Tuesday!

hello!
Today was a ward day so this is when we go on to the wards and see the girls. It's good as you can see many more than on day centre days, but you are spread a lot more thinly. First thing we spent time with some of the older ladies which was lovely, doing a bit a dancing and singing. Then Jules and I took 3 girls to Diane's house (which is something which they started whilst i was here last). It was lovely to see how much they had all progressed with their swimming and confidence in the water. Then they got a chance to relax and eat lunch whilst watching Happy Feet 2. This is so good for the girls to have a bit of time out, away from the chaos of their ward. They were all sprawled out on the sofas!

After swimming we were brought back to reality as we went on the wards. On the first ward we were either sitting with the girls or dancing around. The second ward we helped with feeding the girls. During this there was a huge thunderstorms which went on for ages!

Next it was trip time, Lizzie and i took 2 girls for ice-cream and dinner. It was still raining a bit so we had to be quick getting them in the taxi! Please pray it doesn't rain tomorrow as we've 2 girls who both need wheelchairs to take on a trip. Today we only had 1 wheelchair and we struggled to fit it in the taxi!

Just before swimming

After enjoying the ice-cream

Monday!

hello!
Today was my first day back at the girl's home. It was great to be back!
It was a day centre day today, so we made medals and crowns using lots of stickers and glue! Quite a lot went in hair! In the morning we worked with a few girls with cerebral palsy. When we took them back at lunch time it was good to see all the other girls i'd not seen yet, so made sure i spoke to each girl on upstairs and downstairs wards. Bit sad as there were a few faces missing.

In the afternoon we had girls from pink ward. After they made their medals and crowns we played games. There was lots of laughter!

After work me and Lizzie took 2 girls swimming and jules came and met us with cow pat guy. I'm really pleased we took these 2 girls in particular as they hadn't been out for the activities in the day. They only stayed in the pool about 10 mins, spending more time getting out to eat their crisps, but they both said they had fun!

After we took them back i had tea with James, Rachel, Lily and Tom and Ruth and Neung. Now I've just sorted out clothes for trips tomorrow, we're going swimming with 3 girls at the ex-pat community and then after i'm taking 2 girls for ice-cream.

Back with the girlies!

hello everyone, welcome back to the blog!

I arrived back in Bangkok on friday night after an 11 hour flight. Flight was good and i managed to get quite a bit of sleep, after some red wine.

I got a taxi to the volunteer's house, seeing one of my friends Nicola on route, so she came back to the house too. I unpacked almost my entire rucksack downstairs as it mainly contained stuff for the kids and chocolate for the volunteers! Then we all went down to major to get pad thai, from pad thai man. Jules only came back last week after her summer at home; he seemed excited to see us!

After sleeping for 13 hours it was time to do my first trip with 3 girls from the girl's home, with Jules and Lizzie. I was so excited cycling to the home and the girls obviously were too, as i nearly got knocked off my bike with them running up to me shouting "Pi-Gemma!!!" It was so so lovely.  Then we took the girls back to our house to change them out of their ward clothes. Next we cycled to major where the hysterical laughter continued, the girls were so excited about the trip! We took a bus to the soft play and met up with Ruth and Neung. Soft play was a bit busy so we went for ice-cream first. Then we hit the soft play!! The girls loved it!! They must have gone down the slides about 50 times!! After this it was time to go back so we went back to change at our house. The girls became quite subdued as they realised it they had to go back to the home. It's really hard taking them back.

On returning to the girl's home some of the girls from the other wards were waiting for their dinner so it meant we could see them too which was lovely. So after quite a few more minutes of cuddles we went home.

Saturday evening I went for dinner with Ruth, Neung and Nicola and then Jules met us later on. Today me and Lizzie cycled to church at the ex-pat community and then me and Jules went swimming afterwards in the lovely outdoor pool. After a cuppa at Ruth's on route home, I went for a very sweaty run followed by dinner from satay lady.

Tomorrow is my first day at the girl's home, so i'm very excited! It doesn't really feel like i've been away!! It's all back to normal here, i'm sweating and today i've had 3 showers!

After work tomorrow we're taking 3 girls swimming and then for dinner afterwards, so I'll update as i'm able!

Home sweet home!

Hello everyone!
So i'm home! I've been back for almost 2 weeks now and tomorrow is my first day back at work.

It's been a little bit of a culture shock coming back to the UK after 6 months in Thailand, but i'm getting there, slowly. I've also found it absolutely freezing, yet i've seen a lot of people walking round in vest tops and shorts, whilst i've been in my winter coat and uggs all week!

I've managed to sort out my 4000+ pictures into different sections, though haven't sat down and looked through them all yet!

