Fun in the Sun

On Friday, we all headed south to Chantaburi province for an AIDS conference. While Peace Corps Thailand does not have a specific project for AIDS work, volunteers are encouraged to involve themselves with projects related to AIDS education and outreach. While I still have much to learn about the technical aspects of such work, I definitely am interested in doing related projects and I will make it a point to find resources to increase my education on the subject. I learned alot over the weekend about the AIDS situation in the country and about sex and gender issues specific to Thailand which will come in handy as I look into what I can do to help my future community. I'm sure I'll be writing more on this as I begin my actual work in site.

The rest of the weekend was a great chance to spend some quality time with each other (since were pretty much half way through training and our time together as a big group is limited) and just enjoy being in the beach. Highlight of the weekend was the first ever Peace Corps Thailand "Coco Bowl" where a bunch of us played American Football in the water using a coconut for a football. I'll post the pictures from the game as soon as I get them from Garret's camera. Here are some pics from the beach!

Mangrove Forrest

Before heading back to Sa Kaeo, we stopped by a Royal Thai Government Project. His Majesty, the King of Thailand has started some pretty awesome development projects for the people of Thailand and we got to visit one of the projects aimed at providing economic development to a fishing/prawn farming community. SInce time was limited, we did not get to see the actual prawn farms (though we had great sea food for lunch) but we got to talk around the mangrove forrest.