4 days on

I’ve somehow managed to visit the slums, visit the ‘big Buddha’, eat lots of yum thai food, push a truck through the mud, attempt to communicate with my colleges and very little English to write a report, received text messages in the middle of the night on repeated occasion and watch several very bad crime shows on tele.
Most of my time has been spent working and when not working I’ve been sleeping quite a bit. 14 hours of time difference has rendered me fairly dull this week. Working a nine to five again is something I’ve got to wrap my head around as its been a long time. Good thing though I’ve probably spent only a few of those hours in the office. Much of the this week has been getting acquainted with how OPENaid works, and who they work with and why they work with each person. I am continuously amazed at the reach that OPENaid has and how with so short staffed they manage all the projects they have. It takes hard work and a lot of it, with a drive to help so many. Today I went to a small slum that has probably 10 families, people living in squalor, little kids of all ages living life as they know no other. We brought with us art supplies to have an afternoon of painting. Kids are amazing how they see their world. They lit up as we came arms full of paint, paper and brushes. They didn’t mind that we had set up our studio in small structure of corrugated metal with garbage all around. They were just please we’d come, bright smiles on their faces and eager hands to create colorful. As I sat painting a with a small group of 2 year old while they painted the paper, each other and not to forget my toes, not exactly to cleanest bunch, they were pleasantly pleased with their accomplishments. The older kids created masters of elementary art. And then as soon as we had swept in the rain started and we swept out with many a picture taken and many a picture painted and many a smile shown.