Second week at Ananda Vidyadharma

My second week here at the boys home has come and gone, I've been teaching some English in the evening and these kids are really motivated to learn, some are already really quite good. Reading and writing are of course the most difficult, it's a completely different alphabet and the way sentences are built up is very different from Thai, but still most are doing pretty good.
Also I help out with the computers, showing the kids how to use programs like office, so they can do their homework on the computer. And even helping out the Dada, who runs the place, with computer stuff, writing project proposals, researching how we can raise more money for the home and related projects, because money is very tight here.

It is all being done on donations, the boys all have a sponsor, most of them in Italy, who provide the money to buy food, clothes and to pay for school.. The rest of the money is even more difficult to raise, money to pay the staff, to keep up and expand the home, it all has to be found in little bits and pieces here and there..
So if you have something to give, send it here, it will be used well:
Neo-Humanist Foundation
Siam Commercial Bank
Account # 679-2-06258-4
Sangklaburi Branch
Thailand

Meanwhile, in between the time I started this log entry and posting it, my third week is already almost coming to an end, sorry that updates are a bit irregular in coming, but it's a half hour drive from the boys home to the nearest place with an internet connection, Sangklaburi, so we can't go there very often. And then when I get to the internet cafe it's always a fight to get everything I want to do done because it's all so very slow, computers keep crashing and yesterday the power went out just as I was finishing an important email.. Oh well, try again today. ;)

I've had some more interesting visitors to my hut this past week.. :) two days ago I saw my first rat running around my roof, I don't know why I was even surprised to see it, I live three meters from a pond, so of course there would be rats around.. And then a few days before that I found a small scorpion sitting on my mosquito net, a good thing I have a mosquito net or else it would probably have been waiting for me in my sleeping bag.. :)
They're not dangerous for people, but their sting can be very painful, so I was very careful when removing it, but I got my visitor out safely.

These kids learn so quickly, they really like to learn new things! Every time I read English with them I can notice improvements, they can read more words, they pronounce them better.
And also on the computer, most of them I have to show them only once how to do something and they can do it themselves after that.. Last week I taught one of them how to use MS Publisher and he just jumped on it, started experimenting and a few hours later already had made some very nice looking publications and the next day he was showing others how it worked and teaching them himself.

As for me, I've learned to play tabletennis! :) I had always been very bad at it, but some of these kids are so good at it, lightning reflexes, and they wanted me to play also, so I just joined in and of course the first few days I lost every game 10-0 or 10-1. But now after two weeks of practice I can play along with the lesser players, win a few games even.
I still don't stand a chance against the good players, but against the best three kids here nobody stands a chance.. ;) The best is a small kid of just 9/10 years old, he can just look over the table, but he's so fast.