Thailand June Day 2: “Educational” construction!

Here is another update from our wonderful Team Leader, Mike Denison!

“DAY 2: The team got busy! Our first group of English Camp teachers taught their lessons to eager groups of kids from kindergarten to 5th grade. They had a ton of fun, but realized it was sometimes more difficult than anticipated. Each lesson was taught multiple times as our teachers rotated from class to class in a fun outdoor setting. All teachers reported they got better every time as they learned how to communicate the concepts in more simple terms.

Our vocational committee had a great experience as they began showing a group of excited women how to set up the sewing machines and began teaching simple stitches. Plus, they were also able to see how the large loom we provided was set up, the process of dying thread, and other beginning basics. This large loom will help the villagers create larger size fabrics to sell.

Everyone else was on construction duty for the morning. Some of us were in the library prepping and painting. Parents will be glad to know I showed them how to load the rollers with paint and cover a large area with no drips 🙂 They’re now ready for your own future projects.

We continued forming the block wall for the new stage, too. That whole area was totally transformed in less than 24 hours! Today we will keep back-filling it with dirt and packing it down so it can eventually be topped with concrete and tile.

Additional new skills being learned: mixing cement by hand, setting block walls, digging dirt with a cool Thai hoe, moving a lot of dirt fast via bucket brigade lines. Cool!

In the afternoon, our business committee had a unique opportunity. Before coming to Thailand, they set up a meeting with a non-profit organization in Chiang Mai that helps farmers with research and information to improve their methods and crop yield. So they all loaded into one of our vans with four village representatives and headed 2 hours to the meeting. Most of the meeting was in Thai, so they didn’t follow everything. But they reported back that it was a beneficial meeting to connect these hard working farmers with a new resource that can benefit them long into the future.

After dinner we sent four small groups on home visits to local families. I haven’t got a full report yet, but they all seemed really pleased with the opportunity to meet and ask each other questions about their families, culture, etc.”

More to come — stay tuned!