then using the blender...
watching us try and mend the blender...
and then of course drinking the delicious smoothie...
as well as eating the remaining fruit!!
After work we took a few of the girls on a trip to Svensons for ice cream. Most of them had eyes much bigger than their bellies but thankfully Wanah powered on through to help finish the other girls' ice cream!!
Tuesday and Wednesday went in a bit of blur with lots of running around at Fueng Fah and Rainbow House respectively in the soft play rooms. I tried really hard to wear out Botey (again!) at RH but was rather unsuccessful and by the end of the day he was still as hyperactive as ever and I had a bad back...
Thursday and Friday were equally unsuccessful, unfortunately a painful back rendered me a little useless on the wards so I was sent to rest at home and recover before the weekends camp.
6.30am Saturday morning, dosed up on painkillers we reported to Fueng Fah for our coach to Sattahip Camp. The camp is organised yearly for kids in orphanages throughout Thailand by the Marines although this was the first year at this particular camp site. Each of us had been assigned a kid for the weekend, mine was called Kik, a lovely little girl obsessed with colouring and snacks (kahnom!). She was not impressed when she realised that we had to fit 'Ong' (one of the RH kids) on the seat with us on the coach too but thankfully they both fell asleep on me pretty quickly and all was well!! We arrived on base by 10am and settled into our room where, expecting to sleep on the concrete, we happily found rows of mattresses!
The next task was getting ready for the days activities - a welcome talk then lunch followed by swimming in the sea! Now getting changed is really quite an art in this situation as to be respectful we have to keep covered so we had sarong type coverings with elasticated tops to get changed under...getting into a swimming costume under this was a real skill which we'd only just about mastered by monday! Thankfully the kids (and adults) found it pretty amusing watching me and Jules race each other!!
After a random welcoming ceremony we were ushered to lunch which was lots of stalls serving all kinds of hot meals/snacks/drinks and from which the kids could have whatever they wished! There was such a huge amount of food with each of the stall holders wanting to give all the kids their food. Needless to say the kids loved it - Kik was in her heaven with all the kahnom she was given, in fact I had a hard time getting her to trust that it wouldn't be stolen from our room when we went swimming or anywhere for that matter! On the wards they keep any kahnom they get down their shirts or trousers to keep it safe. Making her realise she didn't need to do that here was a struggle.. in fact there were a lot of tantrums over the issue!!
Swimming was great fun, a huge number of marines were out in the water forming a human barricade to stop the kids going out further than they should - it was quite a sight! Our group stayed pretty closely together and after coaxing a few of the kids into the water they had a great time spashing around, trying to escape from their rubber rings etc! Next stop was communal showers, once again using our sarong things and a bowl to scoop water from our alloted basin which under no circumstance were we to get soap in..another new skill i've developed with Kik's help, she even washed my hair for me!
All changed and ready for action it was already time for more food, I tell you this place was all about feeding the children up! We went down to the field where more stalls had set up and we wandered around and got given lots. Kik was so happy with her bag full to the brim of kahnom she wouldn't even look up from it...
The evening was the official opening ceremony for the camp and went on for ages. It started with a dog ''obedience'' show, although I'm not sure they could be classed as obedient, the dogs kept wandering off or flatly refusing to do what they were told, gave us a laugh anyway!
Next was some performances, some speeches (I think from people giving big cheques for the running of the event), some Marine band music followed by the national anthem, the raising of the flag and lots and lots of marines parachuting down, was quite an impressive sight!
After about 4hrs I was really thankful when Kik said she wanted to go to bed so off we trotted, turned out she wanted to do some more colouring in and despite lights going out at 9 she persevered...by this point I was really praying we'd find a sharpener soon otherwise the coach home may be an issue..Kik without colouring is not a happy Kik!!
After an eventful night being woken up hourly with Kik's feet in my face we all started getting up in time for breakfast at half 6. There was a lot of waiting around after this, before being ushered onto a coach and again some more waiting around before being driven to the Navy ships. Here we were loaded in groups onto the huge navy ships and taken on a 2hr trip out to sea and back. The marines were really good with the kids lifting them all over onto the ship and then carrying the wheelchairs down the steep stair cases. After a quick glance out to sea, Kik returned to her colouring book and that was our morning on the ship!! We spent the afternoon in the sea and playing some games (Kik won a pencil sharpener!!) and then in the evening watched performances by some of the groups. A group from Rainbow house did a song and dance which was very cute!!
Well that was last night, this morning we were up at half 5 ready to leave at 7. Kik slept all the way back and thankfully we got back to Sirin house in time to have a chilled afternoon and get ready for work again tomorrow :D We've had an exhausting but wonderful weekend, really enjoying being able to give our kids some 1:1 attention and whilst there were some tears pulling back into the government homes they all had a fun weekend!!
xx
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