Hippo what?

The last few Sundays I have been tutoring a student (Oui) who is in his third year of school for physical therapy. This Sunday he invited me to go to a hippotherapy session. I said yes, thinking it must be interesting. After googling it, I found out what it was (see here) and I was definitely looking forward to seeing it in person.

Hippotherapy uses horses to help children that have difficulty with balance (and so much more). In this group, it consisted of children with Cerebral Palsy and Down Syndrome. This was the first session, so the kids were just getting used to it. As they arrived with their parent(s), they could come over to a mat and play with the physical therapists. When they had all arrived, they were led through basic stretches with their parents' and therapists help. After that, each child had a helmet and vest put on and they were brought to the horse. Assigned to each horse was a vet and two physical therapists. The vet led the horse, while the therapists stood on either side. Each child rode the horse for about fifteen minutes. Initially, they would do stretches with the child while using the horse.


Then they would lead the horse and child around to two stations. One station had pictures and numbers. Children had to practice their numbers, for example by holding up four fingers if there were four images. The other station showed basic drawings of a person and the child had to mimic the pose.



Oui, who has already volunteered for one session (about 8-12 classes), thought the children improved a lot from the time they started. From what I gathered, they mostly improved in balance and temperament.

This is a program that is through the local university. According to Oui, it is free. Many (if not all?) who are involved are volunteers. I would really like to go again and help out there more. I'm not sure exactly in what area though, since I am not a physical therapist or a vet! Today I just helped with setup and observed.

It was very interesting and encouraging to see these alternative ways to reach the children, and even more interesting to hear about some positive changes it brought about. It gives me new insight not only into a different therapy, but also another side to Thailand.

See the pretty flowers...?

Some of the students have been sharing all sorts of ideas lately for bettering the school. It's fun hearing their ideas and seeing that they care about the school and how it looks. The ideas also happen to be very good! Generally my only problems with ideas are, "How much will this cost?" and "Who's gonna take responsibility for it?"! One idea a few days ago was that we should make the entrance to the school look nicer and more welcoming for the students coming back from break. That seemed like a good plan. After asking some questions about what they wanted to do I said okay. So Sunday we went to a garden market in Chiang Mai and my student walked around picking out the plants he wanted. We got it back home and he got others to help him put everything up. I didn't have to do much, or feel like a nag - very nice! Here are the results!






It's amazing what a few flowers can do to perk the place up!

Innovative Student #2

One of my other students created his garden in what I thought was down by the river, instead it's down in the river!
Here is a picture of how the river usually looks this time of year...

And here is what I saw to my surprise!
LaNuNan's garden is where the red dot is above.
A closer view.
His contraption for getting water from the river.
Put here to let air out of the pipe so the water flows faster. (I think that's what he said...)
Me - a henna-ed huckleberry.
A view up to the farm from the garden/river.
The barely visible path out.
I'm just so proud of the good ideas the students are coming up with! I have another one to share in my next short blog post - and then I will finally have to update on my break!

Green, Green, Green!

About three months ago our garden at the farm was a giant, tangled mess of weeds and brush. Frankly, it was a little scary looking - anything could live in there! I kept away. Well, things have changed. Atiwat (the drum maker) took over our garden a couple months ago. Since that time, the garden has been transformed. I get out to the farm maybe once a week and every time I go the garden looks different.

We've already eaten some of the food from there. Atiwat asked me what food I am looking forward to having. Well, cucumbers, squash, pumpkin (hmmm, should I try a pie?) and corn! He plucked a cucumber for me so I don't have to wait on that one. It was tasty.

Following are pictures from the new garden. Notice the nice signs? Pretty cool, huh?

Roselle, Hot peppers, Chinese kale, Corn
Long beans
Pumpkin and Long beans
Rat-tailed radish and Sugar peas


And here are some shots of the produce coming in...

Tomato
Corn
Squash
Pumpkin

We are also starting to get fish from our fish pond...

Tilapia

And with all this talk and excitement about gardens, I have plans for one of my own in the overgrown area by the house. First, though, we've started with a compost. Pictures of progress on my garden will be forthcoming. I think I will wait until rainy season to plant, but I have some aesthetic improvements to make first!
Here are DaNi, Uaorawet, and Atiwat helping me, ie basically doing all the work - I should say I helped them!