I was really excited about coming home and its been great to catch up with those of you that i have so far, and it's just so so lovely to be able to pop to my mum and dad's house whenever i want. My mum has been absolutely amazing, I'm so lucky.

Despite being back, i'm still in regular contact with CCD and the volunteers in Thailand who are doing amazing work. I will be sending out stuff to CCD still, so if anyone has anything that they wanted to donate, or if you wanted to make a donation, please let me know (gemanne83@hotmail.com). It is always appreciated. The website for CCD is www.ccdthailand.org

Also, if anyone was interested in volunteering...please let me know!! You are totally needed!! You don't need any particular skills, just a really big heart ready for all the beautiful children who need you.

last day with my beautiful girls

hi all,
so today marked my last day at the girl's home. I lead the fruit smoothie activity, which went really well. A lot of fruit was consumed!! the girls picked what fruit they wanted, put it in the blender, picked yogurt, milk (or both!), blended it up and enjoyed!

All the ingredients went (1 and a half water melons, 6 yellow mangoes, 4 papayas, about 40 bananas, 16 cartons of milk and 20 yogurts).

After work we took 4 (still hungry) girls and the thai staff for ice-cream at Swensons. A lovely day to finish on. Although i will be popping in tomorrow to say bye to the girls on sick ward as i wasn't able to today.

So that's it for my 6 months away. I can't believe how quick it's gone, yet it seems ages ago even since i was in Chiang mai, almost like a separate trip. It has been an amazing trip, but my time here with CCD has been absolutely life changing. There's just not the words to describe it.

Thank you everyone who's supported me through this time away, I really appreciate it.

looking forward to seeing some of you really soon!! lots of love xxxx

ready for the morning smoothie making session:

Bow doing a great job with her smoothie:

Gail enjoying her smoothie above
green girls waiting patiently for their smoothies

Mai, Mameow and Keam making picking their fruit:

Jessie finishing off the yogurt

ice-cream at swensons!

with P-wee and P-Ae.

Fun at the Funarium!

This week there's been lots of fun things going on...
Activities wise we went on a bear hunt, which was really exciting!
Thursday we went to the funarium with spending some money raised by the coventry physio teams, the girls absolutely loved it and as you'll see by the pictures, so did we!
Friday me, Nathan and Ellie had our leaving ceremony. We weren't sure what to expect, but it was just so lovely. Firstly some of the children we knew really well were there as a surprise which was completely unexpected. We were presented with flower crowns, certificates, present, cards and a giant poster picture each with us with our favourite children and also a dvd with loads of pictures. We felt very special.
Friday night we went for dinner with some friends from nichada church who are also leaving soon.
Today we've had our last swim at the lovely nichada pool before ellie and nathan fly later today.
For me i'm working with the girls tomorrow we're making fruit smoothies, potentially quite messy! tuesday i'll be packing ready to head to the airport that evening!

Me and Bea on our bear hunt...

the bear's on the loose!

the volunteers at the Funarium (the girls enjoyed it too!)

our leaving ceremony!

hello makka bakka day!

Hi all,
today we're off work as we're celebrating makka bakka day (of course none of us know what this is!).

this week we had messy play on monday, which involved putting lots of different things in bowls such as noodles, flour, strawberry compote, cornflower and water, porridge, rice - and letting the girls make lots of mess! It was really fun. Although all the stuff was edible we tried to discourage them eating the stuff and gave out muffins which we were given from the weekend instead.

At the weekend we went away with the nichada church to cbr 3 which is one of our community projects, to re-paint after the floods last year. It was fun, though quite tiring. A huge highlight was that we had air-con in our rooms - amazing!!

We did a big swimming trip on monday with 13 of us all together. Fun and chaotic as usual! It was great to discover that Orati could swim really well and that the others could have a good attempt. Also another chance to use the swimming stuff we've been sent.

Yesterday me and Jules took Malaa, Powadee and Bow to Nichada to go swimming at Diane's. When we got there though there was a problem with the pool so instead we took the girls to the big lake at nichada to feed the huge fish. We all enjoyed it, especially watching Malaa sneakily eat the bread! after this we went back to Diane's and watched a film. It was really nice for the girls (and me and Jules) just to be able to sit and relax. then diane treated us all to lunch at a local restaurant, before we headed back to the orphanage.

Malaa playing connect 4 before lunch:

malaa, bow and me (note malaa still playing connect 4)

Tiff, Catherine, me and Emily - team pink after our painting efforts:

me and ellie at the swim trip - unfortuately there wasn't enough swimming caps to go round!

Mai, me and bea during messy play

me and sommo

so that's all for this week. ive got less than 2 weeks to go now, we've hopefully got a big trip to the funarium planned for next week. we're still waiting for permission though, please pray! xxx