So this most recent post has involved a lot of scatterbrained ramblings and there are more that a few abrupt endings because I got distracted or bored or went to sleep or some other real life event happened that I had to tend to. Have no fear I am still the relatively sane individual I left you as, with a little more thai nuances, a lot more inner and sometimes outer monologues and a rapidly diminishing english vocabulary(yesterday I forgot the english word for park).
June 2
Today I didn't really do anything. It was actually pretty boring. I woke up late at 8:30 bolt upright because it was so late and i felt guilty. only to go outside my room and realize my entire family is gone. So i went to eat my breakfast of rice, multiple day old oysters a fried egg and three day old fish(this is totally usual and none of it has been refrigerated). I haven't been sick yet so I figure I'm good…or crazy but i'm still not dead.
Then I basically sat on my bed and started reading dr jekyll and mr hyde and an hour or so later was done. So I decided to go to work and ended up getting sucked into the internet all day.
It's almost like a day i could've had at home.
Now I'm watching Jurassic Park. It's awesome. Also, that really completes the fact that it feels like home. I do wish I could have some friends and some tasty food, but I'll take what i can get.
June 3
one teacher gave me a 2 year plan: reduce reuse recycle - thats it. but the silver lining was that it was in english. it's the little things here.
third meeting about my plan and none shows up. so its official now- i'm doing it on my own.
oh wait - everyone showed up and we just talked for two and half hours and I know no more than i did when I entered and now I'm frustrated because what two and a half hours ago was my new youth group that I was really excited about is now me teaching english three days a week to people from 12-20 and my wrong nayok says no one will be interested if I teach about sex and drugs and also I have to teach about english because thats what the flyer she already passed out to everyone says i would do. Also I should have a coteacher and she picked one for me (one, who I might add, is one of the busiest men I've ever met and will never be able to have the time to help me plan at all let alone the plan to show up at the allotted time). Also I mentioned that because said teacher doesn't have so much time maybe we should change it form three days a week(tuesday, wednesday, thursday) to two days a week, but we can't because when she and the nayok say something they have to keep it. also fast forward to when she tells me we're doing this for the next two months(despite the fact that i thought it was the new indefinite plan) and I mention to her that I have a training with peace corps for half of next month and she gets all pissy (in her very polite thai way) and says 'okay well i wish you would've told me that before I told everyone. next time when you want to do something tell me when you have a meeting'. okay, but pc just told me last week. ANYWAY fast forward again to later when we have a meeting and one of the girls comes in with said flyer and points out that the flyer says that I'm teaching on tuesday, wednesday and friday, to which my wrong nayok says oh, well rosie what are you doing on friday night? I say its my holiday. she slightly belabored says okay well change it and let everyone know(to the girl) and I stop her before she leaves and propose that we have the 'youth' group two days a week instead of three. if these meetings have any resemblance to how difficult this youth group with be its gonna be a disaster. also after all that i went out to lunch with her and the nayok and she mentioned it all to him and he said, okay, whatever, it's free, they get what they get.
I don't want to be an english teacher. at one point i actually got out the YinD breakdown and talked to her like she was an idiot and explained that this is what I want to do because this is what peace corps wants me to do.
also the special education center wrote up a plan for my drug education projects. that doesn't make sense. to anyone in the room. when i asked about it the sped teacher and the other teacher said i asked her the same question, but apparently my wrong nayok thinks that it makes sense because they could be easily convinced to be mules. THAT IS THE LEAST OF OUR PROBLEMS AND HONESTLY AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME YOU SHOULD PROBABLY GET IN A DEFENSIVE POSITION BECAUSE I'M ABOUT TO FLIP OUT AND THROW MY PAPERS EVERYWHERE.
also drug plan- it has three points
-teach about drugs
-take care of the people…
-
yep thats as far as we got. when I tried to clarify what people we were taking care of they started talking about HIV, but that is in fact a totally separate goal that we have not even tried to tackle yet.
also this plan is due on the 14th and someone from peace corps is coming on the 5th and my wrong nayok wants it done by then so we can give it to peace corps on the 5th and they can give us revisions before the final due date. I can't bear to break her heart and explain that there is no way in fucking hell there is gonna be anything close to an outline of a plan two days from now, but that was a funny joke.
also, yesterday i saw the aftermath of an accident and I saw a man who used to be on a motorcycle on the ground not really moving and we weren't sure what had happened. today on our way to lunch my nayok was talking about it and I asked if everyone was okay(assuming the answer would be that the kid died). He said yes everyone was okay and only had minor injuries. Super surprised, I said, thats great!!! he replied with, yes, only a broken head. I'm pretty sure that means a cracked skull, but none of the interpretations I can come up with would be qualified as minor injuries.
It's a really confusing day when the least stressful thing I could be doing is reading thai. This is what we call a silk purse though.
there are moments when my life here seems futile and then I see an ant on my desk and I try to kill eat but I can't because its stuck under the glass plate that is affix to my desk and I see no way in or out. Then I feel a little better about my life and spend the next couple minutes just watching the lone ant wander around the wasteland of my desk.
And my iPod shattered.
and I want a beer.
and I have an awesome new family that I talked about all sorts of stuff with. Including Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge and Cambodia and how the US didn't really care about it because it was too busy with the vietnam war. and all sorts of shit that even if we did talk we probably wouldn't talk about in my house. that said, now that I think about it, i bet my yaai and my parents have some really cool stories about when they were kids. Maybe I'll try to ask them sometime.
okay now I'm gonna eat all the desserts and watch some terrible movie and try to forget that this day happened.
