Sunday, February 7

Sirirat and I went to go visit the old sad lady again before church. she cried again. "she cries alot" sirirat told me. she has 12 children and more than 100 grandchildren and great grandchildren.

on the way to the church there were two dogs having passionate, loud sex in the middle of the road with a third dog standing by to watch. sirirat pretended not to notice the debauchery. I laughed out loud.

i spent the hour before church started filling 8 million mini shot glasses with red grape juice from concentrate, aka. the blood o' jesus. I pretended I was filling them for a party and for a breif moment, thought to myself, "man, we shoudl have made jello shots out of these, they're just the right size."

during church i sat in the middle of the 3 smiling sisters- noy nah, nid noy, and yui- and we had a thumb war championship. I ate the bread for communion at the wrong time.

i met a lady from NY at the church named Dar. she had fallen in love with a local guy, married him, divorced him and married another thai man. she had been here for over 30 years already! Sirirat invited Dar and her husband over for lunch. Dar liked to talk alot and i liked hearing english. Her daughter was the same age as me and desperatley wanted a job working at the UN. Thought she had done everything right (including speaking 6 languages fluenty), she hadn't had any luck. I told Dar that sirirat had lots of connections at the UN, Dar worked them. sirirat hooked her up.

i left early to go teach my english class but dar invited me to their home in the mountains next weekend. The class was packed. After 45 or 50 kids had showed up. more kept coming every week and i hoped it was because they had been telling their friends how awesome the class was. more likely because they wanted to get out of work, about 10 of the kids from the broom family were there. just the little ones, all filthy and grinning. They were far behind and spoke zero english but were enthusiastic to participate in everything. we played what time is it mr fox to work on numbers and time. then i passed around a bag of clothes while whistling all aroudn the mulberry bush the monkey chased the weasle and when i stopped whistling, whoever had the bag had to pull something out and say what it was. they were so funny about passing it around that I coudln't whistling form laughing so hard. have you ever tried whistling while you are lauging, or even smiling? its impossible.

after class sirirat's cousin whose name was X (seriously), his daughter cheeon and the littlst orphan noy na to some gardens in the mountains (something liek the bontantic gardens in denver but way more intense)cousin X stayed in the car. he was tired and not intersted in going to the gardens. so i took the girls ages 6 and 7 to check it out. neither one of them spoke any english but i've discoevered that the younger the kids, the easier it is to communicate with them without using words. I shwoed them how to use my camera and let them take as many pictures as they wanted. we took loads of silly pictures whiel running along the garden paths and through fountains. all of our hands were sweaty from holding on to each other the whole time, but none of us wanted to let go.

After dinner we got out some balloons that someone had donated to the orphanage and I taught the kids how to make balloon animals, flowers, hats. It reminded me of when I was little adn used to dress up as a clown for my sister's birthday parties and paint her friends faces and make balloon animals for them. we all walked home with extravagant baloon hats on singing and acting out:

skidamarinkidinky dink, skidamarkinky do, I love you.
I love you in the morning and in the afternoon
i love you in the evening and underneath the moon
ohhhh
skidamarinkidinky dink, skidamarkinky do, I love you.

which i had tuaght them to add to their repetoire of english songs which now includes:

we wish you a merry christmas
head shoulders knees and toes
the hokey pokey
and
skidamarinky dinky dink.

New world record book fact: the cheapest rent in the world: the houses behind the church are being rented for ..... drumroll.... 200 baht A YEAR (about $6 per year)