Thaid to Trat! For better or worse!

But its totally for the better.

Hey all(all 5 of you)

Sorry its been so long. I've been a little busy here. Life's awesome as you will see but at the moment I don't have internet at home, I only have it at the office so I may be a little MIA for the next couple months until I get my own place. Also, on the plus side if you happen to be up in the middle of the night I will probably be online because I will be "working". Also I might actually get a phone number that you guys can call. so I'll keep you posted. and now here's the last two weeks of my life...

March 13

So I've been trying really hard to be able to go to my brothers wedding and I'm pretty sure I can go now. 

…

then I fell asleep.

March 14

Also very tired. It's 7:49 pm. Today we did a lot of debriefing and a little bit of reminiscing and feeling sentimental. Today is the last time that the YinD (once again for those who haven't been paying attention: Youth in Development) people met on our own so to close it out we wrote something nice about everyone on a sheet of paper that they then get to take with them to site for when they are having bad days. The gems of mine were:

Hilarious -- on purpose most of the time!  --->implication(in case you didn't get it) is that there a fair percentage of the time that this person is simply laughing at me and not with me

Self Confident like whoa

        I like this mostly because I can only read it in the voice of Joey from Blossom.

Also, I'm tired. Today was too hot. Every day is too hot, but today was extra too hot. I still am not sure I can think. I am sure I didn't drink enough water because there isn't enough water to drink and I don't like the taste of water so I don't drink it.  Anyway I got home and felt all warbley. It was less than awesome. I couldn't figure out what to do with myself because I wasn't actually sick I just didn't feel right. I decided to rinse my soaking wet face and then come to my room and sit in front a fan so I could have hot air blown on me and try to cool down. It helped a little. [I know this is probably not that interesting, but this is my day to day. It's dealing with problems like 'what do I do when everything is too hot?' 'blow hot air onto yourself because at least thats better than sitting in hot air when it's not moving']

Also today I had cream cheese. But sometimes (most of the time) the things are not quite what they seem here in thailand. So this cream cheese was more like butter cream. and not like the frosting. It was kinda like a thick spreadable butter that had a slight cheese flavor. Either way I ate a bunch of it. 

Excited for tomorrow our last day of class in Si Prachan and then for Saturday when I think I'm going to my brothers wedding and taking my final language test then sunday and meeting with Kevin and Paula (country director and assistant country director) and then packing and going away party on monday and tuesday.  CRAZY week. CRAZY life. Hope site is as awesome as this has been. 

Also I've made it to 8:15. I'm calling it a win. I think I'm ready for bed. [Thats only half a joke. I'm putting on a tv show and I bet I will be out by 8:45]

March 15

OMG soo tired. soo fun.

Arrived home today after another loverly day of heartfelt half goodbyes to find that there are all these people at my house because my host brother is getting married tomorrow. It took me about an hour to take a shower because I had to talk to people and everyone kept wanting me to eat or drink or talk. It was lovely. I felt so loved by so many people that I didn't know. Also it was a great excuse to not study mostly because it was probably better studying than I ever could've asked for considering that tomorrow I am going to speak with a random person that I've never met and they are going to assess my language skills to see whether or not I have the language proficiency to be a PCV.  Anyway, I'm really not worried in part because I practiced today and in part because I'm actually not worried. Also tomorrow I'm waking up at 4:30 so I can dress in traditional thai dress and drive to the wedding site and help my family set up and debatably have the wedding at then (around 12 hours later) at 3 I am gonna have this test where they assess my language skill. THEN I'm gonna go back to the wedding and party. Then I'm gonna come home and sleep and wake up and have a general evaluation in english. [I do know that I keep giving you my schedule, but honestly its a miracle that I've made it to anything in the last couple days and then next couple are only gonna get worse]. AHHHH!!! I love thailand! Love my family! love my ahjaans! Getting super sentimental! Don't wanna leave suphan buri!  

aww fuck! I forgot to get a present! Dammit!

too bad. bedtime.

March 16

It's 4:30 in the morning. Everything is awful. That's a lie. Being awake is awful.

But I'm still really excited about the wedding.

March 18

So first and foremost HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!! Obviously this will be posted after but whatever I'm hoping to talk to you tomorrow on your version of march 18th.  Anyway the last couple days have been douzies. 

The wedding was awesome and fantastic and super interesting for a multitude of reasons including:

Upon arriving at 7am I saw a bunch of 20-40 year old dudes drinking whiskey- All I could think about for a couple of minutes was RF. That morphed into what if I had RF in thailand, what the eff would that look like. I feel like Thailand is so crazy on a daily basis that maybe it would just be super proper and everyone wearing suits and helmets and going to an office and being on time and not eating rice. So basically just thailand not being thailand which is decided wouldn't be awesome.

So there were a lot of interesting parts to the wedding but the there were a couple interested parts. So first monks chanted while the bride and groom and all the family were in the room, and then the bride and groom offered the monks food and while the monks were eating the bride and groom were on these little pedestal things and the couples (starting with the bride and grooms parent) went up and poured water over the grooms hands into a fake plant and then did the same thing over the brides hands. So this was interesting for a couple reasons. One they are both wearing what look like crowns made out of popcorn with a string tying them together and so they can't move much but its okay because they don't really have to. I assume this is some kind of holy water and we are blessing their new relationship (I think this in part because you have to do it in pairs and in part because I'm really good at making up reasons that I think are totally logical and are usually totally wrong). But I think the funniest thing about it is that about 100 people just watered a fake plant. Seriously the water was like spilling over by the end.

Also I'm pretty sure I didn't see them smile until this water part and that wasn't even at each other. It seemed to me that the ceremony part of thai weddings are for the parents and more for tradition because chuai and his wife really did not seem to be enjoying themselves. Also I kinda loved it because there was this woman that I kinda imagined being like an old fashioned nurse (ya know like juliet had, not her mom but the lady who raised her). Both Chuai and his bride(I can't for the life of me remember her name) had no idea what to do or when to do it. At one point she literally just pushed them into a wei so that they would wei at the appropriate time. It was pretty awesome. Also, I just want one of those all the time. To tell me when to do what and what I'm doing that is in appropriate. Mostly for thailand but now that I think about it I could use one all the time.

