katieloveschachi

Few quick notes...

I got my work permit on Friday, and my Visa was renewed on Saturday!  Hooray, I can stay in Thailand, and I'm officially a teacher here!

Nellie & I are *probably* headed to Chiang Mai this weekend to purchase a CAR!  Yayyyyyy! Prayers over that are very appreciated!

Also, I created a YouTube Channel - it's quickest for uploading videos.  Let's see how many social media websites I can join.  
www.youtube.com/katieloveschachi 

I don't know anybody named Chachi.  

But if I did, I would love him.   

Joy Wins in Match Against Culture Shock

I met culture shock last week.

He went by the name of "Field Trip."

Kinder, 1st and 2nd grades went on a field trip last week to the Jinnaluck Paper Factory in Mae Sai, a town on the border of Thailand and Myanmar.

I could get detailed and dramatic, but I won't - mostly because thinking through the details of that day cloud the fun that was woven through it.  So, all there is to say is that I tried to plan a field trip to a place I'd never been about an hour and a half away and in a country whose language I do not speak.

=]

It was quite different from the regular trip down I-35 to the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History.

And it was indeed humbling.  
::sigh::
again.  

But, the kids LOVED it, and so did some of the parents!  We saw the steps to making beautiful paper out of mulberry trees and banana leaves, then got to create some pictures ourselves.  Aside from the surprise best-iced-coffee-I've-ever-had-in-my-LIFE that the adults were served halfway through the morning, the best part was watching my kids c r e a t e for hours.  The joy that was poured onto me from children outweighed the fact that it was the most stressful day I've experienced since I left the Fort.  

Today we received our dried paper creations in the mail, wrapped up in cute mulberry paper with a paper ribbon and bow, with a beautiful paper card and a Thai message inside it.   

Our first field trip was fun, it was a learning experience for all of us, and it was therefore a success.  :) 

Weekend in the Mountains

I'm skipping my last several stories and starting with the most recent since it's fresh on my brain/heart - then I'll work backward...

A family from my school owns a resort in the mountains of Northern Thailand, about 1 hour 45 minutes from Chiang Rai.  The Penningtons invited me & Nellie to come along on their weekend with the Ebelings, who are close friends from their college days.  These families feel like our family here.  It was a blessed weekend, indeed.  After an almost 2 hour drive into the mountains, we arrived at the resort via riverboat, just in time for a delicious Thai dinner.  

Greeted with smiles, laughter, soothing Thai music and delicious Thai food.

Charlie and his wife, Grace, decided to quit their jobs when they were in their late 30's and pursue a dream.  They built the resort.  They found the land, thought it was perfect, and began hiring help.  Grace designed all of it - from the bungalows to the pavilion to the patio spaces and interiors.  They hired a northern Thai man to do some groundskeeping and discovered he happened to be a brilliant artist and sculptor, so every statue and carving in the following pictures were created by him.  

On Saturday morning, some of us went on a slow, beautiful walk up the mountain a little bit.  The sculptor had made incredible carvings along the way up the mountain - one of the neatest was a series of sculptures displaying the Life on an Akha Woman (Akha is a large northern Thailand hill tribe).

Sculpture showing the Life of an Akha Woman

 Life of an Akha Woman

Life of an Akha Woman (please notice the background....) 

Here he is at work again on the outside wall of the kitchen!  

We all enjoyed every meal together, swam in the pool, read books, played plenty of games (whoever brought Bananagrams was a GENIUS why didn't I bring mine???), and spent the weekend in fellowship and rest.  

All the single ladies (all the single ladies!) shared the Bungalow on the right.    It was luxuriously beautiful and made out of bamboo inside.  That's Jadon Ebeling standing in the walkway.  :) 

Julie and Jak on our walk up the mountain to see the rest of the resort

On Saturday afternoon, Nellie, Leneigh & I went with Eric, Brent, and some of their boys, Judah, Jadon & Jak, and we all kayaked up the river.  

  

Y'all.  

I kayaked up a river in the mountains of Northern Thailand. 

WHOA. 

