Goodbye Wat Santidham

Today is New Year's Eve. We went to visit our friends at the local Wat. We received a copy of the Wat's annual calender. This is the cover page. At this point we cannot read the words, but we hope that will change soon!

This is a photo of the large sign that stands by the roadside in front of the Wat. The monks are travelers in life much as Peace Corps volunteers are. I only hope we can be as gracious and kind as they have been to us.

We scanned the month of January to show some of the international features. We are not certain, but could it be that this year is the year of the rat, or maybe the year of the mouse. There is a little creature pictured in the first box for the month. New Year's Day is highlighted as well as Martin Luther King Day. But also note the small image of The Buddha on the 1st, 7th, 15th, 22nd and 30th. We think these notations may be in tune with the cycles of the moon but still have to research this.

Today we brought gifts to the monks of some fresh fruit. We cannot do justice to Thai cooking as yet, so fruit and dessert are generally a safe bet. Oranges, raspberries and blueberries are kind of neutral - or so we hoped. After the monks have eaten all who are present are invited to share in the bounteous offerings of dishes. To the very left you can see a Thai pumpkin. We were told that you steam it first and then serve it with either sugar or sweet coconut as a topping. We have received much encouragement from all those who attend the Wat. Today I related a gaff I made while in New York at the Thai restaurant. We all had a good laugh. One poor lady was in tears she laughed so very hard! I would relate the error I made with the language but it was a little too salty for this journal! My face was red needless to say.

Here is one of the sweetest monks. He was walking through the kitchen area carrying clean robes that had been laundered. I told him I wanted to take his photo, so he put the laundry down, wrapped himself in his shawl (after telling me that this is what the monks in Thailand do when they are cold) and stood still for the photo.

I said to the monk, "Are monks not allowed to smile?" Very seriously he said not very often. Then he gave me this big smile. He laughed too when I mentioned to him that his "serious" look with the shawl was not enough to hide the bright yellow football jersey he was wearing to keep warm here in Augusta, GA. He said that monks in Thailand do not wear football jerseys.

Getting Ready For Staging

One of us is expected to wear a shirt and tie daily for work. So . . . we have tried to choose a variety of shirts and ties that have to potential to mix/match. Of course all of them must be packed. We are happily on our way to 80 lbs of luggage for him.

Stacked on top of this dresser is two years of clothing for a female volunteer. Daily work attire is to be a skirt or dress. Dresses are not as flexible as a skirt and top so no dresses. But since transportation to work is a bicycle, then pants that come below the knee must also be included. Now I am on my way to 80 lbs of luggage.

And where will most of our weight originate? With "items" such as those seen. Being as anally retentive as we are, we have begun an inventory in a spreadsheet to be certain we don't forget anything we intended to remember. You know, like the two universal sink stoppers, or maybe the rain suits, or the headlamp. Oh yes, and who can forget the wind-up SW radio (it only weights 5 lbs).

Our house looks like a windstorm hit it, and we are no where near finished. HELP!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

It is our last Christmas in the states for a while and here is a photo of our hostess, cook and pretty daughter-in-law. She, along with her Mom and Aunt, put out a wonderful spread that included all of the traditional Christmas items. Turkey and all of the trimmings. And a great dessert called Mississippi mud cake. It was yummy!

I couldn't resist taking a photo during dinner and Caleb, the big ham, always has a smile for the camera. To Caleb's right is Aunt Beth then Mommy and Daddy. Even Caleb ate his vegetables - and that is AFTER Santa had come and left Caleb a very nice thank you note for the soda and cookie snack left out for him.

Tanner got a little sleepy during dinner so she made it into Grammy's lap for a little bit of snuggle time. Jimmy just kept on eating - smart fella!


Grandpop was busy in conversation during this shot but Tanner knew to smile for the camera. Guess it runs in the family.


Caleb received the gift of a block stacking game. Of course the first thing the grownups wanted to do was to play with it. Here Jimmy is trying to decide which is the best block to remove without the entire stack falling down. He chose well because the blocks were still standing for Aunt Beth's turn.

It took a little while but Aunt Beth did figure out which block to remove from the stack. It did not fall! I am glad I was the one with the camera this time around. Last time we played I made them all tumble down!

So it is now Grammy's turn. Will she make it? Yes, she did! So on to Mommy. That stack looks pretty unstable at this point.

Uh oh! Mommy picked the wrong one!


Caleb also received a bow and arrow set. So guess who is trying it out? If the idea of the shot was to bag a bush then Grandpop did a great job!