I think my other favorite thing(okay I know they are all my favorite things but oh well) was when we went outside and gathered in this field and there were all these mats on the ground and didn't really understand what was going on but someone told me I should go this way because it was time to dance. So I get over there and I'm taking some pictures and saying hello to the people I know. which by the way was like half the group. Actually sidetrack: it was an amazing event to end my time in Suphan Buri because I realized that over the course of two months I had been a part of such a wonderful community and I knew so many people. I casually talked to some of the people I knew and I hear loudly from across the field, "Rosie! Rosie! Maa tii nii! Maa tii nii!". My friend from the market was sitting in a song tau and waiting for the festivities to start(keep in mind I still have absolutely no idea what is about to happen). This lady is one of my favorites. She is such a love. I am actually going to go to the market on wednesday because I need a picture with her before I leave because I seriously think that besides my mom this woman is the woman I will miss the most.  

also another side note: when I got home today my family had gone to the market in Si Prachan and when I got home they said I was very popular there and apparently they had a circle of people all around them talking all about me to them. I think this is adorable because of so many things. One I really only know two or three ladies in the market and I still can't remember their names. And two my family does that all the time and I think its totally cute that they unexpectedly got the receiving end of it.

Okay back to the wedding. So were in a field by a house and theres this little thai band playing while we(meaning my mom and some of her friends) set up all these plates of food. There were about 100 or so total people and about 15 were setting stuff up and the rest were just sitting there watching and I had no idea what was going on. Every time I asked I was told that soon I will dance. I wasn't so excited about the dancing so I  would just leave it at that. It turns out that there is a parade led by this fantastic little band that I equated to a thai marching band. Following the marching band there are the 'dancers' which I'm pretty sure are just the people drunk enough or silly enough to dance their but off at 8:30 in the morning(this was were my favorite lady was and she was dead sober and fantastic). The rest of the people fall in behind and take one of the many many plates of food or kanoms. So then we present all these things to the household with Chuai, my brother/the groom leading the pack. And then theres some funny banter between my favorite lady and the brides nurse because my favorite lady is asking if Chuai can be let in to his wife's room now and her nurse says 'no she needs to be given more' so my favorite lady asks how much and meh gives her the money. This goes back and forth and every time the nurse raises the price my mom gives more money and then finally they are at about 3000 baht(around $100) and the nurse finally just says, 'but i don't want to'. It was cute and then there was a bit of wrestling between my favorite lady and the nurse and finally my favorite lady got the nurse out of the way so Chuai could get in. 

Okay thats it for tonight but today you/I learned:

-that thai people don't smile at weddings.(actually considering they are called the land of smiles a lot of times they don't smile and most of the time they don't smile for pictures)

oh poop I forgot the funny lesson I learned from the wedding. So when we presented everything to the brides house everyone in the party took their shoes off at the bottom of the stairs and went into the living room which is up some stairs. So when I came back down afterwards there were still about 50 pairs of shoes lying about haphazardly.  Not only did I not remember what shoes i wore that day but I had absolutely no idea where I had taken them off 15 minutes earlier. I sat there for about 5 minutes looking at all the different pairs of shoes and realizing that I didn't know anyone directly around me and I also didn't know the word for shoes so I was kinda SOL. It was okay though because some nice guys saw me looking around like an idiot and the ground and looking at everyones shoes and asked if I forgot. I was so excited because I had just learned that word a couple days earlier and didn't even think to use it but excitedly said yes yes I forgot I forgot. I don't know. I forgot. I don't know. He laughed at me and helped me mostly in pretending to look with me but only later did I realize that he had no idea what shoes he was looking for so he was really just moral support. Anyway yay. a good takeaway lesson. remember where you put your shoes or at least remember what shoes.

March 19 

Today one of the most qualified people of my training group decided not to swear in. Its unclear all the details at the moment and it may have been a forced early termination but it's a shame because she was a great trainee and I was looking forward to her being an amazing friend and resource. 

Also tomorrow is our going away party and its super hard for me to talk to my family because I keep just thinking about saying good bye and I'm gonna be super sad. I'm probably gonna start crying. I keep almost crying when I think about it. I'm gonna be a total mess tomorrow.

March 20

Two months ago(almost to the day) I was terrified to meet the family that I was supposed to live with.  The family that was supposed to feed me and teach me about thai culture and teach me how to actually do my laundry or wear my pasin or use a squat toilet or eat like a thai person(all of these were shown to us by our ahjaans in 10 minute skits that I didn't necessarily understand most of).  I was terrified. What if I didn't like them? What if they didn't like me? What if I said hello wrong or insulted them by accident. What if? What if? What if? I was so nervous despite the trust that I put in Chularat the home stay coordinator I couldn't imagine living with a family again, the thai part was just another obstacle.  Seriously, I love my real family but even after a week with them I'm ready to head back to my own place. After these two months, I genuinely feel as though I have a new family(in addition to my other families be it friend or blood). I almost cried at many points today. I will miss my Thai family more than words can express and I genuinely feel as though my meh will be one of my first phone calls when things are hard at site.  I love her dearly and she always has the ability to make me laugh. My nong saao Shhy is a gorgeous and strong 16 year old that is stubborn and wonderfully so. She is super smart and has helped me enormously with teaching me thai and the ways of thailand. And thankfully was never too worried about my loosing face to correct anything I was doing wrong(which was appreciated *almost* all the time). My yaai who was the source of so many laughs and her lack of inhibition(about her boobs or mine) and her loving yet demanding dragging me everywhere by my arm and showing me off to her friends.  My aunt is amazing too she is quite and caring and she makes sure I have everything I need. I found out tonight she was the one who requested me and I can't thank her enough for that.  Also my paw is another silent but caring type and just thinking about the few times that he would try to speak with me and break out with the few english words that he knew. Its really the little things that at the end of the day really mean so much.  I love my Thai family so much and I will miss them more that I think I will ever be able to describe(in english or thai). Also the random people that aren't my family, like molly's mom who helped us with everything along the way: IRBing, every get together we ever had, motoing us to school that first morning, introducing us to the pu yai baan and the nayok and the pa yaa baan staff, and even her angry face when we came home late and she was dissappointed in us. The kanom man who every morning would say sa wa dii krap to me and when I came back from site visit he said he was worried because he hadn't seen me in a couple days.  To the market guys right outside my street who also say sa wa dii ka to me every morning. To the snakes that died and I get to watch decompose on the road every day. To Paan the coffee lady at the dal at. To my favorite lady at the dal at who I still don't know her name(but now I DO have a picture of). To all of the other home stay families: specifically mamies' aunt for the daily morning conversation that I can understand about 5% of, Andy's dad who would be the scariest bad police man ever but I'm pretty sure he's a good police man or at least he would be for me, to sasha's mom for always being down to dance, for mammies' mom for just being the cutest, to bridge/jills mom (I don't know who's is who's) for always helping cook, oh and molly's dad for always checking my tires and generally just always being home even if meh or molly aren't and making om get me some naam yen and sitting and chatting with me.

Suphan buri is a great place and I'm really gonna miss it. I do not doubt I will be back and I hope I will be back many time in the next two years.

