First, we received a really, really wonderful package today!  We got a package from the Bakers (the Spurlock’s neighbors and best friends since who knows when) this afternoon at the office, but it was quite a busy day, so we had waited to open until we were at home and could actually enjoy it all. I assumed it was to both of us, and really more to Stephen since he’s known them forever, and I still thought that was so sweet of them to send it.  Then when we got home and I asked Stephen if he wanted to open it, he said it was up to me since it was for me.

What?!

Oh, yes, another birthday package!  They included cake mix, frosting mix, candles, and cookie mix for a celebration, plus a huge gift for me that included–post it notes (SO expensive here and I’ve been wanting them, but just couldn’t bring myself to do it!), stationery (another thing I just can’t find in Mae Sot; isn’t that odd?), candies, picture frames for the fridge, and a $20 iTunes gift card!  Stephen & I just looked through it over and over and talked about how creative it all was, so unexpected, and really perfect for what we could want and not get here.

Y’know how the most unexpected things really brighten your day?  Well, it did.

And though not comparable, another fun thing today: a garage sale!  There is a family moving from Mae Sot at the end of the month and they were hosting a garage sale this weekend.   We are headed out of town tomorrow and would miss it, but they mentioned lots of good things in their flier. We decided to ask if we could come early. How popular could garage sales be in Mae Sot? Maybe they’ll take what they can get.

And they did! We got to visit early today and found a whole host of things, including:

(By the way, this probably really emphasizes my frugality, which was already pretty strong in the States and is just getting stronger in a place where you can live even cheaper!)

– a desk for just $25 which Stephen’s really excited to be able to use for recording

– two small bookshelves

– a wooden cutting board, about 3″ thick that is actually a slice of a tree trunk where you can see all the rings; really lovely, I think

– three picture frames

– a floor mat, so we can welcome people into our home with true Karen style (by rolling out a floor mat)

– a pretty basket

– curtains for our room! I’m excited about this because they were just $6 and helped us to eliminate the really awful pink curtains that came with the house

I know, they look boring. But they are so much better than the pink, and fun turning into ugly is a very hard line to walk here…

…and look at the cute button detail at the top!

– the last steal was some clothes for me–six shirts, a sweater, and a pair of pants for just $6. And it included this shirt, which I thought was quite a deal.

It’s a new Columbia shirt with sun-protection, quick-dry material, and anti-microbial (which means you don’t really have to shower!) with a $65 tag on it. Not bad for less than $1 in Mae Sot!

On a more we’re-here-for-a-purpose note, we also had a good day at the office. It was long–we didn’t get home until about 5:30pm, despite our schedule of being at the office MWF from 9am to 1pm.  We did work on some planning for our first team coming in June, including their itinerary and budget. We got things together for our trip tomorrow–we’re leaving to visit a Karen village and clinic that Partners and FBR support.  It’s a very traditional community, and we’re really looking forward to getting to know some contacts there. We’ll also be stopping by a refugee camp on the way back to deliver hygiene packs and allowances to the children’s homes we support there. This is part of the Children’s Projects job we’re helping with for May, June, & July.  All this to say: we had jobs, we did them, and we enjoyed them!

Anyway, these are probably very little things to people who read our blog, but it was a good day.

…And very welcomed.

So now we’re signing off from internet, phones, and offices for a few days; even leaving the computer behind. We’re looking forward to it!

Oh, yes, FOUR packages arrived for us yesterday, and we had a massive birthday & Easter & fun things celebration…

Trying granola from the Wessons. Homemade, perhaps?  I don’t know, but it was amazing for breakfast!

And probably the best birthday card ever from Gabe!

We went out again Friday for the last day of Songkran and bravely took the camera with us. We thought we just had to capture a glimpse of it all.

[the two big tubs in the back of our truck]

[we had four of these, two in each tub. this is also after we had been around town once and they had been melting…and, by the way, these are much bigger than the ones we had wednesday. my 10″ x 5″ x 4″ guess wasn’t for these. by friday the ice companies had gotten quite clever: there were trucks throughout town filled with these big blocks of ice, so everyone could stop and chill their water. and oh, was it chilly. it was pretty fun to throw water and then get a shocked “oy!” as they realized it wasn’t simply water.]

[some of our partners in crime, dan & kerrine.]

[what other trucks looked like. this, and all following photos, were taken from inside the truck. excuse the resulting bad photo quality.]

[what it looks like to be doused.]

[the construction: countless of these were built up throughout town for this week. it’s a little covering where you keep your water tub, music, and alcohol. the party hub, i suppose. this is outside of town, so it’s much quieter, but imagine the town streets lined with them…]

[when you reach the chaos of the downtown loop. it consists of two one way streets, lined on each side with party hubs, as we’ll call them.]

[the lined streets.]

[the talc powder. they mix it with water in buckets and smear it on your cheeks, and occasionally on your ears and eyes and in your mouth.]

[what it looks like to be doused. again.]

https://vimeo.com/22473696

[and if pictures can’t capture it…]

Well, it’s really just that: a big water fight.