JUST a note- despite the fact that this day was incredibly frustrating and it seemed like nothing was easy and I broke one of the most expensive things I own and one that I use all the time(seriously its rare if I go longer than 10 minutes without using my iPod), it is a testament to thailand and everything there is here that as worried as i am about my iPod I'm sitting here writing this is a smile on my face knowing that tomorrow might be a little harder because I won't have my go to dictionary(despite the fact that i only use it once or twice a day now) and I won't be able to take of picture of anything i want any times i want and all the other somewhat useless things I do with it, but that tomorrow I will just be in thailand and have to wait out the awkward moments all by myself. and i'm excited.
June 5
So. site visit. It didn't go terribly. The person who came to my site is pretty much the only one in the PC office that I'm not friends with. She tried to be helpful and I made the mistake of thinking she actually would be. The fact is basically I was just told by here exactly what I've already been told by my wrong nayok a million times. Also I got some pizza flavored goldfish crackers. oh and she mentioned that I had an incident at my home stay house that involved my older brother and drinking--which I had told her about ten minutes earlier in assumed confidence because immediately afterwards I explained that I hadn't told anyone here because I didn't want to break face or have them worry any more than they already do. (The 'incident' in question was that my home stay brother, who doesn't live with us, came into my room in the middle of the night when he was drunk.) She immediately told me that I should've locked my door, but that don't worry even though I was wrong about that it still wasn't my fault. and then proceeded to tell my wrong nayok. the same wrong nayok who already has a problem letting me bike 2 kilometers alone in the middle of the day because it might rain, or someone might talk to me, or god forbid I meet a cambodian.
I'm sure she's right. okay. let me rephrase that. I'm sure there is part of her worry that is well-founded but I seriously am gonna kill someone if my only two choices are living across the street from my wrong nayok or living next door to my nayok.
Today i missed my mom because I saw smelled someone weedwacking. and yes weeds smell different then grass but also it sounds different and you gotta watch out for the pebbles.
So this afternoon I got a call from my sister asking if I was gonna go do the boats. I said yes because I was pretty sure she meant doing a boat race that we had talked about before, but things are always way more unclear on the phone. She said okay do you want to ride your bike and I hesitated and said, yeah, i can(now second guessing myself on what I agreed to and where I was supposed to meet her). She said okay and hung up. Two seconds later she called again and asked if I had black pants. I said yes and she said okay, op will be there in a second. 10 minutes later she shows up with our friend Op and says I shouldn't wear the black pants because they are gonna get wet. Not understanding why they should be black or really anything thats happening anymore I change into my other black pants(because I'm not sure if I'm still supposed to be in black) that she deems okay to get wet in. At this point I was thinking there was a funeral in our future, maybe before or after the boats, or maybe there were no boats. I was pretty much ready for anything. I had eaten lunch at a funeral so who knows.
So it turns out I went and 'practiced' for the boat race that we have in a week. This entailed going to the river, sitting around for 30 minutes, sending someone to get some Est, having all the men from the tessabaan get drunk, having some of the least athletic, least coordinated girls I've ever seen(and that's coming from someone who regularly trips over her own feet) get into a boat and row about 500 meters up the river and back 3 times and call it a day. Then everyone got out and put muscle ointment all over the one side that they rowed on. [that's the other weird thing. in their boat races apparently there are twelve people in a boat but there no rhyme or reason to where we sat and you never switch sides-correction: we didn't switch sides. i have no idea how you're supposed to do it. I would assume the professionals switch sides periodically because otherwise I would think their bodies would be very very lopsided - and now i just want to see someone that lopsided.] Also people couldn't keep rhythm and once again this is coming from someone who had to spend the first week of cheerleading practice learning how to step clap in rhythm.
also today i ate red oysters. I don't know what made them red or why and now that my iPod died i don't have a dictionary to understand as easily. Get just said they these kind were red and they were always that way. also just to clarify they themselves are red their brine is red. and they are super tiny and kinda look like squid -- and very well could've been squid.
Another food thing. Today i found pork stuffed squid. now if i saw that in the states it would give me the same autopilot knee jerk reaction of disgust that i get when I think of eating pickled pigs feet. However. They are delicious. I mean okay delicious might be an overstatement but awesomely edible.
hmmm. what else….today i had site visit. already told you that. i did get some pizza flavored goldfish crackers from them and they were pretty disgusting and yet I ate the entire bag and didn't share at all(in part because I didn't want to and in part because they would've hated them, but mostly because I didn't want to).
I'm friends with a 5 year old who's Facebook name is ChampThaprik NeverDie - we live in ThaPrik. I just think that's awesome and I might need to get his input before I change my name.
June 6
over the course of 5 minutes today I saw a bloated dead rat, a half dead snake in my bathroom watching me pee, and an ant and a spider crawl across the brush of my toothbrush. I think the most amazing thing is that despite the fact that rats and snakes are two of my least favorite animals the only reason these things are mentionable is because they all happened within 5 minutes. any one of these could happen any given hour and i wouldn't think twice about it.
