Market day!

When we arrived at the orphanage today Sister asked us if we'd like to accompany her to the market. So we all piled into the car and drove into the market for a very special experience! Sister said that she wanted to show us how they live and going to the market is one aspect that she was keen to show us! She kept asking my kids "different to Australia, yes?". And yes it is very different. Sister bought us many foods to try, and by the end of the trip we were so full!! I can't make all the things that she bought us because there were so many and she was so fast at buying them and getting us to try them! The kids were great and tried most things! We have a huge bag full of sweet things to bring back to our hotel that we couldn't eat! My favourite was a dessert that we ate after dinner. It was a coconut based custard baked in a pumpkin! Very delicious! After the market we went back to the orphanage and when the kids arrived home from school we played until dinner time! Patrick has made friends with Tong who follows him around everywhere and likes to play and wrestle! Gracie played with the babies again, and loves to make them laugh! Laura and I played with the other kids blowing bubbles for them and chatting to the teenagers. After another beautiful dinner cooked by Kuhn Wutt we gave more English lessons. This time we took some chalk and the kids wrote numbers and did maths on the path! One very clever little boy wrote the numbers all the way to 100!

Today was a very special day for me for another reason too. On Friday Mae Thiew and Sister along with most of the staff are heading north to the hill tribes. They will be staying up there for a week. The tribes up there ate very poor and Mae Thiew has packed her car full of things to take up for the children up there! Whilst Homehug doesn't have much, they said that the children up there have even less, including no electricity so they wil do what they can for them! What very special people we are visiting with here to give to others when they themselves have so little! Mae Thiew and Sister are very grateful to me for being here at this time as there will be very few staff here over the weekend to look after the children at Homehug. Sister asked me yesterday could I plan the activities and schedule for the kids for Saturday and Sunday! She said that she was giving me get children for the weekend!! How very special, exciting and humbling that they would trust me to do this! They do not trust their children to others very easily, so I feel so very privileged! So now I have to write a schedule for two whole days, and show it to sister before they leave. She runs a very tight ship here, so I hope my planning and activities are up to scratch! I will show her today for approval, fingers crossed she approves!! xox