Another try…
MONDAY, March 6, 2017
Yesterday I wrote a long blog with several pictures and then found that only part of it, a small part, got posted. My mistake, I’m sure, so I’ll be more careful today.
So far, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. We live in a busy area, very crowded with tiny restaurants and other small stores lining the streets. Since we are located next to an ENORMOUS university–I don’t yet know how many students there are–which is really several campuses strung together, there are naturally students everywhere also and their favorite mode of transportation is motorbikes which line the streets. Mostly, we just walk in the streets because the sidewalks are crowded with “stuff” from the stores and restaurants spilling out onto them. There is a large, open air food court close by and we have sampled from the array of street food on offer. I will send some photos of that when I have a collection.
Everyone we have met has been so friendly and helpful but most have very little English. I find, once again, that people can generally get basic information across even when they don’t share the same language. I went to the 7 Eleven (yes, there are many here!) yesterday to try to find a card reader for my new camera. Two employees immediately came to help me when they saw me looking at each one they had. when it turned out they didn’t have one that would work for me, the young clerk led me out of the store and a couple of blocks away to a store that could help me. I couldn’t believe that. So nice.
Fr. Lee and others with the church have also been more than helpful. Serene, another temporary missionary (although she is about a third of the way through a year’s mission) from Singapore, has been so good to us. She lives two doors down the hall. She took us to a major shopping center on Saturday and we picked up a few things for our new digs. A shower curtain with a tension rod was one purchase as our tiny bathroom has a European-style shower–a shower head in the corner of the room which means everything in the whole room gets wet when you shower.
TUESDAY, MARCH 7,2017
I am having technological difficulties and cannot currently send any photos so hope to resolve that somehow today. It is frustrating because I have so many pictures I wanted to share. But, I’m posting anyway and will catch up with the pictures as soon as I can.
Yesterday was our first day to teach. For the first session, four students showed up. We observed Serene teaching and also participated. I really enjoyed the students who are eager to learn, friendly, and respectful. Afterwards the students hung around to talk for a long while and play board games. They seem to enjoy that a lot. They went out to get some dinner, brought it back, and we all ate together.
The Cornerstone Student Center where we teach is just across the street from us and there is a little “living room” there which is used as a second classroom when needed. We can use it to hang out in when we want so we don’t have to just sit in desk chairs in our room. It also has a washer which I will put to use soon. There are no dryers so I will bring everything back here to dry on our balcony.
Hopefully, I will have some photos the next time I post.
Sa Wat Dee Ka
