May 15
Today I had a day full of actual work which means it wasn't very interesting.
I'm leaving tonight at midnight for Ayutthaya. Tomorrow I'm gonna wake up super early and see 8 different temples with the elderly of our tambon. Then we're gonna go to sleep and wake up super early the next day and go to bangkok to see another temple. At the moment I've having an internal debate on whether I should bail on the temple in bangkok and instead go see my family in Suphan Buri. OR if I should go see the temple in bangkok and then backtrack the two hours back to Suphan Buri and then see my family. I have a distinct feeling I might be templed out by the time we get done tomorrow, but also the one in bangkok is supposed to be the big finale and I don't want to break face or anything. I don't know. I'm gonna play it by ear(also I recently, as in like a year ago, actually listened to that phrase and so until then I didn't understand it because I didn't really realize what I was saying). I'm really excited for all of it though and I've got my camera ready. AAHHHHHH
I just rerealized in packing for this trip to Ayutthaya that the only id that I carry with me on a daily basis, and this is what the Peace Corps advised, is a laminated piece of paper saying that I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer with my picture on it. I have my old passport, that is still technically valid but a lot of people don't even have that because Peace Corps has our PC passports because they wanted to get us an exit/reentry visa or something so that if we want to leave the country we would only have to get the visa of our destination. Anyway, it feels really weird not to have any real legal government ID. I'm pretty sure my PC id wouldn't get me into a bar, so that means it's not a real ID.
Okay I think I've decided that I'm gonna do it all. I'll do the entire trip with the old people and my tessabaan and then go to Suphan and spend the night and the next day with them and then head back to Trat on Sunday. I think it;s gonna be awesome and totally worth it. I'm super duper excited now.
May 16
I love old people.
Ive also ad a lot of realizations about thai people over this trip. Well, really only one but its pretty mind blowing. I'm pretty sure they are just 90s teenagers. It pretty much makes sense of everything. They wear weird plaid and overalls still. They want to spend 20 minutes taking pictures just like the poster for Titanic. They're super cheap drunks and usually want something pink or order 'beer'.
Also, I'm pretty sure I've totally adapted.
-I'm on a work vacation (just the fact that I can say that with a straight face is enough)with 140 elderly from my village.
-I've had no idea where we were going all day and I was totally fine with it.
-We are at a world heritage site and we saw none of the world heritage parts of it and it only perturbed me and made me vow that I would make this 14 hour round trip again.
-I am sleeping in a room with about 50 elderly people on mats on the ground, just like a middle school sleepover, except that the mats are harder and they're no making out(at least I hope not).
-After this work vacation I'm staying here for a real vacation with my OTHER thai family.
-I changed clothes fully within my pasin.
-I have more presents that I have family member for when I show up to my Other thai family and I haven't even been to the market yet.
-I forgot a towel and a toothbrush but I remembered my pasin and my three different minty ointements.
-I'm the most annoyed that I didn't bring some form of powder, cooling or otherwise.
May 20
So I've been away from site for 5 days now and I just got back. Every time I leave I feel like when I come back every things harder. So I'm gonna postpone coming back and trying to understand people speaking thai really fast and telling me about their diarrhea and instead tell you all about my awesome work trip, family visit and saying goodbye to a friend.
So it all started with me and 140 elderly from my Tambon and about half the tessabaan staff staying up into the wee hours of the morning (midnight) to get on a bus to drive to Ayutthaya. I was seated next to the one person that I feel comfortable saying that I don't like. I thought for a while it was the language or some misunderstandings but no. She's just a woman with a little bit of power that wants to make other people feel like idiots. At one point over the weekend I got a bottle of Est(their name for pepsi), when that bottle actually came she pointed to it and said the word bottle, enunciating each syllable. Now besides the fact that I've been speaking thai all weekend and holding my own and she has been witness to this, she also, not a minute earlier saw and heard me say the thai words can I please have one bottle of est.
Anyway, not important.
So we arrive in Ayutthaya after 7 hours on a bus we get off the bus at the local tourism building and we have breakfast on the porch overlooking the river and its awesome and beautiful and serene. And then we get on the bus again. It is now 8 am and no one's slept very well if anyone slept at all(Don't worry. I slept. I'm getting amazingly good at sleeping in uncomfortable and incredibly loud situation.) Oh forgot to mention every hour throughout the night one of the employees from the tessabaan would get on the microphone on the bus and check and see if people were sleeping. Ya know because that makes sure they aren't anymore. A couple times as he abruptly shook me out of whatever crazy dreams I'd been having(lately I've had everything from unicorns wars to packages of whiskey that come and I almost get kicked out but instead I have to drink all of it with the country director) to point out that I was in fact sleeping and that no one should worry because it looks like the farang can get some sleep.
