Monday August 25th
The last two days have been great. Yesterday was another day of surgery and first day of post op's. I got to be more involved and put eye drops in and bandage, I really liked the hands on part. The Thai nurses I was working along side with couldn't say my name right.. along with every other Thai person I have met. So my official name in Thailand is Kawer, yup K-aw-er. Them teased me when I attempted a few phrases in Thai, so I told them.. "when you can say my name right, I'll say your words correct". So the result of that was a nickname.. cow. haha. I liked it. It made me think of a camper at good ol SHC that had this amazing cow shirt I loved. After the post op's were done, there wasn't much for the 12-21 crew and the mom's to do. Dr. Sam Su Ran made a recommendation to visit a local artist, some of the hospital staff took us that afternoon.
The artist owned a small shop on the main road of Satun, the shop was very open and had a lot of political and reggae shirts on the wall for sell. We met the artist and he showed us some of his work of botique. botique is done by taking a small tool and putting melted wax in it and drawing of cotton. after it cools you use water and dye to color the drawing and the wax acts as a border and rejects the dye. The artist asked us what we wanted and we all got one for free. Afterwards we got to paint it ourselves, it was a ton of fun.
After we were done we headed to the hospital for the closing ceremony and dinner. The food was less then satisfying, the only thing I ate was fruit and rice. Everything else was either to spicy or just plain gross. Gross being fried chicken joints, blood eggs and fish still was in a fish form.. head and all. No thanks. After dinner we took pictures and were presented with gifts. The guys were given some type of traditional dress shirts and the girls were given scraffs, as in head dresses. A large amount of the Thai people are muslim, and I knew that this was something they could give that was honoring and among their culture. But let me step back for a moment..
I wouldnt call myself a feminist, but I am big in womens rights and humanitarian causes. I am also a participant in coexist and accepting of other beliefs, race, culture and relgion, but their are a few things in this world that I still have a hard time accepting. Many cultures betray women as less then men and in no way is that something that I can accept. These women obviously find pride in their religion and in their practice of the head dress. But with a thank you hand shake I wish I could quietly transfer knowlegde and a sense of independence to these women. I have studied all religion, not the the depth I would like, but I do know that the head dress is strictly for the purpose of showing your dedication to your husband. Quite a demeaning symbol I say, another issue i could rant about, but I'll move on.
I realize now that its not a lie that Asian people love karaoke. We finished off the night with a good hour of karaoke. yuck. By this time I was exhausted and didn't want to sing at all. I fell asleep outside on some chairs, I think I'm still hurting from the lack of sleep from camp.
Tuesday August 26th
Another morning of post op's all going pretty well. I got to help with the eye drops and bandages again. I loved being there when the patients got their bandages off and got to see for the first time in a long time. One lady keep looking at me and smileing and after i put her eye drops in and bandage her eye, she tapped the thai nurse who I was working with, and said something to her. The nurse told me that she said I was beautiful and happy to see beautiful things again. Wow. Out of all the times I have heard that (not to be full of myself or anything) but that definitely meant the most. I noticed that most people were wearing pink and asked someone, apparently pink it the color that keeps the king healthly. They wear it every Tuesday.. so Thailand has a pink Tuesday just like SHC! Yay camp.
After post op's we headed to the island of Lipe off the southern coast of Thailand. It tooks us an hour and a half to get their on a rinky dink boat. The rough of the ocean gave a us beating and Kate got really sea sick and spent a good amount of the ride at the back of the boat being sick. We finally got to the island around 2pm, it was absolutely gorgeous, complete with white sand and truqiuose water. Apparently its "low season" at the island, so it looks a little run down and the signs of pizza and pasta were just lies :(. We spent the rest of the day laying on the beach and swimming in the water which was probably about 85 degrees. Kam Ron and I decided to swim out to the farthest boat which I'm glad I did in the end, but I definitely had a small heart attack once we got to were I couldn't see anymore. Being in the tropics makes me think sharks are a possibility, even though they probably aren't. Dinner was same as always, rice, spicy food and chicken everything. Where we ate was quite sceneic, being outside and right on the water, the sunset was the most amazing sunset I have ever seen in my life. I felt like you could swim to the sun. Beautiful
Wednesday August 27th
I woke up around 7am to the rain, which I loved. I just lied there in bed taking in that wonderful sound. I fell back asleep for a few hours and then went in search of coffee. All the girls ended up ventureing with me and we found a small place in town that even had french fries! Breakfast was nice, good talks about high school and what not. After breakfast we walked to other side of the island. This place is beautiful, but trash and famish animals take away some of its beauty. At breakfast, a kitten the size of my hand, had sores and was coverd in fleas. It lied on the ground meowing in its last couple days of life. If someone just came here and nutured all the dogs and cats, life would be much better for them.
After we explored a bit we headed back to the resort and met our guide and his boat. The first place his took us was a very small island that was covered in these amazing stones. The ones that a dark, smooth and round. Our guide told us of a curse that is on the stones and if anyone takes a stone from the island they will be cursed. I was bummed.. I wanted a rock. Not like I believe in superstition but its not like I was gonna take a stone right in front of him. After we walked around for a bit, he took us to the other side of the island to go snorkeling. I had been snorkeling in Hawaii and didn't think it would compare, but it definitely was right up there with Hawaii. The fish were all colors of the rainbow and the coral was quite elaborate as well.
Later that night we went to the only bar that was open that was called Pooh's bar complete with pooh bear all over the bar. We later figure out why it was called Pooh's bar when we met pooh! He had just opened the bar a few years ago and still was getting it going. It had a really cool lay out, with a full bar and menu on the wall in neon backlight. It was open to outside with sand pathways to the small restrurant, pool table and band step up. He said he had internet around the corner if we wanted to use it. During dinner I went to check it out and it was literally a computer under a palm tree. No joke! The food was same ol same ol thai food.. blah! But my dinner was a large amount of cocktails which I thought was a nice substitute. After dinner John played the guitar and Katie played the piano a bit, before two Germans got up there and rocked it. Daniel and Nadine a young couple from southern Germany were extremely musically talented and very interesting people. It was fun to talk to to them and they spoke english very well. After our musical shin dig, Pooh told us to sit down because he had a special show for us. It was poi, which is native fire dancing. It was rad, they were really good.
After a good few hours of drinking, watching poi and listening to music arielle and I herded our drunk parents and the rest back to the resort. When we got back they broke out a bottle of vodka. I was exhausted, but I hope I act that young when I'm in my 40's.
No comments:
Post a Comment