Hill Tribe Orphanage

I have learned from a very positive experience that community service can not only be extremely rewarding, but also highly enjoyable. Last summer I traveled with a high school travel program, Rustic Pathways, for a month over the summer in Thailand. I spent the trip split up between two places: Mae Seariang and the Elephant Conservation Center. For the majority of my trip, I lived in an orphanage in a tiny village in the mountains of northern Thialand called Mae Seariang . I spent my mornings teaching the tiniest kindergardeners the Enlgish alphabet and language. In the afternoon, my group of six girls led by counselors from the states and native Thai counselors, would participate in projects to improve the school and the orphanage (such as planting a garden for fruits and vegetables). Although we would dread the projects at the start (because it was over 90 degrees and there was no a.c anywhere), we would always end up laughing and having fun. The boys at the orphanage were all teenagers that were recently (in the past few years) orphaned from the conflict in Burma. It always amazed me how optimistic these boys were and how fun and silly they could be to hang out with, given many of their situations. On certain afternoons when we would finish service projects and teaching early, we would go help out or visit local buddhas and temples. The temples were filled with statues of buddhist gods, and long stairs adorned in tiles and crystal, that I would forget I was in a religious center. The temples were the most gorgeous areas that I have ever seen. I even got to medidate with the monks when we finished cleaning up trash at the various temples. My favorite service project, however, was definetly planting rice at the orphanage. All of my group was hesitant at first to step hip deep into muddy water where crabs would often poke through, but after getting used to it a days worth of planting, our entire bodies were covered in mud from numerous mud fights. I still had mud in my scalp three days later! Our counselors told us after that the rice that we had planted would last the orphanage into October (4 months)! I learned service could be extremely fun if you and your friends make it that way. Overall, the trip taught me that giving another person or community a lending hand is more rewarding than anything else imaginable. I would give anything to go back and do it all over again.