Our time in Thailand has been absolutely incredible! After debrief we only got to spend about two weeks with our contacts, but it was jam packed and absolutely amazing! None of us really knew what wFrom dezloeppky.theworldrace.orge were getting ourselves into, but we showed up in the city of Nan after a 10 or 12 hour bus ride from Bangkok with our translator Nat and met Pastor Narong. We love him so much! He is hilarious and such a character. He only speaks Thai, so we have a lot of fun trying to communicate. Most of our time with him consists of him smiling and laughing at us. I don't speak much Thai but I know that he likes to joke around with us a lot and tease us. Basically we're laughing all the time, even though we don't always know why and its great.
For our first day in Nan, Pastor Narong shows up at our hostel with a truck containing a massive barrel of water and a bunch of buckets. He introduces us to his children Sunday (20) and Monday (16). We were going to celebrate Songkran, the Thai new year! Its a time where there's a massive water fight all over the country and if you're out in the city walking, biking or driving around, you will get soaked. No one is safe! Not even the pizza delivery guy! (Poor guy. I bet he wanted to quit his job that week.)
Sometimes I'd see some people walking and I'd get all excited and want to splash them, but I'd hesitate and think "awww! They're so cute! I love Thai people! I can't soak them!" This compassion was my downfall sometimes because they'd splash me instead. My teammates had to give me some tough love and tell me that there was no room for compassion and to have no mercy. After that pep talk, they released a Songkran soaking machine named Dez Loeppky. Also in that moment, since I have this insatiable need to name everything all the time, the Furious Farangs were born (Farang is Thai for foreigner) and we had a blast splashing everyone all day. I may or may not have thrown my head back and let out a few sadistic cackles as I unleashed my farang fury on unsuspecting victims and reveled in it.