some sort.)

The hiking boots that were a gift from my tennis group back home came in handy during my trip to Khao Yai National Park in September (thank you!):

Khao Yai National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat) province (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khao_Yai_National_Park)

Leech socks - some leeches managed to get in anyway!

Luckily I kept my blood but a couple others in our group weren't so fortunate.

Lizard

Our guide could somehow spot creatures while driving around the park. I don't know how he did it.

Monkeys

(We did see gibbons but I don't have anything besides blurry photos of them.)

Scorpion, oh my!

We let it take turns crawling around on our chests.

Unfortunately we didn't see any elephants, but they left big footprints!

Haew Suwat Waterfall, the waterfall featured in the movie, The Beach

This and the next photo do not have anything to do with Khao Yai itself but it was my first time eating steak...

and salmon in Thailand. It was delicious. I was happy. :)

What I love about Northern Thailand

It's beautiful.

(Photos taken in/ near Pai)

World Map English Camp

Last weekend I helped out at another volunteer's World Map English Camp. This was a genius two-in-one combination of an English camp (goal: students learn English and have fun - oh wait, that's supposed to be every day at school) and World Map project (goal: students learn about world geography while painting a world map mural).

Before

This is what I imagined I would be doing when I joined Peace Corps.

After - not quite, but almost finished!