Speaking of which. my new bathroom buddy is a frog, which is so much better than the cockroach. that said its pretty eerie because he is always there when I go in and by the time I'm done I can never seem to figure out where he's hopped to. and its a tiled room- like the whole thing is tiled and there's a plastic trashcan and a five gallon bucket in the corner--its not like he's got a lot of hiding spots. There is a poster of a bridge (i think its in paris but I also could've just made that up in my head because it looks 'parisy' or 'romantic'). The cockroach used to hide behind that, but the frog can't. So that's a mystery. Also I've tried to relocate him twice and actually 'successfully' done it once and in I actually got him in a little bucket and moved him to the yard. and then the next night right on schedule he was waiting for me in the middle of the bathroom. Also I'm gonna go back a second, because I feel like I've already talked a lot about my bathroom and how it always stinks and how its really only used by me and my yaai and sometimes theres poop on the floor and there are often random small creatures in it, but the other day when I was in there I realized there is a huge PAPER poster on the wall. So once again the entire purpose of this room is to pee poop and splash water all over yourself and they decide to put up a paper poster of a parisy romantic bridge. So why you ask? Well it is really very simple its because in the wall of the bathroom -a place of only partially clothed or naked activities there is a huge window. The architects here are genius(not sure if they actually have architects when they build houses here). But yeah, i think my favorite part was that it took me 3 months to realize how strange it is that they have it there despite the fact that I look at it every day at least three times a day.
so i just had a convo with my family and my aunt about drug use in the area. i knew it was a problem because they mentioned it with my site visit, but I'm still not sure what to think about it. It's kinda the same and the whole cambodian thing. I haven't figured out if I should actually be worried or if they are just being their usual thai worrisome selves. Obviously, I'm gonna err on the side of caution, but I'm gonna be frustrated if at the end of the day I missed out on living in the center of town and accessing a bunch of people because of it. That's really it, I think. What frustrates me a bit is that I want to be super accessible for the kids, especially for the ones that have parents doing drugs or whatever. That's why being next door to the school seems like the best/easiest place to be, because everyone's there already. Anyway, it doesn't look like that's feasible. Apparently according to my family in Tha Phrik there are a bunch of drug addicts but there aren't any in Noen Sai. Just for a frame of reference that's like saying there are hipsters on Hawthorne but none on Belmont. Not only is it improbable its damn near impossible just because of proximity. anyway, yeah, apparently herione is a big problem. It's cool that I have a project to do now, but now I just have to figure out how the fuck I'm supposed to teach them not to do heroine with my limited thai and my inability to explain to a class that they should line up in order of age.
Actually thats a funny story. So I taught my first chum nuum the other day and I told the english teacher I would teach some english but also basically just wanted to hang out with the pateom 5 and 6 classes - so kids between 10 and 13. So my first day plan was just to do fun introductions and play games. So we did some introductions and then played some games with those and then we still had half an hour. So I had a game in my back pocket like a good teacher always should. I decided we were already in a circle so I told everyone to look to their right and left and remember who they were next to. I checked for understanding 3 times in different ways. Asked a couple of them who they were standing next to. then explained that they had to remember this because we were gonna change the circle and then come back to this circle. checked for understanding again- there were a couple of nods, but I wasn't really worried because they seemed to have understood the remembering part and i could explain the rest later. So I tell them now I wanted them to arrange the circle from the oldest to the youngest while only speaking english. After some further explanations they started to do this(in thai of course, while I'm telling them, in thai, only speak english only speak english). So then i end up with 4 groups: the 10 year olds, 11 yr olds, 12 year olds and the one 13 year old. I explain to the first three groups that within that group they need to figure out who's the oldest and who's the youngest. This is where is all falls apart. They look at me dumbfounded. I explain that someone was born first, right? yea. okay so out of all of you who was born first? Blank stares. Okay,(trying to shift gears) who had a birthday last month(I don't know the month names in thai yet and I'm not sure if they know the english)? one kid raises his hand. I explain that he is the youngest because he just turned 11. and continued with the next month, which had two kids (its almost like I planned it) and i asked what date their birthday was and ordered them accordingly. Then looked to everyone and asked if they understood. They all nodded and said yes. I said, okay so now you do it on your own. Silence. I waited(they told us sometimes you have to wait it out longer than feels comfortable). I waited for way longer than I felt comfortable and finally scrapped the whole plan and started playing the thai version of Duck Duck Goose(which is funnily enough called Chicken).
June 7
Today I did work!!!! I have a project!!!! and it kinda involves what I actually want to do!!!!!! also I'm doing it all under the guise of teaching english. It's awesome. And (not to be pessimistic or anything) it's probably gonna fall flat on its face because at the last minute today my counterpart for it told me he wasn't actually gonna help me, but this other random girl who kinda sorta speaks english and has no idea what we've planned is going to help instead.
Also, once again, this is the most culturally understanding counterpart. aka I can complain to him about how disorganized the other thai's are and how nothing every gets done the way its supposed to and then he pulls this on me.
anyway, i also asked one of my coworkers why she couldn't row boats (we're, the tessabaan, having a boat race against other tessabaans next week), proceeded to almost show me her vagina. I kinda assumed she was trying to show me her cesarean scar so I clarified and got confirmation that's what she was talking about. She didn't stop there though. Went on to explain that most thai women can't give birth normally and they have to do a cesarean and she wanted to do a water birth but the doctor was against it and she explained that she wanted to do that so her vagina wouldn't hurt as much or rip. they say that's better. Meanwhile just to take a step back, this is a 24 year old thai woman who I thought was 16 when I met her and we are in the room with half men and half women and everyone is weighing in on all the different things she's saying. Every day I'm surprised by what is and is not appropriate in this culture.
Another instance of this is three times in the last three days in varying situation sometimes in mixed company a woman has touched my boob and said milk. I'm not sure the word for boob, but I'm pretty sure it's not milk. (and it just goes to show how accustom I am to this culture that I automatically feel the need to point out that they are not in fact just touching it and saying it's name- because apparently in my distorted reality that might be okay).
