Loy Krathong

Today one of the most important Thai holidays was celebrated at the boys' school-Loy Krathong. The school encourages all students to dress in Thai traditional dress for a day of traditional Thai dancing, lots of Thai food, games...The Thai traditional dress is so colorful albeit quite warm if you wear Thai silk. Parents are invited for the festivities. At the end of the event they give each child the opportunity to float a krathong. Loy means float and Krathong means raft. The Thai people, during a full moon in November float 'rafts' made of banana leaves, flowers, candles...to honor the water goddess. I was so grateful that the school made the krathong offering optional and put it at the end of the day, we left after the traditional dancing and festivities and did not participate in the symbolic ceremony of worshipping an idol.

The secondary school is divided into 4 'houses' and Dustin is head of the Yellow House and represented his house in the costume and interview competition. Each student is asked a random question and have to answer it on the spot. Dustin's question was, "Name someone you admire and why?" Dustin responded, "Abraham Lincoln because he fought for all people to be equal in America. Some may not know why he was called Honest Abe. One time he walked over 10 miles to return change to a woman who had incorrectly gave him too much." Then students and faculty vote on the winner. Dustin won!!! Really proud of him. He just became Yellow House Captain about 2 months ago, a speech was given and the student body voted. Dustin put his speech to song and played the guitar. It was a hilarious song at one point he sang, "if you vote for me we won't just be yellow we will be 24 carat gold!" That saying really took off, all the yellow house is so proud to be known as gold now!! But one mom told me that her 5 year old(who Dustin gives guitar lessons to) jumped on their coffee table one night, buck naked and said, "This isn't yellow this is 24 carat gold!!" She just wanted to thank Dustin for his influence on her little guy!!

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