79,999 More To Go

One of Jenn's service projects in Thailand is to help build dams. This morning, at the local Rotary meeting, a portion of Jenn's journal about this project was read aloud, and pictures of Jenna in Thailand were passed around. From the It's a Small World! Dept, we learned that one of the Rotary's projects is to help build dams to provide clean water for people in various parts of the world, and one of our local leaders had just returned from Chiang Mai where Jenn has been working!

Jenn, I know you won't mind, so here is a portion of your journal that was read this morning:

"...today I had quite the satisfying day. Most of my class decided they wanted to head to the hot springs and get spa treatment massages (it’s all incredibly cheap here- 80 baht an hour for a massage- no kidding). I decided to jump on board with another service trip instead so I hopped on the back of a truck and headed with just a few other people (the real troopers of the group) to help build a dam with the thai international Rotary (you can tell that one to Ed, pa) who plan on building 80,000 dams all over Thailand. We started off the morning by making cement blocks out of these really old school molds. It was a real art. The sweetest old man was instructing me what to do, but I could only follow along. It was just like icing a cake… mmm cake… Anyway, after spending the morning building the blocks, we learned what they were for. We got to meet the monk who would be walking on this 12foot walkway every night under the stars just chanting a few words under his breath as he walked back and forth, back and forth for the next couple of years. He even invited us to stay over one night if we wanted, since there were only a few of us so it would be possible. I might take him up on that next weekend… we shall see. In the afternoon, we actually got to start working on the dam project, which really just involved hiking up a mountain many times with sand, cement, and rocks over and over again. It was incredibly tiring but also so worth it. I feel like I was a part of something important and making that difference I always feel so called to do. It was cool to be able to construct a dam out of water from the stream, some random bamboo sticks from the forest, and stray dirt piles. Usually when I think of service I think exclusively of helping people, but to focus on nature and the environment will also help me to appreciate what I love most even more."

Thanks, Jenn, for your good work and for making us proud!