So remember how I said that we got half of the main section of wall painted light blue yesterday? Well, the new bucket of paint that we used didn’t *quite* match the color of the front or other side once it was dry. It took a long time to convince the coordinators that it wasn’t the same and they couldn’t just keep adding other colors to it. I mean, we’re talking needing another 5 gallons of the stuff to have the whole wall match. Finally the two coordinators had the driver take them back to the hardware store (30 minutes away) while we all worked on painting the dark blue trim. Guess who forgot to take a paint sample of the right color with them? Haha. Thankfully what they brought back was a very close match and we made it work. We had to repaint everything on the main wall that we painted yesterday though… Thankfully the girls used the old bucket on the right side or we would have had to repaint everything.
Spud played soccer again and the kids played on the playground too – Littlest loved the swings! Surprised but we’ve never seen the kindergarten kids out on the playground which is right next to their room. Maybe because we’re all out here?
NixiRay finished her elephant mural- it’s so cute! And we did get a lot done even though we had to backtrack so much.
We spent the afternoon swimming to cool off and get the paint off our skin.
Then we had a special dinner for all of the volunteers so those of us who are leaving this week can say goodbye. They made us all stand and say something– Littlest was too nervous to talk to everyone so I said it for her. Spud said “Everyone was really nice to me.” The older girls said they really enjoyed the experience of serving. Superman said he knows we don’t fit in the typical dynamic, but we’re glad we could be here to help and get to know so many people and we had a great experience. I said I hope people didn’t mind that we kind of play 20 questions to get to know people when we have a few minutes together but it was lovely to meet everyone and amazing to see the amount of work that we could accomplish when we all worked together.
The cooks made a bunch of Thai specialties for dinner including coconut pudding cooked in banana leaves (tasted like banana leaves, haha), litte colorful cakes that tasted like perfume (I *think* they were lychee flavored which does taste kind of like roses), banana chips, and our favorite, Mango Sticky Rice.
After dinner, some of the kids and I walked up the road to 7-11 to get some snacks for the next few days. You can buy 2 eggs in a carton (and I checked, eggs are still super cheap here despite America’s crazy prices and egg shortage.) Miss A saw facemasks and we HAD to buy them for all the kids. Made for some funny faces! The truck picture below is typical of Thailand — gorgeous flowers and trees accented with junk cars and garbage and old buildings.
On the walk I took a picture of a really nice Thai restaurant. I’m not kidding you, this place looks like the Ritz compared to what they usually are.
