day 13- sept 13

We woke up and went up to eat at a close by restaurant. That is where we have been eating all day and tomorrow morning. P-Akong shared that the Mirror foundation has given him so many more opportunities. He's been to 8 different countries now. He had many connections and knows many people. Today we helped out two of his friends and tomorrow will help our a third. Today for our meals we ate: boiled rice with pork, little bananas, eggs with pork, eggs, cucumbers, two different types of fruit that we don't remember the name of, watermelon, a broth soup for lunch, fried noodles another soup with tofu stuff for dinner, pork spicy stuff. Our morning task was cleaning out the museum and clean up the yard. Mom and I cleaned first and dusted walls, shelves, sweeped water out, from the ground. I was able to clean out an old jewelry cabinet. In this museum was ceremonial clothing, what their houses looked like, baskets and cross bows made out of nature, there were maps of where the Akha people originated from, there was a life size depiction of their homes. Men can one kitchen fire and women had another. Stefi helped in the museum. 

We then broke for lunch and a little break. Came back and finished the outdoor work and had a tour from P. The guy who was over the museum was with us the whole time and he was taking so many photos of us. He looked so happy for what we were helping him with. We raked up leaves and branches and hauled them using a sack and two people. After work, P taught us about he Akha people. When we are working, P often says "Ahka people" kinda like "we are awesome and strong as Ahka people." There was a story about a prince that was trying to find his bride and he went to the Gods and he came back from that and saw her. She had tusks coming out of her and he went to the Gods and said "im scared of her tusks," the Gods told him to cut them off and put them on her head. (Like a head dress). Then he said he wanted a swing so he build a swing for her out of bamboo. Then he made a spiritual gate entering into the village to represent his marriage and put man and woman at the side of this gate. It was neat having P share his history. 

We had a bit of free time before dinner, the water wasn't working so we didn't have to opportunity to shower. We headed down to the local shop and got some snacks and hung out. I had a good talk with Youitchy(Japanese boy) that's how you say his name so that's how I'll spell it ;) one of P's friends rode up on his ATV and I asked him if I could take it. He said yes so Youitchy and I went for a ride. I totally drove on the wrong side of the rode for the first half. It felt really good to play and adventure a bit. We came back and hung out at our quarters. Mom played games, I read. Then we had yummy dinner. After dinner we played more games, cleaned up, and called it a night. It was a good hard working day with lots of sweat and it felt really rewarding.