Meet Mon

Meet Mon

The regular visitors of our blog must have seen some photo's passing by where we sit in a bar with our friends Mon and Dave.
Mon is a Thai-lady, who owns her own hair salon and she is married with Dave. Dave is Irish and works as an English language teacher in a Thai school in Chiang Mai.
This blog-entry is in English so they can read all the good things I write about them ;)

Although the previous placed photos might suggest otherwise, drinking isn't all we do together. Last month Mon invited us for a weekend in her home village. Dave couldn't come because he works during the weekends (we don't think he minded not being able to join us since he's a bit spoiled and doesn't like Mon's urban home village;).
Well we did like it, it is nice to experience the "real" Thai life. The village "Naam Dip" is only 3 hours drive from Chiang Mai but it's a world of difference! Hot and running water is not available for everyone and the average bed time is around 21hrs because everybody has to get up early to work on the land.
The people are very poor but they enjoy their life and try to make the most of everything. We spent a day trip with Mon's family, we where with 17(!!) people and only 1 car...It sounds crazy but it was actually very much fun, we saw a lot of the beautiful countryside and we where invited into people's homes for dinner and drinks every where we went.
See the photo slide show "meet mon" for an impression.

There is one more day with Mon I would like to tell you about, her birthday. A good Buddhist doesn't spend a lot of money on a party celebrating his/her own birthday. A good Buddhist rather spends the money on a charity. So when it is a Thais birthday they often go to orphanages, shelters or any other kind of organization that takes care of the disadvantaged and they offer to pay for a lunch or dinner that day. I think it is a good idea, people become less selfish and the charitable organizations can spend their money on other things than food. Mon decided to cook a lunch for the 50 kids of the school for the blind in Chiang Mai. With some help of her neighbors (with cooking) and some help of friends (John & Lois have a big car) she managed to cook and serve a lunch of fried rice, vegetables, green curry with noodles and chocolate cookies as dessert for all the 50 children.

It was very rewarding to go to this school and help them out even if it was just for one afternoon. Birthdays come and go but experiences like this you don't forget... I really like the idea of giving instead of receiving on your birthday and when my next birthday will come I am going to look for a way to do some good because I am grateful for what I have.

Hope you all understood the story (and I don't mean the moral lesson) if not, don't worry, next blog will be in Dutch again :)