June 19th

June 19th – Today was the first day at the work site, which is the playground of the United Christian School. A school that we would later find out offers education to any student, citizen or not. An education without a parochial bent that excludes evolution or encourages assumption science. Except for morning prayers with a heavy mention of “God” and “Jesus,” most of the students maintain their Buddhist or Muslim beliefs.

However, what is unknown is why the Foundation we are joined with wants us to work at this school. The Foundation we are staying with and work with is named Pattanarak, which is a hybrid of two Thai word meaning “development” and “conservation.”

This is one of the many things that I learned during a long morning presentation about what the organization aims to do around development, disease prevention, marginalized peoples-rights, and sustainable development. After a few questions and some group pictures, the founder of the organization leave to return to Bangkok, and we prepare for the first day of work.

The school project wasn't exactly the peak of development work that seemed to be touched on during the morning presentation and that I would be more excited about. Still, there is satisfaction in doing manual labor and knowing that something productive is coming out of it. Alongside us were the regular laborers who tried to direct our work, despite their Thai not being amazing and ours being non-existent.

The work was going well until a group of children from the school saw what we were up to. The children were already amazed to see Westerners, so it was only natural for them to mimic us. What started as one or two children trying to help eventually exploded to thirty children lifting and moving dirt.

I soon began to feel like we were running a little child-labor camp that we couldn't stop. I was glad when the principal finally came out to an end to their work.

We continued to work until four PM, laying down sand to eventually pour concrete over. By the end, I was very dirty and drenched in sweat. Meanwhile, our Thai co-workers, who had done the same things, were amazingly clean.

The shower back at the Foundation was phenomenal and dinner tasted especially great.

A long meeting about development and poverty, with discussion explaining and asking questions about what we were doing sapped my remaining energy,

Sleep never feels as good as after a day of satisfying work.