Happy Holidays from Khao Lak!

We can't believe it's only 2 days from Christmas. It doesn't feel like the Holidays at all here. It's been cloudy, but very hot and humid. You also don't see many Christmas decorations because the majority of people here are Buddhist.

We are still having the most amazing experience here though! Our last week has been very busy because there was a rush to get everything done before all of the tourists arrived for the Tsunami Anniversary. We are feeling good about what we've accomplished, but there's still soooo much to do! The last few days we've played with the kids some, but our time has mostly been spent helping the orphanage fund raise. The poor woman who runs the orphanage has a ton of training in helping children, but no business training at all. she's been thrown into a huge job that requires here not only to care for these children, but also to raise funds to feed them, build them a real home (they live in a tent now), etc. Because we both have business backgrounds we figured out that while teaching the kids English is much more fun we could be of much more value by helping Rotjana with the fundraising. We took her around to all of the big hotels and pitched them on the idea of letting us put a donation box in the lobby of their hotel and saw a huge success! That was great news, but caused a bit of a panic because we had no boxes and NO literature to put with them so it all had to be created from scratch. Guess who had to do it? :) It was a little stressful, but we turned around 20 boxes with signs and a color handout to go with in under 24 hours! Those boxes are all now sitting on either on the reception or concierge desks of hotels as big as the Le Meridian. We are already seeing huge success from them too.. people have not only been donating, but have also been bringing food and clothes to the orphanage.

We also have some more good news!!! Bai (the woman we are building a house for) found property and the deal closed on Wednesday. We went to see it yesterday and it's great! It's tucked back in a small village not too far from the orpahange and in a village where she knows a few people. Bai was soooo happy and we can't thank all of you who helped out enough. We are bummed we have to leave before the house will be completed, but have people here we trust to get it done. We are also already planning our trip back so we can see the house and throw her a small house warming party. There's a picture up of the property if you want to check it out!

We can't believe we are leaving for Australia in only 5 days from now... our time here has flown by so fast and we are really going to miss these people. The next few days are going to be really busy and emotional. The Tsunami Anniversary is on the 26th so tons of people who lost loved ones are coming for the memorial. We've met a bunch of incredible people in the last week and all of them have really really sad stories of losing someone close to them. We've adopted 3 Canadian brothers who lost their parents and have been taking them to the orphange and introducing them to all of the good people we've met here. The more we are here the more we know how lucky we are to have met the people we have and to have gotten involved in the orphanage. Many people are just building houses which is a huge help, but they haven't had the opportunity to get to know the locals. These people have incredible stories and are so strong..helping them rebuild their lives has been amazing.


We some how got roped into being in a tv show tomorrow. We aren't sure exactly yet, but we think the donation boxes has gotten them a spot on a morning tv show. Rotjana has asked that we be in it and speak about what she's doing and what people like us have also been doing to help. We don't have all of the details yet, but we'll find out tomorrow at 7am... yes I said 7am on Christmas Eve. After, we are going to take our new friends up to the orphanage to meet all the kids! We are going to stop and get them fresh food and some new toys and then go play with them for a while! We haven't gotten to play with them much this week so we are very excited!!!

Tonight we've been invited to have dinner with the manager from the LeMeridian, Daniel, at their new restaurant which has sushi and Korean BBQ. We LOVE all the Thai food we've been having, but are kind of excited for something new. We've invited our new friend Yui to join us and we're excited to give her a girls night. She has the biggest heart of anyone we've ever met! She's spent her entire year helping other Thai people who need help and barely helps herself. She barely survived the tsunami and lost her house, job and all of her friends. She's only 23, has a 2 year old and a 41 year old husband (this is very common in Thailand) so she can use a night out :)

We aren't sure what we'll be doing on Christmas Eve yet, but we've got a great day for Christmas planned! The older girls at the orphange have been learning Thai Dancing and we were able to get them a gig to dance at Le Meridian's Christmas Brunch. We promised Rotjana we'd go and watch, but we have a feeling we're going to get talked into doing the introduction and getting donations from people ;) Somehow we just keep getting new jobs, but we love it! After the show we are going to dinner with a big group and then we're all going build a bonfire on the beach and hang out. Not exactly like Christmas with the fam (and we'll miss the fam alot) but it should be a good day. The 26th is the memorial and we aren't sure what we are doing for that yet... it's going to be a really sad day no matter what we do. Then, the 27th is the big party and we've got lots of friends coming now too. Even our new friends from Khao Sok (Nic from the Morning Mist Lodge and my magical masseuse, Fun) are coming down. We really have been so lucky with the people we've met.

Ok, we have to go get ready for dinner. Thank you again for all of your kind emails and support. We miss you all tons and wish you the BEST Christmas!
Love you,
Rach and Steph