TVC Orientation and the Beginning of a Great Month

We didn’t teach at Ban Lam Pi today because it is a Buddhist holiday and almost everyone went to the temple during the day. I’ve also heard there will be a big festival celebration tonight, but am not sure where. As far as I understand it, today is when the Buddhists start their annual practice of something that seems similar to the Catholic period of Lent. Until the end of this month, they are supposed to abstain from alcohol, lying, committing adultery, stealing, killing, and EATING MEAT! The first week of this abstinence period is called the Vegetarian Festival. Did I come to Thailand at the right time, or what?!

Since there was no school today, and the semester break is October 10th-31st, all 6 of us in the house have decided to see how else we can be of service. The Tsunami Volunteer Center (TVC) office is pretty flexible, so we registered with them and attended their weekly orientation. TVC has 4 basic construction projects going on right now:
1. The Boat House/Yard- 50 boats that are sponsored by companies to be built for some of the people who lost their boats in the tsunami.
2. Thap Tawan- re-building homes in the village of Tap Tawan for the Morgan/Sea Gypsy people who live there. The Morgan’s have a very unique style for their houses. The main part of the homes is propped up to be a level above the ground and most of the walls are made of bamboo weaved into cool designs- very artistic.
3. Kho Khor Khao- This is an island off the coast about 25 minutes north of Ban Niang. They are building houses on the island and have a separate site for building the parts (i.e. wiring bars together for the walls). We didn’t get to see it because they weren’t working today, but how nice to work on a small island?
4. Thaikea- There is a building in Thap Tawan that TVC uses to provide tools, materials and expertise to help the locals build furniture for themselves. They are currently doing a research study to see if they have reached a saturation point for making furniture for that specific village. No matter the result of the study, this project also involves building a new Thaikea building in another nearby village so that TVC can begin to help another village create the furniture they need and desire.

I’ll be meeting with a guy named T-Vo from TVC on Thursday to figure out which project I’ll be working on during the 3 weeks of semester break at Ban Lam Pi.