So yeah, then we're in Ayutthaya which is a world heritage site. It's known for its ruins and amazing temples. So when I asked for the schedule of events, I was assuming they would tell me what wats we were going to. Instead they gave me this:
I think my favorite part of this, besides the obvious lack of clarification, is the fact that not even the numbers are in english. At least that part I could figure out though.
So yeah, we get back onto the bus and we start making our rounds. We have 7 wats on the schedule for the day and then there are a couple statues that we visited too. So the awesome thing about traveling with old people is no one wants to be out of the ac bus for more than 15 minutes. The less awesome thing about traveling with old people is you can't really do anything in 15 minutes when people move really slowly. So Thursday was filled with a lot of sitting in an ac'd bus and being driven up to the door of a building and walking around for 10 minutes (aka most people going to use the bathroom) and then getting on a bus and driving past all these vast ruins and to the next ac'd building. Okay that's an over exaggeration, but still.
We did see 7 temples and that was awesome. Here are some of my favorite photos:
Also, I didn't realize that we were doing tam bon (making merit) at every temple, but it turns out we were. The term tam bon is used widely. Any number of things can be done in the name of the temple. for example, cooking, cleaning, massage, fishing. etc. A lot of people will cook or clean for the temple or play music at the temple or dance at the temple and call that tam bon, but also some people will set aside a day and have their massaging be tam bon as opposed to their normal work, and in that case you give them 60 baht before the massage and thats for the temple and then after the massage you pay what you will to them(I paid 100 baht). (also yes, I got an hour and a half thai massage for $6). Anyway, back to Ayutthaya. In ayutthaya because these were more tourist destinations the tam bon consisted of donating 20 baht and then they will hand you incense, a little candle, sometimes some gold sheets, a lotus flower. You light the incense and the candle and pray in front of the buddha and then put them where everybody else put them(I don't know what the rules are because they weren't all the same. I just followed everyone else's lead.). Also you do the same with the lotus flower. My favorite were the gold sheets, which are in tissue paper because they are so thin that when you touch them with your bare hand they fall apart. So what you do is you figure out what statue you want to offers these too and then you carefully open the tissue and apply the gold sheet to the statue. I really like the effect it gives and the fact that everyone partipates in making the buddha gold. And funny things like sometimes my favorite old man decides the buddha's ear really needs some more gold---even though he's not a gold buddha.
Okay so then after the 7 wats we went on a boat river cruise for dinner. So before everyone even got on the boat there was already a photo shoot happening. All my coworkers each wanted a picture of them doing the titanic(I'm not sure if its awesome or sad that auto pilot I spelled it Thaitanic) movie poster picture. I sadly do not have any of them because I was merely the photographer with their cameras. Anyway, then the booze came out. It was a high old time with karaoke and lots of pictures and lots of shrieking and my personal realization that Thai people are like tipsy 90s teenagers. This is a theory I will outline at a later date as tonight I have too much else to say.
Okay so I fell asleep. There are a bunch of photos on fb if you want more.
Also I did get to visit my family in suphan which was awesome because they are the best and also they complimented me on how awesome my thai was and my yaai is the best.
Quick highlights reel:
- first night its 9 pm and I'm really tired and we're in the living room kinda watching tv but everyones kinda doing their own thing too(also just that is awesome because it;s so totally home and none feels awkward about it---totally don't have that in trat). Anyway, I announce that I'm really tired and I'm gonna go to bed. My yaai, who has not left my side for more than a minute since I got there says, okay, I'm going to sleep too. If you were gonna stay up I would've stayed up too, but I'm really tired. TOO CUTE. Also it was only then that I realized I've never seen her up past 8 and she totally wanted to stay up just to sit next to me and do nothing. God she's the best!
-The fact that one of the first things my family said to me was, you can ride a motorcycle now right? peace corps not here, they can't catch you.