Also related. The other day I was having a conversation about clams and I was talking about how sometimes in america i would catch some and steam them and eat them. Then my coworker asked me if I liked to eat clams and I was kinda confused because I had just said that I ate them, but I confirmed heartily and he told the other people in the room and everyone seemed to snicker. So it turns out the the word for clam and the word for vagina is the same. Now I'm pretty sure it's not the slang, because there are iterations of that in america but I'm pretty sure this is the actual word for vagina. Anyway, so that's interesting and I'm sure it doesn't do much for my reputation as a Tom.[I don't think I've explained this yet. A tom comes from tom boy (i think) but here it means a butch lesbian and because I have short hair everyone things I'm a lesbian-actually those are the good days, most of the time they thing I'm a boy]
funny story: I cut my own hair a couple days ago. and yes its fairly terrible. but not nearly as terrible as it was. that said I only did the front half because the back half was way to scary. so anyway, I was talking to my sister about trying to go to a hair place to get the cut finished and she asked me why I wanted it so short, I already looked like a boy. Then she brought up my friend mamie. she said, 'why don't you look like mamie? she has boobs and a butt and long hair. she looks like a girl'. I answered the only way I knew how, 'I don't know'
today I drank a tomato smoothie- which was cherry tomatoes, simple syrup, a little salt and a lot of ice. It was pretty good. that said Get's lychee strawberry one was way better. I also had breadfruit for the first time. I'm not sure i liked it. it was dried or candied or something and then they poured coconut milk syrup over it. I basically like anything with coconut syrup.
June 8
Today I had big plans. Well okay not big but I had a plan. My plan was to do a thing, maybe go get my haircut, maybe go to the village. Whatever it was I wanted to do it on my own and meet a new person or get reinvigorated about being here because work work work when nothings really happening gets pretty frustrating. That and I only had today free because tomorrow I am helping with an academic exhibition. So big plans to do a thing today right? So what did I do? Nothing. A big fat nothing. I went to the tessabaan and wasted time on the stupid internet all day. I don't even know how I did it. Oh, I also took a nap. I don't know how I can self sabotage so badly.
Anyway, because I did that now I feel shame and stupidity and I'm slightly worried about what the eff I'm gonna do tomorrow for this stupid academic exhibition, despite the fact that we have an entire plan worked out (even if I'm doing it with someone totally different than who I planned it with) and I'm getting there two hours early because I 'didn't have time' to come today.
June 9
Today was awesome. I found out that two of my favorite people are dating-which is the best thing ever and I'm already planning their wedding and looking forward to dressing their future adorable babies. Also I should note that they've been officially dating for less than 24 hours. Anyway, part of the reason I think I'm so excited about this is because other peoples love lives are the closest thing that I can get to a love life here, so here's to living vicariously through others!(and then I realized that was kinda a cheers and I don't drink at site either so here you you all drinking and me being pissed about it because doing that vicariously just ends up with you guys all being drunk messes and me being sober and annoyed.
Anyway more importantly, lets get back to my actual day. It was awesome. The community college is totally where I should be all the time. It makes so much sense. There are all sorts of people there that could help me and or benefit from my work. also I met a bunch of kids who go to school in the muang and it would be awesome to teach them because they even speak enough english that I could maybe sorta teach in english. That would be awesomely easy.
anyway, this is the beginning of a long long long week. I have to plan everything tomorrow basically and then tomorrow after work I am rowing again and then tuesday I go to the special ed center in the morning and tha prik school in the afternoon and have my first youth group/english group (poop on a person) from 5-6:30 and then the next day i have the local health center in the morning and the wat wii wek school in the afternoon and the youth group again in the evening and then thursday i have the nursery school in the morning and usually i have the afternoon free but this thursday we have a big celebration and its when we are going to do the boat races and buy whiskey and soda(this is actually how my sister explained it to me). And then friday I'm going to koh chang again with my family and we are gonna stay in a super swanky resort that usually costs 6000 Baht a night($200) and we are staying there for 400 baht a night(about $13). and I'm super excited. I just have to get through this week. ah fuck balls, I forgot the most annoying part of this whole week. that two year plan that I've had like 17 four hour meetings about where I always leave more frustrated than I went in and all that jazz. thats due on friday. I'm debating just letting them put in whatever the hell they want and then doing whatever the hell I want anyway, but i don't know, we'll see how ambitious i am this week.
also funny thing that happened today. I was at the market and I decided i wanted to buy a pair of shoes(i can't wait til I can go to the market alone and not have people tell me that somethings expensive or have to feel guilty because I am buying that expensive shirt because I really really like it and they can't afford it) anyway i went to buy these shoes and my sister said, why are you buying those? we already have some at the house. I've noticed the fact that everything seems to be everyones many times in this house. and given this is a house full of girls and at times I have no idea who's spent the night here or not and everyone seems to stop off and change clothes it's a wonder there aren't more cat fights between these five or so rotating girls and their clothes.
June 10
So today I cried. its the first time I cried since I got to thailand. (which in and of it self it kinda weird, but also amazing because, ya know, a lot has happened). Anyway, at the moment I'm listening to music loud enough that my brain can't think and thats exactly how it should be at the moment. So you might be wondering what made me shed that tear or two(at it literally was about a minute or two of tears and not an all out cry) and i think it'll be so obvious to anyone who knows me that it was when it was something as stupid as the fact that i deleted a text that I hadn't wanted to delete(and of course sentimental me got all stupid and teary). but it was the bigger idea of lack of control and really the frustration of the last two weeks have been revolving around this two year plan, finding a rental house and starting this youth group. All of which are both incredibly exciting and terribly frustrating when I'm working with my wrong nayok- and I know that I still have not changed that auto-correct and at the moment I feel like its perfectly apt.
