The past weeks' activities

Thought I would do a short blog with some random pictures, just to cover the last little while. Mum, Kathryn and I are meant to be leaving today for about 10 days on holiday. But Kathryn and I are really sick so we might have to wait a day or so before making the journey. Prayers for this would be so welcomed as I HATE being ill! I am really tired so I am looking forward to my first night in air-con and my first hot shower in seven weeks! But I will really miss work whilst I’m away, I may come back a day earlier to go into work next week. I’m very glad I’m going back to work for another 4 weeks after our holiday. I wouldn’t want to be going home!

Jew

Tee enjoying soft play

Tee Loving his food

So I think face painting went down really well with the children and staff on Monday. Tuesday was a pretty normal Tuesday, with the afternoon in the adventure room. But sadly we didn’t have a ball fight. We must have all been feeling too tired! Then in the afternoon after a day of work we took out three children: Jew, Somsak and Tee. To say the least we were all a little worried about it. For a start Somsak is a runner, a lot of running required to keep him under control. And then Tee is always crying or moaning and he really only responds to one of the Thai staff at CCD who he calls mum. We were pretty sure Jew would be fine though. But it was actually an amazing trip! Tee was loving it. He smiled so much of the time, even laughed a bit, and ate loads of food which is unusual for him. And Somsak was fine. We took them all to the soft play at a shopping centre and they loved it, just being able to go around as they pleased. In fact the only problem we had was in fact with Jew who wouldn’t eat any dinner. But we gave it to the ward mums’ when we got back. It’s always a worry when they won’t eat on a trip because we never know if they will get food.

On Wednesday we did some big paintings with the children, letting them get as messy as they liked.

Art getting very messy

On Thursday P’O came from Rachawadee boys with two men and did music. It was great having him back able to play guitar and make proper music. He even brought out a harmonica and played it at the same time as the guitar! The kids loved it, as did we! Then we did another volunteer organised activity. Making smoothies. We had a slight excess of bananas and milk because we had all bought stuff without talking to each other (great planning) but that was great because we actually used it all because the kids loved the smoothies so much. It didn’t start so great because they just wanted to eat the bananas, but once we brought out the smoothie machine they seemed to understand what we were doing. They really enjoyed the whole process of mashing up the banana and pineapple, adding the milk and blending it all up. There were a lot of cups of it consumed.

P'O with his guitar and harmonica

Smoothie making

Sua with it all around his face

The big bike

Mum on the big swing with Lotus, Mod and Barn

After lunch we took the children out to the garden and went round the orphanage grounds on various bikes. Unfortunately one of the little boys we were meant to be taking out had been sick and had diarrhoea over lunch, so we were pretty sure we wouldn’t be allowed to take him out. But the staff said because he hadn’t had anything in the afternoon we were allowed to take him out. So again we went armed with nappies, rubber gloves and a change of top. We took the children to the same soft play and then for food. Art was loving the soft play, particularly the slide! He found it hilarious. He was really cute at one stage. I sat down and crossed my arms and then he slid down next to me and copied what I was doing. It was funny. Whilst I was away ordering the kids food there was a bit of an incident. I arrived back to the table to see the boy who hadn’t been well being held up and there was diarrhoea all over the chair and the floor and him.  Uh oh! A big smelly mess. But mum and Kathryn were with us and as Alex set to work cleaning the chair mum volunteered to go and change him. Stupidly I had forgotten to pick up shorts so we had to buy a pair of ladies short shorts for him. He looked great! But I don’t think he was really ill, maybe just too much banana smoothie earlier. So the trip continued without much more incident.

All of us leaving the orphanage

In the taxi

Lay playing in the tea-cups

 

On Friday morning we received wheelchairs that have been donated to CCD so we helped to put them up. Lay got one and was loving it. Hopefully he can learn to use it, although we want to encourage his walking too. Then this afternoon one of the staff went home ill so I went to one of the wards with another staff and spent the afternoon with three children. Positioning them, playing with them and doing some stretches. It was nice to get the children out of the ward and onto the patio to spend some time with them. It’s quite hard work though spending the whole afternoon on the ward doing some physio stuff with them.

Constructing a wheelchair

Lay LOVING his new wheelchair

I can’t believe how fast the time is flying by. I am loving being able to skype my flatmates. It’s a great invention, although we are all in different continents and 1000s of miles away we can still have really great chats together. Sarah is off on her European travels tomorrow, and it feels like when I left it was ages and ages away.

Thank you for all of your continued thoughts and prayers.