sorry a munk got holy water on my lens and I could not get it off so some of the pictures are very blurry …

So the last 2 weeks have been more than great. I feel myself losing track of days and by that I mean I stop counting days and just enjoy days. It’s very hard to try and explain what’s going in my brain because I don’t quite understand it myself, I guess it’s just what happens when you sit with your own thoughts for too long with nobody who you can really have a proper conversation with or somebody you trust enough to share your thoughts. So the first few months were very hard for me, but the last 3 weeks actually I stopped counting days… progress I think J

On the 13^th of March I was in Thailand for exactly 100 days and I spent the day with my older host sister P’meeu in Paragon mall in Bangkok. We took the sky train to get there and then her and her friend went job hunting and I walked around unsure of what I would do to keep myself busy. After walking around 10 million stores and floors I could never afford I decided I would treat myself to Burger King and Starbucks 😀 it was the first time I had either of those two things and I must say there is nothing special about ether of them but just be there and being part of that experience was enough for me and I had a great time on my own.

Let me just start by saying without sounding mean, Thai people SUCK at making plans and informing me of the half made plans! It might be the language barrier but dear greatness 99% of the time I have no clue of what’s going on. On the 16th of March I had one of the best day/night of my exchange so far. I was told I would be climbing a mountain with my Rotary club president and a few other people but that they would pick me up at 6 PM. A strange time to climb a mountain I know…  But I got dressed and ready to climb the mountain anyway. 6 PM came and gone and by 7 I decided the plans must have just changed and had dinner with the family. Then my host mom asked me if my bag was packed? (This is where I really got confused and asked 10 million questions and still did not understand) I figured out that I would only be gone for 1 night so I went upstairs and packed everything you would need for 1 night and 1 day. When the president showed up at 8 she asked why I had a bag with me and the confusedness continued because I thought I needed one but once again nothing could be explained to me. When we got into the mini bus she hired for us and her 3 friends she told me I should try and sleep for a few hours she would wake me up when we got there. Needless to say CONFUSION continued. I could not fall asleep not matter how hard I tried I kept thinking about how I had no idea what was going on so I turned on a little light on the roof and read my book for a few hours until we stopped at a what looked like a market just before midnight. Then I was really just clueless as to what was going on because there was like 200 people at this market at midnight?? Then we sat down and ordered food and I kept thinking: “normally I would be sleeping right now, why am I awake and eating at a market with 200 other people?”  after we ate we went to a tiny shop next to the road still in the market and bought tiny little coloured stones according to the animal you were born under and the day of the week you were born on and I tried my best with fingers crossed to give them the right answers to try and figure out what colour stones I need. After about 15 min we left with our stones and our flower petals and got onto the back of a pick-up truck. This was the first time I actually realised we were going to climb the mountain right now at 1 Am… As we sat on the back of the pick-up truck more and more people got on until there was about 10 people on the back and 5 people in the front. We then started making our way up the first part of the mountain. I soon realised that the driver did not care about safety nearly as much as he worried about getting the next group of people as quickly as possible. We drove up a very small dirt road that was steeper than any road I had ever driven on that was leading up the mountain with cars going up and down at crazy speeds and missing each other by centimetres. The very first then that went through my mind was MY MOM WOULD KILL ME IF SHE KNEW WHAT I WAS DOING! For the first probably 10 min I kept freaking out in my head about how my mom would never allow this, how she would have a heart attack if she could see this, how she would make me get off right now! After freaking out and being scared out of my mind I started to realise how fun this actually was, how much I loved the chilly night air, how much I loved the sound of the engine struggling up the hill how much I enjoyed holding on so tight I had blue marks on the arms the next day. I loved it. Then we needed to change cars 1/3 up the mountain at a place I called the largest collection of Toyota Hilux’s in the world (I thought of my uncle Le Sueur immediately) there must have been 200 of them standing around there and another 50 driving around!! We changed and did faze 2/3 of the terrifyingly fun car ride. Then we got to a set of stairs, I guess this is where it really gets too steep for the pick-up trucks and even too steep to walk normally because whole trail was just stairs… We got to the top at 2 AM and made our way to the great rock witch they believe flouts in mid-air because it doesn’t touch the ground on any of the side’s right around. So the believe it’s the birth place of one of the Buddha’s. you also can not see all the way to the other side so I just let them have their belief while knowing there is a rock somewhere in the middle keeping it up … The president then went to meditate for 2 hours and I kept myself awake by eating random things they were selling. We made our way down the mountain and got to the minivan and I watched the sunrise and then went to sleep because I had not slept in about 29 hours…  After 3 hours of sleep they woke me BECAUSE WE WERE AT THE BEACH. It was the complete opposite direction of my house but I never complain about going to the beach. We had breakfast in Pattaya and then went to the largest botanical garden in Asea and walked around and took pictures in the scorching heat. After a very long very hot sleep deprived day  we went home and I slept the whole way got home got into bed and slept some more. It was so much fun and I had the best time even if I was deadly tired.

