Celebrity

Each week our HS students arrive on Thursday night, they acclimate a little bit, and we jump into service projects on Friday afternoon. My project is a morning project, so it normally doesn't run on Fridays. Last week there was a "special project" that I was asked to do. Here is how the conversation went.

John (Boss): Ann, we have a one time project at a school that needs to be done. Can you take a group of girls up?
Ann: Sure, what needs to be done?
John: Ask Pi Dum (Thai Boss). It's a friend of his. The school is about an hour away. (We normally walk to all projects).
Ann: Okay, I'll go find Dum. Hi Dum! I hear you need me to do a project.
Dum: Yes. At a school.
Ann: Great! What are we doing for them today?
Dum: Oh, you know. Say hello. Get them excited.
Ann: Um, okay. Anything else?
Dum: I don't know. You find out when you get there.
Ann: About how many kids am I going to be working with, Dum.
Dum: About 600.
Ann: All at once?
Dum: Um, you find out when you get there.

So off I went. With 6 girls who had barely been in Thailand 12 hours. Not knowing a single thing about what I was doing. Awesome.

Turns out we were the school assembly for the day. Mostly they just wanted to listen to us talk, and then repeat everything we said. The danced and sang for us, while we sat in front and passed a microphone to one another. They all wanted to take pictures of us, and have us give them autographs. I don't think they had ever seen a westerner in real life. Interesting to think about. White people really do make up such a minority in this world, and yet so many of us think of ourselves as the majority. In truth, 1/5 of the worlds population is in India and China alone. And I digress...

By far, the biggest hit of the assembly was when we taught them the Hokey Pokey. 600 Thai kids, shaking it all about, was pretty amazing.