If you can't teach em...join em

Hey guys, you might have heard, but there has been lots of flooding in Thailand over the past few months. Yep. It's kind of a big deal. Read a newspaper. It has been a tad inconvenient for me, and I have been getting a little frustrated just waiting around. Today I decided to do something about it. Tanita and I woke up at 6:30 this morning, showered quickly then jumped on a bus and headed towards the Thai Red Cross Hospital. A few days ago we researched flood relief and saw that the Red Cross was taking volunteers to package survival kits and distribute them. That sounded right up our alley and we decided to do it. It actually took three tries, the past two mornings we haven't been able to wake ourselves up and ended up sleeping through our alarm but today we finally got our butts in gear. 

When we were on the bus, we me a man with a red cross on his shirt and he told us which stop to get off of and actually escorted us to the hospital because he was going to the same place. When we found the area for volunteers, the whole entire group of people stopped and stared at us, we were like celebrities. People were coming up to the guy we were with and asking (well we assumed this is what they were asking) what he was doing with two white girls, their faces just lit up when he told them we were here to volunteer and they all got excited and immediately took care of us. I felt bad that we were getting such special treatment but no one seemed to mind. We got placed in a team with three other young boys and an older guy who they put in our group because he spoke enough english to be able to give us instructions.We loaded up some more supplies into a massive truck, jumped in the back with said supplies, then hit the road. 

We drove for about an hour and a half and the first hour was uneventful. Then we started hitting water. The streets we were driving in had about a foot and a half of water in them, then it progressively started getting deeper. We saw peoples homes, businesses and fields submerged in a couple of feet of water. All Tanita and I could do was just sit there and look at each other with our mouths open. We turned down a rural road and drove for a few more minutes and saw more of the same. Then we came up to the spot where we would be handing out supplies. People were lined up along the road watching as our truck pulled up, they were sitting on huge dirt burms and sand bags, but they were smiling and clapping and yelling to Tanita and I you're beautiful. I don't know if they were talking about the way we looked, or the fact that we had come there to help, but I'm going to pretend it was the latter. I will never in a million years forget that. 

We jumped down out of the truck and were greeted by more smiles and cold water, then the work began. We formed a line, the older man in front handing out a bag of food, then Tanita giving them a pack of water, then me giving them a bag of right. It all happened so fast. We were handing out supplies like crazy, as fast as our hands could move and it was HOT. We were sweaty. Very sweaty. But there was an amazing lady who brought Tanita and I sun hats, and water, she even stuck a straw in the water and held it for us while we were handing out supplies. Even though it was super hot and we were doing some serious heavy lifting, I had a smile plastered to my face the entire time. 

The boys. How adorable are they? We wanted to put them in our pockets and take them home with us.

This is the lady who gave us hats and water. She took so many photos of us and grabbed everyone who was too shy to ask us for a photo and got them to pose with us. There were a lot. The man who was acting for translator told us that so many people came up to him and told us how amazed they were to see us there, they appreciated it so much because it showed them that other countries around the world do care, and do want to help and they aren't in this crisis alone. He also said he had lots of people come up and ask us why the foreigners came to help people from a different country, his response was that volunteers have no nationality. I thought that was beautiful and the perfect way to describe it.

They insisted on showering us with fresh cooked food and water and fruit and kept offering us things to drink and eat. We had to keep declining and declining. We didn't want to eat all their food!

The boys kicking back for some well deserved Bacardi Breezers...super manly drinks. But they are 17. And just bought alcohol underage and seemed pretty proud of themselves so we didn't make fun of them

I retract my further statement about Thai people not necessarily being friendly. I think that is just in Khoasan road area. Here they were beautiful. The floods may be a tiny bit of an inconvenience for me, but for them it is devastating. It broke my heart to see their land and their houses completely underwater because they don't deserve that. I wish I could do more to help but I guess there is nothing anyone can do about mother nature. All I know is that I am going back.