Songkran

It's that time of the year again, where children ask for blessings from their parents and grandparents, the time of ushering in the Thai New Year. It's also a time for fun. Since now is the hottest time of the year, Songkran means the water festival as well. For 3 days, there is a combination of making merit at the temples and splashing everyone with water. Another tradition is the rubbing of  "Nam Ohp", a fragrant and cooling liquid on people's faces. Nam Ohp looks similar to calamine lotion, but is very fragrant.

My Songkran celebration included none of the above. A human tidal wave came up to the chedi, vertually throughout the 3 day celebration. At one stage it was so bad, because of the human stench of sweat, that I almost reeled over backwards!

Since March 28th, I've had a new boarder....a baby nok gachok. Nok is the thai word for bird.
I have no clue as to the english name of this bird, but I will describe the baby. Maybe someone out there is familiar with this type of bird and will tell me what the english name is?!
The baby is greenish brown with a dirty white belly and about the size of a sparrow. Its beak looks like its been glued on to a clown's mouth, because of the white rim on both sides of it. It has pink legs and feet.
These birds do not gather in flocks, but rather stay together as a pair. I don't know whether this one is male or female, but whatever it is, a member of the opposite sex will eventually come for it.
How did this one find its way to my doorstep? 
One of the nuns heard a loud noise outside her hut and came to see what the commotion was all about. She saw 2 adult birds trying to peck at the baby, who very cleverly hid itself among the flower pots.
Now since I know that the adult birds often raise kauwow babies, I started feeding this baby with pellets soaked in water. It strived. At first, because it was so small, I kept it in a bucket with a T-shirt in it, in my room. Within 3 days I came off the chedi into my room and couldn't find the bird!!
Fortunately for me, this is an extremely vocal bird. I heard its call, but still couldn't find it. After homing in on its call, I found it behind the TV.  It had crawled up the cover of the TV and was clinging to the cloth!
I fed it and put it back where it belonged. When I came off the chedi again, I heard the small voice coming from the vicinity of my computer. It was sitting on my bed, demanding to be fed. That did it! This bird was not staying in my room! Out to the cage it went, where it remained until today.

Again a surprise visitor, this time for Sonkran. A baby black male kauwow had fallen out of its nest in the tree right in front of my house! It tried to run away, but had the grace of an albatros. It has huge feet and is very clumsy on the move.  To top it off, it is also very aggressive.
What do I do now??? No cage for this one!!
After weighing things over in my head, I decided that Tweet, the baby nok gachok, would stay with me in my room and the cage would be given to the newcomer. Tweet is definately a good name, because the baby nok gachok is about as vocal as any bird I've ever met. This afternoon, its been flying around my room. Short clumsy flights, which will soon be graceful enough to enable freedom for this baby
Wish me luck folks because the time is close at hand. Will let everyone know the outcome of this adventure.