Happy Birthday to Me!

I had a wonderful 24th birthday! :) Yesterday, the day before my birthday, I had two classes. In my first class I was sitting at a desk helping a group of my students with the activity we were working on. I heard the song Happy Birthday and I thought, oh, it's someone else's birthday today too! :) And in walked a few of my students holding a cake and then everyone joined in the song. Looking back, I should have realized that something was up since 3 of my best students asked to go to the bathroom and they usually don't - they had to get the cake. I was surprised. And then many of the students will say a birthday blessing something like this: "Teacher, I wish you a happy birthday and that you have good healthy and happy in the world. I hope you find a handsome boyfriend soon and will have lots of money. I wish you have all the blessings and any wish you want." (with a few more grammatical errors)

My next class also had a cake and song for me at the beginning of class.

On Thursdays I don't have class until 3:00 in the afternoon, so it's always nice to have a relaxing morning and a little extra time to spend with Him. This morning I got up, ran at the track, showered and then my housemates made mango sticky rice for me. It's sticky rice with coconut milk and mangoes - delicious!!!

I skyped my adorable nephew Brayden, and Brent and Becky. Unfortunately Noah was in bed already. Brayden just cracks me up with so many of the things he says and does, I love talking to him and his parents too!

After lunch I went to one of my friends' houses, and they decided to go do karaoke. So we did karaoke for a while. I had to leave early to go teach at 2:30.

I was walking up to my Freshman class and 3 of my best students met me and said that the classroom had changed because of the new semester. Room E9 was free, so we headed towards the room. They said that many of the boys from our class were playing football and some of the girls had gone to cheer for them so maybe today in class we won't have very many students. But we can go to the classroom and wait and see. I was a little disappointed that many students were absent but it happens here and I've had students miss class for a soccer game before, so I wasn't too surprised.

As I was talking to the three students in the classroom I thought, this won't be so bad, I'll have a good chance to really talk to these kids and they all speak English well! Then one of the girls said that sometimes the students think that pronunciation is too hard to study because I don't speak the same as the Lao teachers. I thought - of course we speak different! But was also sad that they thought class was too hard. As I was asking them what they thought I should change so class is easier for all the students the boy asked his friend to turn off the fan because he was cold. I asked him three times - you're cold?! (Today was rather warm and sticky :P) He said yes. His friend turned off the fan. I tried to ask them again what we should change so everyone likes class a little more and in walk the rest of my students holding a cake and singing Happy Birthday. I was so surprised! They were all pretty proud of their little plan they had for tricking teacher. But I was pretty proud of their little plan too because it totally worked. I believed everything they had told me. I thought all of my students were playing or watching a soccer game and that they thought class was too hard. I thought my boy was getting sick since he was cold. We had a good laugh and enjoyed our cake and pop. (Of course they gave me the nasty orange Mirinda pop. :P They always like it the most so they give it to the teacher, but it's not my fave! I prefer Pepsi.)

Also here, they like to feed the cake to you if it's your special day. I had a few students call me over to their desk to feed me a bite of their cake and wish me a happy birthday. :)

Tonight some teachers and a few Lao friends went to another foreign teacher's house for tacos and a movie. The tacos were delicious! (The teacher who provided the tacos is not with my organization - she works for the US gov so she gets paid. So she went all out - buying sour cream, guacamole, chips, salsa, chicken fajitas. . . Usually when a teacher makes tacos we don't buy all the extra expensive stuff.)

We then watched Tomb Raider. I do not recommend it. When Angie and I went to Angkor Wat in Cambodia we learned that part of the movie is filmed at the temple. We decided we needed to watch the movie to see the temple. It wasn't worth it. Angkor Wat is only seen in the movie for 5 minutes or less. And the movie was just pretty stupid. But it was fun to get together with friends and enjoy tasty food and good company!

For dessert Julia made cheese cake! Yummy!

Elephant Festival

This past week I went to Sayabouly province with one of my friends and her sister-in-law. Although the van and bus rides to get there and home were not very fun, we did have lots of fun at her house. Her province is the province that is known for having the most elephants and this weekend was the Elephant Festival.

 These elephants are taking a rest after lunch.

Up close and personal to the elephants. Ty got elephant snot on her while we were riding. :P

 We rode the elephants. Ours was 28 years old and the mahout (Elephant trainer/rider person) rode the elephant for three days to Sayabouly from another town.

 On the elephant

 Laos is beautiful. The rice is growing and a beautiful green!

Me with Hong and Ty. One of Ty's relatives had a baci ceremony - a special ceremony and party for something. The relative is an American and was going back to America this week. The baci was to wish her good luck for her trip.

 Ty's family - with her brother and mom

 Fawning - Lao dancing - walk around very slowly in a big circle facing your partner and wave your hands in pretty circles in front of you :)

 Baby elephant that took the money Hong gave her.

Sayabouly is cut off from the rest of Laos my the Mekong River. There aren't any bridges crossing the river so we had to take a ferry. And the sun was setting beautifully as we were crossing.