Mommy was goaded into taking the next shot. Her pull was powerful but the aim needed a little bit of help. She bagged a mailbox post. Oh well, on to Daddy.

Finally . . . someone who hit the bull's eye every time. When asked why, his response was that he received his training at Pine Camp. This was a camp run by the Youth Activities at out local military post. Our three youngest kids all worked there as camp counsellors for a number of years. Of course the camp just had to include archery. First they experienced it as campers then they went on to become instructors at various camp activities.

We had a great meal, good company and a memorable Christmas for 2007. Next year will also be memorable but just a little bit different.

ThaiNY - Yummy Yummy

Tonight was our last visit, for a while, to ThaiNY. We both ate red curry. It was sooooo good! Here is one of the people who visited with us while we were in the restaurant. We received some pointers on how to pronounce some of the few words we have learned in Thai. Wish we could visit with them a little more often.

Here is John with the kind lady who helped us with dinner. She also gave me some pointers on speaking Thai. We only have 34 days to go!

Dinner With Sue!

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Here is Sue! We had dinner at a local Thai restaurant. The food seemed to have been made with Americans in mind. Not very spicy. So Sue, brave soul that she is, asked for the spice rack. Two containers came out - we chose the red crushed pepper sauce. It made it a little more spicy but we were reticent to go overboard.


On the way to meet Sue John snapped this photo of me with the Empire State Building in the background. Our temporary home has great views of the Empire State as well as the Chrysler Building and the United Nations. You can tell by how I am dressed just how very very cold it is here right now!


That is the Chrysler Building behind John. He is bundled up too! We hope we will be able to see Sue at least one more time before we have to leave.

New York City

Here we are back in the city for a visit before we fly off to the other side of the world. As you can probably tell from this photo of our youngest grandchild - it is cold here now. Last time we were here was for the month of August and what a difference! She is bundled up and ready to walk her babies to get a little fresh air. On the left you see Pooh bear wearing his red jacket and on the right is our friend Koala bear. They travel many places with us and always have a position of honor among the group!

Shown is our little one looking at one of the "gifts" we plan to take to Thailand with us. It is basically a flashlight that has a winter scene mounted on top. Inside of the globe is an evergreen tree with lights, a snowman and Styrofoam snowflakes. She seems to be fascinated mostly by the lights. Wonder what the Thai children we meet will think of it!

Here it is almost time for a nap but not until Mommy reads a good book to the little one. We are proud to boast that this little two year old is already bilingual. Sometimes she says something to us and we are not certain if it is baby talk or German. Oops!

How about a look like that when you ask "Do you have poo poo?"


We have been lucky enough to be able to take our little one to an activity called "Music With James". The session begins with each of the participants picking a puppet from a huge pile of them in the middle of our activity carpet. Here I am trying to convince the little one to kiss the frog I have. She has not seen Kermit but I sure have and I'd give him a kiss on his frog lips any day. Hey! Do frogs have lips?

Here we are singing Old MacDonald Had A Farm. And don't you know I wound up with a hippopotamus! Not certain what a hippo might say James sang "with a hippy hippy here and a hippy hippy there". This could be taken in several contexts by someone of my advanced years. Could that refer to the love children of the 60's or maybe the size of someones hips?

Each session James brings in at least one instrument from the orchestra, demonstrates it and then lets the children get a close up view. Here he is showing us a French Horn. He played it first then we each got to see it. He has also brought an accordion, violin, ukulele.

Goodbye Augusta Tech- Mon/Wed ESL Class

Tonight was our last meeting with our Augusta Tech group. Monday night, as usual, we had much better attendance than tonight. Monday we had representatives from Ukraine, Costa Rica, Peru, Korea, Thailand and Iran. Tonight we had the opportunity to say goodbye to only three of our "regulars." After one year at Augusta Tech we will miss the fun of sharing the English language and all of its idiosyncrasies with our new friends and of learning about some of their difficulties.


Here, we are working our way through the alphabet and selected "blends." We asked each person to give us a word that started with a letter or blend. They did really well. A few times I had to pantomime or describe the word someone had chosen that another did not grasp. It was fun - kind of like charades. On Monday night we actually did do charades. After reading and talking about activities that take place in a community, such as buying gas or going to the movies or library, we each had to act out an activity while the others guessed what it was.


After our alphabet and blending work, we read in the textbooks about describing people. Photos showed people who had different color hair and eyes. We then discussed age and height as additional ways of describing people. Sometimes, this exercise required some acting out. I think we got across the idea of how to use physical characteristics in descriptions - hopefully.