I shared a kayak with Brent & Jak, but at some point Jak jumped off the boat onto a island and ended up riding with Eric & Jadon.  (and when I say "at some point," I mean in a moment of "oh my goodness Jak needs to bail while we're by this rock so we can row with all our might to get past this current.  Eric & Judah didn't make it...they ended up in the water.  Nellie & Leneigh got creative and just stepped out of their boat and walked along the rocks to pass the current).  

As we continued rowing in a more peaceful part of the river, I realized the randomness of the moment...  "Oh my goodness, I am kayaking on a river in Northern Thailand with Brent Pennington.  What the heck??"  Seriously.  Every now and then I think, "How did I get here?"  "What am I doing here?"  "And who are these people??"  I've known of Penningtons for years - they moved to Thailand just a few years before I started attending my church about 6 1/2 years ago, but I had never met them until this past July.  Had no idea they'd feel like family someday, and that I'd be living with them in Chiang Rai.  Weird.  

October marked one year of the beginning of big life changes, so I've been processing quite a bit, amazed at how much I continue to grow and learn from things that happened a whole year ago.  I stopped rowing for a moment and marveled at the incredible jungles along the majestic mountains; I was SOAKED with river water, covered in dirt, bugs and leaves, and that word filled my veins again

c o n t e n t

My soul was content.  

My body was covered in dirt and bugs, and I was content.  I know, right?  ;) 

Blessed be the Lord God Almighty, whose lovingkindness endures forever. 

If anyone had asked me a year ago what I thought I'd be doing in one year, it was definitely NOT kayaking on a river in Northern Thailand.  

*married

*living in North Carolina

*not teaching

what a difference a year makes.  

ANYWAYS...

The pavilion where we ate all our meals played music all day and evening long.  During the day, it was relaxing, pretty Thai music.  Around dinner time, though, it was classic American chill-out songs that I really wanted to sing every word to. 

And I just about did.  

=]  

Saturday night, we enjoyed a typical "autumn" evening with cooler mountain temperatures in front of a fire pit.  We roasted marshmallows and had s'mores (Julie found imported marshmallows at one of the grocery stores)!  Fun!    

Sunday morning, we walked up to a gazebo for some worship time - the view was glorious.  Toward the end of our little church service, we could barely hear some singing coming from a church in a village down the mountain.  It was so precious, made me teary-eyed.  In a country with less than 1% Christian, how beautiful to hear worship to our God in a tribal Thai language, coming from a remote village in the middle of the mountains.  Read more about this precious experience on Leneigh's blog (leneighjanette) located on the right of my page (excellent post about this weekend). 

This view.  

Beautiful, right?

Oh!  How did I forget to mention this earlier??? 

THE WHOLE WEEKEND WAS FREE!!!  

The motto at CRICS is "Serving the Servant," so in the same way, Charlie & Grace wanted to serve us and bless us with a free, rejuvenating weekend get-away.  

It sure was exactly that.  :)  

Update-ish

OHMYGOSH I AM SO SORRY IT'S BEEN OVER 3 WEEKS SINCE I UPDATED!

really!

I WILL UPDATE TOMORROW, PROMISE!!! :)

Since my last post, I've -

• Played in a 4-on-4 volleyball tournament at school (if you know any stories from my soccer days, you know what that was like) 
• Spent another weekend in Chiang Mai with new Thai friends
• Had lots of fun in 2nd grade
• Enjoyed a BLESSED and RELAXING weekend with The Penningtons and Ebelings in the mountains of northern Thailand
• Found a car to buy???  *crossing fingers* 

I will try to be better about updates next month!  =)  

Weekend in Chiang Mai

Sunday morning - I'm sitting at breakfast with my little cup of tea at the Riverside House, a quaint hotel along the river in Chiang Mai. Surrounded by Europeans and Aussies, I just understood a bit of the French that some couples were speaking next to me. :) I love it. My round table is next to the fountain, behind the small pool, and half-outdoors/half-indoors. This is lovely.

