We've been volunteering here for 7 weeks, and its been so much fun. It was originally only meant to be 1 month, but we loved it here so much we decided to stay as long as possible, blowing off the rest of our travels in SE Asia. It was the right thing to do by all accounts. Isara feels like home now! The dynamics have changed a lot in the time we have been here, its inevitable with volunteers constantly leaving and arriving. But i've made new friends throughout our stay and we've had some really good times together. Whether it be teaching, building a boat (Oh yeah....Isara is building a boat out of plastic bottles as an environmental project!) going on road trips, going to festivals (for such a small town, Nong Khai has a surprising large amount of these) or just going out to the local club! Here's some of the Isara highlights....
Sarnelli House is a really well maintained orphanage for kids with HIV or AIDS. There's about 70 kids there, most of which have HIV which is monitored with medicines that should see them living a long life. They're all so high-spirited despite everything, its really inspirational.
Festival time in Nong Khai
Theres always an excuse to have a drink around here, first we had the Naga Festival (Thai people believe that a serpent rises out of the Mekong River once a year to release fireballs into the sky) then a Chinese Culture festival.
Teaching at Isara
Teaching can be a seriously daunting experience when you first start out, but at Isara the kids are really enthusiastic and learn so quickly, as long as you play a game with them at the end of the lesson, they're listening. I've grown pretty attached to some of the kids here, not surprisingly its mostly the naughty ones!
And of course, I'm going to miss all the amazing volunteers i've worked with over the past 7 weeks, they've made me feel like i'm at university again!! Doing work, but having so much fun at the same time.
Last night I stayed up with fellow volunteer Kit exchanging favourite music via youtube after a fair amount of whiskey. Music sharing is one of my favourite things to do, especially when you meet someone with such similar taste but enough differences to keep it interesting and introduce you to some great new music, or even just great versions of songs you already know and love that you never knew existed. God, isn't Youtube great for that? Easy Access :)
I have always had a massive soft spot for Coldplay. So many people criticise them for making depressing music, but me, I can always put them on to compliment my emotional state. When I saw them perform at Wembley stadium in 2009 they blew me away, they've got stage presence like no one else, and their performance at Glastonbury in the same year was, judging by this video, no exception.
Gotta love a bit of Amy Winehouse!! Pre-Fuck up of course :)
Thats it for today, heading out to the local Vietnamese restaurant for a goodbye meal, followed by more whiskey I Imagine!! Saving up all that wonderful dance music for my next post, Lets get ravey :D
No comments:
Post a Comment