Spring Cleaning and Spider Combat

Sad to see Craig and Ranae leave after an exceptionally enjoyable two-weeks, we returned to southern Thailand and set about our prior activities of teaching and special projects. I also drove into Phuket to pick up a new volunteer, Bailey. Kendra thought from reading Bailey's emails that they would get along quite well, and her thoughts would seem prophetic as they hit it off instantly.  It was an enjoyable week for me and a long week for Kendra, as she balanced a children's summer camp on top of teaching her course while also formulating and polishing Step Ahead's annual report. She definitely earned a relaxing Saturday, and Sunday found us driving about 30 minutes outside of town to go to Church.

Churches in the area are definitely things to be treasured. Amidst the sea of Buddhism, we really find a sense of family at the church services we attend and this experience epitomized that. We were at the church of Pastor Dton, a young man who we've had lots of interaction with at the center. Dton would lead the worship and sermon for the day within the small church building.

Overhead fans did their best to fight off the heat and humidity as Dton took care of the spiritual side of things. I augmented listening to Gai's translations of the sermon with reading through Mark and what was actually quite a long service seemed to pass by quickly. At one point, Bailey, Kendra, and I each got up to introduce ourselves to the congregation of about 12 people, and we were greeted quite warmly with smiles all around. The tiny size of the church only put more emphasis on the importance of the work we're doing supporting Christian networks here in Khao Lak.

With the final prayers, announcements, and offering concluded, we set about getting things ready for what would be a delicious lunch. Served in the standard 'family-style', we each received a portion of white rice and added different entrees to our plates from the large communal dishes. A spicy beef dish and tofu vegetable mix were my favorite, while Kendra's fish allergy once again left her playing it beautiful. I mean, safe.

For a special post-lunch desert, our hosts brought out a fruit tray and you should have seen us with that mango. It was fantastic. Spectacular. It was everything every mango dreams it could be and more.
Craig and Ranae were astounded by the quality of the mango during our trip here (and we were happy to oblige them with fresh cut mango and mango roties each day), and I think Craig would have literally passed out from sheer joy if he had been there to sample these ones.

Stuffed to the brim with mango, we helped clean up and then cleaned up even further. One of the reasons for our visit to the church was to 'clean house,' cleaning up the grounds around the building and cluttered rooms inside. I was mostly tasked with raking leaves and debris from the area behind and alongside the church, while Kendra and Bailey did their best assist things indoors and collect trash with me outside. Kendra would have involuntary reflexes fighting imaginary insects for days due to the mental trauma inflicted upon her by the legion of ants and other bugs that we faced during the onslaught.

At one point, I was inside helping move a heavier object when all of a sudden we collectively noticed a large (about 6 inch wide) spider on the wall. I couldn't tell if the massive specimen was safely inside the jars or behind them. Turns out he was behind them.

The girls screamed, but I remained cool, and immediately engaged in intimidating tactics. My prepared routine of flexing in various poses had little effect, however, so I determined that it would have to come to blows. At the behest of my wife, I engaged the beast in combat. What was his crime? Existing near Kendra, apparently, but she gets surprisingly upset when I refuse to kill things for her so I guess it's part of being a husband.

In keeping with the theme of monstrous beasts, let's now discuss tokay geckos. Here in southern Thailand, the geckos running around on the wall are only outnumbered by taxi drivers at the Phuket airport. They are, to my continued delight, running constantly about and feeding on the bugs that I've come to despise so dearly. I was in the main room of the building, ironically looking at a gecko on the wall, when one of the women called me to help remove a gecko from the kitchen area. I found this to be a strange request, as the slim little 4-6in guys are everywhere and run in and out of doors at their leisure. Then I looked under the desk where they were pointing.

A tail and monstrous gecko foot greeted my gaze, with the tail being itself the size of what I was expecting to see. A fairly large Tokay Gecko was hiding back there, and I tell you he was 10 feet long if he was a foot. [actually he was about 15in]. But that's huge by gecko standards, and tokays have a reputation for being 'the bulldog of geckos' (which I know doesn't sound impressive, it's like being 'the lion of penguin species'), biting with little cause for it and holding on tenaciously. After trying in vain to get a good photo, I kept patting his tail until he took the hint and bolted outside.

These were the highlights of a very rewarding day working at the church doing some very authentic work for Christianity here in Thailand. We got back to the center sweaty, exhausted (at least Kendra was, I was of course fine), and seeing ants everywhere. It was a great day, and we had an enjoyable, well-earned rest that evening.