March 27

A thing I learned today:

NARP - Non Athletic Regular Person - so no ones ever told me about this saying and maybe it's because I'm one of them and you thought I would find this term insulting but I do not in fact find that. I LOVE it and I want to self identify at one and I think that will make all the jocks or whatever who want to call me a NARP hate me(except that they totally love me with their inside heart).  anyway that was something I learned in the last couple days and thought everyone should know it.

So its been a while. I know I haven't called or written and I'm really not trying to make you think I don't like you its just that I've found someone else. Its not you its it, it's this thing called Peace Corp and its got a lot going on. There was the whole emotional thing of saying goodbye to this family who fed me and clothed me and called me and still calls me and all that and then there was this whole hoopla about swearing or something and there was this really cool lady who didn't make it which sucked (this is for real actually, one of the volunteers ended up being kicked out because she didn't want to go to her site because she felt unsafe and she wouldn't resign) but then there was also this other really cool lady who did come who is a total badass ambassador lady and I know this might be bad or something but she kinda looks like me and I think I want to kidnap her and take her job because its awesome and I kinda look like her and she's a badass and maybe one day someone would believe me when I say Im her.

So then we had this other thing that was a conference telling our supervisors who we were and what we were about and make a two year plan.  This sounds awesome. It wasn't. It was nothing like awesome. I mean okay there were parts of it that were awesome but most of those were moments when I realized I didn't have to be there anymore.  Okay for real serious though. I did get to spend some time with my Nayok who is a very busy man and I will probably not get to spend much time with at the office so it was great to build a relationship with him so that he at least knows who I am and has an eye out for me. Which actually leads me to a good story about today. He walked into the office and everyone kinda quieted down even though he wasn't even in the room we were in and the doors to the room we were in were shut. So then one of the women says, that's the big boss. Psst, Rosie thats the big boss. Someone explained that I knew who he was. About 5 minutes later we all walked into the lobby area where he was and we all said hello and he grabs my arm and pulls me over and tells me that I should come to his meeting this evening to which I respond that I would love to but I think I already have plans but I think he will be coming to the event at the school after the community meeting and we can see each other then. All of the women were a little taken aback and only then did I realize that I just refused and invitation by the nayok. Oh well. He still likes me because he went onto say if I have any problems, any problems or worries come to him first because he knows me and he'll take care of it.  I already feel so loved. anyway that was a minor detour into current time

So after the pretty useless supervisor conference we had an even more useless counterpart conference at which a different person at the tessabaan came to suphanburi and we 'learned' about teaching finance. There were a couple issues. First, it was a pilot program so a lot and I mean A LOT of the kinks weren't worked out. Second, everything took hours because everything that anyone said had to be translated from thai to english and then most of the time back again and there were many sub questions or open ended questions. IT WAS TERRIBLE. Also, from the little thai that I do know I'm pretty sure nothing was translated well so it's not even like we got the ideas that they were saying. 

Then there was the other goodbye which was harder but also easier because it was rushed and awkward because our counterparts were there and everything. OOPS sorry forgot about something there was Chaturon's birthday bear that we decided to get. Chaturon is YinDs awesome training head and something else because he's a permanent Peace Corps employee but basically he's been our saviour for all of training. He's always been up and happy and giggling in the corner even when he lost his voice for 4 days. He's always been able to give honest feedback and take it and works through a lot of our frustrations and tries to make the best of it anyway and reminds us to do the same. anyway his birthday was two days after we all left each other and he kept joking that he would be so sad and lonely because he wouldn't have all the staff and trainees around for his birthday so we got him a huge bear and we all signed it and it was super cute and I have a bunch of awkward photos of him trying to give the final information of the conference while trying to hold a microphone and a giant stuffed bear in one arm and a clip board in the other. He's a trooper!

So yeah the other goodbye was weird mostly because I was about to get in a car with my counterpart and drive for 7 hours and 10 minutes before I got in that car I found out that most of my home stay family was also in that car and that we would all be driving back together. As relieved as I was to not have to talk to Satit for 7 hours, I now had to think of what I was going to think of to talk about with everyone in my family for 7 hours, this felt like far more of an important impression. So yeah. I slept. I literally slept for 4.5 of the 7 hours and then we got home and I showered and went to sleep for 9 hours. I am starting to think something might be wrong with me but then I realize that I don't really sleep and I do a lot of things and I forget to drink water and its balls hot and when you do those things you feel like somethings wrong with you. (as I'm currently staying up late even though I have to wake up early). 

anyway I'm bored of those things now. the ride was fine. I got to my house. My room is a large room with nothing in it that looks out onto our cement fish pond and our debatably fighting chickens. My mattress consists of a queen mattress size piece of firm styrofoam with a sheet over it. I'm honestly more concerned about where the hell I can get that much styrofoam and what else they use it for than I am that my mattress is harder and hotter than my tile floor. I have a lovely 5 year old host brother/nephew and I'm pretty sure his name is dust but not quite sure. There are a lot of people in the family and I'm still unsure who all is who but I'll give it a shit

Dararat(I always forget her chuu-len or nickname) -sister-but I think she runs the house works as financial officer at tessabaan

Meh - mom, don't know her name yet and she's about 60 so in cultural standards and in actual standards she's a yaai

Paw - don't know his name either

yaai - she is in a wheelchair and she wasn't when I came last time but I haven't had time to asks why, she also doesn't talk much, she mostly stares into space

Gop - sister, 30, works at the tessabaan about 20 kilos away

Miu - sister, 12

sister, 17, forgot her name

Dust - 5, cousin

cousin around 9, had an awesome dance performance tonight

pii saao - older sister - I only know her as the mom of dust and the other cousin.

pii chaai - older brother - I met him very quickly at the dance performance.

Okay it's time to go to bed but the highlight of the dance performance was walking in and having someone(who I didn't recognize) immediately say oh rosie come here come here you want food (in thai). I've been here a day. It was lovely. Also I thought I was going to a recital but I think it was a graduation ceremony or a celebration for the people who are continuing education(after 8th grade). So Satit, my counterpart, is a piano teacher so a couple of his kids played first. They all played the same song but each time it was a 'medley' with a different song. and by medley I mean in the middle of that song they played one of three other songs: the saints go marching in, fur elise or my personal favorite mary had a little lamb. Also all of the children were dressed and made up like 80s whores and pimps. It was hilarious. Like stage makeup like whoa. Dararat did my cousins makeup for an hour. I don't think if I added up all the time I put on makeup it could ever add up to an hour. Also then after his students performed he had one of his students play 'backup' for him while he played violin. Thailand is so crazy. Then some kids performed some dances and then the teachers got up on stage and performed the most mai riap roy thing I've seen since I've been in thailand(which isn't saying much, but still). They were all in short skirts and tank tops or skin tight dresses and dancing all seductively and pretending to flash (or actually doing with short on underneath) the audience and pretending to drink. It was weird. It made me wonder about how liberal my site was because it was funny but I didn't even see yaais shaking their heads or anything and these are teachers. Anyway at some point there were also fireworks which were set off about 10 feet from our table with absolutely no warning directly next to power lines. And I thought we were stupid at Renn Fayre. Also i just realized it but I think thailand is just renn fayre.

