Ning and I started playing a checker game when she visited Ubon last week on one of the stone tables that are popular here. I didn't think much of it until we had each taken a couple turns. Then I realized that all the stones looked alike to me. I asked Ning how we were able to supposed to tell the difference between our pieces. She looked at me as if that was a pretty obvious question. She pointed out the difference that some were clearly black pieces and some were a different stone. To me they all looked like the same kind of rocks with dirt on them :) Needless to say, she won the game.
Last week I was blessed to have a friend, that I used to teach with in WI, come and visit me in Ubon! It was great to have Jamie see parts of my life here. She is a "city girl" herself, but she did well adapting to a quieter and slower pace in Ubon. We went to one of Ning's relatives to see the rice fields. Jamie also came along to school with me and snapped some pictures of the students. One day we had lunch at a beautiful park and stopped in the woods to get a glimpse of some wild monkeys (who seemed quite interested in my car this time!). Toward the end of the week we spent a couple days in Bangkok to go shopping, take a river/canal ride, and visit a snake farm and "zoo" (I think Jamie was a bit disturbed by the sad condition of animals and zoos here!). All of you are welcome to come for a visit too sometime!
