After our days of thrilling and entertaining adventures around Chiang Mai, today started off with a warm farewell to our homestay residence. The Thai mothers who hosted us created a heartwarming and cozy atmosphere that made us feel like we were at home.
We are incredibly grateful for their efforts of serving us food, changing our bedsheets and taking care of us for the past few days. For our group in particular (Tecahavoan, Dararith, Keita, Mac, Shington and Batuan), we learned that our homestay mothers weaved cotton for a living and donated their products to nearby pagodas. We were given a rare opportunity to experiment with this cotton weaving process and were delighted to witness the efforts involved with this style of crafts. To give insight into this process, the cotton is weaved with a wooden wheel which moulds the cotton into an elongated strand of string. These strands of strings are served and crafted into products such as clothes, bags, wallets and towels. Despite the time and effort involved, these products are relatively cheap in price. To show our sincerest gratitude, we decided to purchase some as souvenirs that we can recall memories from. In addition to this, we also feasted on traditional Thai cuisine like fried chicked with sticky rice which left an everlasting taste of joy.
Upon leaving our home-stays, four crimson trucks arrive to bring us to a nearby forest area for our bridge building activity. On the way, the trucks passed by plains of crops and mountainous terrain. Even though the road was quite bumpy, the incredible view and chilly air made up for it. Once we arrived at our destination, we were introduced to several CMRCA members. They presented us with various team building exercises so that we were prepared when we build our bridge. An example of this includes "pipeline", where we constructed a truck using pipes so that a golf ball can fall into a cup.
This activity taught us three important themes such as concentration, communication and coordination. Once theses activities ended, we were briefed on how to construct the bridge. We learned that this bridge in particular contained several mechanics. These included ropes, pulleys, hooks and many more. My group's responsibility was the knot system in which we had to tie knots to secure our bridge. Personally, I struggled with this procedure because I tend to overthink things. I learned to think simple and tie the knot in an easy way that even younger kids could understand.
After the CMRCA's demonstration ended we build our own bridge. It was a very time consuming process and working in the blazing hot sun definitely strained us. However, once the bridge was finished, everyone enjoyed crossing it. Finally we all went back to Chiang Mai Eco Resort for our final sleep in the trip. We are all looking forward to reuniting with our family and friends back home.
The trip has been a blast and one that most of us will never forget.
Techavoan (Gr 10)
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