Welcome to Chiang Mai!

The flight to Chiang Mai was only an hour long. I collected my bags and got out quite quickly, and was greeted by a couple of ladies from the organisation who were waiting for me. There was Cath, one of the other volunteers, and Faa the house mother, known as Pii-Faa. I was told that in Thai culture, you put the word Pii in front of someone’s name to show respect to them so for anyone older than you or in a more senior position. It sounds very much like the African culture I grew up with. We drove 45 mins to the COSA shelter where I’ll be working for the next 6 weeks. The shelter is in a district called Mae Rim. COSA (http://www.cosasia.org) stands for Children of Southeast Asia. They work to prevent human trafficking among the hill tribe villages here in northern Thailand. After I arrived, I was taken to the volunteer house which is just a big room with 8 beds inside and a kitchen and bathroom area. It feels strange sharing with so many people after spending the last 5 nights in my own hotel room! This is the most number of people I’ve shared a room with so far. I met the other volunteers who are currently from the UK, America, Canada, and Australia. I was then given a tour around, met the staff, and also some of the girls who were now back from school. There are currently 25 girls here so it is going to be hard learning all their names and getting to know them all. It was then time for dinner soon after. Everyone here has dinner together which is really nice, and the food was good! The younger girls go to bed soon after dinner, and the older girls can stay up until 9pm so I spent the evening chatting to a few of them with one of the other volunteers. The girls here are really lovely and I’m looking forward to getting to know them. The youngest girl here is 6, and the oldest are 2 19 year old girls who have now started university which is great! The role of the volunteers here is to act as an older sister or brother to the girls and just spend time with them and get to know them and support them in any way we can. And then on weekends, we run English classes for the girls.

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