I thought this would be a good time to document my weekend.  Read the pictures of my time in Chiang Mai and know that "A picture is worth a thousand words," and my heart is grateful.  

he was my favorite.  who knew ostriches had personalities?

The Escalator of Doom

Don't let the title fool you... I am NOT exaggerating.  There really is an escalator of doom in Thailand.

*note - there are many long sentences in this post.  I normally don't do that, but they were needed for dramatic effect in my story.  Let this old picture be your reference point, and keep in mind that what you see is just the beginning of the escalator ramp, and it reaches a steeper slope about where I was standing to take this photo.

There's a store here called Big C, it's the Thai version of Walmart.  I mentioned Big C a few posts back in a story about pushing my grocery cart straight through the cashier's line without stopping.  I guess I was overwhelmed or something that day.  I blamed everything at that time on jet-lag.  =D

I went back to Big C this weekend with my friend Cindy.  We split ways to do our shopping and agreed to meet again downstairs at the food court.

d o w n s t a i r s  :) 

I'm not a fan of Walmart, but I guess one good thing about it is that it's all on one level (at least it is in Texas).  The first time I shopped at Big C, I was with P'Oy who showed me how to attach my shopping cart wheels to the little ridges in the escalator ramp, only she did it for me that time.  They have a special escalator just for the carts, and I remember the first time I went down it, I slipped and P'Oy said, "Mmm, yes you have to wear good shoes when you shop here."  

Welp!  Forgot that part!  Also guess I didn't pay close enough attention to how she got the cart's wheels onto the little ridges of the ramp.  

::sigh::  Here we go again - 

I waited at the top of the escalator to watch someone go ahead of me, so that I'd REALLY make sure my buggy got securely onto the ridges.  Two cute, young Thai ladies pushed their cart onto the ramp and just lightly held onto it as they continued their conversation and sailed effortlessly down the escalator.  

Me next. 

This was the only pic online I could find of this scene.  

[Okay picture Buddy the Elf discovering the escalator.  Remember how he stands frozen, legs as far apart as he could get them with a look of fright on his face?]  

Yeah.  ::sigh:: 

I rolled my cart onto the escalator with confidence.  Those Thai ladies made that look easy! I can do this!  No, no, I can't.  [head hangs low as I type]  As soon as I stepped onto the escalator, I realized that my cart's wheels DID NOT in fact land properly on the ridges and I had to use the weight of my entire body to quickly grab my cart with both hands as it started rolling forward, the front of it beginning to angle toward one side, and it is BY A MIRACLE OF GOD that it didn't hit the ladies in front of me.  You know when you're skiing downhill, and for some reason one ski starts to angle toward one side and you're like "what? stay parallel, what's going on?"  or you need to let go of your steering wheel for just a moment but the axle is off and your car starts drifting to one side?  That's how I felt with my shopping cart - slowly [QUICKLY] losing control of my full, heavy shopping cart down an escalator ramp while I'm trying to stay at a standstill because of the Thai ladies about 2 feet in front of me.  

So I'm grabbing my cart with both hands, every muscle in my core and arms are already at work, when my shoes slip.  oh.dang. I need to make sure and mention that this all happens in about 7 seconds.  This is when I begin praying, "Lord, omg pleeeeeeeze don't let me fall pleeeeeeeze don't let me run into those ladies, pleeeeeeze don't let me make a giant scene in this over-crowded grocery store!"  I'm BY MYSELF with a full shopping cart because I got mine AND Nellie's groceries, I already have a death grip on the cart and now I have to let go with one hand so I can hold my body up and keep me AND my cart from rolling down the ramp.   I moved quickly so now I have one death grip on my caddywompus cart with my left arm just about to come out of socket it's stretched so far, and the other hand is grasping the side rail; my legs are spread AS far apart as they'll go (don't forget I'm in modest little Thailand), my feet are at all sorts of weird angles to keep my cutesy sandals from slipping, and my caddywompus full cart is INCHES from the people in front of me.  CAN YOU PICTURE IT???  Y'all, it was HILARIOUS.  ABSOLUTELY hilarious, and of course I was all alone laughing out loud, of course I was.  And you know when you laugh hard, your muscles go loose and you have no more control over them.  This movie kept playing in my mind of a white girl slipping flat on her back while trying to keep a grip on her shopping cart as she falls, but landing underneath the shopping cart, releasing it down an escalator ramp and taking out the two Asian ladies in front of her, sending their full shopping cart to go soaring down the ramp, both carts taking out WHOEVER and WHATEVER poor thing happens to be in the way at the bottom, all three ladies sliding down the ramp behind the carts.  

