Halfway Through Summer

 Wow! I can't believe we're almost finished with July. I call this our summer, but it's not really our summer here. We've been back in school since the middle of May. We started about the time I finished up with my thesis. We're finally into our rainy season, and we're getting a little relief from the high temps of hot season. It's still very humid, but we enjoy the rain showers that usually come late afternoon.

Perhaps I still refer to it as summer because this is the time of year we normally have people come to visit/work. This year we had Sarah Meigs and Madison Foster come to work with us for about six weeks. They arrived and pretty much went straight to work although they did get to observe for about the first week to see how we do our English classes.

Sarah was the first one to commit to coming here.

Sarah did a wonderful job with the kids. One of the many things that I noticed about Sarah was her one-on-one attention with the kids. I saw her taking time to work with the kids individually whether it was in English or basketball. The kids seemed to thrive with the individual attention.

Madison was the other summer intern. It was nice for the girls to have someone to travel with although the route is so easy now it can be done alone.

Madison also did a great job with the kids. She could get right in whatever games the kids were playing. The games sure are different here from kicking around the takraw ball to jumping rope Thai style, but the language barrier was broken by laughter and good times.

I'm not sure why the kids are all holding on to their swords, but they can really play takraw. Madison was getting the hang of it, and I know the kids really enjoyed her joining the group.

Of course jumping rope Thai style is a whole different story. I've never met a foreigner who can do it. The rope starts out low, and then they raise it up. This is probably about shoulder-level of the kids. The kids jump up, catch it with their feet, and then they clear the rope which is made out of rubber bands strung together. As long as they clear it with both feet and don't straddle it they get to advance to the next level.

When the kids hold the rope at their head level, the kids do a handstand, catch the rope with their feet, and then let their feet drop to the ground--like a front walk-over.Sometimes they do a cart-wheel.

Whew...by the time I'm finally updating this post it's already into August. Things have been a bit crazy, but then again they always are. I always think the future is going to calm down a bit, but it's probably a good thing that there's always something to do.