Elephants, Girl Scouts and Turkey

It has been an exciting ten days! On November 20th the other volunteers and I headed to Surin, a city on the border of Cambodia, for the annual Elephant Roundup. It was amazing! One of our former Thai language teachers and her friend came along with us to act as guides. We headed down Friday after school and arrived at about 10pm. We met another former teacher at Surin where we stayed in one of the dirtiest hotels I have ever seen in my life. The sheets and towels were stained, there was a used prophylactic in one room, holes in the ceilings and mysterious scuttling noises through out the night. Yet the next morning we headed to the "Elephant Show" and all the misery of the previous night melted away and seemed a fair price to pay for such an amazing experience.

Upon arriving at the stadium we found our seats and then wandered around the many vendors. A few of us went to the "back stage area" where we met some of the elephants! It was the highlight of my trip to Thailand thus far. I received a hug and a kiss from an elephant!

me getting an elephant hug!

Me getting kissed by an elephant

Elephant kiss evidence!

After that we headed back into the stadium to watch the elephants preform. They were amazing and very talented. They painted, played darts, danced, played a game of soccer and re-enacted epic battles. They even played tug-of -war with a few lucky people (one of whom was me!!!) It was a magical day and I loved every minute of it.

This past week I finally received my girl scout uniform! Its pretty funny...it is complete with all the trimmings: beret, green socks, scarf and epaulets.

this is how a scout salutes

Me with some other teachers...or should I say scouts!

It was hilarious to wear the uniform all day. They students really seemed to like it and kept telling me how pretty I looked which always made me laugh. I think it was just fun for them to see me in something that is so familiar to them . When I first put on the outfit my roommates yelled "Not fat!" so I think they were surprised that such a big scout uniform could look nice.

This past weekend I celebrated Thanksgiving with my fellow volunteers. We even managed to find a turkey. (OK my Field Director found the turkey, God bless her!) It really felt like a holiday, even if we did eat our feast on mats on the floor. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, salad, green bean casserole, french bread, stuffing (it was a creative effort) and cake. It was a very fun evening and being together really made it seem like the real thing though we celebrated a few days late. It is wonderful how close we all are and how much I value the time we spend together, they truly are my family here and it is them I feel most thankful for. This experience would not be the same with out their companionship and support.

Off to start another week of teaching and adventure, see you next post!