A Bunch of Burts

Move in, unpack and get busy!

That was clearly our theme for this last month.

Our new village, Don Haang, is a river culture. We have rivers on two sides of us. One small one runs through the village, and the main area river, the Nan River is just almost visible out the back of the rice fields behind us.

This time of year is boat racing time.

Our village team has been practicing nearly every day for a couple of months now. It is so important to the village that at the village meeting only a couple of days after we arrived, it was voted that participation is mandatory for men up to age 55. You either row or pay money to support the rowers.

Greg even had a chance to try out his skill at rowing. He is in the yellow shirt and in the big straw hat.

So far we have been to three races. These are multi-day events, sometimes with over 100 boats competing.

Our boat is the closest to the shore in the top left. The guys are wearing blue and red shirts and orange headbands. Go Don Haang!

It has been a great way to become part of the community, to show our identification with the people of Don Haang.

Even though I could barely recognize any of the rowers, and if I had to pick them out of a line up and say if they were from our village or not, it was hard not to get into the cheering spirit when our boat went by.

That’s us in the lead!! Faster boys, faster!
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A wonderful gift from a gracious God, giving us this perfect opportunity to work towards ‘becoming’ Thai Lue and a member of Don Haang

The words on our shirts are the names of the two boats. Petjambii and siisoontaun You can certainly see us a ways off in these shirts. And no, it was NOT cool enough to need long sleeves.

Wanna see the new digs?

Here is a reminder of what it looked like when we saw it for the first and only time before we signed our rental contract.

Ahhh, the wonders of paint and scrubbing.

Just getting rid of the very high flood line made it feel more ‘homey’.

The library was the first ‘room’ we got done, and it was lovely to sit and relax in a chair and look at organized bookshelves while the rest of the house was still all caddywhampus. You are welcome anytime to come, select a volume and relax with me in the library! I will even bring you a cup of cool water.

Our room doubles as Greg’s office. But look Kathy!! Blue paint on the walls. It has been a very long time since we lived anywhere that we could paint whatever colors we wanted, and I am very happy with my blue walls.

The kitchen was our big question mark. We had seen this place just once, and very briefly at that. The kitchen was just a separate building that was stuffed full of old wood and junk. Hard to imagine that it would be useable. We planned to redo it first thing. But, a pleasant surprise awaited us. The room, once cleared of everything, looked quite serviceable. Some good old-fashioned elbow grease, a coat of shellack and sealant, and a new roof to reflect some of the heat, turned it into a very satisfactory kitchen. We are very thankful that we did not need to replace it! Thank you Lord!

The cupboard you see out the door is the sink. Some friends graciously gave us a lovely sink cabinet that fits so perfectly in the available space, only the Lord could have arranged it.

The upstairs is home to the kids’ room and the school room. Here is a before shot.

The school room. You know it is everyone’s favorite place. :0 Hey! There are only two diligent students, where is Ema?

Keeping up the yard seems to be very important to the people here, and our yard needed some attention. Most notably, a dry well in the backyard. Can someone say DANGEROUS? We are still working on getting that capped.

The front yard was quite overgrown, but Ema is excited to put in a garden. Our headman’s wife came and helped chop it up one day, I think she is eager for us to get it in order as well.

I think that is probably enough for one post. We have been doing other things besides being at home. We have gone to several boats races with our village, helped make food for the racers, Greg and Rob have been out in the fields lending a hand harvesting rice, we are meeting more people than we can remember their names, and familiarzing ourselves with the village as much as we can.

Vistors are frequent and we are begining to feel like we live here, instead of just visiting.
One of the ways we will be getting to know people and developing relationships and contributing to the village is teaching English. The plan is to begin next month, so that will be a new twist to our lives.

I have lots more pictures to share, wanting you to be able to see into our lives here. Check back!