Also when I talked to my friends at their sites one is scheduled to talk to channel 7 news (a national news channel) about what he's doing at his site(which he doesn't know yet) and went to a cow auction and another one found out today that his co teacher is leaving for a month on vacation so he has no work to do for the next month and due to peace corps rules he can't leave so he's gonna learn thai and try to figure out what else to do. Oh yeah and one was asked the normal do you have a fan? No. do you like thai girls? yes, but not like that. Do you like playboy? Do you want to go get some whores later? [that is apparently the natural progression of the questioning]

Oh yeah I have some cool goals within my two year plan too. My favorite is that I'm supposed to decrease the drug addicts by 50%. I wanted to make the terrible joke of well I can do my best and then when we do evaluations there could just be a well timed accident that happens to involve some of them. but instead I went to diplomatic route and said I didn't really feel comfortable with that expectation to which he responded well then what do you think you can do. I suggested something like changing the goal to be something about educating about drugs as opposed to stopping a problem that already exists(I'm pretty sure that didn't get translated well, but oh well). We went back and forth a little and at the end he basically said, well it doesn't matter. I didn't really expect you to make that goal, but peace corps said I had to make a goal so I came up with a number. And here I thought it was because they had so much faith in me.

oh also today was awkward as eff. first I sat at my desk for a good half hour with nothing to do because I had nothing to do and none of my supervisor were there and I didn't want to 'bother' anyone while they were 'working'. It turns out that at the office most people are bothering and working. I can name probable 5 things that I saw happen today, which is not to say things were getting done but most of what I saw was gossip and chitchat. Its amazing to me mostly because people seem so happy and laid back and things are at least kinda getting done because event keep happening and the municipality keeps running. Also I got checked my email today in the middle of the day in the middle of the office room and got a sentimental email and started to tear up a bit and it was funny because I think that was the first time all day that everyone immediately tried to ignore me or pretend they didn't see me. That made me laugh and so it was all better.

March 28

Today I agreed to be taught piano or help teach piano I'm not quite sure. I agreed to have my sister teach me how to do traditional thai dance(a full dance not just the fingers like the other one I already know).

I also listened to Sk8er Boi. This is what Peace Corps has done to me. Actually I've only been at site for two days so most likely it has nothing to do with Peace Corps. Anyway, this is great. 

So today was another free day at work which basically means I can't leave work but I have nothing to do. It's interesting. So this morning, in an attempt to let everyone else do the work that they have I sat at my desk and studied the limited thai resources that I have and after about an hour of doing that I went onto Facebook and talked to some people and then kept it open and kept studying. About and hour and a half in one of my coworkers came in and told me to come into the other room. I assumed this was for work so I grabbed a notebook and followed her. I went into the other room and there were a bunch of coworkers 'working' they were sitting around chatting about whatever. One was openly playing bejeweled, one was texting on her phone, one was talking on the phone and I gave her the benefit of the doubt that she was working but then there were two others sitting at other peoples desks. I don't know where those people were. Inherent in my explanation is judgement but I'm not trying to be judgement I just am really curious as to how things get done.  Things do happen and the activities that I've been to seem organized and well planned but I don't know when that happens. I am honestly curious to see if this will ever feel like work. I'm starting to think this is really just a networking gig and it basically is. I'm networking and party planning but it just so happens that the partys that I'm planning are for the youth of thailand and we're gonna talk about how to be good adults at the partys. The weirdest thing though is I know that my target group is 14-25 or something like that but of all the people I've met those are the hardest to win over. Its weird but I don't want to think to hard on it because I think its gonna figure itself out and I'm bored talking about it.

Today I got asked if I had a boyfriend 3 times. I also learned that my coworkers make 45,000 Baht per year which is about $1500. On that note I'm still (I mean I have only been here for two days) really confused on where the money comes from in my family. I'm pretty sure meh and paw don't work they just farm and we do have a lot of eggplants or ma- kuua actually we have a bunch of different kinds, I think we sell those. Then we also have saparot(pineapple) and fak-tawng(pumpkin). Anyways back to money both my sisters work at tessabaans so they both pull in 45000 B per year so a total of 90000 B but that still doesn't really seem like enough for a family of 6. 

Its weird how much I feel like I've adopted thai culture in weird ways. Like today I had to tell was probably asked by everyone in my tessabaan if I though they were suai or law(pretty or handsome). I answer to everyone that I think they are either pretty or handsome because I'm not gonna be the one not to say it but in thai culture its weird. Everyone points out everyones flaws but only with appearance. For instance, if you are terrible at your job you may never get fired or reprimanded or even given constructive criticism but if you have a pimple on your face at least 7 people will point it out before you get to your desk in the morning. I have some mosquito bite scabs on my arms that can't seem to heal(it doesn't help that I keep itching them) but I don't think a single person that I've met has not asked about them.  

some texts from the last couple days:

I've been thainapped by a tranny. We're talking about blow jobs now.

Almost hit a wild monkey on my bike ride home 

Haha that sounds like fun. I'm terrified of trying to fart. Lunch was rough.

Upgrade of awkward news. His brother died. I'm renting his house.

I'm glad I kept my expectations low bc now everything seems much better than I remember

Are you watching the soaps on channel 3?!?!?!?!?!

I hate everything right now…besides the warm beer I'm drinking in my room by myself

I just had a hysterical conversation about how I want to be tan and how Naynay(a black person) isn't just really tan.

March 29

So I'm really falling into this kinda of schedule. Today was awesome and it kinda felt like I got some stuff done. In the morning I hung out and ate everything and everyone was getting kanoms so I literally ate everything. Then I came back to my desk for a minute and the nayok said he was gonna gather all my counterparts and call them into his office and we were gonna make my two year plan. That was an interesting meeting and I'm pretty sure nothing got done except him saying that he will introduce me to everyone in the next couple months and the wrong nayok telling me not to worry because I will meet them all at this one event in the middle of april. I repeated my concern that that was great and all but I would like to meet them more individually also so that I can remember who they are and talk to them for a bit.  Also we went over all the things I was supposed to do and most of the time my wrong nayok and my nayok were disagreeing and then nothing actually got done. But I also once again voiced my interest in actually getting to know the youth that I want to work with because I am willing to do any project that they give me but my assignment is actually to work with 14- 25 year olds so I would like to do that at some point. I think a lot of that is gonna have to be on my own though. I'm excited to get my bicycle and bike around because I already feel very welcome in the community even if I haven't really been out of my tessabaan.

