Pictures

 Just a quick note that a bunch of pictures are up on facebook in case you haven't seen them. I saved the ones of where I'm actually living for here. I still haven't figured out they best way to do pictures because facebook seems so accessible for everyone but I've mentioned things here that have pictures associated with them so basically its a process and we'll figure it out together.

Meh gap bpaa tam ahhaan.

Mom and aunt make food.

the other side of the kitchen

bpaa rosie tii hong kruua

My aunt in the kitchen.

saao gap bpaa gap yii kong rosie.

my sister my aunt and my grandma.

yii rosie

My grandma(super adorable, right?)

My living room with dinner right before we sit down for dinner.  We eat on the floor. More on eating habits later(remind me if I forget)

The view of the living room from the other side.

The table that is in the room that I would usually call the kitchen but it's not where anyone cooks.  From what I've seen there seems to be a kitchen like room in most thai houses but then there is another 'room' that is mostly outside that is where the cooking actually gets done. This room is however where the food gets stored.

Kanom bplaa-muk-yak

octopus (snack)

My bedroom.

My badass mom barefoot climbing a tree with a machete tied to a 20 ft bamboo pole gathering thai herbs from the tree for our dinner.

Thaim keepin busy

Sunday Jan 20th 

     So yesterday I moved in with home stay family where I'm gonna live for the next 8 weeks. It's a gorgeous huge house right on the river. My family is made up of my mom, my sister, my aunt and my grandma. This morning my brother was here too but he wasn't here last night and hasn't been here since so I'm not sure if he lives with us. I don't know any of their names because they told me to call them mom, sister and aunt. They have three dogs two of which I'm not allowed to touch because they will bite me. One of them I'm not even supposed to go within 3 feet of. The house is gorgeous. Its a raised house with gorgeous thick teak flooring and a huge living room.

Last night I went on a bike ride with my sister and she showed me all different kinds of rice, the banana trees, the coconut trees, the mango trees and the papaya trees. So basically I live in paradise.

Last night was funny because I don't have very good language skills so I would try to understand what they were saying and I would explain, "Di-chan kao-jai 'pom' gap 'dha lat'. Di-chan mai kao-jai" or in english, "I understand 'I' and 'market'. I don't understand". So it ended with basically them trying to talk to me and me either pretending I understood despite the fact that I had absolutely no idea what the eff was going on and then they would laugh at me or I would just say mai kaojai and they would laugh at me. Either way we all ended up laughing which I would say made it a success.

Today I had breakfast which was basically chicken(gai) broth with a bit of rice(kaao) and vegetables(paak). After finishing breakfast my sister and I decided to go for a bike ride to visit another PCV Molly down the road. We went to Molly's house and saw the roosters that her family cockfights and these crazy huge fish that reminded me of the sand snakes in beetlejuice. They were like two feet long and apparently they bite like a dog. We also saw her families catfish. We were given candy and treats there and while we were there two other volunteers arrived to say hi. So then we went to their house because they live next door to each other and their hosts are part of the same family. When we got to this house we had a birthday party for my sister and another PCV Jill so we had banana cake, green mango, butter crackers and something else that I'm forgetting. Then the plan was to go to my house but the leader of the group stopped at a roadside noodle place because she thought we needed lunch. Keep in mind its about 11:30 and all I've done today was bike maybe 10 minutes and eat. So yeah, I'm not super hungry. Thankfully neither are any of the other PCVs so they decide to take us to the mini mart across the street instead which has all sorts of different soap, many different kinds of rice, pepsi, lots of flavored milk(I'm pretty sure thats what it was but it was weird because there was orange flavor and a green flavor and other weird colors)

