Teos February Newsletter
We experienced some really cold days last month but now it is getting hotter every day. Some volunteers leave and new ones arrive. School holidays start soon and we will have our holiday camp in a village school and the orphange for boys. About 100 boys aged between 6 and 18 are looking forward to it.
For all those of you who enjoyed playing scrabble with Maam, she is back from China and still looking for someone who can challege her.
Eating area and stage for Baan Prao Neua renovated with TEOs help
Shortly before christmas last year we got a generous donation from Sujinda and Kamol Anantachat for a project we had on our mind for some time and were now able to start. The eating area at Baan Prao Neau school was small but the only place to hold bigger meetings or have celebrations. During rainy season it was sometimes flooded and never easy to clean.
Lun made plans for raising the whole area a few centimeters so the water stays out, tiling it, add some benches and also building a stage. Experienced with construction projects she also organized and supervised the work for two months.
back to the topChinese New Year Celebrations
Chinese families offer food to gods and ancestors and celebrate together with delicious meals. We were invited to be part of Luns family to share their celebrations.
In the early morning we all traveled to their house, helped preparing the offerings and paid our respect in the Buddha room to Buddha, King Rama V. and the deceased family members. Later we moved around to light incense and candles at all spirit houses on the premises. A lot of pictures were taken and questions asked answered during the whole ceremony.
Last point of our walk around was a table set with different kind of food and drinks for the ancestors. A fire was started to burn paper replicas of money, gold, clothing and other useful things as offerings the ancestors.
We later enjoyed a chinese breakfast together before we headed back to Nongkhai to watch the colorful parade near the Chinese temple.
back to the topWeb host change caused some problems
The change of web hosts in February caused some problems. The forms on our web site were not working properly in the new environment and had to be reprogrammed. The newsletter was not sent out in time as we also need a new program for this task. Now we have a software that allows double opt-in to our mailing lists. If you subscribed lately you already used our new system. If you are getting our newsletter for some time now, there is no change in receiving the newsletter. If you have problems changing your subscription email address, please contact us.
In order to reduce the daily spam, we decided to take away all direct email links from the web site. First time visitors are now asked to use a form and we will send them a valid email address with our answer. And all our former volunteers and friends hopefully still have our emails stored in their address books. If not, send us a short notice via the form on our contact page. This reduced the amount of spam we receive every day noticeable and gives us more time to do important things.
back to the topUpcoming Thai Festivals and Holidays
- 6 April Chakri Memorial Day
Crowning day of King Rama I., March 20, 1737 - September 7, 1809, the first king of the Chakri dynasty. He moved the capital from Thonburi to Bangkok, retrieved Buddhist texts that were lost during the occupation of former capital Ayathaya by the Burmese, and wrote the Book of three seals, a new law codex. - 13 April 2006 Therevadin Buddhist New Year
- 13 - 17 April 2006 Songkran Festival
Thais celebrate the lunar new year with a lot of water. Buddha statues are cleaned, you sprinkle water over the hands of monks and elders to show your respect - and everybody is having a lot of fun with tossing water around. If you attend don't expect to stay dry. See some photos of the festival
Overview of all Thai festivals and holidays