Pardon the typos, but the keyboard is abit sticky, especially the space bar. Ifoundmy friends Matt and Wanda, andhave spent the past four daysor so at Whispering Seed, a property thatis being develped into anorphanage and school. Iwill be here for at least another day or two.

I've been sleepingin a hammock slung under agiant tamarind tree next to the river. Justme, my mosquito net, andlots of things that go "crunch" "whir" "buzz" "cheep" "flap" "pat" and "brrrrruuuuuup!" in the night. No "bump". The land isamazing.... there's vegetation all around, and insects andbids and lizards. There's a tokeh lizard inthe old water cistern that says "TOH-kehhhh! TOH-kehhh!" every so often - it echoes strangely in the concrete cistern, and sounds quite cool.

The facilities here are rather, um, rustic? Bathroomsare pit toilets with walls made out of bamboo lashed together and either grasses woven through or rice sacks hung across theopenings for privacy. And yes, my stool's been quite firm, thank you. I must be relativelyhealthy.

Notable happenings:
I developed a really weird skin infection on my faceon Sunday. My left eye continued swelling for acouple of days until it was so swollen that the skin began to fold, like rolls of fat. Around that eye, on my right cheek, and next to my left ear I also had patches of itchy, oozy skin that eventually developed pimples of infection. Generally, it was very gross and uncomfrtoable. There's aregistered nurse inthisgroup wholooked at it and wasn'tparticularlyworried aboutit. Nor were any of the experienced travelers or any ofthe Thai people worried about it, so I wasn't very worried about it either. Iput some antibiotic stuff on it for acouple of days, but then decided it would probably be better to let it air out and heal on its own, which is exactly what it'sdoing now. Another few days and all the scabby dry stuff will have fallen off.... hopefully no scarring, but it would be an interesting souvenir if there were!

I sawmy first scorpionever. Matt stepped on it, but then we couldn't find the body. Hmmmm.... where did it go? It's amystery.

I sat in on yesterday's classon Intelligent Pest Management. The group here is amix of about 15 "Westerners" (Spain, France, Israel, Australia, UK, US), and 10 Thai and Burmese, all studying permaculture and natural building. Classes are taught in aclearing by the river under abig mango tree. Everyonelounges around on big mats strewn around in the shade. Then we break for yummy lunch, perhaps take a swim and washsome clothes. Tuesday afternoon we made about100 bricks from mud and rice hulls. They've accumulated a big stack of adobe bricks, whichwill be used to build housingover the next few weeks. See www.whipseringseed.org for more information about where I'mstaying and the plansfor thisplace. See www.kleiwerks.org for moreinfo about adobe and other natural building techniques. They're doingwonderful work here.

Most of the participants here either live in Thailand or have beentraveling for long periods oftime. I've gotten great advice on anumber of different things,including monasteries to visit and mediation retreats to lookinto, ways to cross out of Thailand and into Laos, Burma or Cambodia, tastythings to eat, etc. I'msubmitting anapplication to a Vipassana meditation retreat during the first two weeks of Decemberoutside of Bangkok. We'll see how that goes. If it doesn't happen,then I'll proceed withplans to head east and north to Laos, thenback to Chiang Mai beforeflyingout to India.

I'mlearning how to count in Thai, and a smattering of words. It'stough to pick up, since the language has 5tones and the same word can mean verydifferent things dependingon the tone. I'm stumbling through alright, though, and it helpsto have bilingual peoplearound to coachme.

Tonight I have beenasked to host aninformaldiscussion about recycling and waste management.I've already spoken with anumber of people about it, and I'm astonished at thelevel of interest and questions that people have. I think it will beinteresting to talk abouthow to manage man-made materials in a sustainable way, since most of what this group has been discussing and studying has been managing utilizing natural resources in a self-sustaining way.

It's time to head back, so I'll sign off for now. But first, let me say how thankful Iam tobe doing this, and toknow that I have thelove and support of such great friends and family. Iwouldn't be able to do anyof this without you all.

PS - Raychel, I already have a frog in mind! Frogs here, bythe way, say "upupup!"rather than "ribbit". Apparentlyanimals have different languages in different countries as well!;)