I Made It!

I don't have enough space or time to fully describe even the first few days of this experience. I'm sitting in the sala, the main kitchen building here on the farm I'm staying at, on a plastic chair in front of a pink fan, because it's 100 degrees today. I'm still exhausted from the days of travel that got me here, and my body hasn't yet adapted to the temperature, so all I do is guzzle water and sweat it all out within the hour. Like really, when I go to bed at night, I have to hang my clothes out on the porch line to dry the sweat from them. Anyway, I am so thankful to God for getting me here safely. I landed in Bangkok at midnight, and a shuttle was supposed to be there to take me to the hotel I had booked a room in. It wasn't there, so I took a taxi for the first time in my whole life. Once I got to my hotel room, I tried to text my family, because they wanted to know when I made it to Thailand safely. I found out then that my phone is not working in this country, even though the Verizon company told me it would. I just wanted my family to know I was OK, and I couldn't reach them. Maybe it was just exhaustion, but I burst into tears, lay down in the clothes I had already been wearing for two days, and cried myself to sleep. In the morning I took a freezing cold shower, crammed everything back into my backpack, and left. I walked to the ATM, found a taxi, and went to the bus station. He took my to the wrong bus station, so I found another taxi, and went an hour to the right bus station. I got on the bus, and 3 hours later, they pulled over, opened the doors and said "Sikhiu." I got into the back of a truck with benches after that, and asked him to take me to Nong Bua Noi, which I knew is close to the farm. Side note: Once you're out of the big cities, nobody speaks any English. Once we got there, we stopped to talk to a shirtless old guy sitting in a shop. He understood the word "farm," and was able to figure things out and translate to my driver. 20 minutes into the countryside on a dirt road, and then we stopped. I had no idea if this was even the right farm. By God's grace, it was. I can't believe I'm actually here and doing this. I have a sweet little bungalow on the shore of a pond, with a little cactus garden planted in old water bottles and a hammock on the porch. The people her are awesome too. And the food, well, the food is just fantastic. Ok, I have to go cook some fry bread and help build a garden now. I love Thailand. That's all.