okay i was gonna explain exactly why I'm so frustrated but that was just getting me all worked up and frustrated again, and that does none any good. so, the awesome parts of today were the fact that I realized that I have a strong ally in Geng, and that he will have my back and support me in doing whatever I want to do which is awesome. The moment (two hours later) when I realized I touched geng's leg with my hand in a meeting and he was awkward for the rest of the meeting. When I saw the army soldiers rowing before us and they had capsized their really long really heavy wooden boat and it was totally full of water and sinking. The fact that Dtak and Dtaan (sister) are so concerned and eager to help me find a rental house that they told me if I can't find one they are planning to redo their shed and they can build a room off of that and I could live there. The more I think about it the more I just want to stay with my family, but I want my own place too. Real bad. The fact that people regularly talk about my vagina and/or my boobs in public. I mean tey do it everyone, but I'm more of a topic of conversation so it happens to me more often. For instance today when we were about to practice for our boat race a coworker asked my if my vagina wanted to go swimming. now she said this because I was wearing shorts that apparently in her eyes were too loose and when I was rowing they were gonna ride up. Now I want to point out that she was wearing leggings with nothing over them so once again I'm confused about what the more revealing option would really be.
okay I'm getting into bad head space again so I'm gonna go watch a movie and get out of it. Tomorrow I have a crazy day with the sped center and then planning for this youth group/english group and then I have the english group-so wish me luck because i need it!!!
Okay just wanted to say one more thing. I miss you guys and every time I'm down and out I miss you more, but then something happens and I think of someone in an awesome way. In the last couple moments I watched an old video of home and then I found how to train a dragon which i used to watch everyday for a good month with the boys and talia and so
June 11
As of today I have been outside of america for sixth months exactly.
Today I had my youth English group and it was super fun and I'm excited for tomorrow because these kids are awesome and even if don't want to be teaching english it's awesome to be able to hang out with these kids. Now I just have to learn how to teach english.
also it turns out this english group is actually one of my nayoks pet projects so thats at least part of the reason it was turned into what it was. also today being the first day there was a whole opening ceremony kind of thing where we had a banner and the nayok gave a little speech and there were about 10 VIP(consisting of tessabaan staff and the nayok, wrong nayok, principal, gang, arjaree and i but still). I also afterwards hung out at the school for a bit and met some other teenagers who go to school in the muang and seem very cool.
I keep thinking that the kids in the amphur muang could benefit a lot from all the stuff that peace corps wants me to teach in part because they are the more 'at risk' kids because they are exposed to more sometimes. The hard thing is trying to find the balance between hanging out and shooting the shit and having an organized group. I feel like the best interactions I've had have been when its totally informal, but I don't know how to formally have a totally informal group. I mean I have learned step one is don't tell the tessabaan. I'm thinking step two would be to live close to the school, which everyone seems very very worried about. I still haven't figured anything out. but we'll see. I am reinvigorated again which is awesome.
once again i realize that when I hang out with adults all day and do the same old same old going through the motions of a schedule I get pissy and bored and want to fight with everyone about everything. But then I hang out with kids and every things better. Also I want children around me all the time. like the little ones. I had a moment the other day where I was planning out future me and how I was gonna study while I was here(with all the free time I have) for the Foreign Service Officers Test and then pass it and become a foreign service officer in the embassy or something crazy like that. That would be awesome. and then I thought about babies and cheese. HA. when did I get to be such an old lady??? We'll see what happens but all of the paths seem awesome and totally out of the realm of possibility at the moment.
oh i forgot this morning I also planted a garden with the sped kids
June 16
Its been a while, Between having a rough week and everything getting to be pretty normal around here it's getting harder and harder to write what I think of as blog worthy posts. but have no fear, you're still stuck with me.
So most recently my tactics have been starting to do a One Second Everyday video, an awesome ap that stiches together a second of video you've taken each day and edits it all together. I also think I'm gonna maybe try to start doing a 365 day project, which will encourage me to think about and take photos more. I take a lot of snapshots and pictures of funny things, but I feel I've been laking in the artistic photo department. Anyway, I'm super excited about it.
Also I was super lucky to talk to all sorts of people from america this weekend. Which is often a spirit lifter, which I have to admit makes me feel a little guilty and I'm always kinda tempted to just say eff it and cut off all personal contact and totally immerse myself in this culture. Every time I think about it there's this long internal debate of which is more effective or sustainable or healthy for me or for them and of course after a long and drawn out inner(and sometimes out loud) monologue of all the goods and bads of both I realized that I'm supposed to be doing something totally different then contemplating whether or not I should talk to people from home or not and so I try to get back to work or whatever else I was doing and as usual come to no conclusion whatsoever. Also that pretty much just sums up my life here.
So I've got my iPod back so I will get back to posting random notes or realizations from the day.
