This is Daniela reporting to you from a big porch with chickens bocking away and an incredible view of green mountains.

Last week, we had the opportunity to stay in Chiang Rai for a couple of days.

The city was filled with beautiful streets and a vibrant night market with delicious ripe mangos; by the way, mangos everywhere in Thailand are amazing if you didn’t know. In the city, we got to do our laundry with an actual machine, visit the famous cat cafe, and visit Wat Huay Pla Kang and The Blue Temple.

From street lights to forest trees, our team has been in Ban Apaa village for the last week where we had the chance to work on our first service project. We have spent the week helping out the village build a water reservoir. We were all beginners at construction work besides our fabulous overseas leaders, Paff and Natalie, which really pulled the weight in physically tough situations (Thank you!). Despite our lack of experience, our local contact/guide kept encouraging us with the unforgettable words “learning by doing”. This will be engraved in our hearts and minds forever. The local people also taught us how to work properly and efficiently.

Part 1: the trek

After a bittersweet goodbye to our host families, we took a 4-hour long bus ride to our next destination. As the scenery transitioned from a bustling city to rural hills, to the dramatic green slopes of the Western Ghats, the group became more and more excited for a change in the view. Our destination was a campsite located a couple of kilometers from a beautiful waterfall, where the group snapped some really nice pictures. We had a really nice dinner, made by our hosts, the guides who would be leading us on the Munnar Trek for the next few days. When we woke up, we packed our daypacks and began to ascend the second highest peak in the Western Ghats.

This week we stayed at the wonderful Bambu Guest House in Tzununá. Although we missed our homestay families from last week in San Juan, everyone was very happy to once again be sleeping under the same roof. We have a gorgeous view of Lake Atitlan and the mountain ranges surrounding us. On clear nights, we have even gotten to see El Fuego volcano erupting in the distance across the lake!

Tzununá is a mostly quiet town except for fireworks that the locals insist on setting off at 5 AM. If we are lucky enough to sleep through the loud explosions, we wake up at 7:30 AM to chow down on the delicious breakfast that the staff at the Bambu prepares for us. Then, we usually make the dreaded uphill trek on the gravel road to our host’s farm, Atitlan Organics.

On the 18th we got to settle into our family homestays. Bonding with these families, learning about their culture, customs and food have been the highlight of the trip so far. Each host family provides us with a roof over our heads and home-cooked food. And in return, Carpe students have the opportunity to connect with the family (and are responsible for being home by seven o’clock!). As students, we have been able to have conversations with our homestay families about women’s roles in Indian culture, the struggles they face as Muslims in India today, and about the rich history India has to offer.

Hey friends and family of the hustling and bustling Sabai 2020 group. This is Whitney (Whitneeeeyyy in Thai) coming to you from our first official laundry stop in 2 weeks in Chiang Rai, Thailand.

After an inspiring first week in Chiang Mai for orientation, we packed up our bags from the Sarah Guest House and our lovely Ajarn (teacher) Panom drove us a quick 45ish minutes past Mae Rim to a tiny village named Ban Rai. Right off the bat, we started learning paasaa Thai or Thai language for those who didn’t attend school in Thailand from Ajarn Petchara (I’m thinking most of you). We started out with learning the five tones, which sounded more like a music class than a language class, with us filling the room with “gaaAAA”s versus “GAAaaa”s.

Buenos dias from San Juan! Rachel and Alissa here to share with you the adventures of the week! We left Antigua on Monday morning and drove to Lake Atitlan. We got to enjoy a lovely boat ride across the lake to the vibrant town of San Juan. From here, we met up with our welcoming homestay families and went to see our new homes for the week.

Each morning after delicious homemade breakfasts, we all met at San Juan Spanish School for Spanish classes from 8am till 12pm. We held class outside and went on mini field trips to the beach, the pier, and around town. We then got to look forward to a fantastic lunch back home with our families. Some favorite meals include platanos fritos, pupusas, creative vegetarian tacos, and tamales.

Wow!

What a jam-packed first week it’s been.

After close to 40 hours of travel, we woke up early our first day and we were warmly welcomed by our host, Celia, to a delicious Kerala breakfast. We were lucky to start our days off like this, and every morning Celia would cook a new Kerala specialty for us. By the way, they cook with lots of coconuts in Kerala-as Kerala actually means the land of coconuts. So one morning we had coconut and rice flour pancakes with shredded coconut.