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Sundays work hour involved a bit of a tidy up of the debri from the last of the lamyai pruning and then a scrub down for the walls at the entrance to Stratton House.
Everyone pitched in and did a great job.
Whilst everyone else scrubbed around our front door, Tai took on showering all the dogs.
Got to say thanks again to Beca. With the wet weather the Gallery idea helped fill the weekend leisure time for the kids.
They spent most of the morning taking turns to add yet more colourful artwork to our kitchen.
In the afternoon there was a brief work session when a break in the rain enabled me to do a little more tree pruning. Once again the children pitched in chopping the smaller branches up and taking the wood round to our neighbour. And of course they loved the reward of the Lamyai that came from the pruning.
Missing from the photos again is Tai who spent most of his time studying. Although he did take breaks to practise more guitar.
Gu and his brother Bong had a spell of stilt football.
The girls were either painting or playing with the Playdough that Beca gave them.
With the standard of their art work ever increasing we may have to look into the idea of an exhibition fund raiser.
We are planning for the next block wall to be all original work rather than copied from comics , etc , which most of this first wall was. They are doing so well we feel it is time to push them just a little bit more.
Saturday afternoon(30th), we took an eagerly awaited trip up to the site where we hope to build a permanent facility, both a new specially designed new home for the children but also centre of operations for the Foundation to move forward with plans for work in the wider community.
Having completed the purchase earlier in the week we were able to give the children free reign to go and gather the Lamyai from the trees that fill the land at present.
It will be some time before we can think about starting to build as we need first to find sponsors to fund this next stage in the Foundations development.
So sometime this week we hope to start negotiations with local community leaders with reference to an idea for a community vegetable growing project where the land can be used to grow vegetables for use in both our kitchen and for local particpants in the project.
It was a proud and exciting time and we were very happy to have our friend Oscar along who took the chance to gain more footage for our upcoming promotional video.
The near unbearable heat of this week has been getting to us all. On Thursday our Volunteer , rebecca , joined myself and Somboon on a trip into town whilst the kids were at school. For myself and Somboon it was official Foundation business but for Rebecca it was a chance to wander Chiang Mai and catch the delights of the Old City.
Our official business took a lot longer than expected and Rebecca in turn wandered the Old City for a lot longer than planned.
Consequently Friday saw Rebecca taking it very easy for the day to get over a mild case of heat stroke. Still, hardy lady that she is , she was on hand late Friday afternoon to join the kids in some more garden tidying after some more Lamyai pruning.
With the Mattayom Kids at home again today I took the opportunity to do a little more Lamyai tree pruning. Once the branches were lopped the children harvested the Lamyai and then chopped the branches to reasonable size for transporting to our elderly neighbour for use in her cooking fires.
This weeks Saturday work-slot was a major spring clean in the garden, including washing walls again.
After a general tidy up all round the children then set to painting the borders of the outer wall panels, making the garden look far more “finished”.
After work was finished there was the reward of more Lamyai with a helping hand from “Ar” Boon.
The Kaow Pan Saa weekend is over and for our Prathom children it was back to school today( Tuesday 19th).
So, with bags of Lamyai from the weekends harvest it was ” Goodbye, see you later, have a good day”.
The four Mattayom students have an extra day off and then it is test time when they return to school tomorrow.
After a bit of a trip out this morning to collect, Jack from his home and return him to his ‘Special School’ in Chiang Mai and then into town to collect my computer the four older children are spending the rest of the day putting their minds to revision in preparation for their tests.
On Saturday morning we all paid a short visit to the land we are close to securing for the Foundations plan to build a permanent facility. This was the first time the children had seen the plot and they were all very excited. Admittedly their excitement was probably due to the presence of many Lamyai trees on the plot. They all dashed amongst the trees and I rapidly had to remind them that the purchase is not yet complete so the Lamyai are not ours yet.
This weekend has been a bit of a wet onehere at Stratton House Childrens Home and Sundays usual trip out was cancelled this week.
Nevertheless everyone enjoyed their day, riding their bikes, playing ball games, sleeping and listening to music.
Sunday afternoon saw more Lamyai harvesting.
This time we got less money as the fruits were smaller and those left now we will just eat at home.
Once again Gu got the job of climbing the tree to get the higher fruits. Being a a worry wort I am always very nervous of the children climbing the trees but Gu was very careful and did a great job.
We are back to daily English lessons for all now and on Sunday the five eldest children all took a turn at being ‘teacher’.
For more photos please visit our photobucket album here.
For more video clips please visit our You Tube here.
Its been quite a busy week for me this week , applying for my work permit, going out with collection boxes and continuing work on promoting the Foundation; all inbetween doing my bit with taking care of the children.
Tai and Gu were both home 3 days this week, their school being closed due to testing.
That worked out quite well because they helped out on the two days I went out scouting for locations for our collection boxes.we would like to give big thanks to Tic Travel, Ratchadamnoen Rd and to Makro Chiang Mai(super highway), for accepting our boxes.
Local shops that have also accepted are our local pharmacy in Sarapee and the nearby Thai cafe located next to the railway line.
As usual the childrens spare time has been taken up by riding their bikes, games in the garden, doing homework and watching a little TV.
Right now the Lamyai buyers are in the village and on a couple of days Wasana has had the children helping to harvest our Lamyai. Not much to be made for us but it all helps with the childrens pocket money for school.
We have had a couple of very good English language sessions this week with the children learning Months and Days. Using his more advanced comprehension I got Tai to take a turn at being the teacher. This was partly to give him more confidence in actually speaking and also to show him that teaching is not easy for the teacher.
I have to say he did very well and now says he understands the difficulties teachers have when children don’t listen.
For lots more videos of life at Stratton House please visit our viddler account here.
