Well we have had a lovely month! My Mum and Dad came to visit for a couple of weeks and my 2 friends Ellen and Nick for 5 days too. I think there’s nothing quite like showing people your home to help you feel that it really is where you live (if that makes sense?!) and having the chance to show off this part of Thailand made us feel really happy to be living and working here.
Of course, being with Ellen meant it was only natural to begin their visit with a cooking course in Chiang Mai, this came in handy later in the week when Mum and Dad cooked fantastic fried bananas with toffee and ice-cream for our friends in Khun Yuam!
In the 40 hours that Ellen and Nick were in Khun Yuam we managed to rope them into teaching at the secondary school, walking in the hills, running a 3 hour sports day for 70 primary school children and eating many meals (including heart shaped pancakes for valentines day!).
Mum and Dad were put to similar use, only for a lot longer!! It was great being able to show Dad the farming out here and Mum our wild version of the arboretum. We spent a couple of lovely weekends in the mountains, walking early before the sun got to us and swimming lots in the afternoons. Whilst we had a bit of a chance to show off some language skills we found that by the end of their visit they were almost as good as us at speaking Karen and possibly braver (or stupider?!!) about eating spicy food!
Mum and Dad leaving was made a little less sad as they had brought our mountain bikes out from home- we have already managed a couple of rides even though it is hotting up (in temperature and at work)! Our boss from England is here for a week and although the end of the academic year is approaching things seem to be getting busier by the day. The plans for teacher training that we’ve been formulating since November will be put into practice on a larger scale beginning at the end of April. This means that I am currently compiling resource boxes full of teaching aids and planning 20 hours worth of English lessons ready to be delivered to remote rural primary schools as part of an intensive ‘English week’ that I will run at each school. (Watch this space…)
Michael meanwhile is establishing links with a coffee company that may buy coffee from Karen villages at much better prices than they currently receive (please buy fair-trade…). He’s also been asked to look into the possibility of planning an epic mountain bike holiday that he would run for people wanting to visit from the UK in return for them fundraising for KHT. Needless to say he has a smile on his face!! Another water system gets underway next week which he will also be involved In.
Just in case you are worried that all this sounds like too much hard work you’ll be happy to know that we have managed to book a few weeks holiday in April on the beaches down south where we will be meeting lots more lovely friends- Maybe I’ll have a decent tan before the next journal entry!
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