I’ve been describing Songkran to people as this big water fight, but it wasn’t until we drove down the street and you actually watch hundreds of adults, children, teenagers, grandparents, foreigners and locals soak each other with water that you believe there is a holiday devoted to this.

Today we had the privilege of joining some of our fellow Partners’ staff in celebration of Songkran. We all met at the office and split into three trucks, each filled with: a huge tub or two of water, multiple toilet buckets, a few water guns, and four to five people. We then paraded through town, with everyone else in Mae Sot, and enjoyed the biggest water fight I’ve ever seen.

Water is everywhere. People are using hoses, toilet buckets, water guns, homemade water guns–whatever they can find to drench you. The streets are full of trucks with the backs filled with people (and a large tub, of course, filled for free around town). The streets, also, are lined with all ages, water going everywhere. A few (including us on our second round) add ice into the tubs…we purchased eight blocks of ice about 10″ x 4″ x 5″ (this is completely a Kelli guesstimate so take that with a grain of salt) for 5 baht (16 cents) each.

In addition to water, there’s powder. Supposedly it’s for good luck, but they mix baby powder or talcum powder with water to create a paste, which they then throw on you or smear on your face and clothes.  That’s probably the worst part, I’d vote, particularly if it gets in your mouth.

There’s quite a bit of dancing, too. People on the streets pull out big speakers and blare Thai music for everyone to dance to.

Oh, and a lot of alcohol. I’ve never seen so much alcohol in the middle of the streets, in the back of cars, and on motorbikes.

They love to see the farangs (Thai for white person) and gulawahs (Karen for white person) out for the day, too.  We thus heard an array of English phrases as we were drenched, including: “Happy New Year” (which made sense, this is traditionally a new year celebration), “Merry Christmas” (not as much sense…), “I love you” (odd, especially when someone is rubbing your cheek with powder), “How do you FEEL?”, and “Made in Thailand!” (while pointing at himself…).

I loved seeing all the smiles. Everyone became so animated,and you suddenly become friends with hundreds of people you can’t communicate with as you cross a million cultural barriers for a silly water fight.

The best part of the day, by far: we passed a lady on the road spraying everyone with a powerful hose. As she sees the foreigners coming, she points her hose downward, gives us a polite Thai wai & bow (a proper greeting, so Thai-level proper that we don’t receive it much in Mae Sot)…and then proceeds to drench us with the hose. She simply needed to welcome us first.

We were sad we couldn’t take the camera with us to capture the fun, but after we saw how wet we got we’re confident it was the right decision. We did take a couple quick shots when we got home, though.

To prevent our new helmets from getting wet, moldy, and smelly like our previously borrowed helmets, I came home with a plastic bag on my head and Stephen used a pillowcase that we keep in the bike. (It’s generally used for drying the bike off after rain or siting on if the seat gets too hot in the sun.) Either way, it’s a good thing decency and style got thrown out the window awhile ago.

This photo can’t really capture how wet we were. There simply wasn’t a bit of us dry.

And I’ve now decided this might be the best time of year to visit us. It’s definitely a fun experience!

 

Oops.

We have a big, blue water reserve in our back yard that, well, reserves water for our washer, sink, shower, toilet, etc.  The city water usually comes in each evening, and we can let it fill up.  We don’t typically go through the whole reserve in a day, though, so we simply check on it and “open” the valve to let it fill up if needed. We try not to let it get to full, because it will run over the top and cost us money in our water bill.

Before we went to Chiang Mai on Wednesday, we [wisely] turned the water off to save money & water.

But then [not so wisely] forgot to turn it back on.

And now it’s empty. I was taking my afternoon shower after a long day in the heat–in our house, where I sweat while I cooked, cleaned, studied Karen, and simply sat; all sweating–when the water started sputtering and splattering.

Like I said, oops.

Unfortunately, I had already started an elaborate dinner for our friends coming over.  Stephen & I had both been cooking all day to make: hummus (after cooking chickpeas & mashing them with mortar & pestle), babaganoush (after making tahini from scratch, plus mashing it all, again, with mortar & pestle), naan, Greek rice, falafel (chickpeas cooked first, & mashed…), and brownies for dessert.

I really loved the cooking, and Stephen was a wonderful help with the mortar & pestle mashing. But this is quite an elaborate meal to then have no water to wash dishes with. Our kitchen now looks like this:

Oops.

As of 9:10pm, the water hasn’t come on yet, either.

Don’t worry: we’ll survive. We have plenty of drinking water. We just may not be taking showers in the hottest month of the year, and we may start using Germ-X more than we’d like. We’re just hoping the water comes on before too long!

This is just a collection of things I’ve been meaning to get out and never got around to until now.

We decided to go out this Saturday to begin our garden. We thought we should start by picking up trash, which turned out to be plentiful, and took about an hour.  This includes the three times we had to stop and pick a few dozen thorns out of our feet and ankles from this lovely, harmless looking plant that is stalking our yard. Stephen dug up three of the thorny things with a broken hoe (part of the trash we discovered).