So then I had lunch with my nayok and wrong nayok and education officer. There is an interesting thing with money here. I literally haven't paid for a thing since I've gotten to site and I've offered many time but I'm still not sure when it is rude to insist on paying and when it's not. I can't figure out what to but as a kanom either because they always buy it before me. Anyway, today I ate all sorts of things. 

-banana taffy wrapped in coconut leave

-rice soaked in wine(I've had this before and it was terrible but it is the OTOP(One Tambon One Product) of Trat so I figured it had to be at least better here…it was terrible. Even if this were made with the best wine and the best rice I still think I wouldn't like it but its actually made with what tastes like the cheapest asian white wine you can find that has then been left out for about a month)

-really good coconut kanoms that are basically just jellied coconut milk and before anyone gets down on it I hated coconuts and coconut milk before I came here and I now LOVE it. I know the water is the new thing and all(and also it's not that new over here, the only time I see people drinking it is when I'm having one and they get one for themselves also)

-ice cream with black beans in it. also its not like our ice cream. its more icey. but yeah black beans. also they called them black peanuts and I had to ask multiple times because thais don't say final t's so it kept sounding like its black penis flavor. It was really hard not to laugh in their face and then once I did get it I asked a couple more times anyway because I was giggling inside 

Another thought. We have house moms they are actually called that meh baan. They are our cleaning ladies and coffee and tea gatherers. Also today when I went to a pre wedding party my host sister introduced a woman in english as the housekeeper and I was a little confused but smiled and wei'd politely and continued on. About 5 feet later she told me this woman was Satit, my counterparts, housekeeper again I smiled politely and said hello in thai. A bit later she asked one of her friends and realized her mistake, she meant to say wife. And then proceeded to ask me what the difference was. It literally made me laugh out loud and I didn't exactly feel like it was appropriate to say sex but from what I've seen in Thailand that his kinda the only difference. On that note, today I was talking with an older lady at the tessabaan and she asked me if I had a fan(bf again for those of you not paying attention) and I said no and she went with the standard next question, do you like thai men. I responded with my textbook answer yes but I don't want one as a boyfriend because I don't want a boyfriend when I don't have a boyfriend I have more fun. here's where I get blindsided. she said well what about the ____[some word I didn't understand] and every one starts laughing and she starts clapping her hands in this weird way. I have a weird feeling all of the sudden and I'm pretty sure I was suddenly talking about what I was gonna do without a boyfriend because I couldn't have sex. It was awkward and I pretended I didn't understand.

oh also I forgot to tell you about the badassness of my parents. So I got home yesterday and only my yaai was home and everyone else was at the market so I took my shower and started doing laundry. I saw this huge lizard[about 10 inch head to tail] on the ceiling and wall and we have a cat so the cat was guarding it so it couldn't get down. I inspected it a little bit and got pretty close but didn't touch it. When my meh got home Dust pointed it out to her and she grabbed a stick. I went over to get another good look at it before she shoeed it away and my sister told me to come back because she didn't want it to bite me. Apparently it's poisonous. Now that I think about it its probably not though because we talked about the snakes and lizards that we have to look out for and basically Dr Rit said there weren't many and mostly its the obvious snakes. Anyway, my meh proceeds to walk over there under it and crush its skull and feed it to the cat. It was the most blasé barbaric activity I've ever seen. Then today I came home and my paw was shooting a huge rubber band from across the room to kill about 1.5 in lizards on the ceiling for the cat to eat. He is a crazy good shot though. I'm pretty sure in the 3 minutes I was in the living room he hit all 5 of the ones he shot at. 

Also today I taught the kiddos that came to the tessabaan because it's bit term, or school break, and their moms can't leave them at home.[which also means monday a 14 month old is coming and her mom looks about 15 although I'm pretty sure she's about 30] Anyway it was super fun and we learned about all the colors and I asked them each what their favorite color was and then we played red light green light. Also, it's weird the things that you forget when you never use them like the word violet. when I pointed to a purple thing and asked the color he said there were two names and I said, No, this is purple. He said, What about violet?  It was actually an awesome moment because he showed me that I was wrong and he thought it was super funny.

Oh also this afternoon I cleaned trash off the highway(which every single person in the tessabaan from the mayor to the house mom does every friday at 3 pm---srsly, I'm not really sure why I'm here, they have this shit on lock). Also, I had to cancel my evening piano class with Satit and the 8 year olds who kick my butt because I had to go to a wedding pre-party at the other wrong nayok's house (whos name is cha-laam or shark and he's totally too cool for school).  From there I rushed to the budget meeting which went awesomely and we had a record number of people out of the 6 they've done so far. Today we had 130 people come. My favorite part is a tie between trying to explain to a 5 year old that sharks have two sets of teeth with only the word teeth and my hands all in my mouth only to have the wrong nayok tap on my shoulder and look up to introduce myself to the village chief. Nevermind that's my favorite, but the other awesome moment was seeing the man that made the effort to wear a white collared shirt to the budget meeting but couldn't seem to find one that didn't have a 5 x 5 square of it ripped out from around the bellybutton down to the waistband showing off half of his impressive beer belly.

OMG i nearly forgot(full disclosure: i did forget but I keep a list of things that I don't want to forget on my iPod so I found it there and it's worth it just for this) in my office i have a typewrite that WRITES IN THAI!!!!!!!!!! ahhhhhh the possibilities. When I can write thai I just want to go in on saturday and sunday and craft all day with my nat geos and my thai typewriter and write you all really snarky things or really good one liners that you will never be able to understand!!! I'm soooo excited.

Oh also today I thought I was getting fat because I have a belly and then I realized I haven't pooped in three days and my immediate reaction was to text my friend Colin to tell him about it. 

God my life is so hard. I eat and laugh and gossip all day and then have to run off to wedding partys and meetings to meet all the VIPs. How will I ever survive this?

