(10:48 p.m., Wednesday, January 27)
Today marked the last day of our HFH build.
We spent the morning backfilling the bathroom area and parging the front of the house. Well, most of the team did.
After carrying multiple buckets of sand and backfilling a portion of the bathroom; I was assigned to the decorating committee. My sole responsibility was to blow-up and tie a variety of balloons for decoration purposes.
Sure, give the smoker the air job!
It was fun; the balloons weren’t of the highest quality so it was a little frustrating when the bags of air would float on to the sharp blades of grass and pop. Good thing we are working in a country that isn’t governed by a dictatorship; else everyone would have been ducking for cover.
Lunch arrived at about 1p.m. and we were treated to a “friendship meal” which consisted of various fried foods representing both North American cuisine and Thai. The family and HFH host had personally prepared the food and we all munched happily.
After lunch we hung the balloons and personalized paper plates and there was a touching ceremony as a gianourmous novelty key was handed to the occupying family.
There were a few wet eyes as we said goodbye to our host family and National workers.
Back at the hotel we waited for our appreciation dinner. It was a great treat for us when the host family arrived at the dinner to join us. The funny thing is that the entire time we have been here we have rarely eaten with the Nationals. It was explained to us that the Thai people are generally very shy and they preferred to stay in their own circle.
Personally, I think it had something to do with my body odor after a day of sweating. I’m just saying.
Then it was Karaoke time.
I tried to dazzle them with my vocal skills but I currently have a bit of a sore throat and we are encouraged not to drink when socializing as a team.
Besides these reasons the Karaoke machine was set in the key unique to the Asian people….yah…that’s it…the music wasn’t set in my key…yah, that’s it.
Most of the group joined into the singing and one touching moment came when one of our HFH hosts sang a song in his native language. The theme of the song was that we should never feel lonely because they will always be thinking of us.
And trying to wash my smell out of their noses.
Karaoke finished we piled back in one taxi – 14 of us with half of the team riding on top of the taxi. I noticed that when we drove by the taxi yard, a few drivers were pointing at our vehicle. I am sure they were laughing at our expense considering the perilous occupation of the truck.
But hey, they were safe up there and we had a great time.
So ends the sweat equity portion of my journey. We are here for one more R&R day and then we are off to Phuket and Bangkok for more fun.
So keep reading kids, this is the point of the journey when I throw caution to the wind and experience the sites and sounds of the metropolises of Thailand.
Thanks very much for reading.
Hope all is well.
