Frogs aren't just for hopping

That’s right, frogs just happen to be for eating too. It’s actually quite a delicacy.

Well, once again I resorted to thinking “I can’t come all the way to Thailand, live here for a year, and not try _______ (insert any strange/disgusting food you can imagine here).” So as I sat with the female teachers at one of my favorite restaurants, Gnow Pi, eating lunch the male teachers who sat at the other table called me over to their table. They kept saying “Gope”, which means frog in Thai. I stared at the plate of frog sitting in front of me and inside I worked up the courage to try frog. They gave me a huge frog leg to try and were telling me “Andrea arroy (delicious)”. I’m not quite brave enough to try a whole frog leg, so I took a little piece of it off. I dipped it in the chili sauce (I’m not sure if that’s cheating, since I kind of masked the flavor, but just a little I promise), snapped a picture and then popped it into my mouth.

The idea of eating frog was disgusting to me, but the taste was actually pretty good. It kind of tasted just like chicken (it’s funny how all strange meats seem to resemble the taste of chicken). It was really, really chewy though and it took a while to finally break it down enough to swallow it, but all in all, I hate to admit that I actually think frog is tasty. Although, I don’t want to eat frog ever again just because of the thought of it, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wanted some.

Tonight in English class we finished writing our letters to our pen pals. The past 2 weeks we have been focusing on learning how to write our letters and learning the information that goes in it. The kids really enjoyed doing them and I think it made it more exciting knowing their letters are going to friends in America. One of my amazing teachers (my 8th grade teacher) is having her students write letters to my students. I took pictures of all my students and printed up their pictures so they put their letter and their picture in their envelopes and got them all ready to send off. Some of them included pictures of their houses, of their family, and some drew pictures for their friend. It’s so cute! They really loved it! I can’t wait until my students get letters back. It really makes them want to learn English even more!!

After English class, I had the awesome opportunity to lay out on mats in the field with about 10 of the kids. It’s not the rainy season anymore so the clouds have left our Thai sky, leaving only stars to fill the sky at night. There are no city lights or street lights or anything to block our view of seeing the stars. We all laid there singing Thai and English songs and spoke to each other in the blend of English and Thai that we know and lifted our laughs up to the sky. One of the songs we sang had this line in it “And I’m so happy, so very happy, I’ve got the love of Jesus in my heart”. I truly am so happy. Not only do I have the love of Jesus but I have over 100 kids love as well. I can’t even explain what that is like. What it’s like to simply lay in a field with 10 of my favorite children as I look up at the sky that is almost white with stars, and as if the night wasn’t already amazing enough, God blessed me with a shooting star to top it all off! He’s so good to me!