Things I learned Jan 19-20 
 I love mankoot(mangosteens).
 I know everybody says it but the Thai people are always eating.
 Papaya salad is really fricken spicy.
 Pii-Saao(sister) Shy is trying to teach me thai script so I learned how to write my name in Thai script. [update: now that it's been a few days she is my nong saao(younger sister) not my pii-saao(older sister)].
 Molly's home stay brother Bank taught us a new card game Slaf that it turns out is a lot like Asshole - I'm actually pretty sure its the same game without all the drinking. [update: I feel stupid (nothing new). It turns out slaf is actually kun Bank not being able to pronounce a V so this game is actually just called Slave and is precisely Asshole]
 Its illegal to gamble in thailand. This was the answer when I asked if people bet on the fighting roosters so I'm pretty sure they still bet on them but they were just telling me that gambling is illegal.
 In the afternoon (on sunday at least) my entire family individually tells me to take a nap around 2:30. I don't know If thats what you do on Sundays midday or if I looked particularly tired but after the 4th person in the family told me I could/should take a nap I just gave in and parked my butt in the hammock made of bailing twine(yeah, not the most comfortable but I only realized that after I was already in it) to read a book aka read two pages a pass out.
 Lightning Mcqueen is even popular in Thailand.

Things I learned Jan 21 
 Today we had some more medical training so I learned poop jokes are still hilarious to me.
 My family owns a tour bus company and they have at least 4 buses and the "go everywhere in Thailand". My brother who is 20 DRIVES one of the buses. CRAZY!!! Just think about that. In america he couldn't rent a car without extra insurance or whatever and he drives up to 50 people around in a double decker sleeper bus. Insanity.
 In the thai sitcom that my family follows(and I am now pretty addicted to even though I've only watched 3 nights) the main girl kissed the main guy on the cheek and it was super crazy and exciting. I almost wanted to laugh but I was genuinely so excited.
 glue-ay batch - banana in coconut milk

Jan 21

 I learned a lot of thai in the last couple days too but I always seem to forget it by the time I have to use it again so I'm not sure that I've really LEARNED it. Anyway today was our first day of school again after our first couple nights at home stay so it was nice to reconvene and talk through how awkward the weekend was. one funny story involves these things called pakimas which the dude's use to cover up when they are going to and from the bathroom or just lounging around the house. they are kinda sarong like and girls have a similar thing and I can't remember the name[Update:Pasin or Pasim is the name] Anyway, you have to tie them both in a specific way in order to have them stay up and the thai's are very very good at this because they've been taught since they were two. PCTs, however, are terrible. In our training sessions everyones was on the verge of falling down and looked it, while the training staff looked as if they were wearing pressed skirts. Anyway so this one guy Brandon apparently was walking around with his mom doing morning chores and most Thai house compounds(most of the houses I've seen are part of a family compound) have a little prayer house thing at the front of them. So he was helping his home stay mom do the offerings and he does the incense and the wai(bow) to the first one and the second one and when he steps to the third one his pakima drops to his knees. He immediately drops and picks it up and covers himself. For the rest of the day his host mom told everyone that came ever to meet him.

I haven't had much embarrassment as of yet. weird right? I'm not sure what it is. I mean I bet if I understood anything that they were saying I'd be pretty embarrassed. It was pretty funny when I was skyping on sunday and I happened to be outside. When my family heard that I was talking to someone they all came and sat around the computer with me. They got really excited and my mom started showing Sam all these pictures of her when she was younger which she still hasn't even shown me. It was funny and interesting but I totally wasn't expecting and hadn't really planned for that. I'm not sure if they realized he was drinking whiskey and I wasn't gonna point it out no matter how jealous I was. Speaking of which, I haven't had a sip of alcohol or a cigarette since I've been here. It hasn't really been difficult if only because I'm so busy. I do wish I could have a beer in the evening but it's not really appropriate for Thai women and PC wants us to set ourselves apart from tourists and act the part of our Thai counterparts and actually in most cases be more restricted or formal than even our Thai counterparts.

 Okay also last thing before I head to bed for the night. I hope my writing style doesn't bother you because I'm probably not gonna change it anyway. But in the case that it does just pretend its in my voice and it gets easier to read. I speak in run-on sentences with all sorts of clauses and so thats how I'm writing this, otherwise I would have to edit and stuff and then I would never post anything.