Today when we drove to the fruit festival-where there were about ten tables of fruit and mostly tables of things that had nothing to do with fruit. it was basically just a normal market but we drove 40 minutes to get to it and there were neon lights decorating it. anyway when we were going there our car was making a weird noise like something was hanging off the bottom of it. Now, what would you do? If I were the driver, I would say, 'hold on, I'm gonna pull over and check it out' and I would do exactly that. Get out of the car and look underneath to see if I could see anything. Now, what did my family do you ask? The car that was full of 7 people pulled over -side note: the other thing I realized today is I have only been in a car with the legal number of people in it a handful of times in thailand. thing includes normal cars, busses, rot dtuus, VIP busses. I'm starting to wonder if there are even capacity rules in vehicles thailand because every time I get out of a car i feel like I'm in a clown car - okay back to the story. so we pull over and every single person EXCEPT the driver gets out. First my meh looks under the car and stands up without a word. Unclear as to why she did that and what exactly that meant(I wasn't alone in this) I squatted down to see if I could see anything with my older sister. She started to relay to the driver that there was in fact something dropping down(I thought that was pretty obvious what with the sound and all). And my older sister promptly stood back up. Now that we had assessed the problem everyone else wanted to see so my three cousins got down on the ground and looked under. Also forgot to mention we are on the side of a four lane highway- think PCH or 99E- all of us just hanging out on the ground taking turns looking under a car. So now that we've all assessed the problem that I was under the impression we already knew about we sit there for a good 30 seconds before anyone does anything. It's moments like this that I question whether or not I want to be fluent in thai because if it takes this long to figure out what to do about a thing thats hanging down from beneath the car then I'm pretty sure its better for me to just not understand rather then be annoyed at the pace at which people figure things out. Actually more and more daily I'm thankful for not understanding everything because often the things I do understand make me frustrated enough. anyway the car gor fixed by finding a twig and sticking the piece of rubber back up into the bottom of the car and off we were. but once again everyone except the driver got out of the car for this 2-7 minute excursion. some things just aren't like they are in america
Other things are very similar to the way they are in america. This weekend I went to a very swanky hotel that had all sorts of things we have in america. like bathtubs and hot water and cheese and pizza(with canned chicken and pineapple-not so american but i think that was my sisters ordering) and croissants(not as good as the french bakery's though) and a pool and whole grain bread and butter and an infinity pool. So basically I was living the dream within the dream. Also I went with my sisters and a couple friends and it was supposed to be a big beach vacation and it poured the entire time. I still swam though- me and daat my 5 year old cousin swam like 3 times a day for like 3 hours. it was awesome. all of the thai adults only swam at night - the girl because they were shy, despite the fact that they were wearing knee length bike shorts and tank tops and I was wearing a bikini- i'm not sure about the guys.
also some notes from previous days:
today my reefs broke(quick send replacements!!!) and so I walked around barefoot for three hours while going from Koh Chang to Trat. Including a walk to the ferry, eating while waiting for the ferry, a ferry ride, a song tao ride, a trip to the market and then the trip home. Not a single person said a thing or even looked at me funny(funnier than normal at least) about the fact that I wasn't wearing shoes.
The best of the self appointed english names in my english group: Nuclear(girl), Easy(girl), Coffee(boy), Spicy(girl), Apple(girl), Soccer(boy).
I saw an ad on tv that was entirely in english and it was about doing 'Baby Face Yoga' which is basically to act like a baby and they claim it reduces wrinkles and is the new big thing and its called facial yoga. I think the best part is realizing the percentage of thai people who will understand all that is about 5% so all the other people just think this model is crazy and spitting at them.
an entire 5th grade class was brought into the animai(small local 'hospital') while i was working there on wednesday. they each saw the dentist who was there that day(he comes once a month, but we always have a dental hygienist there). around half of them walked out with tears in their eyes and gauze in their mouth. The school teaches them and watches them brush their teeth twice a day and takes them to the denist-which is awesome and crazy but many of the kids wouldn't go if not for this trip. anyway the crazy thing to me is that the dentist say 20 kids in an hour or so and I'm assuming pulled teeth but in that short amount of time I assume there was no time for pain killers. now I know this is a lot of assumptions but given the tears I think I'm correct and thats even crazier.
also i had a crazy day on friday. First and foremost I won the boat race. I'm sorry….WE won the boat race, but the tessabaan told me that if we won I get to take the trophy back home so I feel like I won. Also make room on the mantel mom, I'm bringing home a trophy. Anyway it was an awesome day full of Wei Kruu and boat races and terribly ill timed upset stomach which caused me to go to the bathroom and poop water every 20 minutes or so. but in the end it was all awesome and pouring rain all day and everyone was out and about having fun and playing. It was a much needed fun work day.
alright time to start another week tomorrow. We'll see how this one goes…
june 17
So today my coworker told me that her fourteen month old baby was in the hospital. I asked why and she said he had a very high fever and had to have a tube put down his throat and given salts to rehydrate him. She hasn't slept all night. Also her husband who's a mechanic just lost his job because a couple weeks ago he was drinking and then rode his motorcycle home and fell and hurt his arm/shoulder and now he can't really lift up his arm. so now here she is taking care of the baby and her husband and working full time and not really sleeping. I asked her why she didn't take the day off to go be with her baby and she said she can't afford it and besides then
If this experience has taught me anything (which it obviously has), one of the most important things is perspective. There is always something you're not seeing or somethings you're choosing to focus on that could be spun a different way or simply not focused on so strongly. I think that's something that the Thai people really have one up'd us on. This whole jai yen yen thing is far more than a saying its a mind set. Today when my wrong nayok told me that despite the fact that we now have a completed two year plan in Thai and that all we need to do is explain it to me(and in doing so edit it) and then I could write up an english copy. She instead asks me to write up my own complete two year plan and then we will compare them. This being the one 'free' day I have, which is actually set aside for planning out all the teaching that I'm gonna do during all those 'non-free' times. But of course I am excited to finally have input on what the government thinks I will be doing in the next two years - not that I will necessarily do any of it, but it's great to be included. So today while I was trying to think of activities that would engage the youth and keep them off drugs and educate them on global warming I was also trying to write a lesson plan for conversation
June 17
Random notes from june 17
today I had especially delicious rice. I didn't know this was a thing. And I never would've thought that I would be able to discern the different kinds of rice besides the color. This rice was delicious enough that I really wanted to eat it and I would eat it plain. I was too embarrassed to ask what kind of rice it was. Also, thinking back it could've been because I was really hungry, but I'm pretty sure it was actually especially delicious white rice.