March 30

Today I slept late (til 8:30) and then was off to a wedding. I spend all of the morning there and hung out and ate breakfast and then ate kanoms and talked to people until lunch. Also I met my future boyfriend. Okay I didn't really meet him and he will probably never be my boyfriend but I saw this guy from across the wedding that was in the wedding party and he had on black skinny jeans and a kinda skeezy but mostly awesome mustache, a little faux hawk, a white collared shirt, a pink tie and black hightop converse and he was just chilling smoking a cigarette. I pretty much creamed my pants immediately. Also, I do realize that if I saw a person dressed like that in portland I'd probably think he was a bit of a douche unless I already knew him and then I'd just make fun of him for trying so hard. Anyway I think it was more the realization that I'm in a city big enough that there are probably people that I would actually get along with in *real* *real* life(Portland used to be *real* life but has been upgraded to *real* *real* life because *real* life is now when I get to hang out with people I can actually speak to aka other PCVs). So anyway, we (Guet and I -note:there is no right way to spell that name. I've tried all the options and this is where I landed but I promise you you are saying it wrong in your head) decided not to eat there and went to Gop's(this one's a hard G-it also means frog) house because she has been sick for the last two days so she didn't come into the tessabaan. WE hung out there are talked about boyfriends and why I don't want one(I don't want to date who they want to set me up with and this is an easier answer) and why I used to have one but don't anymore(that was complicated) and why she doesn't have one(she says its cause she's not pretty). Then we got some food and took it to the tessabaan because its the only place with internet and we watched tv and ate somtam with bpoo and blab ga dtak(papaya som tam with crab and anchovies), somtam mamuang with bpoo(mango som tam with crab) and yam muu(pork salad). It was delicious and I'm realizing that I can eat spicy food. Also weird interjection about spicy food. Thais have a really interesting definition of whats spicy and whats not because its all relative. For instance, if something is less spicy than normal, they will tell me it's not spicy even if it still have like 8 peppers in it. The same goes the other way if something doesn't usually have peppers and they put one in they will say its spicy when it actually just tastes a little peppery. Either way I am now able to eat somtam with about 4 peppers up from 1, that said there's this girl in my office that eats it with like 11-but everyone agrees she's just crazy. 

So after lunch I fell asleep in my tessabaan lobby listening to thai pop song on their version on mtv and at one point heard a random commercial that had Spice Girls in the background and it almost made me was to open my eyes but it didn't so I took an hour nap. Then we had to get home because it was around 4. Still don't really understand why but thats what Guet said to me. So I came home and tried to get some things done and came into my room to fill out some paper work for peace corps and then was asked if I wanted to bpai tiao(or take a trip) to the dal at(market) with the rest of the family. I said sure because I'm not really saying no these days and its working out really well for me so far. So we drove to the downtown area and stopped outside a store and my younger sister ran in while the rest of us waited in the car and then she came back and then suddenly we were at the Trat FC game against Krabi. A professional soccer game. It was awesome. I've never been to a timbers game but if its like this I'm total down. The entire stand was in the red and white Trat FC shirts, scarfs, headbands, polos. Everything. It was fricken awesome. I have no idea how expensive it is but I want to go to all the games and also I want to be best friends with all the dudes.

So then we came home and I had a lovely dinner with everyone in the family (which hasn't happened yet). After dinner I taught Nong Duht (like a four year old saying dirt but with a lazy mouth) and Guet how to play wack-a-mole(THANKS AGAIN SHERMANS!!!) and taught Nong Duht the colors with the game. It was super fun and he got super into it once he understood how to play. The first time I was about to run out of cards he pointed out that I didn't have any more and then said don't worry, it's okay, I'll give you some. It was super cute and I'm pretty sure he doesn't understand the winning aspect of the game but oh well thats only a problem when you want to stop.

March 30 

Today I woke up late went to help Gurt on the 'farm' which is actually just a mankoot orchard(I don't know if thats the wording but I'm gonna use it) with a little house that I was offered to live in after her house(which is very tempting minus all the bite I have from the big red ants). So then instead of working on the farm I ended up just visiting with the neighbors and eating mango and bananas. at about 11 I announced that I should head back home to study thai and about an hour later we did. At home i ate lunch and was immediately asked if I wanted to take a trip to the market, I politely declined (against my better judgement) and said I was gonna stay and study thai. Within about 5 minutes I was asleep and I took an hour and a half nap. When I woke up I puttered around the house for about 5 minutes and then was asked by my meh if I wanted to take a trip to my aunt and uncles house. I said sure because I obviously wasn't gonna study thai and I went over there and we arrived to a large pile of eggplants that had come out of the bed of a truck that was still unloading. Everyone was sitting down with a bag packing them full of these eggplants so I joined right in. By the end of half an hour or so I was pretty good at packing the bags I would only be about one or two eggplants off of 5 kilos. Once I got it prefect and I cheered for myself inside but basically everyone else got it right every time. Anyway, yeah then Gurt and I were invited to go to the beach so we came back to the house and Gop, Gurt, Durt, and I pilled into Kiao's truck(a friend of Gurt). We drove for about 30 minutes and had a lovely afternoon/evening at the beach. The beach here is weird though. Or maybe it just was today. it was like 95 degrees or so today and even the wind at the beach was hot. also it was more hot and humid at the beach than it was at home and with all that I figured it'll be okay I'll play in the water and it will all be worth it. I put my feet in the water and I swear it was probably 75 degree. It was weird. Also we even got to see the beginning of the sunset before we saw the rain coming from the south. 

A couple things: 

I'm pretty sure Gurt has a boyfriend but besides her family and all the girls at the tessabaan all her friends are dudes. This goes against everything I feel like I've been taught. I'm not saying its not awesome, I'm just not sure if she's the exception or the rule so I'm not sure what I should do. There are all theses things like that here in Trat. For instance, not a single person has cared where anyones feet are. I mean I know there a general head foot concept in thailand but here your feet can point anywhere and people cross their legs all the time, even to the point that they are pointing their feet at someone. Also everyone wears pants and pretty short shorts. I know I'm supposed to be all riap roy and stuff but I can't figure out what that means here because I don't want to be matronly if I don't have to be. 

Also I'm pretty sure I can do whatever I want here and I know that they said that in Suphan Buri but its weird because they are so used to foreigners that I think they don't care or really think about it when they wear shorts or tank tops. I keep trying to get a read on it because I havent seen anyone from the tessabaan wearing tank tops but also every time we go outside for an extended period of time they all wear hats and long sleeves because they don't want to be dark so I really don't know

Some days I just feel really lucky to have all my friends. Like anyone who knows me knows friends and family and the most important thing to me.  If I don't have friends, I don't have me. In the last couple days between funny and awesome texts just to check in or emails from friends back home telling me about their latest escapades or just people checking in from home to see how site is. I just wanted to say to everyone that I love you and I miss you and you're the best and I wouldn't be here without you.

the ebb and flow of the thaid

March 7

I'm still recovering from the weekend and the hotel and everything but I feel like all this debriefing has allowed me to focus on all the terrible things about my site.  I know that it won't be terrible and it might be good to set myself up to think that it will. I mean that worked out for training, but it's also super nerve racking. I'm getting myself all worked up about the fact that I'm in a city and it's gonna be hard to meet people and blah blah blah

so yeah, not much to report except that I'm kinda freakin out.  Hopefully I'll calm myself down and have some fun or lighthearted things to report soon.