 Jan 22

 So a little update I'm in training from 8 til 4:30 every day and my home stay family wakes up at 6 to do chores and I try so hard but no matter what time I set my alarm somehow I cant wake up before 6:30 so I'm the 'lazy' person in the house. Also I'm the leader of our biking caravan to the training sight so I've got to be at the first stop at about 7:20 at which point we then pick up 4 other people and then bike for about 30 minutes to the hub site, which actually changes today so it might be more like 45 minutes.  The past few days haven't been bad because it's been from 7:30 to 8:30 so it's still only about 70 but as of tomorrow we are doing a lot of our morning classes in our respective subdistricts and then the after noon portion at the hub so not only will I have to bike longer but it will be directly in the middle of the hottest part of the day(about 90 degrees because remember this is the COOL season). I have wifi at my house which feels very luxurious but I'm trying not to use it a lot because I want to try to acclimate so I'm only letting myself be on for about a half hour or so a day unless I'm skyping which had only happened once so far but again thats basically because I don't have time.

 Jan 23 

 So I've been learning so much it feels like I'm gonna explode of learning(also I'm kinda already speaking broken english because I'm trying so hard to learn thai). Some fun things that I learned in the last couple days:

-My yii(grandma) when I asked what she liked to eat answered green soda, which is super adorable. She's 81 and often will just smile at me and gently hold my arm or put her hand on my knee while we watch the Thai soaps. She's the best. Also I still don't know her name.
-In thai when you talk about how many siblings you have you count yourself. So I have 3 piinong. Me Molly and Annie
- In thai, cats say meow; frogs say gop(hard g); dogs say hong and Pigs say oot. (oo as in too)
- They sell tiger balm here and it's the only thing that will make my legs/ankles/toes stop itching from mosquito bites.
- My meh(mom) is 43 and named bon chuu(this might be wrong because it doesn't really make sense because the word name is in the name). My bpaa(aunt) is 52 and is named Pra. My bpaw(dad) is 48 and named Pri Cha. My saao(sister) is 15 and named Shy and my yii is 81 and named Lu In. Now for all these names 1) I'm pretty sure I'm wrong and 2) if I'm not wrong they are still probably nicknames or something that I should call them as opposed to their actual names. For instance, Pri is something that you put in front of peoples names who are older than you but younger than your parents. Nong is something that you put in front of peoples names who are younger than you and Bpa is something you put in front of people your parents ages and older.
 - funny story - yesterday I realized that I have been consistently telling people that I was 28 and so today my saao was telling someone that I was 28 and I had to try with my limited thai to tell her that I was an idiot and I forgot how old I was and that I was actually 27 not 28. Needless to say my thai was not really up to snuff. So now I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm an idiot and crazy and that she was the one who was wrong so, ya know, all good stuff.

 I wanted to post something on here because I've been writing but not posting because I didn't have pictures. I'll upload pictures of my house and some other stuff this weekend hopefully. Also, I'm so crazy that I actually had to look up at the corner of my computer and got really excited that it's thursday and that means only 1.5 more days of classes til I don't have class for a WHOLE DAY!!!! Hope all is well over there and I'm missing you all and wishing you were all here.

Thaired of Learning

DISCLAIMER: I wrote this while fevering so I think it makes sense but I'm not sure. Also still figuring out formatting. So I'm not gonna be able to post everyday but a couple Mardi Gras ago we came up with this rule where we couldn't have fun until we said 3 things we learned the day before so I decided I would write down at least three things I learned each day

Things I learned Jan 15
 We aren't allowed to travel in 3 most southern provinces because its too dangerous
 There are 77 provinces in Thailand
Our home stays will be in Si Prachan province
One of my fellow PCTs(Peace Corps Trainees) already dropped out for family reasons For YinD(Youth in Development) we have to be at intermediate language level while TCCS(I don't know what it stands for but its teaching) only has to be at a novice level. 
The Thai word for teacher is ahhjan
Sam Cole put in an offer on a house in portland, YAY!

Things I learned Jan 16
There's an aquarium with a bunch of sharks in Suphan Buri
Getting the flu shot actually gives me the flu. It's either the flu shot or the 26 hrs on a plane, new food, 3 other vaccinations, a totally different time zone, very little sleep, 90 degree weather AND the flu shot. Either way, I'm sick.
The deputy governor gets to wear a purple short sleeved collared shirt to work and it's not even casual friday.
Suphan Buri is a agricultural province and grows over 70 different kinds of rice.(I honestly didn't even know there were that many different kinds of rice.)

