Life at CCS

It's remarkable how quickly we can adapt and fall right into place when we're thrown into new situations. My first week here is almost over and my life here is so different than back in LA but I'm proud to say I haven't had any freak outs or issues yet. The home base here in totally like living at camp. I am in the biggest room which has 3 bunk beds, a bathroom, and a big closet room where we each have 2 hanging racks and an armoir. Luckily there's only 3 of us in this room (soon to be two thank god since I am not a fan of one of my roommates), so we have tons of space.

Also upstairs is a living room area with a computer and TV, as well as a room with school supplies and other materials that we can use to create activities for our volunteer placements. There's an outdoor patio which I doubt I will get to enjoy since it is too hot to be sitting out during the sun in the day, plus I'm not here much during the days either.

Downstairs there's a large kitchen and dining area. All of our meals are cooked for us and they pack lunches for us to take to work. We wash our own dishes and take turns putting away the food at the end of each meal. Bottled water is provided which is so great. There's jugs everywhere and I just fill up my eco-friendly water bottle each morning so I don't have to worry about drinking dirty water during the day :) Because of this I'm happy to say I've been perfectly healthy since arriving.

One thing that's very common in Thailand that I am not a fan of is the fact that you can't really wear shoes anywhere. No shoes in people's homes, no shoes in temples, and we also don't wear shoes in the classroom of the day care that I live in. I am not a fan of feet in general, especially dirty feet which tends to happen since you're walking around places without shoes. I did get the cutest pair of house shoes though, cozy slippers with elephants on them. Sadly I think I deleted the picture I took of them cause I can't seem to find it to insert here.

There are 4 other bedrooms in the house, two of them are upstairs along with mine. There's two people in each of those rooms. Downstairs are two other bedrooms, one is private and there's one woman in there. The other is another dorm-style room like ours which is currently empty. When I arrived there were already 5 other people in the house, 4 of them between the ages of 18 and 22, and then one woman probably in her 60s. This is a group shot of most of us out last night.

Two other people had the same program start day as me, and I love them both. Sadly they are both only staying for two weeks. Jennifer is 35 and so much fun. She is in my bedroom and we are also working at the same day care center (but in different classrooms). The other is Vicki, an amazing woman from Nashville in her 50s and she is a lot of fun. Our days are structured so that we are at our volunteer placements in the morning until about 1 or 2, and then in the afternoons we have either language lessons or cultural excursions. For now it is just me, Jen, and Vicki who do all of our activities together since we have the same start date. The others have all been here either 3 or 4 weeks already. Here's a picture of the 3 of us after our Thai cooking lesson, we made an incredibly spicy and delicious green curry with tofu.

Ok, I am off. Jen and I are headed down to Ko Samui to enjoy a weekend of beach/island life.