-just a quick note I just had dinner with my family and the food was sooooo gooooood-

On the 21^st of March I went to stay with my Rotary counsellor  P’Nong and her family for a few days so that I could meet a girl called Veronica from the US who was an exchange student in my club 2 years ago and came back to visit! We went shopping, got our hair done, went to the wax museum, got our nails done, gave a tour of the city to a old German couple, ate sooo much more than we should have, went to morning and night markets and spent hours playing with the little baby of the family. I love that family so much and I love spending time with them you just laugh, eat and have fun all day everyday even if you’re not doing anything .

Im having the time of my life that’s all I can say. And I am so grateful for every single thing I get and do because I know how lucky and blessed I am.

Fingers crossed that I get the language down soon !!!!

February went by quicker than I can ever explain it’s like when you just want to close your eyes for 5 min and wake up 4 hours later! I “finished” the 11^th grade, renewed my visa, saw a super-hot guy at the embassy, ate a lot of pizza, watched tons of movies and went to a few weddings. I have officially decided I want a Thai style wedding reception they are just amazing! Thai wedding receptions are so big and so beautiful, and they always have this cute movie of everything leading up to the wedding and a little message from the bride and groom and the most amazing pictures and I think it is so so cute to have something like that for everybody to watch. Also I won’t mind all the gifts they get #justsaying :p I always meet Momo at weddings and we also sit at the back and eat and eat and have a great time so I don’t mind the huge amount of weddings I go to, also I get to dress up and feel pretty for a night and that’s always a bonus. My Rotary clubs president’s daughter got married on the 28^th of February and my YEO got me the most beautiful dress made out of Thai Silk and I felt like a queen in that dress I am so lucky.

On the 3^rd of March I hit my 3 month mark and changed host families on the 4th! I now live with P’earn and her family they have the most beautiful house (honestly my dream house) and they are such nice people so I think I will be very happy here. On the 6^th of March I and 10 other woman from my Rotary club flew to Surat Thani in the South of Thailand for the Rotary International District 3330 Conference. We got there a day before everybody else so we spent the day eating amazing seafood and watching English Tv (a very rare thing believe me). The next day people started showing up and the fun started! I initially shared a room with my Rotary counsellor until my room become Youth Exchange headquarters because we needed somewhere cold to practise our performance for the next day. 22 exchange students cramped into 1 small room and we had so much fun!! I and 3 of the other exchange students Becca, Brandon and Etienne had solo pieces we needed to sing and we decided that the place to practise would be in the bathroom, the acoustics were great the heat not so much. In the afternoon everybody started going back to their own hotels to get ready for the award night and I went to get my hair done with our stylists that my Rotary club flew in from Bangkok to make sure my club looked their best!! The Award night started and everyone looked their best, we all sat at the back and cheered every time one of our clubs got a prise naturally I and Frederik made a competition of it witch kind of failed when he fell asleep on my lap but my club still won and got the 2^nd most awards of the night –Proud Pra Pathom Chedie Member- . After that most people went back to their hotels but me Noemie, Brandon, Etienne and David walked over to 7 eleven and bought chips and coke and sweets and chicken and juice and sat on the floor of the hotel and had a midnight pick nick. I ended up sharing my room with Noemie and Taylor and had to make beds on the floor but we had fun. We woke up very early the next morning to practise one more time and then it was time for our performance to start and we did the Waka Waka song and dance and I had so much fun being the only African dancing on the song for South Africa!! The performance went well except for me forgetting one of my lines out of pure nervousness but thank goodness Becca stepped right in and saved me and I don’t think anybody even noticed. The rest of the day we had off and we went back to the Hotel room and slept for a few hours before starting to get ready for the country theme night, I was the only exchange student dancing with their club so I got all dressed up and got my hair and makeup done and my counsellor kept on taking pictures feeling like I was her daughter going to prom 😀 they went out of their way to make me feel special and I don’t even have words to say how much I appreciate it! The other exchange students didn’t need to come because they didn’t have to do anything but they all showed up to support me and got on stage to dance with me at the end and once again it amazed me that we could all be that close, I love them so much! After that we went out and walked around at the night market for a hour. Then we all went to Brandon’s room and played games, listened to music and made jokes. After a few hours most people had to go back to their hotels and we went to take a shower. Later that night we went back to Brandon’s room and the 6 of us continued the party, me and Noemie made Brandon and David walk to 7 eleven to buy us food because we were too lazy! The next morning we had to say goodbye and all go back to our cities and everything was fine until I was almost home and realized all the Rotarians are going back to their families and I’m not. That’s when the homesickness hit me hard, they say the 3 month mark is hard and now I know what they mean. You just start to feel comfortable but then you start wondering if you want to be here, if it’s worth it, if you’re missing too much back home, if people are forgetting you,  if the culture is not to different, if your strong enough to do it. It’s like a huge wave of emotion hits you out of nowhere at the most unexpected time and a million things go through your mind and no matter what you do you can’t stop the tears.

