Marbles to Monkeys

This last week was a little more exciting at DEP. I got more into the swing of things, with team teaching, going to meetings, and to outings with the other volunteers.


These are a few boys that attend the Half Day School, I think its pretty adorable that they play these old school games like marbles. They also play a game similar to jacks, but instead of using jacks they use little seeds, and a paper scooper. This takes place on my front porch since there are slick tiles there. Cute, yet very loud when I'm trying to sleep and they start playing around 6:30 or 7:00 am every morning.


Here are the girls working, typical. Chores before class. Sometimes its frustrating because the kids are working, and don't come to class. Then you have to go out to collect your students. I walk down these stairs everyday to go to the school building in the background. Everything is really dry here until rainy season in June-October.


Awesomeness. Honda 70. I totally want this powder blue bike, with plaid seats, and plenty of spokes on the wheels.


I went on a walk the other day. I wanted to eat a "Roti" (kinda like a crepe with sweet milk in the middle). I walked out to the corner intersection and didn't see the cart there, so I kept on walking, and walked all the way into town (20 mins), still didn't find any roti, instead I got some chinese donuts and warm soy milk. On my way back I saw these guys circled around these two roosters and thought..."are they cock fighting? I don't know what else they'd be doing." So here is a cock fight in the background and some kids playing soccer in the foreground.

Also on the way back from the walk to town. The driveway to the school is just off of this little road. We have some rolling mountains here.

Welcome to monkey town! Last Sunday Jamie, Pilar and I went to the Monkey Caves. Monkeys hung out around the entrance to the caves and around the fish pond.

These monkeys were climbing up the pillars, then sliding down this pole.

Entrance to the cave.


This was inside the cave. A Buddhist shrine and some bats, and no monkeys. Thats was natural lighting. There were steps into the cave, then about 30 feet in it opened up into this cavern, and had a hole on the right letting in some natural light.

Monkeys reeking havoc on a shrine. They were climbing and swinging on the christmas lights. And the monkey on the top right was trying to pull the sign off.

Who knew monkeys could swim? I didn't. But they can, and with their eyes open. This might have been my third favorite monkey moment. (after petting the monkey at the bus station, and the tiny baby monkeys in Cambodia). These monkeys would climb up the rocks then jump into the water and swim around.

This medium sized monkey is very similar looking to the monkey that tried to eat my ice cream cone.

These are the little fingernail / claw marks from the monkey who got my ice cream cone. So what happened was this. We were discussing how monkeys sense fear, just like dogs, as we were standing in line for ice cream cones. I opened my cone and said, "MMmmm I think this is the best cone I've had in Thailand. Rich chocolate, and nice dense texture." I'm halfway through, and looking forward to the last bite with the extra chocolate in the bottom of the cone, when a monkey about 2 1/2 feet tall starts walking towards us. I show no fear and just keep walking. He keeps walking too, and proceeds to climb up me, using my arm as a hand grip. So I still wasn't afraid, but just tried to keep the cone away from him. I really wanted to finish it. Okay, so still just standing there with a monkey on my arm / reaching over to my other arm, and Jamie starts yelling: "Just drop it, give it to him." Thats when I realized the monkey would go away if I dropped the cone. So I did. Regretfully. Now I wish I just shoved it in my mouth and finished it while he was still hanging on me. Oh well. Maybe it'll leave a cool scar in the shape of the three fingered monkey claw. Muh ha ha ha.