Pray for Rain

Did a little rain dance, and talked about how Thailand prays for rain (a parade through the village, carrying a cat and sprinkling it with water)....and hey it worked! June was a very dry month to add to the drought Plaboo Village and its farmers have suffered from, but early July is proving much better. After a great rain storm to lift the moods of everyone around, another was followed the very next day. The farms are back in business and we heard some major chanting (praying for the rice to be taken care of, thanking for rain) going on last night. The kids loved the puddles, and the adults were ecstatic. A woman was walking, gleefully, around the village in the first major storm. Shaking her hair, smiling and soaking up the rain, in nothing more than a towel. I couldn't help but to smile and half way wanted to go out and join her. It's something I would have expected to see a little kid do, but instead this older grandmother was out with no shame; just another mark on the casual and laid back life Thais live.

But with rain comes bugs; and they have been out to the max lately. I haven't slept with a mosquito net for the month I've been here because I didn't think they had any and I didn't want them to go out and buy one. I am still alive, so not a big deal at all. But I find out yesterday that we have a ton right here at the school! Lam, the director, asked me if I would sleep with one because there has been an outbreak of some disease (not malaria, she said) in Thailand carried by the skeeters. I gladly took the net.

Apparently, the girls I stay with are the only ones in the country who don't sleep with mosquito nets....
but hey, that's just the laid back life they live.