We were also trying to determine how we’d fence around our garden to keep out the mangy street dogs out.  Part of the trash pile we found included a stash of broken bricks (assumably those that didn’t make the cut for our house).  We decided that would be an easy and free way to fence around our compost at least, again to keep the mangy dogs out.

It seemed like such a good idea.

By the end, we determined a few things:

There weren’t as many bricks as we thought, thus leaving the wall about a foot or two lower than we’d pictured.

We also thought more of them were more whole than it turned out.

I’m more of an artist than an engineer, but I’m not much of either.

We’re just hoping it holds up…for a little while.  It was a nice day to be out in the sun, despite the sweltering heat. And we decided since we were inside of our yard with the wall & closed gate, it’d be okay for me to wear a tank top & shorts (I know, scandalous!).  Well, in the end we both ended up burnt to a crisp. And we saw someone from a second story staring at us, so I’ll be wearing capris and a tshirt next time…

And it is officially hot season.  So begins the month everyone has warned us about: “You just want to die. And then it rains.”

We also had the joy this weekend of putting together this amazing gift from the Helmicks–

They sent us a package last week (I know, two in one week?!) full of many different treasures, including this photo puzzle. It was my favorite! I’ve been telling everyone at work about it, and they all thought it was a wonderful idea, too.  We loved putting it together and seeing the pieces, thinking, “That’s my mouth!” and “That’s Keri’s eye!”

And we’re back in the swing of things this week, studying our Karen and organizing teams. We’re also headed back to Chiang Mai again on Wednesday–we found out we have to have our marriage license “approved” with a signed affidavit from the US Consulate. We got our work permit sorted out, but now we have to change our visas to fit with our work permit (we don’t really understand, but the lady in the office in charge of our visas tells us this…).  Anyway, we’re headed up Wednesday, have an appointment Thursday morning, and we’re headed back. Kind of a hassle to mess with the bus, and I can’t imagine the US Consulate being fun or cheap. Oh, well.

We also have Friday off of work for a holiday, and all of next week off for Songkran. It’s the annual water festival–it’s actually a Buddhist holiday, but really it just means that everything closes down for the week so that everyone can participate in a country-wide (and really Southeast Asia-wide) water fight.  We’re not sure yet if we’ll be in town, but we’ll keep you posted on the fun.

Unrelated–has anyone heard of Rebecca Black? Is she cool now? I saw something about her on Facebook and we looked up her “Friday” music video. It was awful. I thought she sounded like a nasally bubble machine.

…and that’s a wrap.

We’ve been adding a few touches to our house in the last few weeks in an attempt to make it more of a home.

And I think it’s working. We’re much more convinced.

As you can see, we’ve added our couch! We decided to go for it, and we’re already so thankful we did. About a week after we ordered it, we realized that other than our bed, there is no place for to sit near each other.

We also added photo collages on three walls. It allows us to have tons of photos of family, friends, and supporters, and provided a cheap way to decorate! Then the wall behind Stephen has two 11×14 photos of our families. The blank wall across from Stephen (in the top photo) will ideally have an embroidery piece I have plans to work on sometime soon…

We had the cushions on our chairs recovered by Pi Pranee, who oversees sewing at the Partners office.  We picked out material–

–the same fabric in three colors. (I’d say they coordinate; others might disagree.)  She made us covers for seven large, flat cushions: two red and two purple to make our four chairs comfortable, and then three green ones for additional floor seating. We also have some smaller pillows on the way to add some color to the couch. With the cream wall, cream tile, and cream couch…we needed to add a little color.

And then we wanted to use the fabric in other ways, so we covered buttons and used those on our photo collages, like this:

And thus, we continue to chase the illusion of home 🙂

We got to Skype with our lovely Karen friends in Oklahoma today!  It was a wonderful way to start the morning, particularly since we hadn’t seen their faces in months.  They are lovely, as always, and made us smile. We spoke a little Karen to them and did a lot of laughing. I miss them like crazy, but it was wonderful.

A couple things to celebrate today:

A package!  We got a package from the Spurlocks in the mail today, filled with my favorite puzzle (of Cinderella’s castle), a few packs of Rook (Stephen’s favorite game), TWO boxes of Thin Mints (!), Ziploc bags, and an Arkansas magnet for our fridge!

Also, please note my sweater and jeans–in March!  It was very chilly today, and we enjoyed it.  Around lunch time we were joking about not having a fireplace and maybe I’d have to bake something so we could curl up by the oven. Granted, we’re kind of turning into pansies here, and it was probably around 70 degrees with a breezy wind. But considering its typically well above 100 every day in April, we’re loving this.

And last, we found a new market today!  It’s really just an extension of the market we usually buy our veggies in, but it’s far enough back that it’s much cheaper. Look what we found:

That’s one pumpkin, one gourd, three ears of corn, six small tomatoes, one head of cabbage, and a whole lot of green beans. And can you guess how much all this was?  59 baht, or just $1.94!  That’s about half price of the other market, and I loved it.

Other than these small joys, it’s been a rough day and very rough start to the week. We’d love your prayers this week 🙂