Meals on Flip Flops!

We jumped right back in after lunch.  This afternoon, we delivered meals to local families, where we heard heartbreaking stories, but we also learned about the local community.

Today we experienced Meals on Flip Flops. Similar to Meals on Wheels, Meals on Flip Flops provides families in need with home-cooked meals and fruit. While driving around Udon Thani villages, we were able to witness the conditions the locals are forced to live in, many struggling to survive. This service project impacted us in so many different ways, and getting to hear the locals’ stories made everything so much more personal and meaningful. This activity really helped us acknowledge the differences between our culture and the culture here. In Udon Thani we can visually see the importance of community and willingness to help, whereas in America it seems less obvious and inviting. We loved this service activity and cannot wait to help in more ways.  ~ Gabby

Another great part of this service experience was traveling to the market, where, broken into two groups, we went shopping.... literally needing to ask for certain amounts of a variety of food stuffs. We purchased kale, green (young) mangos, dried fish, onions and live fish.  The live fish were our offering, as we learned from our discussions about Buddhism. We want good karma to surround us, so as we prepare food, we are taking away from the land and waters.  We purchases some live cat fish in order to populate the pond on the property.  This act should guarantee us "good karma".  We remarked that when we talk about Karma back home, it is usually about "bad karma".

The afternoon passed so quickly.  We hustled home from the market (via 7-11 for slurpees) to begin food prep. The kitchen was bustling, but so were the hands which made the cooking easier.  We chopped and stuffed and tied until about 30 bags with full and complete meals were packed to be delivered to the neighbors.

Pictures will be posted tomorrow!