Living Together, Learning Together, Working Together, Eating Together!

Story and photos by Gai

This is what we shout out loudly before enjoying our meal together in Da Laa work camp and this will make us realize the point of our camp.

Da Laa, the International Volunteers Organization for Social Development is an interesting community I met in Songkla, a very big province in the south of Thailand. Two weeks that I spent for a short term camp with them was enough to develop a sustainable friendship between us.


Our camp worked on art projects around the community. We repainted and drew pictures on school walls, toilets, and academic buildings. There are ten people from five countries: Germany, Holland, America, Korea, and Thailand. After everybody was ready, we Da Laa short term camp people jumped on a truck heading to the exciting camp.




The first day was pretty hard for us to work, because we spent so much energy cleaning the dirty walls. Since I am a talkative person, I started speaking non-stop with all new friends. Also, I sang for them while we were working. “Guess what! I got the Talk-Too Much Award from the international friends.

The villagers and students came to help us out in the other day. We worked very fast when they joined us. It took a very short time to clean the walls, so we painted them together afterward. Everybody enjoyed drawing their pictures while talking to each other.


My favorite activity is cooking. In the camp, we do everything ourselves, cooking and cleaning. It’s very fun when we have to cook for ten people who are from the different parts of the world. Once, I cooked omelet soup for our lunch. One of my friends told me that I am very good at cooking, but he was eating rice with sauce instead of my soup.


During the camp, we stopped working for three days to join the 5 years anniversary of Da Laa in Sa Tun. I couldn’t sleep in the night before we travel to the area; I was so excited to see the Andaman Sea for the first time in my life. The anniversary took place in a fishing community, where we could have delicious fresh sea food every day. Also, we could walk to a beautiful beach to see the wonderful sunset in the evening. It was amazing swimming under the warm golden sky!

Since the villagers helped us to work, we finished working very fast. The walls and toilets are colorful and look so lively with our drawing; the class rooms are newer in pink color. The teachers, villagers and children made us a warm thank you party. We had dinner together, talking, and taking photos as it was our last time being together. The student provided us a special “Ram Nora”, which is a Southern Thai dancing. We ended up with singing karaoke until the new day came.




Before leaving the school, we went to see our pictures as the last time. I was wondering will the pictures still there when I come back, will the sun and rain fade the color away, and will I remember all of the drawers.

“Living together, Learning together, working together, eating together.” I remember what we say every day. Then I realized what the most important thing I gained from my experience, it is “friendship” between friends, community, society, and the world.