Donna Ponders Life

Hey all, here is a serious blog post. Our friend Donna, who is one of the bargirls we've spent more time with and have paid to take out to dinner, tonight was down and quiet. I asked her about it, and she was frustrated with money. I told her about another option, the Well (you can see thier website from the link on the side) and she seemed so interested. She said that she wants to leave bar work. Now this is HUGE. This is why I'm here, because I know that God loves Donna (and the thousands of others) and wants so much more for them than this. But this is the first time I've actually seen it happen (or almost happen). So please give a shout up for Donna, as she hears some very new things about God and makes a crossroads decision for her life these next few days. Pray for courage to leave what's familiar, trust these crazy new people she's met, and most of all, trust God.

Songkran!

Guys in a tuk-tuk, trucks converted into water-squads, babies covered in powder paste... It must be Songkran. Songkran is a holiday in Thailand where people throw water and powder and say "Happy New Year!" It originally had something to do with washing away sins, but now is basically a water party to keep cool during Thailand's hottest month. I've had a lot of fun celebrating this new holiday as you'll see!

Songkran at Nana

Nana is one of the red light districts where we visit friends. They had a big Songkran celebration. People were everywhere, throwing water and joking around. This last picture gives a glimpse at the bizarre world in which I've found myself. The girl in the orange shirt is Celeste, and linked with her is a ladyboy (transvestite) friend of hers. The line of "women" behind them are all ladyboys outside of a bar/brothel that they work at. They were getting into the spirit of things, and one scantily clad ladyboy was running out into the street, literally stopping traffic.

Songkran at Soi Cowboy

This is Songkran at the other red light district, Soy Cowboy. There was a lot happening! They had barrels of ice water outside of every bar, and people filled the streets, throwing water on people and patting their cheeks with a powdery paste. There was water everywhere! In the first picture, you can actually see several streams of water caught in one shot. The guy in the second picture is getting the powder paste. The funny thing is that even in a red light district, even as they smeared your face with goo, they were polite. They would smile or say "sorry" or "excuse me" and then very gently glob you. Check out the last picture. We laughed when we realized that our picture of our friends (red and orange shirts) also included a woman getting sprayed (in the center) and a couple making out (far left). Always lively!

Songkran with Naan

I was able to spend Sonkran Saturday with some good friends, Naan and Bik, and they took us to the famous Kaw-san Road celebration. The picture on the left is just one road leading to Kaw-san! We walked almost a mile through crowds like this to get the actual road. It was a lot of fun because we were talking and laughing with our friends, but had they not been there to lead us through, I may have turned and run in the face of such a crowd!

Songkran in Silom

Wow, this is a lot of people! We were down among all this friendliness for several hours on Silom Road, usually a bustling downtown street. You can see that thousands of people literally took over the road to play Songkran there. We met up with some other friends and inched along. It was almost like conga lines going every direction. I stayed directly behind my friend in front of me, and we shuffled/danced in one direction, while people passed us in lines going the other direction (we had to be in lines because it was so crowded, the only way to move is to move into the space directly in front of you). As people passed in other directions, they shouted, "Happy New Year" and slathered us with the powder paste. People sang, danced, yelled, and splashed, but for all this craziness things stayed pretty polite. We took this picture from the skytrain platform above the street--we were ready to be out of the crowd! Look closely at the bottom picture, and you can see individual people as far as you can see! I had a vivid thought: "You're not in Folsom anymore, Kristy!"

Songkran

My first Songkran celebration was definitely an eye-opening experience, but I have to say that it was a lot of fun!