Things I learned Jan 17
Despite the fact that in portland I feel totally inept in the biking world, I'm a biking expert in the realm of PCTs. I'm super excited to bike in part because every things flat and bikini is one of the only ways to get a breeze. Also, just because I said that I will probably be the only one in the hills for my post.
Being sick and fevering in 90 degree weather is really unfun. I suppose this isn't something that I learned but I relearned it on a different level.
I'm gonna need a gallon of sunscreen and a gallon of bug spray every month here.
Remembering to bike on the 'wrong' side of the road is difficult.
Often the right of way laws or actually most traffic laws Thai people take a a suggestion as opposed to a law so basically you have to assess each situation individually. For instance the example that was used in class was if you are on the left side of the road on a bike and you have someone on a moto coming towards you(going the wrong way), you should move in(to the right and into the car lane) to avoid the moto.
There is no real repercussions for drivers who cause personal injury. One of our bike instructors was hit earlier this year by a 14 year old who was being taught by his dad how to drive. He had to go to the hospital and stuff and in the end the only thing that happened was they paid for part of his medical bills but there were no legal repercussions.

Things I learned Jan 18
The seaweed they have in the 7-11 (oh yeah, I forget when I learned that they have 7-11s but they do and they are everywhere) is seasoned so its sweet. Its interesting.
Apparently I miss little big burger because I had a dream about their fries.
Its pretty difficult to try to activate a phone and top up and buy a charger when you know very little Thai.
A lot of the orange juice they sell at the corner store is actually more like Hi C or Sunny D
One of my fellow PCTs was a photographer in the army for 20 years.

Be Gentle It's My First Thai

Jan 14 2013 So I landed!!! Yay! Our flight out of San Fran was delayed for about an hour and a half, only after we were all on the plane of course. Also this was the biggest plane I've ever seen. It's one of those new ones that United has and it's HUGE. Anyway we still made our connecting flight in Japan and really it just made us have a shorter layover there which was good. Then we arrived in Bangkok at midnight bangkok time on Monday morning(9am Sunday Morning PDX time) and after customs and everything and the drive to Suphan Buri we didn't get to the hotel until around 4am(1pmPDX) and we were told to go to sleep because breakfast was at 8 AM. Peace Corps doesn't screw around but amazingly I feel fantastic, I can't decide if its because I'm running on fumes or because I'm acclimated but I'm thinking its a bit of both So about my peers: everyone's super cool and interesting here. Most people have comparable travel experience maybe less. There are a couple of people who have been to Thailand before but it seems most people haven't been to SE Asia so I feel like I have a leg up on the customs and transitioning. Everybody is way cooler than I had made myself think(which I knew was gonna be the case but I had to trick myself anyway). Our ages range from about 22 to 75 but I would say the average age is about 28. Mostly girls but more dudes that I was originally expecting. There are a couple of married couples which I think will and interesting experience for both them and to witness their experience. We had our first day of Pre Service Training from 10-4:30 today and it was full of lots of info and paperwork and a couple vaccinations(Jap Encef and Rabies, mom I know you're happy) and some language. So dog bites are apparently such an issue that that was our first vaccination that they decided to give us. Apparently after all the worrying that everyone did for wardrobe we still didn't actually get it right. I'm okay on wardrobe but they said I shouldn't wear my bright skirts until everyone already gets to know me and respects me. Poop. Oh well. Also, the food is already pretty spicy for me but it's good because it's making me drink more water and between the heat and the plane rides and everything I need as much water as I can get. On that note: my feet are the size of fricken watermelons. I feel like my feet just got injected with cologin Seriously. I tried to do a lunge this morning and I couldn't because my back ankle's skin hurt to much to bend like that. It's disgusting. I'll leave you with a picture of my gross fat feet and we'll talk again soon.

Sawatdii Ka (Goodbye!)

Pre Service Training

So tomorrow I leave for San Francisco for PST. Here's my blog. We'll see where it goes. It might not be updated super frequently for the first couple months because life is gonna be crazy and I'm not gonna have lots of internet access but as time goes on this will probably be the easiest way to keep updated on my life. YAY for PEACE CORP!