The Inevitable

Hi all, can you tell that I'm losing steam on this blog thing and of course after living here for over a year I'm really busy with living in Thailand!! Today, we spent the day at our prison bakery ministry teaching the 12 girls how to bake pumpkin loaf and to do some quality control. Every Wednesday we are delivering weekly orders to three of the surrounding International Schools and we are trying to cook with the girls every Thursday. Next week we will be introducing the Axsom Gingerbread Cookies and they will become a part of our repertoire and we will sell them along with decorated sugar cookies at the Pattaya International Ladies Christmas Luncheon, along with the bakery's infamous fruit cakes. These fruit cakes have quite the reputation in this area. We have already received an order for 120 mini fruit cakes for a Holiday luncheon!! One lady commented that she buys one and keeps it in the refrigerator all year eating off of it gradually-yum, yum!! This is a busy ministry.

Today, I'm finally starting to feel like the girls are warming up to Molly and I. I spent some time doing some English teaching and playing a game with the girls while our pumpkin loaves were cooking. I received a tour of their sleeping quarters, I'll include a picture, it's just a huge concrete floored room and each of the girls possesses a mat and pillow. As I get to know the girls and am starting to care for each of them I tend to forget this is a prison and they are criminals. There accommodations just seem so stark.



We also had a meeting with the Prison Director today, he seems very happy and thankful for the bakery's success and reported that the project is being held up as an example for other prisons in the country.

Anyway while I was at the prison the inevitable happened. I was bitten by a Thai dog. I always have a 'Ma' stick when I'm walking in my neighborhood but today I was following the girls into a hut to eat lunch with them and out of nowhere one of the dogs on the premises just ran up and bit my right lower leg! It wasn't too painful as I had on heavy jeans but a dog-bite in Thailand always has to be followed up with rabies shots. We cleaned the puncture wounds on site and then I went to a local hospital to begin the rabies series. The good news is the series only involves 5 shots now and 2 booster shots after any subsequent bites. We know several people that have been bitten in the last year. Our former pool lady was paranoid of our dog and understandably so when she told me her mother died from rabies.

One other inevitable thing happened here in Thailand this week. On Tuesday I was driving and was pulled over by a policemen. I have no idea why I was stopped, he was motioning to my blinker but I was cruising down an interstate when he motioned for me to pull over. I just kept saying, "My couch eye Thai-I don't understand Thai". He mentioned something about the police station and I kept saying, My couch eye Thai and finally just handed him a 100 Baht ($3), he laughed and waved me on. I will say it is somewhat intimidating to be looking at a officer in uniform with dark glasses and a face mask on and not be able to understand one word he is saying.