Nicole's Wednesday in Massage

Today, all three of us were in massage. We learned how to give foot massages for patients with diabetes. Diabetic patients have decreased peripheral blood flow and can get ulcers on their feet and, as a result, need amputations.

Doctors prescribe foot massages everyday so that diabetic patients can take less medicine. 

It's really interesting to see eastern, alternative medicine in practice. Herbs, massage, and meditation are such a big part of Thai culture and there's special schools, mainly in Bangkok, to teach nurses and doctors how to practice this type of medicine.

Another interesting thing about Thailand, is that everyone still charts on paper. The nurses spend so much time writing notes after seeing each patient. Luckily, some of the printouts are in English so we can read them.

We moved homestays and our new family has three kids. Thank is studying in Bangkok at the best all boys school in Thailand. He's twelve years old and our mom, P'Job, goes to pick him up every weekend. Stamp (ten years old) and Stop (seven years old) are still at home and go to school from 8 in the morning until 7 at night sometimes because they have extra tutoring. All the students here have school uniforms, making them easily identifiable. Yesterday, Stop ran for a student body position and spoke in front of her entire school. In Thailand, the children start to learn English in kindergarten and most are very good conversationalists. 

We went out to dinner with the entire family and had Pad Thai, tom yum soup, a Chinese noodle dish, and desert. 

This week on guess what race I am, I've gotten mixed twice.