"I have a bug in my ear"

Last night was so hilarious. So there I am trying to get to sleep for an early morning start and Holly starts screaming. She wriggling around holding her ear. I'm like 'What's the matter, i'm trying to sleep?' She says there's a scratching noise in her ear and its really painful. She said it felt like something has got in her ear from her headphones. So while she's squirming around, I google 'painful scratching noise in ear'. Top of the list is 'How to get rid of a bug in your ear'. She matches all the symptoms and Holly starts freaking out. Did I mention that about 10 minutes earlier we went downstairs to steal pieces of chocolate from the fridge. Karma? So anyway the page says use warm mineral oil  and pour it into your ear to drown the bug and wait 5 minutes for it to float to the top. I check about 5 other websites, they all say the same thing. She's still madly in pain and moaning but we where the hell do we get mineral oil from? The whole house is sleeping so there was only one thing we could do- Vegetable oil. We go downstairs and get the vegetable oil but it said warm. So we bashed it in the microwave for a few seconds before pouring it into a juice bottle. Next thing Holly is lying on the sofa while I am pouring warm vegetable oil into her ear. Her ear starts bubbling! There I am just waiting, waiting for some ugly cockroach or drowned ant to surface. Its tense ...but a few minutes pass and nothing. The oil just slowly drains into her brain. Not sure what to do, we give it a second attempt with not much luck. Holly still complains that her ear is sore but worried that I'm going to drown her in vegetable oil, we had nothing to do but wake up our host family. We probably should have done that at the start. I knock on their door and try and explain what happened, full hand actions and everything. They understand so its not a problem and to the hospital we go. We get to the hospital and they put Holly into a wheelchair! For an earache?! Ok dramatic!
No one speaks English and communication was a struggle but the doctor was available quickly. There we are,  Thai Mum and Dad and me all staring while the doctor shines a torch into Holly's ear. She looks puzzled and checks her other ear. Going back to the sore ear she says she can see something. We're all eager to find out what it is. A nurse passes over some extremely long tweezers and in she goes. A few seconds later she pulls out the specimen and places it on some tissue. We all go in and examine it. It was about half a cm wide, round, yellow-brown ..... it was earwax.
Tense moment over ..even though Holly still thought she had a bug in there and she still does! She moaned that it still really hurt so the doctor prescribed her some medicine. Holly still in her wheelchair, we waited at least 15 minutes for this medicine. Finally we could go home and I could go back to bed! Even after treatment, Holly was still wheeled out of the hospital! Service or what? In the car we open the miraculous medicine we waited ages for, to find the doctor had given paracetamol and ear wax remover - brilliant!

1 week in Nakhon Sawan, my legs are covered in mosquito bites.

It has been a week now since we have been in Nakhon Sawan but it feels like a month. Everyday is so long and we do so much. There is just far to much to talk about and one of my friends just told me that I'm not very good at writing so instead I'll show you a few photos of what we have been doing. We now have more information on our project though. We are going to be teaching in 8 schools which are ran by the government of Nakhon Sawan. We will spend a month in each school and I think and once a week we go and teach at a novice monk school called Killiwong school which is a school for boys who come from poor backgrounds so they become monks in order to get access to education.It is supported by the SET Foundation who also pays our wages-6250 baht a month which works out at 125 pounds. We haven't started teaching yet just observed lessons and how things work. 

As they say, pictures speak a thousand words so here we go:

Monks at Killiwong sleeping in the library.

 Our living room at our hosts. On the walls is our new family. The kids when they were young.

 Our Home for another week.

 Can't see very clearly here but mad downpour when we went out for dinner. The are frequent out bursts of crazy raining here.

 We were invited to a thai wedding which was nice. Here the bride and groom sit while guests pour water over their hands as a sign of good luck.

 As foreigners me and Holly are treated like VIPs and here we are enjoying a nice frappucino!

 Some excited thai kids at a private school that we went to observe

Sports day! The students put on a show and showed us their dancing. 

Rode an elephant today! Was so exciting but pretty scary I must admit!

Me and my thai brother- Time (and Holly in the background)

The ruins of Ayuttaya 

So that's our week so far. We start teaching on the 10th and move into our flat on the 8th. I'll update you soon. Also forgot to mention our thai Mum is very Mumsy and likes to do our hair in the morning hence in every photo my hair has some kind of ornament in it!

Anyway its getting late now, so goodnight.