Yellow shirt day
Today Claire, Eliza, and I joined thousands of others in Thailand by wearing yellow shirts in honor of King Bhumipol. Earlier this year Thailand celebrated the 60th anniversary of his ascension to the throne. He is currently the world's longest-reigning monarch and is held in very high esteem by the Thai people. Since he was born on a Monday, and Monday's color is yellow, it has become very popular here to wear yellow shirts on Mondays. We see them every day of the week, but on Monday's they are everywhere. We also see portraits of the king everywhere - on overpasses and billboards, in shops and on the sides of buildings.
We had lunch with Dan Byler (our regional director). We had sticky rice, papaya salad, and grilled chicken. It was all delicious and we ate it in the traditional way - with our fingers while sitting on the floor. Claire and Eliza enjoyed that, but since we were sitting on the floor it was hard to keep Eliza from scooting onto the plates of food.