Ancient Siam

This week Ethan's 5th grade class had an overnight field trip to Ancient Siam outside Bangkok and I was asked to be a chaperone. What a fun trip! Ancient Siam was built by a wealthy man who wanted to preserve the old Thailand. The city is built on over 200 acres of land that has many reproductions of famous buildings/temples/wats/historic places and some old buildings were disassembled and rebuilt on site. Many craftsmen live on the premises along with fishermen, cattlemen...to portray the authentic Thailand. There is an actual floating market on the premises, many places to eat, livestock roaming the city and all is accesible by walking or bike riding. All of the ISE 5th graders were required to bike over the two days. We had very nice accommodations that were even air-conditioned. Most of the time I spent with my 5 boys that were assigned in my group, biking, hiking and exploring the amazing living museum. The site also has a very extensive obstacle course each of the kids were required to complete. Along with delicious, authentic, Thai meals the staff also prepared a campfire for us in the evening. The ISE teachers provided all the fixins for smore's and this was the first time for many of the children they had ever roasted a marshmallow, I've never seen such an extensive safety talk about roasting a marshmallow!! Some of the rules they taught us, "Don't fling a flaming mellow. Don't bring a burning mellow to your face too quickly..." All the kids seemed to enjoy the experience despite the heat but several of them commented that they found marshmallows too sweet. Most of Asia just doesn't consume sweet things like we Americans do and their systems aren't used to it.

We had a great time but I'm tired. I was busy after hours (about 6 total) of bike riding-playing nurse. The school brought a first aid bag and I put it to good use-we had lots of scraped knees, a sprained ankle, headaches and one girl was sick all night with an upset stomach-she vomited 4 times during the night. You can imagine how pleasant that was in our dorm of 12 girls and 4 sponsors, of course she couldn't hit her bucket in the middle of the night in the dark(remember she's 11)and we had to clean up the messes without turning on a light in the whole room, trying not to wake the girls that were able to sleep, using only the light of the flashlight. The bathroom was about 30 meters from our dorm room. Needless to say I didn't get too much sleep!!

Ethan had a really great time and it was bittersweet to see him having so much fun with his classmates. For you that don't know we have made a decision to change the boys over to the British International School next year. After much evaluating and praying we have decided it is the best thing for the boys. I'll tell you more about the decision later and thank you to each of you that have been praying with us about this decision.

Let's see-only 9 days until we leave for a couple of months in the states. We are so excited!