List of Loves

Trip Start Jun 11, 2008

Trip End Aug 07, 2008

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Flag of Thailand Phetchaburi, Thailand
Thursday, July 3, 2008

I was going to write this entry yesterday, but we had major drama with one of the animals (read next entry), and it was pouring almost all day (which I had to work outside in!), so I never made it to the village. So here it is now :)

There is a decent amount of things about my situation right now that could be complained about, and indeed, sometimes I do. Which is fine and I think justified--for example, yesterday, I had both 1) a baby cockroach crawling up my shirt AND 2) 5 baby scorpions crawling under the door to my room... I think many people would be uncomfortable with these things. My old roommate Maria, for example, I immediately thought of when I saw the baby scorpions and the big mama scorpion. :)

However, I also wish my friends, family, and the travelblog world to know the many things that I love about being here right now. Here are some of them:

-The free, good fruit that we are able to eat while living and working at the center. Every other day or so, one of our trucks go to a village and buy tons of fruit and veggies, and bring them back to the center. Most of it goes towards feeding the animals, but we're also able to eat some. I've had a delicious mango almost everyday. I've had a couple of wonderful fresh baby bananas almost everyday as well. Sometimes a bunch of us will cut up a big watermelon, pineapple, papaya, etc., to share. I've tried starfruit, dragonfruit, durian, rambutan, mangosteen, and probably others that I don't know the names of.

-I love walking around and hearing the songs of the gibbons all the time.

Mama scorpion outside my room

I've taken video of some of them (previous entry) and will do more. They are the noise that helps wake me up at 6 am, and I actually really like it.

-The sweet animals, the babies, the handicapped: for some reason I'm prejudiced in favor of the young and the disabled. They just need more help and yet at the same time they're so capable of survival; I just really like watching them and being in awe.

-The ice cream man. There is a man who pedals his ice cream cart all the way down to our sanctuary almost everyday at lunchtime and has cold, sweet, ice cream treats for us to buy. My favorite one is 10B- approx 35 cents? A cold treat after working hard is so nice and we love him. A collective depression will ensue if he doesn't come for a few days in a row.

-Being able to live so close to a temple, even though I've been cautious to explore it. There was a festival going on today with wonderful music and I peered around while on my walk to the village, but people stared at me so much (because I obviously look so different than them) that I felt self conscious. Also, I'm hesitant about unintentionally walking into someplace I shouldn't go or offending people--even though I know what to do and not do with my feet (never point them at a person or a Buddha), my shoes (take them off when you go inside), other people's heads (never touch them), and how to behave around monks (females should never speak to them unless the monks speak to us first, if they do speak to us try to avoid eye contact, and never have any physical contact with them).

Forest, where I can hear temple music

But anyway, what I really wanted to say was that I love being able to hear the temple music through the forest, both in the day and at night. It's lively and foreign and pleasant all at the same time.

-Just being in Thailand in general. The fact that I'm walking on this ground, halfway across the world from where I come from, and that I made it here and that I'm doing well here.

-The friends! Most of the people who volunteer here are obviously very cool, since they're doing this in the first place, but it's so fun to go somewhere completely new and crazy and still be able to make friends, just as you would at home. If only I would be able to visit all of them, sprinkled across the world... perhaps :)

-Being a part of helping all the animals that have been so badly mistreated and abused throughout their lives. I know that a lot of what the volunteers do is general everyday needed maintenance, feeding and cleaning--so you don't really see any longterm change or development from all the hours of work--but be serious, feeding 200 primates a day (300 animals total) could never possibly be done without the work of all of us volunteers and I'm just so glad to be a part of it. :)