Chiang Mai Flower Festival

Thailand, and I think especially Northern Thailand, is known for its beautiful flowers. In just the past week we have seen so many blooming here at school. One day it looks like an ordinary bush, and the next there are gorgeous flowers pouring off it. What better time, then, to have a flower festival! I was looking in the Bangkok Post one day and saw the Flower Festival advertised. I thought it would be fun to go check it out, so I asked my girls here to come along. AhJar couldn't come, so that left Fon and Maliwan (lots of girls I know!). We took a sawng-tao in and walked to the park where the festival was held. It was so hot and I was impressed that they didn't seem annoyed at walking. Usually there is great resistance to heat and walking in it here. I guess they really must have been into the idea of seeing flowers!


Maliwan and Fon
One of the many flower arrangements.
There is a parade that is part of the festival. I think it was in the evening. We walked along and looked at the many floats that were made with flowers. It was really beautiful and creative!






The many floats looking like they are all lined up for the parade.
A beautiful lady made of flowers.

We also wandered through the park and saw the many food stalls and the people out enjoying the day. I'm not sure if we saw all of it, but it was a nice taste, and perhaps next year I will go again!

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!