-When I left My yaai said, but I have nothing to give you. and I said that's okay. and she went into the corner of the living room that her beds in and looked around for a bit and then finally came back with an unused pasin and said, I have this? Do you want this? and I am actually in need of another pasin so I totally took it. Backstory: When I lived in Suphan my yaai would always bring me flowers. close to the end she figured out that I liked jasmine the best so she would leave me little jasmine flowers in the morning or night when she felt like it. Okay so then we fast forward an hour and I'm in the Rot Dtuu that's taking me to Bangkok and I look in my purse to get my iPod and she has made me a little bouquet of jasmine flowers in a large leave and snuck it into my purse. Srsly. I want her to be in my actual family.
-when I went to the market in Si Prachan, where we studied every day, everyone was so excited to see me and the first thing they said with their super excited tone was, 'you're soooo fat!!!!!' It was pretty great and we all had a good laugh, but I think I was laughing the most because only I know that I've lost weight since I left, but I'm happy they all think I'm fat and happy.
Things I learned in Ayutthaya:
-In thailand in bathrooms you wait for your individual stall as opposed to all waiting in one line. learned this already but it is more apparently at 9 o'clock at night when 100 women have to shower and go to bed.
-thai women shower faster than any human i know
-Ayutthaya has its own tourist police and that just gives me more questions than answers. Can thai people use them? Do they have any actual power? Do they have to be able to speak english?
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I had a bad dream that get didn't like me anymore and she sent PC an email about the fact that after I came back from vacation I changed and she could see the lace of my underwear peeking out of the top of my pants(which is funny bc 1- I have never owned a pair of lace underwear and 2- Get's underwear is granny panties and every time she raises her arms or leans over everyone can see them). Also she was made because I was crafting(because that makes sense). Also then I got all worried Reyni wouldn't like me anymore because I was late meeting Reyni and Talia after work because I had to deal with peace corps and Get. Also I was terrified reyni would think I was irresponsible because I had had a beer at lunch and I was worried she could smell it on me---four hours later. Talk about paranoid Rosie.
May 23
Highlights from today
-Made a 3 year old cry so hard she threw up. Just by walking in the room.
-A 5 yr old boy asked if my eyes were really blue. I said yes. He said I was lying because no one has blue eyes.
-one of the schools that I work at showed me the OTEP(I'm pretty sure that's the wrong acronym but I can't remember the right one) test which is their standardized testing and it is super duper crazy hard. like 6th graders have to read a graph and then from that graph make a conclusion about what will happen in the future and this test is to test their english so it's all in english. I feel like half of america probably couldn't pass it.
-But thats the other thing, the national average last year was 34% and our school got 35% so every things gravy.(This is totally my fault, but now all I want is gravy. I would eat my moldy towel with some gravy on it right now.)
May 28
It's been a while. again. Again this time, it's me and not you. It's hard when you're having a rough week to get the motivation to write about last week that was awesome. And then here you are in my situation where now almost two weeks have gone by and its difficult to remember what happened yesterday let alone all the way back to a couple weeks ago. So there we are. Or here we are. I'm starting to forget where I am or what language I'm speaking a lot of the time.
Today was great though. I went to my local sea world and saw a dolphin show with my special education center. And I got to meet all the different branches of it- we have 4(I think). and I got all these awesome ideas because there are a lot more adults and or teenagers in the other branches so I have all sorts of ideas for projects. I also got to see pink dolphins and snub nosed dolphins(not the official name). And also in all their pictures on the wall(which were everywhere, in every room and hallway and walkway) they only had pictures of farangs swimming with the dolphins. I thought this was really weird until I remembered that thai people don't really swim. They len naam (play water) but I haven't met a single one that knows how to swim. Also, farangs love that whole swimming with the dolphins thing and it's obviously cooler if its a pink one.
Toilet paper. I have a rant. I don't understand why you always show up in the wrong places at the wrong time. You need to check yourself out. Maybe have a mid life crisis or something because this life isn't working for you…or mainly its not working for me. Why exactly when you are present in a public bathroom would you be in a large roll directly outside the stalls? Or at my home stay house, why do you exist in a roll on every surface of the house and yet not in the bathroom? Now, we've had a fairly okay relationship up until now, but I've had too much. I hit my braking point. WHats that? You want to know what it was? Good. Becaause I want to tell you. It was when I had just washed my hands and go over to that large toilet paper dispenser(okay just one more---- TOILET is in your goddamn name. don't try to be anything except who you are TP) and I pull off one pinch of tp. Then i give you another chance, I try witht the other hand despite knowing that its no dryer because of this stupid predicament that we're in. So after two more chances I wipe my hands on my pants and try one more time, finally grabbing a hand full only to have it stick all over the inside and back of my hands and thinking in my head, god I wish this toilet paper was rougher. Thats what blew it. First this was the cheapest tp id ever seen and second you, tp, have made me change what I want out of tp. which you shouldn't do because you have a job and you do it well, so stick to your job and introduce the country of thailand to your friend the paper towel or fan or whatever.