Today I got a legit compliment from my wrong nayok for my shirt. I was worried about wearing this shirt to work because I thought it might be mai riap roy. This shirt is a off white polo that has about 50 wallet size drawings of Bart Simpsons torso all over it.
My iPod just auto corrected nayok to mayor - i think it's learning thai
they have coops here
they have organic gardens here
June 18
Every since I read my friends blog post about relationships and culture and her experience(it's awesome, read it here:
dealing with those while being a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand, I've been thinking about the bigger picture lately. Today while I was riding my bike home and the third person that I didn't know yelled from their porch, 'bpai nai?' or 'where are you going?'. It occurred to me that that is so normal I forget that it happens. And that's just one of the things that all you in america may or may not ever know about my service. I've been thinking about the logistics of people visiting and how exactly I'm gonna show them my life here. Where will I take them? What should they see? What will they want to see versus what will I make them see even though they don't really care? Will anyone get the chance to meet the crazy man who visits the wat(and yes actually crazy, and homeless)? Will anyone get to meet my favorite little 5 year old girl who has already decided she's a boy(and seemingly has the support of the entire community)? Will anyone understand the nuances of my relationship with my thai family? The fact that my mom rarely speaks to me but never fails to hold my arm when we cross a busy street or the fact that my dad always speaks as though he's screaming at people but always has fruit laid out for everyone when we come home from work. And thats just some of them, the other day I was skyping with a friend and it occurred to me that they thai people are gonna have a hard time not believing that most of my friends aren't drug dealers that are gonna try to kill me. I'm pretty sure the definition of 'bad' kids here are tattoos and beards(the smoking and drinking is just being a man in thailand- so at least we don't have to worry about that).
I started this blog to do a number of things, one of which was to tell everyone what I'm doing here and what Thailand and Peace Corps is like. That's just not gonna be possible and the longer I'm here the more I realize that. As each day passes more and more becomes normal. Also the more and more I realize that my service is completely different than everyone else's service. The closest person to me has a completely different setup. That's the other thing gearing up for Reconnect (two more weeks of training with all the PCVs) I've been doing a lot of self assessment and comparisons against the other volunteers. I know we all have our strengths and, lord knows, we all have our weaknesses, but recently I've found myself being more competitive in a harmful way. In ways that leads me to put down the other volunteers if only in my head(because lets me honest, I'm really just talking to myself most of the time). This obviously doesn't help anyone and in the end it doesn't even really make me feel better about myself.
But really the point is that I got a gem of wisdom at some point along this journey that I keep coming back to and that is, 'remember that this service is YOUR peace corps service, make it what YOU want it to be.' It's something that can translate to life in general, but in all this comparison and all this self reflection that I'm pretty happy with what I'm doing and what I've done so far and there's a lot to do here and I feel up to the task to do it as soon as I figure out how the hell to do what I actually want to do.
A lot of this is just so all over the place. I'm all over the place. I go through so much in any given day - even when nothing happens. So I've been doing this one second every day thing and its awesome because
June 19
Today I had a really busy schedule and throughout the day I kept thinking I was gonna do it, but I kept getting side tracked and or told that today that wasn't happening. Which in the end was good because I didn't really want to do most of the things that were on my schedule. The frustrating thing on the other hand was having to fun around all morning doing my two year plan and trying to sneakily lesson plan for the four hours of teaching I was supposed to do in the afternoon(it was lucky my morning thing got canceled because otherwise I would've just had to wing it), but only to have my afternoon teaching (from 2-3:30) get cancelled so I could go to a park that we are having an event at tomorrow and sit there and watch people walk around it and 'clean' tables. This also made me have to cancel my evening session because I was told I should be there. Now this might seem like I'm complaining, but have no fear I'm not. I'm just stating one of the realities of living in thailand. Planning is a joke. That who idea of if you wanna make god laugh make a plan. Thats the motto of thailand. Or moreso, hey, you have a plan?…that's great and all but heres a little bit of everything that will make that plan and all of your backup plans not work…Good? Great. That's PC Thailands motto. I should make them a flag. And ya know what I think the best part is? Guess what is the first real thing peace corps asks of its volunteers once they are out on their own at site? Oh that's right a plan. And let me tell you about this plan because it's not as if it's a hour long lesson plan(which are impossible to get through too) oh no. it's a TWO YEAR PLAN. Now based on the meetings I've had with my counterparts I'm pretty sure in their entire lives not one of them has thought in any serious way about what may be, what could be or what they want to be happening two years from now. Some of the responses I've gotten when trying to plan:
-it's okay we can write anything and then we'll just change it when we do something.
-we will do activities reduce reuse recycle
-i know she wants this but i don't like it. you just write what she wants and then we can do whatever.
-(in brainstorming what would be considered a success for a specific two year goal)
R: Well I don't know, I'm not sure how much they will learn over the course of two years.
Counterpart: well don't think long term, think now.
R: Well we don't have the project now.
C: but we will.
R: yes. we will.
- we have occupation project to promote occupations
June 20
To Do List:
1. Get Tessabaan Orange Jumper
2. Wear said jumper.
3. Get everything done.
(You will all understand when I have it and you see a picture of me in it. They are amazing.)
Today I realized I hadn't been to the wat in over a month and I somewhat disappointedly thought, why aren't people dying? I know thats terrible and it's also not the only reason we go to the wat, but I've been to a fair amount of funerals since I've been here and it's always fun because the whole community is there and its a good social gathering.
