Welcome to the Land of Smiles!!

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Well we are here safe and sound!!! Sorry it took so long to write to you, but life's been busy and fun here in the land of smiles :) We got in really early on the morning of the 13th, but energies were still high at 1am as we checked into our great hotel. We only slept for a bit and then our wacky staff had us up and learning about Thailand and the program ahead of us. We got to go to the Chatuchak Weekend Market were we were thrown head first into thai consumer culture. It was hot, sweaty, smelly and filled with things many of us had never seen before (like fish on sticks and durian ice cream!). Everyone got some great buys, but we were very happy to finally sit down to an air conditioned dinner!! Every night we have a forum and squeeze all together as a group to kind of digest what we experience everyday. Our first night we talked about 1 thing we would want to give as a message to a certain group. We all learned pretty fast that we are an insightful and thoughtful group (Emily was brought to tears!!).

So anywaysss...that was day 1 and then today we got to learn more about our service here in Thailand. We went to the Duang Prateep Foundation which is in the Bangkok slum community called Klong Toey. We got to meet Khun Prateep who became a hero to many of us as we learned about her story and how she started the foundation that helps so many people now. So they fed us a great lunch and then we did a tour of the slum area as well. This was totally eye opening to us as we saw some extremely poor conditions. Tiny dilapitated homes sitting upon waste water, a man on his death bed, children running barefoot through garbage and rows upon rows of cramped, dirty conditions. But the thing that stood out most to us were the smiles plastered on nearly everyone's face. The Thai people, we are quickly learning, are sooo welcoming and kind and their sense of community is unreal. But more to come soon, we miss you, but are soooo excited to be here.