Christine and I woke up early this morning and shuffled around our apartment in order to get ready for the day. We arrived at Mahidol and took a van to Sirindhorn Hospital. There we were able to participate in a session with Elderly adults at the hospital for daycare. As we set up all our instruments/visual aids a spunky eccentric, but passionate woman named Susan introduced herself and her theories in laughter yoga. Though I am not completely sold on her therapy techniques she builds excellent rapport with the clients she sees. It is obvious in the way the patients light up when she walks into the room.
After a fifteen minute session of laughter yoga, we switched over to our music therapy session. The clients participated in singing along to some Thai and some Western songs, while also playing instruments and waving scarves. A Chinese man who hadn't spoken a single word since his second stroke started singing the words to "Que Sera Sera." An old man in his 90's was able to sit up to play a shaker. All the patients were smiling and enjoying themselves, which was beautiful to see.
Afterward, Bo led the group in a SongWriting intervention. I don't know Thai, and what the song was even about but the patients seemed to have a good time. One particular woman, who is blind, was very vocal about her ideas for the song. The nurses and family members seemed to be surprised.
After the group ran through their newly composed song a couple of times the session ended. We said Sawasdee to the patients and Susan so we could get back to Mahidol in time for more sessions. Back at the University we were able to get lunch before we started to focus more on clinical work. Yoshi and Honey and Note took a small group of us to lunch and we all had very delicious food. It was really fun to hang out with them even if they make fun of my irrational fear of crocodiles.
Fried rice!
Kiwi smoothie!
After watching a session me and SPeak were able to go over our plan for the session we are doing tomorrow. Then Modang and Ploi took us to a fancy coffee shop on the College of Music Campus. The lime soda was delicious!
After going to the coffee shop us Americans went to the rehearsal of the Thai Symphony at Prince Mahidol Hall. They are soooooo good! And the performance hall has amazing acoustics. I could have sat and listened for a lot longer if we didn't get hungry. So of course dinner was at the omelet cart, and then it's off to sleep because tomorrow we have to be up early again!
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