March 8

Today was everything I needed. It was a pretty frustrating day at training again because we are planning a service learning project in order to give back to this amazing community that has hosted us for the last couple months and we are given a day and a half and no resources to do so and we are supposed to include the community and educate them in some way to benefit them. Also we have no budget and we have no ideas and they've just given us this training on how your volunteer projects really need to come from the community, and you need to facilitate relationships and build solid relationships and understand the community before you will understand what they want as opposed to what you might think they want, and then they basically force us to do exactly what they tell us not to do.  ANYWAY, enough venting because I got out early because we had already finished our planning for our idea of cleaning up a library that no one uses. So we go to the local restaurant/hangout that we often do after school for a bit to decompress and we start talking to the woman who runs the place like we do every day.  She does the usual greetings and we do the same and it seems just like a normal day and we start to complain about the day and vent our frustrations(which seems like more ever since we've gotten back from site, but that may just be me). And then the woman comes us and starts to show us pictures of some americans. She told us before that when she was younger Peace Corps held a training here, about 30 years back.  So here are a bunch of pictures of these volunteers. Here are pictures of twenty somethings from 30 years ago that she knew for a month or two and she has been keeping their pictures and knows their names and where they went for service and everything.  She was sitting there telling us about when she was 20 and meeting these people and keeping this pictures of John or Zach or whatever her name was.  She could remember so many of the names and here I am forgetting them 4 hours later.  It was so inspiring I almost started crying. I am literally tearing up as we speak.  I know that this whole deal is pretty idealist and everything and I know the cynic in me thinks that nothings going to come of it. But then I think about 30 years ago and wondering whether that girl would've thought that 30 years from then this woman would be showing current trainees the picture of her standing exactly where we were.  Or thinking of where this 50 year old Zach is and if he remembers this woman or how he would feel if he knew she had his picture still or even what he thinks about his peace corps service.  It's really easy to dismiss a lot in the day to day and today reminded me that it will be frustrating and it will be difficult, but sucking it up for a moment and taking a picture with someone might mean that they get to proudly show that picture to someone 30 years later and explain how back then you had to walk everywhere as opposed to ride bikes.  

It changed the spin on this whole community service thing too because as much as it is about community service, I'm realizing that I want to make it more about the little things. I want it to be about the fact that today during break I didn't stress about my frustrating language class. Instead I sat with my host mom's friends in the market and chatted with them because I hadn't really talked to them since I got back from Trat and they wanted to know everything. They are lovely. They regularly call me from across the market to come over to them so that they can ask me if I've eaten yet and tell me that today I don't look pretty(it's a 50/50 shot if I look pretty on any given day, it helps if I'm wearing a skirt).  Its hilarious though. It's hard not to laugh when they say, 'you're not pretty today, but it's okay you're skinny. Do you want some food?' It's just so simple and hilarious.  I think I'm getting a little bittersweet again too.  Today I got all sappy with the volunteer pictures and then when I got home I wanted to take photos and I'm not sure if I've suddenly become completely inept at working a camera but it kinda feels that way. It feels like one out of every 200 photos comes out the way I want it to. I'm still working on figuring out how to work it as a manual camera, because I haven't really done that in FOREVER and so today my yaai was the victim of my trials.  I took probably 30 pictures of her and one is kinda okay. After that I wanted to get one of my whole family and my dad is not always home so I asked if he would be home on sunday so I could take pictures of the family and he said yes but my mom suggested we do it now.  About 50 pictures later I have an amazing series of me, nong shhy and nong chuai trying to push the self timer and quickly run to sit with the family before the shutter goes off.  So many iterations of it that I'm pretty sure I have to make an entire album because they show the family dynamic like no other.  

So anyway, maybe more sappy and heartfelt than usual, but I'm really starting to miss this place and I'm gonna do my best to live it up as much as possible before I'm off to Trat and to a new adventure.

okay I also have my usual light heartedness too.  

Today I learned:

-thailand has sizzler, and I bet it's still terrible.

-in the corner grocery if you by two boxes of gum(with 20 packs of 5 sticks each) then you get a free coke - ya know, in case you wanted 200 sticks of gum and a coke

-I realized I have eaten coagulated chicken blood 4 times this week without even thinking about it.

-apparently I've been eating frog a lot too- today I walked into the kitchen when my mom was making dinner and I eeked at a frog and she responded, 'last night you said they were delicious'

- in my house little white cotton like things keep falling on me. I'm pretty sure they are not alive but I wouldn't bet much on it at this point.

-when someone exposes themselves to a peace corps volunteer, we get a police escort to school and there are police around about every km just in case

- also side note: we're pretty sure he got caught this morning because one of the victims saw him and pointed him out to the police

Another kinda serious note:

Don't ever tell me to come home.  I will have rough days.  It will be tough. I will complain. I will want to talk to you. I need you to be my supports and encourage me and give me the tough love and remind me of all the reasons that I want to me here. If you cant do that please tell me because I will talk to you on good days not bad.  I want to be here and I will need your help to stay here. Thanks in advance. 

March 9

I just realized that I'm at that 3 month point that I've never really made it past. I recently have been thinking about how much I miss portland and everything there is to miss about it. Seriously, I can't tell you how many lists I've made. And yes, I know that's not productive but sometimes its the only thing you can do.  Especially if you don't have a typewriter and some nat goe's and loud music. Or a dance party. or a bottle of whiskey and cheesecake. BUT anyway, as much as I can't necessarily train my brain to not want to be in portland right now what I can do is appreciate the awesome things that are here and look forward to having the adventure that will turn into the rest of my life.  This is the point where I'm thinking about all those things that people said to make sure I wouldn't leave.  The hard thing is I'm not sure if this will be the first of many or just the one.  Okay that's a lie. I know it's gonna be the first of many but I hate that I'm doubting it this early in the game.  I think it's only now that I've really realized how much I miss people. Every time I listen to a song, I think of someone or something or sometime that isn't here.  It's funny because I'm not missing people in the way I thought I would. I kinda felt like I would be totally unable to contact people, and I kinda thought that would make it easier because total isolation, as hard as it is, is completely out of your control. This isolation is weird because it's a lot of being online at the wrong time. Or getting all excited because someone is online and then they immediately go offline.  Obviously it wasn't about you, but you wanted to talk to someone, anyone that was someone from before.  That;s the other aspect. It's not like I don't have friends here. It's not like I don't have people to vent to at the end of the day. It's just that I want the old ones. I want the old life. I hate change. I love all the things that come with it, but I hate it. 

Also I miss tattoos and facial hair and rain and kale and new seasons.  I literally had a dream that I was in new seasons the other night. It was awesome. I woke up and was disappointed because I woke up. I know that's sad right? I don't care, I was pretty disappointed. I was dreaming about cherry tomatoes and diet coke and my favorite cheese and it was amazing.  I was trying to think about what my go to will be here when I'm sad and down and I don't have it yet, but I feel like I should find it soon because I need it.