today I got home and there was a pile of dirt in our yard. backstory: we've already had two piles of dirt in out yard in order to level the yard before super rainy season, and when paw got the second pile everyone let him do it but no one seemed to agree with him that they needed it. So now I get home today and there's another one. I immediately start laughing and I realize that my paw doesn't really have much to do and I'm pretty sure he just loves having projects but there is about 5 holes that could be filled which would use about a 5 gallon bucket worth of this mountain of dirt he's had delivered. Get got home about 20 minutes after me and immediately yelled to meh - why are you letting paw build a mountain???
also there was a moment there I was terrified I had scabies mostly because my friend suggested it and I had never seen it so obviously I have it. So it turns out i don't but I do have mite bites that I'm having an allergic reaction too. In addition to a terrible sunburn from my awesome weekend at Koh Chaang and a crapload of bug bites that are crazy itchy and even the old ones won't heal. And to kick it all off I stepped in a red ant hill today so I have like 20 new red ant bites today(these were one of the middle sized red ants, but I've been finding even more, so I think the chronicling of the ants of thailand is a bigger job than I can handle at the moment).
I'm feeling really hungry also. all the time.
May 29
There are baskets of mangosteens everywhere and its awesome.
When I went to koh chang last week my family harvested their mangosteens and apparently so did everyone else. My family is super good about only keeping the ones that aren't pretty and that we can't sell, but when I went to the school today there was literally a bowl of mangosteens outside every door. even doors to rooms that never get used.
Also I just got home from school and I was really hungry and I stopped at the store for an afternoon snack. The girls told me I should get this loaf of bread thing and while that is a fairly normal reaction for a thai person, I have actually had this awesome kanom that's basically challah with a pudding kinda thing inside it. So I got it.
I told myself I'd keep it til after dinner (mostly because I'm probably going to eat at my little kid english group again and the mom makes awesome food). So I end up not being able to and I open it up and take a huge bite and only get bread. I look down to realize instead of the green pudding thing that this is filled with it looks its filled with dried pork shavings(which actually are pretty good, but not when I'm prepared for pudding). I, resigned to pork shavings, continue eating only to find out that there is a totally different third kanom that this turns out to be. The stuffing is fried sugar. And yes that does exist. for those of you imagining that I'm eating all healthy and stuff…nope…I'm sitting on my bed right now eating a loaf of bread with fried sugar.
Most wednesday mornings I help at the animai, which usually entails filling prescriptions. Now I don't know anything about prescriptions or pills and yes the thought has already gone through my head, 'what if I kill someone". but the fact is it hasn't gone through theres so we're okay. either that or there's probably (maybe, sorta, kinda) some safety check going on at some point down the line. Anyway, today when I realized how insane(and debatably illegal even here) it is that I'm doing this, I thought I would try to figure out what medications people are getting and see if I know any of them. So there's a lot of aspirin and vitamins and then there are some anti-inflammatories, but I was interested to see that in our cabinet we have 6 different anxiety reducers. I just found that weird--and refreshing for when I'm having a total meltdown in the future.
Things that I answer to: Rosie, Rosa, Rotary, Rosary, Gulap(Rose in Thai), Kruu, farang, Pii(what you use to address people older than you in thai)
Today I was at a multi school event. Transport for one school was 25 kids packed into a mini pickup truck. So about 10 in the car and 15 in the back. Don't worry, they all had a tarp over their heads for the rain.
Toilet at my friends house is half western and half english, It's a normal toilet seat that's on a pedestal that only has the toilet bowl. So it's totally confusing and I still have no idea what you are 'supposed' to do with it, but I used it like a squat toilet. And in doing so saw a bunch of water on the toilet seat so I'm pretty sure I chose right. But I'm still totally confused as to why or how that exists because it seems like it just entail more work. (of getting wa ester toilet and then taking the bottom off.
I leave you with this song that I'm trying to learn:
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