Sisaket - and MONKEYS!

We took a two-day trip to a province south-east of us which borders Cambodia, and yes, I did spend 15 minutes trying to see if there was a chance we could "pop over" to Angkor Wat (someday...). Since it was an 8 hour trip there and a 5 hour trip back, and we left at 11am Tuesday and got back at 8pm Wednesday, you can imagine that it was not an easy trip for the boys. In short, it was a lot of car time and when not in the car, we were talking or in official meetings with people so with no one to watch the boys, they suffered. Luckily, these kinds of things rarely happen and for 98% of the time we are able to work out a good schedule between us and the kids, but I still felt bad for them

Anyway, the purpose of the trip was to visit Sisaket College of Agriculture and Technology and talk with the professors there about their work with PRAM students. I also have this secret dream of getting a dairy goat so I spent a significant amount of time questioning the goat professor and looking at the goat living quarters. Unfortunately, they did not have dairy goats (only meat goats) but it was still really interesting.

I have this fascination with dairy (which is why I want a dairy goat) because there is so little of it in Thailand. I miss CHEESE! Cream cheese, gouda, cheddar, parmesan, etc. Yogurt, sour cream, heavy cream, ice cream (that's made with actual cream). I've never really cared that much about where dairy products come from. But living here has really made me think about where food comes from and how I can get it on my own (when it is not offered in stores).

For instance, I want corn tortillas. If I prowled the stores every day, I might get lucky every couple of weeks to see that they were in stock at Carrefour or something. Clearly that's not realistic. So I spent a good hour looking online to see how they are made and what I would have to do to make them. Luckily, corn grows really well here. And slaked lime (cal) is readily available (it's what those old women with the red gunk in their teeth use to mix with betel leaves). But I'd need the corn to be dried and all I can find so far is stuff that's used as animal feed. I still haven't established whether or not it's fit for human consumption.

So I was thinking about cheese and I thought to myself, hey, what if I made my own cheese? Then I thought about the milk and thought about all the goats I saw in Laos and decided that it might be interesting to have a dairy goat. I'm not sure what will come of this but we'll see.

All of this contact with agricultural students and teachers has really started me thinking about farming and animal husbandry and how those skills are pretty much applicable everywhere.

Anyway, here are some pictures from our trip. Serm (Nick's assistant) was driving and so knew about this cool Buddhist wat (temple) right off the road - but in a grove of big trees - that had monkeys. It was the first time Ezra and Eli have ever seen real monkeys and their reaction was a mixture of fear and giddiness. I'm not a big fan of monkeys but it was really neat to see them anyway.