Well another month has passed and I thought it was time for a new update.


It is the summer break for the Thai schools so we have all the kids at the Mercy Center during the day now. The oldest ones are taking English lessons off-site in the afternoons since someone has sponsored them for this and I am continuing to teach the little ones. They are very bright children and seem to pick up on the language and the phonics that I teach them. We make crafts, read books, and do puzzles and games in the class also. We have class 4 days a week for 1 hour without any translator so the children are forced to learn to understand me. Of course, I do understand some of what they say in Thai also, but really encourage them to use English.

The rest of my time at Mercy is spent doing administration and grant research. A volunteer has inputted almost 2000 books into the library program so it is getting organized too. He has spent many hours working in there which has saved me a lot of time. We would not be nearly so far if I had to do it alone.

Two volunteers are here from PEI for 3 weeks. I have shown them around the city a little bit (I don’t know where much is). We have been to the market, Carrefour, Lukdod (souvenir place), and this coming week we are going for Thai massage. I rarely buy anything when we go shopping but I just enjoy looking.

I have finished my TEFL course that I was taking. It was a lot of work but I think it was worth it as I now know how to put together lesson plans that will help the children to learn better and stay interested.

I have moved into Pattaya now (from Ban Chang which is a 45 min drive away) so that I can work at Mercy full-time instead of only 2 days per week. This has allowed me to take on additional responsibilities and spend more time also with the children.