SECOND MONTH: the hardest one

Someone told me thas second month use to be the hardest one for volunteers, November is over, this is my experience:

1º - Sad week: the beginning of November come with bad news, death is around the corner and one person close to us has gone. We spend the full week in the temple, being involved in the Buddhist ritual that takes place when someone dies...

For Buddhist people, dead is just one part of the life, it is not a sad moment at all, the funeral usually takes one week, and during that time, all the people close to the family come to the temple to present their respects. People drink and eat and have a good time together in memory of those who are no longer. It is curious how different can be the same thing, depending of the culture. in the end, I can say that I am glad to have lived that experience.

2º - Complaining week: things become normal again, We are supposed to start working, but it is raining season, do farming is not possible the days it rains, and we spend the week doing nothing. We also feel like we are doing nothing useful for the community, we are living in the house of one of the richest men in the village, and we just work for him, in his land, for his benefit, not for anyone else. Besides, the organization tells us that we are going to go two days per week to school for teaching English, but days pass and that never happens.

It is time to complain to the organization, things have to change. We have a meeting with the people responsible for the project. They say things are going to change. We believe it. lets see what happens next week.

3º - "Restructuring" week: the week starts good, we were four volunteers together at the same house so far; from now on, we will be divided in two groups. Adrien and I have to stay here and we are supposed to start at school on Wednesday. The other two volunteers are coming to a Muslim village to teach English at the Kinder Garten.

We are happy at the beginning of the week because we will start our project as teachers in two days, but suddenly our host family told us that the director of the school has called and he has said we cannot start yet, maybe next week.

Meanwhile, we do farming (just some days, just few hours). Goodness weekend is coming and we can go with the rest of volunteers to travel and visit the country.

That week was going to be "restructuring" week, in the end, nothing has changed.

4º - Present week: this week is exactly like the previous one, we are already one month in this village, we haven´t gone to the school even one day, most of the day is raining... The month is ending, and we will leave the village this weekend, Good Bye.

As conclusion, I have to say that I am happy to be here, I know I am lucky to have the opportunity to come here and live this experience, in a personal way, out of the project, Thailand is amazing, the rest of the volunteers are amazing, and weekends are crazy good.

But I am disappointed with the project, is not normal plan farming when is raining season and you cannot do farming, it is not normal to make a plan to go to the school and don´t even talk with the school before the volunteers coming, we are grateful to be here, but we are volunteers, this is a project to do something useful for the community, for people that really need it. for the moment, it is not like that, let see next month.

I hope is true the second month is the worst one, and from now on things become better. I have to say goodbye, thank you for reading, I hope the rest of you are having a good time

. Lot of love Nacho