Sustainable farming is a go!

Great news! so we met with A-mow today and went to the village where they want to do the sustainable farming. we listed our terms and conditions and after some back and forth, came to an agreement (pretty much A-mows original plans) and we figured we have enough to fund 4 families with the works. They will each get pigs, chickens, fish and stuff to grow seeds. We pay the money upfront for the 4 families for the supplies and in one years' time, when the next HELP group get here, each family that received this year will give half of their goods to another family. In one years time from then, the next HELP group with over see the next families and so on. Pretty sustainable if I do say so myself. If things go to plan we will buy the stuff we need this Saturday and start building on Monday. Our goal is to have everything set up and finished by the time we leave. A-mow will oversee the progress of the families. Another plus is that the 4 families are the village preacher, the village leader, the woman's organization leader and another leader. So it will be good to see how they progress next year. Anyway this is just a quick update we are all pretty excited about.

some of what the pig stalls will look like. 

Pigs have two litters a year of anywhere from 8 to 12 piglets. 

Here A-mow is explaining to us about how his NGO has done sustainable farming in the past at the village where we will continue it. 

I think he was showing us random plants we could eat.

This is a garden that will be replicated for the families. 

update 2nd wave

This is my beard at a month. The next day I shaved it to a nice mustache. 

This is a shout out to my Dad and uncles pictures. Can you see the resemblance?

These guys were actually pretty easy to ride. They have a really flat back and if you ever wondered about what it felt like to ride a giant chicken, or a raptor, this is about what it feels like. 

So you hold onto the wings and they put a bag over its head and then when they pull the bag off you just start flying haha.

This is a cute Karen girl from the long neck tribe. 

A karen woman. Really nice but not what we expected. We wanted to see their village and talk with them. Not shop for row after row of scarves. On a side note I nearly bought elephant tusks...for 10 bucks...is that worth life in prison? haha

This is a picture of the scouting trash clean up we did

We were presented at the monk school with some pretty cool stuff. This is a bag with the princesses emblem on it. 

The teachers in the uniforms are government workers and the other teachers are either volunteers or were hired by the school.

does it really surprise you that this is a boys room. monks or not, boys are still boys. 

Just a taste of how tan I am really getting haha. this was a waterfall that we went to after church one Sunday. 

At 9-cool with Sujung. they sell different desserts there like cake and creme brule.  

This is a children's rights outreach that we participated in with 6 different schools. It was pretty much a stay in school program. It was really cheap and really effective. 

Hey mom! I was cast as the sunshine background!!

The Artists house we stayed at. His house is in an interior design magazine lol. 

He took us to visit all his other artist friends who are world renowned. 

Stephen and I always had a matching problem. 

my favorite picture of his friends artwork. 

then he took us to a temple and we saw more of his other friends stuff. 

another friends ceramic village. He just had tons and tons of stuff.

this guy is the most famous artist in Thailand. He bought me breakfast. His stuff is mindblowing. 

The great hall. Those are anaconda skins on the tables.

the whole floor was covered in alligator skins

just so you can get perspective on how big the monster in the middle of the room was, this is how big each shell is to my foot. 

Our fourth of July parade!!

A-mow taking us to different villages to see their pigs and how they farm. we are planning on helping other villagers start their own farms.

this rooster was wrapped in suran wrap. lol it was falling asleep so i had to take a pic. 

my last day at the monk school!

Hey Everyone! so this is a video that one of the girls on our group put together of the first 6 weeks we have been here. She did a great job and it will be a fun insight as to what great things we have been blessed to be apart of and also the fun we have been having here.

You wanted pictures.....Well here they are! I figured out that uploading from my camera into the team computer, then, onto my thumb drive, then, to the internet cafe was a lot faster.

Yes I have a beard. This is my team for the first wave. They are all so great and we have all been getting along just great. I couldn't have asked for a better and more diverse group of hard workers. The tall guy on the far left is Rob. He is one of the country directors and the other country director is Nat, just above my shoulder. we are heavily out-numbered.

 More pictures of finishing up the sink for the kids.

 At the end of the day, it's really all about the kids. Clean water, education, clean living, freshly painted toys. If they aren't smiling, then we aren't doing what we came here to do. Then again, these kids are some of the happiest kids i've seen. So getting them to smile more than they do is the real challenge.

 This is a picture of the water pipe system that the HELP group did last year. The blue pipe is what is left after just one year of rain and land erosion. The village was able to fix it a bit but we are working on a better filtration system so they don't have to have such a long pipe over uneven ground. Lol it looks like I am running away from a collapsing hillside but I think I was just in mid power-walk.

 In the same village was this rope swing. I tried it out. It was a little intimidating. More pictures to come.

 One bucket at a time. I was at the top of the hill so one by one I emptied the buckets. I think at this point we had been working for 30 minutes straight and we were less than half way through. lol.

 So remember the drugged up back yard BBQ? Here are some more pictures from that.

 I think that this picture says it all about what we were thinking while we watched old people take hits on the ol' opium pipe...

 This is a fruit. A what? A fruit. OH, its a fruit.... the inside is just a grape, dont get your hopes up.

 Some awesome lunch that cost about 30 bhat. So thats about 95 cents?

 Bet you can't guess what this is?

 These were sooo freaking goood! Think of a waffle cone, real whipped gream and different gummies with chocolate syrup.

This is the orphanage where we stayed this last weekend doing different activities. We did everything from Yoga, to face paint to soccer. We are working to raise enough money for them to have a better and more efficient water filtration system.

 yeah, well, see there was this cat...

 My first Thai massage. 6 dollars, 1 hour. Just can't beat that.

 Here is that swing. That kid was a pro and the hardest part is not to swing in a circle.

 I think I did alright. Its about a 20 foot drop over the side if it broke but for what it is worth it was so fun.

 So Mom here are some of the pictures of the flowers at that place I told you to come visit. The princess mother wanted everyone to experience the flowers of the world so she brought as many flowers from around the world to one spot. It was beautiful.

 I't pretty sure this is a bug catching one.

 Thailands version of garden art. Little monks. My favorite was the one with the juice box in the middle haha.

 These are their smoking warnings....nuff said.

 Sometimes it's just better to ride in the cab. They just haven't learned that yet. They went from dry to wet in about 3 minutes.

 The view from our pad most nights.

 More pictures of working at the house. We havent been able to finish it yet because 1. we dont have enough for the roof yet. and 2, its harvest/planting season for corn so we wont have a contractor until the end of the month.

Steven and I spent a lot of time in these guys. They are called Song-tows (like cow not toe). we ride 4 hours round trip every monday. It's just a flatbed truck with seats in the bed.

 Steven played How Great Thou Art to a few classes of monks at the monk school. They didn't know what the song was about but for him and I who did it was very moving. I also got video of part of it.

 This is my buddy. Just giving him a banana.

We found a bunch of middle/highschool guys that play soccer every night at 6. So we played on Thursday night and had a blast. This picture was at a local school when we were meeting with them to initially set up our meetings.