uttar-a-whatta??

uttaradit. the middle of nowhere in the middle of thailand. the place im calling home for 12 days. its hard. really hard. we went to work, as in help with their construction project. we cant do a thing. they are doing cement work, and its pretty precise stuff, and as none of us are trained, we cant do anything. the first day, we tried, but they just undid everything we did and went over it. none of them speak english, and its been quite tough trying to communicate that we arent lazy, we want to work. they just arent giving us work to do. work that we can do. we sleep under mosquto nets, and last night we had an attack of termites.
did you know that termites fly?! well, for some part of their life cycle. they have wings (four of them!) and fly around at night, attracted to light. last night tiesha brittany and i were under our net talking, and a swarm came into our room (we do have windows, but the space above is totally open, the WOODen siding has rotted through, or maybe its just work of the termites, there are giant gaps in our wall) and proceded to crawl all over our net. it was absolutely disgusting. after a while we got a clue, and turned the light off. when we turned it back on, all of the critters had gone, but their wings were everywhere! apparently its part of the life cycle of a termite. they are born, they fly around in swarms, they lose their wongs, and crawl off to some wooden space to colonize. gross. the huge fan in our room (praise him!) kept the nastys stuck to the netting, and the wings were being pushed through onto our beds! sick. all night long i was sure they were crawling all over me (of course they werent). we did have a really good talk into the night though :).
all in all, we are doing quite well, i dont want to sound like im complaining, God has been teaching me so much about hoping in Him, and how to display grace to others, i never knew i had that much in me! my birthday is on the last day here, which isnt ideal, and when one of my teammates heard i was turning 23, he said, "what! i dint kow you were that old!" i quote. i have never felt old, until that moment. im excited though.
its funny, the ladies from the church prepare our meals, as well as the workers, and one thing ive found i can do is to sit with them, and help in whatever way they give me. usually i peel garlic and onions. they speak not a word of english, but we smile and talk to eachother anyway, its really quite hilarious. it reminds me of the ladies at my church, or any church, im sure, when the ladies all get together and prepare food for everyone, chit-chatting away and laughing. it makes me feel a little bit like im home.
ok i have to go now, everyones going to leave me!
i miss everyone and cant wait to get back home and see you!!