4th of July and Other Holidays :)

We had a great 4th of July party at our apartment last Sunday...About 7 students came, but with all of us, Scott, and Rich's family there, we had quite a full place! We had some decorations, LOTS of snacks (don't worry, we had plenty of watermelon!) and played some games. Also, we sang a few traditional American songs, including "My Country Tis of Thee" and "America the Beautiful" for our friends to hear. It was fun celebrating Independence Day in Thailand and the students seemed to enjoy it :)

We decided to continue the theme of holidays by teaching them in our classes this past week. We learned all about the main holidays in Thailand and taught them about several of ours. The students came up with some very creative skits for the different holidays, and it was cool for us to hear about how they celebrate :)

5 main holidays we learned about:

• Songkran: Basically a 3 day water festival during the hot (or rather hottest season, haha)...Many people will throw water on your throughout these days all around town...I'd love to be here for that one!
• Mother's Day: Celebrated on the queen's birthday, and many people go to the temple in the morning to make merit. Also, the students said if they're able to, they like to spend time all day with their mothers :)
• Kaopansa: The Buddhist Lent holiday (towards the end of this month) celebrated for a couple days.
• Roy Ga Tong: Sort of a light festival they celebrate by making little boats out of banana leaves. They put candles and sometimes incense then put the boats in the river to watch them float away (to represent the bad things in their lives going away). In Ubon Ratchatani there's a big celebration that the students said was beautiful at night watching the candles floating on the water.
• Father's Day: Celebrated on the king's birthday in honor of fathers...Similar to Mother's Day, but there also may possibly be fireworks in Bangkok and other big cities :)

This week Becca and I also had the chance to go to the Freshman Welcome party at the English Department on campus...quite an experience! It's a big deal to students to be able to dress up (this year's theme was boys dress in white and girls in black) and eat and have different performances throughout the night. There was a short play, some dances, a few songs...all of which were fun to enjoy with friends!

I'll be posting another update possibly tomorrow about me and Stephanie's trip to stay at a friend's home in Roi Et...can't wait to tell all about it! Until then, fon dee na ka (goodnight)!--at least from this side of the world ;)