the spill took place around 8am on tuesday at wat's friend pat's house, where we were preparing to paint with a natural mud mixture. i remained stoic until about lunch-time before i grudgingly acquiesced to be taken to the local thai physician. pat (or rather, pat's driver) took me the mile or two into the village, and the ensuing doctor's visit was definitely notable. first of all, i had to climb three flights of stairs before i even made it into the the examination room (poor planning!). the doctor didn't speak much english, so i was only privy to short bits of translated conversation between pat and the doctor. this entailed a lot of back and forth in thai, looking at me, looking at ankle, looking for comprehension from me, blank stares back, before pat pronounced "not serious" and i was prescribed an ankle brace and a baggie of ibuprofen. entire cost of doctor's visit: $1.20. "don't worry," pat reassured me, "if it's not better in the morning, we come back tomorrow and he chop it off."
har har.
anyways, it's deflating (slowly) and i was able to help with the painting over the next several days, albeit from a sitting position. it is frustrating to be immobile when i came here to be helpful, but i'm doing what i can to earn my meals.
the house itself was pretty incredible to work on. wat is an expert in sustainable building techniques in thailand, and the house was made entirely of earthen bricks with a mud/straw mixture forming the mortar. the paint pigment came from the surrounding earth, and was mixed with water, cooking oil, and a corn starch equivalent. it felt amazing on your hands, and didn't smell at all like commercial paint. the only downside was that it had to be applied to the entire house by hand. the painting process took about three days, and by the end of it, kyle and i had cuts criss-crossing both of our palms. at first the pain made it pretty unpleasant, but at some point i reached a rhythm, and it began to feel more like a caress as we slowly worked the liquid into the cracks in the surface of the house. it is beautiful to think that we contributed not only our labor, but our fingerprints, to those walls. we left our mark.
more fauna of note!
another poisonous centipede.
scorpion, hiding in the bricks we used to build a small wall at pat's house. i would include a picture, but our friend ned smashed it before i got a chance.
snake! nothing big and really scary, but it was fast and it slithered straight at me before i swept it away with a broom in true badass fashion. ned commented that my ankle seemed to be a lot better when i was hopping away from a snake. thanks, ned.
our plan is to remain here until at least wednesday, and then head to the beach for a little vacation.
loving/missing/thinking of you all,
<3 audrey
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