Thursday, July 25, 2013

Planting Rice!!

Last week we had quite the cultural experience here in Thailand! Since HELP has been here this summer they have been trying to get us set up with a village to plant rice. They were unsuccessful for a couple of months, but then the rain came!! We were asked last week to go to a village that is about 40 min from our house to spend the day planting rice! Since we had no idea what we were doing we thought we could just go there and get in the water and plant the rice! Thankfully the Thai people actually know what they are doing and gave us a few pointers to have a successful day planting rice with the local village people! We were told that we needed to buy some boots because a lot of fields here use chemicals in their fields to get rid of bugs and pests. One of the partners took us to a little stand that sold the orange beauties you will see in future pictures so we could plant rice properly! We had so much fun trying them on! Several of our other team members were in southern Thailand for several days so there were only 7 of us for most of last week, which made it easy to only try to find 7 pairs of boots instead of 12. While we were there another volunteer and I purchased authentic Thai hats so we could be fully protected from bugs and the sun while we were there! It was surprisingly a challenging experience and hard work! We had so much fun together that day! (at least I did :) I love the people I am volunteering here with and I love the people that we are working with here in Thailand! It was a memorable cultural experience day!  
 
 
 
 
The view we had all day! For years I had only seen these kind of views in pictures, but was finally able to experience beauty like this in person! It was amazing.
 
Not pictured is how fast the Thai people were planting! They finished SEVERAL little fields while we only planted 2 while we were there! They are pros at what they do here!

 
 At one point we looked over and they had a random monkey tied up to a tree! They got it from a guy in Burma and keep it as their pet. He was so cute!
 
Working hard planting rice!

 

As you can tell from how we were standing it got pretty tiring on the back and glute muscles :)

 
 
We look like pros don't we! :)



 





I'm not really sure what I am doing in this picture. I am either trying not to fall or I am trying to scare someone else :)



I am in love with the hat that I bought to plant rice in! It really did keep me so cooled off  and I didn't get a wicked sunburn that day! It was one of the best investments I have made here in Thailand!



Look at those boots! Stylish huh!?


Getting ready to do our kick line! 
 
 
Success!! This is one of my favorite pictures from that day! I just love these guys!



Other side!!



 
 

After we finished we rushed home, took MUCH needed showers grabbed a bite to eat then RUSHED back to teach and out reach to the people of that same village we planted rice with! This little guy was sooooo cute and kept us entertained while we were waiting for the villagers to come and here us teach about Malaria, Dengue Fever and empowerment topics!
It was such a great and tiring day! I slept in until 10:30 that next day! I NEVER sleep in, so I must have been REALLY tired!


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