I really miss my family and I could do with a proper hug. But I know I’m having a life in a year and every day is special even if they aren’t easy. Stay strong and push through because it is SOOO worth it !!

So in this blog post I passed me 2 month point and according to my Rotary consoler my honeymoon period is now over!

On the 9th of February I went with my host parents to the former deputy prime minister’s birthday, normally this is a very big event at his house but because of the political issues he had a celebration in a huge temple and only invited the press and a group of close friends and colleges. I met an immense amount of important people and I felt very blessed and privileged to attend such an event! It was mainly a Buddhist ceremony performed by some of the highest ranking monks in Thailand to wish him good luck in the next year of his life and I learnt a lot about Buddhist traditions. I met him and he was actually a very funny man and I was very thankful. The temple has a very big solid gold statue of Buddha and the hall witch the statue is kept in has the most beautiful interior I have ever seen in a temple, the whole temple really is out of another world and I got a front row seat to it all.

13th of February, Valentine’s Day at school. My school was not open on Valentine’s Day so we celebrated on the 13th. . Valentine’s day here is nothing like Valentine’s day in South Africa because it is highly inappropriate to have a serious relationship at a school level so nobody is all that worried about Valentine’s day and everyone bring their friends chocolates and get decorated with heart stickers and maybe if you’re lucky you get a pink rose from one of your friends. This day is really a day of appreciation instead of a day of love and that was quite nice because I had random girls I don’t even know in my school come up to me and give me roses giggle and run away witch a found really cute and really appreciated!  14th of February aka Valentine’s day. I thought my day would be pretty boring but I met up with some of my exchange student friends and we had a really great day! That night me and Momo celebrated Makha Bucha Day with my host family witch is the first day Buddha began teaching his religion. We were supposed to walk around the temple 3 times and wish and pray and be in silence with our thoughts while monks chanted over the speakers. We ended up walking around once and then just faded onto the side lines and taking funny pictures and observing because neither of us really liked it and we had already had a long day. Still it was a great thing to see and experience even if it meant I sneezed for the next two days because of all the incense that they burnt.

On the 15th of February I went to a beautiful Chinese tiger temple with my host family that was so colourful and loud and traditional that it was almost scary. It had so many colours and paintings and statues and chimes and wind chimes and flames and candles and alters that I was in awe of everything around me and had to take a moment to take it all in. My host sister explained that every year or couple of years are represented by an animal and that every year one of those animals has a year of bad luck. So going to the temple and offering prayers for those people might lessen the bad luck. So you start with a whole hand of very big incense sticks and u light them at a big flame. Then you go around to all the different alters and offer your prayers and then leave a certain amount of burning incense sticks in a bowl of sand on the alter. An old Chinese man stopped us and explained that I am still young and should try and put the sticks as close to the middle of the bowl as possible because if you put them in the middle you will be an owner and if you put them to the sides you will be a worker so at the next alters I made sure mine were pretty much in the middle! After all the alters my host dad bought a strange looking mirror but explained that it is used to protect your home against bad spirits. Once again not a single day goes by in Thailand that I don’t learn something new!

On the 17th of February we had a arts day at school were everybody goes to school on a Sunday morning and each class gets a theme and they only have Saturday to complete a whole booth with that theme and get 3 people to dress up according to the theme to attract students to your booth because every student that goes into your booth signs a paper and the class with the most names wins the arts day.  My class got Roman era for our theme and I was dressed up to look like a Roman goddess and hand out sweets and thank everybody for coming to see our booth. Needless to say we had a unfair advantage because my class mates just started screaming: “ come to our booth we have a blond girl” and it worked we ended up with over 500 names on our list and won by a landslide but despite my exploitation to win I had a great day with all my classmates !