HELLO!!!

Our arrival at our school (Phraithammakhunwitta School to be exact) was highly celebrated to say the least. As we stepped out of the truck there was tons of giggling, laughing, and staring. There was a huge reaction/roar/general flip out from the kids as we walked by and Brian waved and simply said "hello". It was then he realized that he would not need to steal Brigid's jokes any more because this was going to be the easiest crowd of his life. We were easily the only "farang" (foreigners/white people) that the kids had ever seen other than on TV. We received a quick tour, met most of the teachers and called it a day. We went back to the house of Pi Ray, an english teacher, where we would be staying for a week. At the end of the week we were told we would be moving into a house of our own that they were currently building for us. Seriously, the leader of the village is currently working on our house around the clock. If we weren't sure before we quickly realized that a) these people are the nicest people in the world and b) we were immediate superstars of the village. We met Pi Ray's family including her 3 yr old son, aka cutest kid ever, who is named after a vegetable. Pi Ray decided to take us for a walk to visit the local Buddhist temple. We ended up running into the high monk. We were very respectful and "waied" (bowing with hands together under chin) him and ended up having to kneel. He was very generous and gave us a gift of Thai silk, which is hand made by the monks. He gave one to both of us, it is believed by the Thai people that if you are given a gift from the monks you will have good luck and be protected in future endeavors. We are still trying to figure out why the monk tied Brian's around his waist and simply gave Brigid hers?? Anyway after that very cool bit of culture we were quickly bought back to the world of technology and the high monk took out his camera phone a wanted a picture with us!!!! We gladly posed and should have asked if he could email it to us.