The Paddy Fields Have Leeches In.

10th July. Early. Hot.

And the paddy fields have leeches in.

I was kind of wanting to walk through them (Without trampling the rice crops). We walked to a little village in the mountains call Huey Bpong, and while the walk wasn't particularly long, or actually very hard, we were all shattered. It was also hot. Hence wanting to cool off in these little flooded fields instead of the slightly winding path. But the leeches put paid to that idea. Humph.

The early part is a bit of a lie though. It was in the afternoon. I think. We had definitely had lunch. We've been calling the method of time keeping "Thai time." It's a little...imprecise.

Anyway. Forget that segue. Morning. In the morning we'd gone to another little mountain village (Don't even ask about the name, I have no idea what it was. Barely knew which part of the country we were in) and had done a church service, involving our practiced routine of songs and strange little dramas. And some prayer. And a sermon. And some more songs. Then the glory that was lunch.

Well. Perhaps glory’s not quite the right word.

It wasn’t the food. Almost never the food itself for me, though that slice of pepper I ate had me shovelling down rice for a few heated minutes. But, if you would imagine, we go up to get the bowls, all stacked nicely, all clean. Take a few, people go down the table and start piling up the grub. Pick up one of the last and see what we think is a small piece of wood. Brown.

I think it was a cockroach.

It was pretty flat whatever it was. And nicely surrounded by blobs of mould. We decided, sensibly, not to use that particular bowl. Slightly tainted our view of the rest of the meal though. Thais are usually such meticulously clean people. Ick.

Just re-read this and realised it’s not exactly painting a picture of rainbows and bunnies about yesterday. The next bit will hopefully change that slightly.

In Huey Bpong (The village after the parasite-filled-paddy-fields, remember that?) we had roughly an hour and a half nap were none of us slept and then got straight into working with the local children. They’re not actually Thai, but a minority group with their own language. So even the small bits of Thai we knew was mostly useless. Still, with a lot of hand waving and demonstrations we got them doing relay races, duck duck goose and a decent bit of craft; straws, glue and paper were employed to do a picture of the storm Jonah found himself in right before the whale swallowed him. We’ve been doing the Jonah story quite a lot. Got it pretty much memorised now.

Jill was quite amazing with the outdoor clinic she set up just beside the church; have a look at the photos to the right of this page, on photobucket. Joe sat close to her, having expressed an interest, and got shown how it was all done. He wasn’t the only one, with many of us hanging around to have a look at Jill working. But we were outnumbered by the number of villagers who came and sat around her to get a diagnosis and medicine; she had a whole box of this-that-and-the-other and was handing them out whenever she could, trying to impart instructions across two language barriers. Several brought children and babies as well, often the most vulnerable in places this rural; hospitals and medical centres can be hours or days away, presuming they have transport to get there. They were also the most trying to watch Jill tend to, with the emotional pull being draining. It’s not something you ever think about at home. Medical care is easy, accessible. Later, more than a few of us admitted to having cried at some point during our watching.

After that, and another sermon (Jonah made a re-appearance), there was an evening meal and then sleep. Blessed, blessed sleep. On thin woven mats. And bamboo floors. People were a bit worried about putting their feet through them. Still, I had a pillow. And sleep is sleep.

Who’s complaining?

Emma.