The Olivers In Thailand

Last week, our family attended Kingdom Faith, a Christian church conference, in Peterborough where we helped out with the Powerpack children groups.

Jenny, Adrian, Tom and Jessica (part time) helped with the 7 to 9 year olds in "Powerpack", while David helped with the 5 to 6 year olds in "Livewires".

This year's Powerpack mission focus was the orphanage in Hoay Maw - in particular, the educational needs of the 77 children.

During the week, Adrian and Jenny presented to the "Powerpack" group about the Hoay Maw children's home, with particular attention to the children's education, as we were wanting to raise money to help the orphans attend school.

• Monday - introduction to Hoay Maw
• Tuesday - about the facilities and where the children come from
• Wednesday - pigs and vegetables
• Thursday - schooling
• Friday - summary

At the end of the week, the children and their families raises £268.03, which will go towards the educational costs of the children. Exact details of how the money will be spend will be published later.

Thank you!

We are also starting up a sponsorship programme for the children of Hoay Maw to cover the ongoing costs of the children - more details to follow (to include sponsoring the cost of a child's toothpaste...)

Adrian

Never a dull moment when we visit Hoay Maw!!!

Paul, having skilfully despatched the monster with his handy knife and butchering it like a well seasoned professional, he passed the beast's flesh around...some eating more than others...

...and others eating a lot less than others...

As usual, I was holding the camera, so was limited in the amount I could consume...but its blood still stained my hands...

Just in case you cannot make it out in the top photograph...

Yes - the King of Fruits - taste of Heaven, and the smell of hell!

Finally, we have arrived in Asia!

Update: a long-time friend of Jenny reminder her of a visit to Asia a some time ago - while walking through a market, Jenny's comment was "Has something died here?"...

After a very very long wait, we finally were able to collect the new PocketWeather shirts.

The first batch of 20 were collected from Sports World, who for some reason needed some 6 weeks to produce what they initially said would be less than 2 weeks.

From Amit's original SBSH PocketWeather full colour logo artwork:

we managed to reduce it down to just 4 colours, with the 5th colour being the shirt background colour.

Despite the simple 4 colours, the variation in lighting gives a nice effect.

Our next challenge - how to ship these shirts to various places around the world...

Adrian

Warning

"tropical Cyclone NARGIS"

No. 9 (59/2551) Time Issued : May 03, 2008

At 10.00 a.m. today, tropical Cyclone “NARGIS” in Myanmar was centered at latitude 17.0 °N and longitude 96.0 °E or about 300 km southwest of Mae Hong Son province with maximum sustained wind of 120 km/hr. The cyclone is moving east-northeast with wind speed of 15 km/hr along areas of Mae Hong Son tonight and is going to be downgraded. During 3-5 May, a succession of rain will be likely with heavy to very heavy rainfall in many places over the North, the Central and the East. People in the west part of Thailand, especially in Mae Hong Son, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Tak, Kamphaengphet, Lamphun, Lampang, Phrae, Uttaradit, Sukhothai, Phichit, Phitsanulok, Nakhon Sawan, Uthai Thani, Kanchanaburi, Ranong, Chanthaburi and Trat should beware of flooding conditions. High sea is likely in the Andaman Sea. All ships should proceed with caution and small boats should keep ashore during 3-5 May.

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The above warning was published on the Thai Meteorological Department.

PocketWeather reported this morning that winds in Yangon were reaching 120 km/hr, gusting at 240km/hr - however I did have to fix a bug in processing the gust data - was only parsing 2 digit wind speeds - the gusting required 3 digit wind speed - now fixed...

Current is here

Current is here

Current is here

Judging from the above maps, it looks like the storm will pass to the North West of us. It has been raining a lot in the last week, although nothing to do with this storm, but apparently as a result of rain making...

Winds is picking up a little (compared to the normally very calm/no wind conditions). Unlike the UK which is constantly battered by strong winds all the time, trees and most peoples homes in the country are not designed to survive anything more than a strong breeze...

When it comes to towns and cities, although not regulated, constructions techniques use concrete, more concrete, and to be on the safe side, still more concrete...all hand mixed - and will survive just about anything...apart from...

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Update: Sunday Evening 4th May 2008 - well, other than a bit of rain on, we could have been completely unaware of what had recently happened on the coast where reportedly over 300 have been killed and 75% of the buildings destroyed - see here for more information.

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Earlier this year, our friend Martin Smith from the band delirious? brought together his musical friends (why was I not invited!) to Scotland to attend the first Compassion Art retreat.

For more information about it see here.

Below is a YouTube video of some of the musicians perform one of the new songs at the 2008 Dove Awards, Nashville.

Well done folks!

There seems to be a trend within our circle of friends to get pet dogs. This started happening a couple of years ago, first in the UK, and now here in Thailand.

Being allergic to dogs (I tend to bleed and come up with bruises when they bit me - as well as sneeze, wheeze etc), I have never been too fond of dogs. Cats are okay, as long as they belong to someone else. Worms are fine - easy to look after...in the garden.

With the world wide increase of food prices, I have finally understood the wisdom of all our friends in getting their four-legged pets. And with the predicted major climate change in Northern Europe resulting from the impending failure of the Gulf Stream - temperatures drop - snow - ice - (Skiing!). They are really "Man's Best Friend"!

While visiting Hoay Maw yesterday, we first heard, then observed a neighbour making full use of this untapped resource...

Nothing wasted - and for the Europe, the fur can be used to make warm coats

"We're having dog tonight!"

We had heard that this practice was common in the region. No we did not eat with them that evening, as we had to drive home. A source tells us that their meat tends to make you hot (I guess that means hard to digest) - excellent for cold countries, like the UK once the Gulf Stream fails...

We have heard that Bangkok resolved their stray dog problem in a similar way by exporting them. And for those worried about rabies, Thailand has a good vaccination programme.

So what's for dinner tonight?

We would naturally not make use of this practice ourselves, as we do not have a dog. We cannot judge others if they do so, whether in Thailand, or the UK...however if we were hungry, we might re-evaluate our position and start to visit friends with dogs...