Sometimes, in this culture, there are weird moments where 5 minutes after you've caught up with someone you know, your boss introduces you to her as if you've never met and because of this weird social and political hierarchy you are not allowed to explain that you already know her so you and your friend had to pretend you don't know each other despite just having a 15 minutes catch up sessions. Just sometimes.
Also sometimes you tell a man you like his friends shirt and he tells his friend and then suddenly his friend takes off his shirt and gives it to you. Those sometimes are awesome. And they get me a sweet thai army shirt.
June 21
So today I kept 'notes' during a meeting about my two year plan- which at this point is a week late because I'm trying to actually do it the way that peace corps asked us to, with our thai counterparts. Most of the PCVs that I've talked to gave up on that a while ago and this might shed some light onto why:
Just had a 20 minute disagreement over using the word school vs community. First it was school and wrong nayok changed it to community so I wasn't restricted to just doing this activity in the school. Then later in the results section she wanted to change it back to school because she claimed the community already does it and they already know more about everything about it than we do.
She wants to end early so we can do our weekly picking up of trash and I explain that the other 40 employees are probably enough and this is already a week late and we should really try to get it into peace corps today. She caves in and says okay and immediately leaves the room for about 20 minutes to explain all the edits to her secretary despite the fact that they are totally clear and we have at least another hour of work to do.
At one point she didn't know the english word for a thai word that she was trying to translate for me so she said, "this one sick and (pointing to the corner). THIS one sick and (pointing to the corner slightly more aggressively)". I shrug. "THIS ONE SICK AND (pointing vigorously to the corner)"
'ooooooooh, infects.'
'yes, yes, infects.'(hidden subtext: SIGH, OBVIOUSLY)
***also the only evidence I have ever seen that sometimes talking louder does eliminate the language barrier.
Also in this two year plan we have all these goals. one of mine is to teach youth about STDs and HIV. So within each goal you outline the activities that you will be doing to accomplish these goals. So for this one I have a health chum nuum, which is like a school elective(which is really just aerobics, but don't tell anyone) and I will eventually have a youth group. So these are two of the many ways that I will teach HIV/AIDS and STDs. We talked in exasperated tones for about half an hour about the fact that I believed these were two separate activities teaching about HIVAIDS and STDs and she felt that because i was teaching the same content they were the same. I made the argument that then all the activities for the whole goal would be the same, but that somehow didn't translate.
After it was all done I went out to my desk and she followed and something closely resembling this conversation happened, all in thai of course:
Rong nayok(RN): Rosie, you should stay til it is finished and then pim will give you a copy and you can send it to peace corp.
Rosie: Okay, well can she just email me when she's done.
RN: No she's not done. you have to wait.
Rosie: Okay, I understand. but WHEN she's done can she email it to me? That way I don't have to stay here.
RN: No she will print it and give it to you. You wait for her.
Rosie: Okay but I don't want a printed copy. I need an electronic copy. Can she email it?
RN: She can't she doesn't have a computer. She go home.
Rosie: wait? is she here? or home?
RN: (becoming more visibly agitated) Here.
Rosie: Okay. then when she's done. I don't want her to print it. can she email it to me instead?
RN: No. She will print and give you.
Rosie: I don't want a print of it. I can't use a print of it. I will email peace corps. If I need an email copy or the file. Can she email it to me?
RN: No she doesn't have a computer. She go home.
Rosie: (sigh) Okay. Is she here now?
RN: Yes
Rosie: Okay and there's a computer here now, right?
RN: Yes.
Rosie: okay. she when she's done here, before she goes home can you have her email it to me?
RN: SIGH, No you don't understand.
Rosie: Okay let's go downstairs and see.
I go downstairs and ask her if she could email it to me when she's done, she says sure and asks for my email address. My rong nayok reacts in no way what so ever to this.
So this is just a little peak into what my day to day is like- at least when I'm in the office. So ya know, if I learn nothing else here(which is impossible) then I will still come away with tons more patience than any normal or sane person should have. Either that or I will have zero patience for any minor mistake, infraction, misunderstanding, miscommunication or stupidity.
oh also theres this new bug in my life and it's terrible. It's kinda like a waspy thing. apparently it comes from an ant. like i guess they used to be ants. I don't really get it. but they are terrible and I haven't really seen them until about two nights ago and now they are everywhere, but only once its dark. Its disgusting. If a light is on outside you have to walk through a wall of these guys. Showering is a whole new ball game, what with everything being wet and all. Before I even started showering today there were at least 20 dead ones in the bathroom. and by the time I was done there were about 40 more and i washed them down the drain. As I was trying off four flew onto my wet legs and so their wings were ruined and more than 10 more got water on their wings some other way. anyway, i used to kinda feel bad about killing everything, even if it was a bug or an ant or something like that and now I say kill them all and kill them as fast as possible because I hate them and I hate it even more when 20 minutes after you've gotten out of the shower you find one in your hair. I'm pretty sure this means war.
In other bathroom news. yesterday we caught my cat fighting a two foot snake in the bathroom. was it poisonous? I don't know but I'm pretty sure it had fangs and my family was deathly afraid of it and told me it was gonna kill us so I'm guessing yeah. (but they're also really scared of thunder and ghosts so who knows, and I'm pretty sure they told me this one lizard would electrocute me if he bit me so I'm not so sure I trust them anymore) either way, I double check the bathroom these days and I found another reason to maybe continue to live with my family- which is good seeing as how I have yet to find a rental house.
June 22
I have finally completed my two year plan. I feel surprisingly unfulfilled about this benchmark. I came into work on a saturday to complete this and I had a whole plan to go on a long bike ride to celebrate and about two minutes ago the skies opened up, so who knows what the day has in store for me now.