Augusta Tech - Mon/Wed ESL

Augusta Technical College has very clearly defined and described mission, vision, and goals statements. They offer a critical, consistent, and quality program to the community. John and I have very much appreciated the school's willingness to let us participate in their English as a Second Language program.







Before class started John had a chance to have alphabet equivalents from English to Thai shown to him. One of the many joys of this class is that we get to learn from each other.


Tonight we talked about households, different kinds of homes and what we can find in a home. Writing on the board promotes fun as well as discussion with all involved. This time we were talking about the word balcony. We branch out and discover what may be found on a balcony or what activities we may do on a balcony. The topic of Romeo and Juliet did not come up though.


Next we spent some time talking about dining rooms. Each participant took a turn to describe what we might see in their dining room at home.


Our Wednesday night regulars. Traditionally in this part of the country Wednesday nights are church night so our attendance drops. Shown are representatives from Thailand, Korea and Peru.


Here we have lost our place in the text.

Sunday Night ESL Class

This is Miss Brenda. She teaches the first hour of our Sunday night class. Brenda teaches the level 2 group. There are about 2 or 3 other teachers that cover other levels of English. At the end of the formal book learning period John and I do an hour of casual conversational English with anyone who wants to stay after class. Their class level is not taken into consideration. If they want to join us they are most welcome.

Miss Brenda was leaving when I caught her picture. She has been teaching this ESL course for a significant number of years. The book used is put out by Spectrum and is titled "A communicative Course in English." The topic of American English idioms came up several weeks ago so we decided to use our conversation hour to explore idioms. A search on the web came up with so many idioms that they are listed in alphabetical order. Last week I printed those idioms that start with A and B. The class had over 300 to choose from. This week we tried those beginning with C and D. Another conversational situation we have covered is simulated telephone calls. For example, a call to the doctor because a child in the family is sick or a call to have cable TV installed in the home, or a call to report a fire. In addition, sometimes I may read them an interesting article from a magazine and we discuss it.


Although we talked about a number of American idioms (sayings/expressions) the one I am writing on the board here is "Dead as a Dodobird." Others we discussed were things like "Brownie Points," "At the end of my rope," and "Canary in a coal mine." We have had lots of fun and the oddness of the English language never fails to amaze me. It is interesting that some of the idioms we addressed had an almost direct corollary in Japanese!


Class attendance was down a bit due to the Thanksgiving holiday. But we had students originally from Japan and Columbia, SA.

Idioms in English can often find a corollary in many other languages. Tonight we learned that in addition to Japanese "Don't cry over spilled mink" also is found in some Spanish speaking countries.

Idioms are the subject tonight. Lots of fun with "Don't push my buttons", "A penny saved is a penny earned" as well as others such as "Dish the dirt."

Thanksgiving - Two Daughters

This year, our last here for a little while, we travelled to Atlanta for Thanksgiving. We spent two days with Consi and Keary. Happily, DeaSha was able to join us, so at least we had our Atlanta-based part of the family together.

This morning (the day after Thanksgiving) was the traditional time to write a letter to Santa. Keary got busy on that job. Grandpop and I have been tasked to get it to the North Pole.


We had a delicious dinner, sans turkey. We had a really good baked ham, scalloped potatoes, mashed potatoes, broccoli/rice casserole and a coconut/bourbon bundt cake. The best part was we had to do a minimum of cooking. All three of us ladies appreciate a day free from cooking!!

As you can tell from the photos . . . Keary demonstrated that he learned to "stop, drop and roll" from a group of firemen that came to his school to talk about fire safety, we put together puzzles, and we did some serious coloring.




As I said, DeaSha was able to join us. Seems as though she was happy to be here.


In addition to other "fixin's," DeaSha brought flowers for our dinner table. (The table cloth was leftover from Halloween, complete with skeletons.) From somewhere out of the past John put to work some flower arranging skills he learned, while living in Japan. His efforts resulted in a beautiful arrangement.



Keary also showed us he can now tie his shoes.

After Thanksgiving dinner we all settled in front of the television to watch "Ratatouie" on DVD.

Keary and DeaSha did some multi-tasking by watching the movie and coloring pictures simultaneously!


DeaSha is a very busy lady with her nursing classes and working on the weekends at Shephard Hospital. She is happy for this holiday providing some time off - even if it's only for a day and a half.


We plan to see them all again before we leave, but time is moving very fast and it's getting short.