Transfer from India to Thailand

India was  truly amazing and will always keep a spot in my heart.

Now I am in Chaing Mai, Thailand visiting my Family. Thailand is a lot of fun. Amanda and I have decided it is a combination of Hawaii and India. It is extremely beautiful and the people are nice. 

So in the last 5 day Unc(my mothers uncle cleve, and i call him unc) and his family have taken us to the following places.

Monkey kingdom

OUR INTERNET CONNECTION IS TO SLOW TO UPLOAD MORE PICTURES, SO I WILL UPLOAD THEM WHEN WE HAVE BETTER CONNECTION.

Bug kingdom

Elephant Camp

Snake kingdom

Tiger Kingdom

Kareoke 

And of course AMAZING Thai food

Good bye RSO

So even though this post is about 14 hours late, i am still going to write it as if it was Friday night, cause that is when i started this post

My time has come to an end here at RSO. :(

Tonight while saying goodbye to the boys i could not hold it together. I had tears streaming down my face. The boys kept telling me to not cry, cause I will see them again. It was very sweet. I was suppose to be out of there at 9pm, didn't leave the Hostel(where to boys sleep) till 10pm. A piece of my heart will be left behind. But my mind and heart has grown so much.

A saying i have started saying to explain the way Indians live their life in comparison to us in America is that we try to MAKE the most of our time, and the Indians try to GET the most from their time. I feel i have adapted that into my life, but we will see how far that goes before I start making the most of my time. It will be interesting.

I am now planning on coming back next year and staying for at least one year, if they have a position for me on the staff here. It would be so cool, cause then i can get to know the staff at the school and their families as well, also see the kids grow and go through a whole year of school. Meet some of their families and get to know them better. Each one has such a unique story that i could take years to learn them all.

So, a question many people have asked me, is "What's in store now?" and the answer to that. I am planning on finishing my associates in April of 2012, and then return to India for a prolonged period of time. Then who knows. I know i am not sure. But i will see what life has in plan for me then.

But for the next 2 weeks, i get to travel with my totally awesome sister Amanda. We are in Delhi, India for 2 days. Then we are making our way to Thailand to see our Uncle. Well, will update ya when i have Internet access again. See you all in a couple weeks.

Thanks again to all those who helped make this experience with Rising Star Outreach happen. I will be having a Fireside/lunch-in kind of a thing when I return. So i will let you all know and hopefully you can attend. But take care and feel free to ask questions. I would love to answer any questions you have.

Where does the time go?

Can you believe it has been 2 months since i left America?  I know i cant. I also cant believe it has been 10 days since my last post. There are not enough hours in the day. So, what has been going on with me? A lot. Like I said in my last post, I am a coordinator.  I have been helping lead this session of 37 volunteers through their 2 weeks of service here in India. It is a lot of work. This is my daily schedule

800: coordinator meeting

830: Morning Conclave

850: assemble the tutors for that day and head to campus

900: give instructions to tutors(every day we rotate, so things are always changing)

915-1205: tutoring/observing

1205-1240: lunch

1240-1400: more tutoring/observing

1400-1545: this is suppose to be free time, but i usually have work to do in here

1545: cut fruit for dinner w/ tutors

1600-1700: Track duty (watch the children who misbehaved run laps)

1700-1815: Work with teacher/staff on english(oncw in a while it is free time)

1815-1930: dinner

1930-2100: family time

2100-0800: free time( but then amanda has the computer, so no blogging)

and it starts all over again. I have been able to go with medical every third day though. Its creepy but awesome all at the same time. Yeaterday we went to a colony called Vangalor(i think). I was helping wrap the patients ulcers. Then i swapped positions with another volunteer and the nurse, Navoomani, told me to sit in her seat. THe women here are very stubborn, when they tell you to do something. It is difficult to say differently. So i took her seat (which i right in front of the feet with ulcers) and she hands me the scissors.

She wants me to cut off the flesh that needs to be cut. AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH. That was scary. Luckily one fo the guys i had to take care of was chatting with another patient and was laughing the whole time. It was still weird.

Tutoring though is going good. Difficult sometimes cause there is a lot of room for improvement, but we cant progress since the "official" principal is not here in India and wants it her way. So we do it as close to her way as possible, but sometimes still have to switch stuff on my own. Like 2 crazy kids trying to read Hansel and Gretel with 1 tutor. HA HA i dont think so. That went out of control in about .2 seconds. Other than that the tutoring is going good.

So a sweet story to tell, then i must go.

The other night the boys in my family discovered I was leving Saturday Morning for good and this is how the conversation went. Imagine 9 boys from age 9-14 years old and also i had brought over a whip, just to show them how to crack it.

Me: Yes i am leaving on saturday

boy 1: ok, I will hide in your suitcase

Boy 2: i will come too and keep you company

boy 3: i am coming

Me: ok, lets go see if you will fit

Boy 4: Wait, we can not fit all in the suitcase

Boy 2: oh...well...I know. We will sneak to Chennai(where i am flying out of) and kick the airplane so it can not leave

all the boys: yeah yeah, that is a great idea( as they practice there kicking moves in the air)

Me: but i think the plane might do more damage to you then you would to the plane.

Boy 6: Yep, planes are very strong and we are still young.

Boy 7: Ok, then we will steel your whip, and not to hard. We will whip the pilot and climb into the pilot seat, and fly the plane here to RSO campus

Can i just say i love these boys. Ok. I will wright at least 1 more befor i leave campus on Saturday morning here (friday night in america)

Lets Try Something New

Ok, We all know that I do not have the best memory. But this was worst than before. I haven't written in here in a long time. Sorry. So instead of trying to play catch up, I am starting today and going forward.

Hi, My name is Lex and I am the Educator Coordinator for the Next 2 weeks.

Yep, you read that right, I got promoted from volunteer to coordinator. This entails I organize the volunteers into tutoring schedule for the students who need a little bit of extra help. I am excited to be back with the school as well as being able to go with Sarah and Patrick to medical whenever they go.

OH YEAH, SARAH AND PATRICK ARE HERE. So stocked. I am super excited they are here.

So to get an idea of what I got to do last week, and what is in store for the next two weeks. Click on this link and watch it. The music is great as well, so if you can, turn those speakers on.

http://gallery.me.com/risingstaroutreach#100404

Well. I am off to a coordinator meeting. I will do better with my blogging.

Oh, before i go. A quick story. So I finally went to medical last week on thursday. It was SUper. As much as i know i don't want to go into anything medical now. It was still great. There was this tiny old women who was the sweetest thing ever. The sad part was that her feet and hands were almost not there at all with the effects of leprosy. She couldn't walk without her special shoes, so instead of putting the shoes back on in between each station, i carried her. She had the biggest smile on her face, and just was amazing. She had the sweetest spirit with her.

So now i am off to the meeting. Please watch the video, it is amazing.