Adventure Time with Keri!

There are a few things I’ve decided after working at the center for over a week now, they are as follows:

Today I missed my bus by a matter of a few seconds…I saw it go past our street as I was walking down it…and I didn’t realize it was the bus I needed until after it went roaring down the street. I probably could’ve chased it down since there was traffic…but I wasn’t sure if I’m allowed to do that here. Unlike other places, there are no time tables for the buses here and they get there when they get there. Traffic is usually horrendous during the mornings and this was no exception, although it was a school holiday today and shouldn’t have been so busy. I stood there waiting for about 20 mins and no bus came through, and by that, I mean the particular one I have to take. Meh happened to come out to get a bus too and saw that I was still waiting, so she made Wan take me to the center since she was going to work that way in a few mins. It was stop and go traffic the whole way there…more stopping than going, unfortunately. It’s like NYC rush hour but a hundred times more chaotic. Anyway, she insisted on dropping me off at the center and not just at the road I get off to take a motorcycle taxi since she was going to be stuck in traffic anyway. I don’t think either of us realized how far in the place was until she drove there. I had a moment of panic when I realized I still didn’t exactly the way…but lucky for me, there were signs everywhere pointing the way…and I didn’t even know b/c I can’t read Thai. HAH. And yeah, I was half an hour late b/c of traffic. 

When I got there, there were two volunteer guys that looked like they were from a university or something trying to get their community service hours in or something. Haha. They looked a bit lost when the kids started jumping around and on them.

They did arts and crafts today which consisted of gluing scrap pieces of paper on to what was supposed to be their Thai flag…but since there were more colors than the blue and red they were supposed to use….it just looked like paper…with more paper stuck to it. Haha. They tried. 

I guess b/c of the school holiday today, there were more older girls at the center to help out. We had a great time today working side by side and attempting to speak to each other. They only know a handful of words in English, so I've been trying to teach them more. They're so eager to learn!

This girl is hilarious!!

She likes to squeeze my fat on my arms. Lol.

Another thing is that the staff are constantly checking all the little girls' heads for lice. Today there was a girl that definitely had lice and now my scalp will start randomly itching when I think about it. Hahaha. Let's hope and pray I don't get any!

I stayed behind an hour longer than I usually do, partially because I felt bad getting there late and partially because someone else came to pick up the kid that usually takes me to the main road and I then need to walk out a few roads to get a motorcycle taxi and there are ferocious dogs, I’m told, along the way (the last time a parent took me past the dogs to the road to catch a motorcycle taxi but by the time I left most of the kids had left). So then the staff showed me the back door to get to the road…..someone please tell me why I didn’t know about this sooner. Haha. Anyway, the guy that I finally was able to flag down was one of those super-fast-I-don’t-care-about-your-safety guys and then he pulled up to another motorcycle taxi and started talking to him until we got to the main road. Oh the adventures. Lol. I usually wait about 10-15 mins for a bus and it’s not overly crowed, but this time I waited for like 20 mins and the bus was packed. We were like sardines! It was so jam-packed that I lost count of how many bridges we went over and under (I couldn’t go by stops b/c we didn’t stop at all of them since we had reached capacity and no one needed to get off right away) and only when we stopped at the shopping center did I figure out where we were.