It could have been DISASTROUS.

Well that would've been the story of my LIFE in all of my international travel.  I can only imagine what the people on the other "down" escalator next to mine were thinking.  

Maybe I just shouldn't shop at Big C anymore.  

But I will not be defeated.  

... I forgot to buy some towels... 

Until next time Big C....    {insert triumphant Indiana Jones theme song} 

Thankfulness Changes Things

Sometimes I write blogs that I don't post for the public.    Because sometimes it just feels good to write like I am about to share things with the world, but then I don't.  I re-read a post that I wrote a few weeks ago and at the bottom of that post, I wrote 

Thankfulness changes things.  

Because it does.  So right now even though I'm SOOOO missing familiarity, I'm thinking that even now, thankfulness will change my emotions, right?  

Today I thought, "Does contentment have to be something learned?"  Maybe - but then when I first arrived in Thailand, even though I was by myself for 4 days, I was so content.  I didn't have to learn how to be content right away when I got here, I just was.  I was filled with the joy of the Lord.  After 5 weeks though, now I'm thinking, "yeah, I may need to learn how to be content here... and practice thankfulness."  

Missing boutiques on Camp Bowie today

and Sunday afternoons at The Modern 

Chuy's salsa

and salads that I trust....

Just want a piece of dark chocolate

and to drive with the radio on

really just to drive. 

I feel like I've had some identity issues since I got here.  I am who God made me to be.  It's hard to try to replicate your routines in a new country, you just can't.  I don't necessarily want to, I want to learn how to be like a Thai.  :)  But I'm definitely having to adjust more than I thought I would here.  In planning how to "adjust" and "get settled" before I left the states, I thought I had a good plan from what I learned in Kenya.  

Go ahead and buy a yoga mat, some free weights, continue to eat raw vegetables and just buy a veggie wash, don't worry what people think if you follow all the latest styles; if you want to wear all that jewelry, then wear all that jewelry; find a coffee shop for relaxing, run for at least 10 minutes a day, drink a cup of tea every morning.  Listen to your music as loud as you can get it sometimes.

You see I had all these plans of keeping enough normalcy that I wouldn't have many problems adjusting.  

::sigh:: 

dear kt.  

Then my hair happened.  For some reason my hair finally got big when I LEFT Texas.  Even in my pageant days, my hair didn't get this big.  People have been so sweet telling me how they think it's cute no matter what - that really is sweet, and you know what - it does make me feel better.  But not being able to brush my hair without it looking like Rafiki has just messed with my entire identity.  

My fear is in the Lord.  My hope is in the Lord.  My fear is in the Lord.  My hope is in the Lord.  

I keeping thinking "I'll just embrace it, this will be new and fun!"  And I don't mind having big, curly hair here - I LIKE it.  But it's just another one of those things that I have to adjust to, and it's taking longer than I hoped to just figure out how to fix my own hair.  I didn't expect something small [BIG] like that to affect me.  It's adding to the emotions of missing familiarity, perhaps because it is a daily thing.  

Time to practice thankfulness:  

I can't believe I live less than 5 minutes from one of the most beautiful garden views I've ever seen. 

I'm so glad Nellie's here  

These little Asian lamps in my room are perfect

teachers at the school all seem to have compassion on one another, wow

Still can't get enough of the gorgeous green foliage everywhere

simplicity is freeing 
Thai food is really good 
i have fun shopping at the local farmer's market 
my bicycle has a basket and i ride it past rice fields with mountains in the distance at sunset.  --- seriously?  i thought that only happened in movies.  

Good practice.  That did make me feel better.  =)  You should try it, too.