Also, all of this is in my head. My life is still fantastic. There is absolutely nothing wrong with my life. I am not sure anything in my life has changed except for the fact that I am in a slightly different mindset. But there are moments when it all comes back. For instance, today we had our community service project that I was all frustrated about yesterday because we only had a day to plan it and whatnot. WE arrived at the school at 7:50 am so we had an hour or so to prepare before the activity started at 9. Twenty kids were playing soccer on the field at at 8 they went up at sat in the library, while it took all of us until 8:15 to realize they were there and that we should probably just start the activity early.  We held a little english class teaching them all the things in the library and cleaning relating verbs. Then we took shifts and one group did arts and crafts to make english language signs for everything in the library and the other one cleaned the library and then we switched.  It was fantastic! The kids loved it and their signs were AMAZING! In the most Thai way.  I think my favorite was a dinosaur(which by the way in thai is said Dai-noo-sao) breathing fire that turned into a heart that was bigger than everything else on the sign and the heart had a double sided arrow through it(loved that because I watched the kid realize that he forgot he already put the arrow on one side). Also the sign was for a bookshelf. 

Also when I got home I saw my yaai(who has been pretty sick lately and so I;ve been super attentive to her) and she is in her shower outfit but grabs me and sits me on the porch and grabs a bag of apricots and brings them over to me. She gave me a couple apricots yesterday but they war kinda sour and she said she likes them but she can't eat them now because she doesn't have her teeth so she gave them to me. So today she went even further and we have two different apricot trees apparently and one makes sweet apricots and one makes sour apricots and yaai said that no one eats the sweet ones so she picked me a bunch of them. I talked to my aunt later and she says thats not true and in fact when she got home she went to take one of these apricots and yaai slapped her hand away and said, NO those are for rosie. 

Love my yaai. ----> also new shirt idea.

I feel weird.

I just found Rumours again and I got a great mental image of me dancing around in my future home in Trat dancing to this when the music is on full blast. IT WILL BE AWESOME/

March 10

Okay, I feel normal again today. YAY!! I know whoever you are reading this was really really worried you can stop stressing. And I only realized now that none of you are worried because none of you have read anything about this week yet(at least as I'm writing, obviously you will have by the time you get here).   Okay ANYWAY. Today some awesome things happened.

1) Today I finished my first book in Thailand. For some reason (read: because I've been insanely busy and tired so I can't read more than two pages at a time without falling asleep) it has taking me two and a half months to read The Gone-Away World. The weirdest thing is I think it was an awesome book but I have absolutely no idea what the hell happened at any stage of the book. Either way, I'm super excited in part because now I can stop carrying it around wishing that I had time or energy to read it.

2) Today I talked to people from home and that was really nice to vent and simultaneously realize how awesome my life here is. Its hard to complain to your friend sitting in a dark house in america when you are sitting in your hammock by the river and its 90 degrees out and your thai mom comes up and brings you a bowl of sticky rice and fresh cut mango from the tree. 

3) This is my last weekend with my family because next weekend we have meetings so my family so they wanted to bpai tiao(go on a trip/outing) so we went to Samchuk the 100 year market. I wasn't really sure why but as soon as we got there it was pretty obvious that it was simply to buy me all the things.  They kept asking what I wanted and I really thought that I was just coming along for the ride.  So two shirts, a pair of pants and a traditional thai skirt later I have a new wardrobe.

4) In the last couple days I've been thinking about all my fix-its back home. Those things that are special occasion things or bad day things that I can do or get for myself and every things better for a little while.  My go-tos are steak, ceasar salad, cheesecake, reeses pieces, diet coke, law and order, pizza, crafting, having a dance party, going on a hike with punky or hanging out with an old friend. In the last couple days it was painfully obvious that none of those were available to me now.  So I have been on the search for some new ones here…and today, today I found one.  Guys, don't worry.  I'll be fine. Thailand has Nutella.

5) Okay. I saved the best for last. During PST we have only had half of our stuff because we put the other half in storage with PC so today the drivers dropped off our first bag, This was kinda like christmas. I had no recollection of what was in this bag but I new it would be a lot of the fun, random, totally useless, totally awesome stuff that I decided to bring.  This was all true. Both fanny packs. An interesting assortment of pictures more that four of which have no faces in them. A vial of glitter. Three bottle caps with rock, paper and scissors. LOTS of socks that I will probably never wear. So anyway, my mom came into my room and say the ziplock bag of tampons that I have and asked what they were. I took a deep breath and decided how exactly I wanted to go about this.  I had this moment of realization that this is that moment that every parent will face and it's the bird and the bees talk or something along those lines. But here I am a 27 yr old about to explain to a 42 year old thai woman what a tampon is because she's never seen one before.  I have none of the vocabulary and even less desire to attempt to act it out but that's my only option. So I stand up and go for it. Now the actual actions were hilarious and awkward and there was a lot of clarification which I also didn't understand so I'm not exactly sure that she knows what it is. I will refrain from explaining exactly what I did because its getting in to the meta communication problem. Now I'm pretty sure I've just explained this using only the works 'when', 'start' and 'stop' and acting things out. I think she understands but she keeps looking at it and seems very confused. I keep miming putting in a tampon and finally she seems to get it. So we leave it at that and she tells me I have to get ready because we are going to the market.  I change into shorts that are appropriate to leave the house in and walk outside and my mom is talking to the entire family and unconciously just swinging the tampon around in her hand by the string. It was hilarious and awkward but no one else had any idea.

The best part occurred to me a while later. I realized that if I had to give the 'where do babies come from' talk right now I basically would've done the exact same thing with some other prop acting as the penis. So I may have just taught my mom that tampons get you pregnant and that would totally explain her confused look when she looked at the tampon all puzzled and turned to me and asked, 'how?'

March 12

So it's tuesday of our final week of PST, well kinda. it's out final full week at home stays and it's getting crazy.  It's crunch time and we have all our final tests and interviews and whatnot and my host brother is getting married on Saturday and I may or may not be able to go.  I am gonna try my best because it would be a total shame to miss it, but I'm pretty sure that because of bureaucracy I am going to.  Anyway, point is shit is crazy and I may or may not update for the next two weeks.  So thats the bad news.  The GOOD news is that it's gonna be a crazy couple weeks and then I'm gonna be at site, which will be crazy and awesome and also I will have a crapload of time on my hands so I can fill you in on all the things that happened in these crazy couple weeks.  So just an fyi, I'm not dead. Well, I'm probably not dead and I'm probably having a crazy awesome silly time. And also probably pulling out all my hair in the mean time.  So. yeah. don't worry.  (cause I know you were worried.) I'll be back in a flash. Honestly, I'm not even sure I'll be gone I just have a sneaking suspicion that things are about to get overwhelming and I'm not gonna feel like sitting around in the evening writing stories to future people(aka friends/family who are reading this in the future).

Thai beau???

Still Feb 25

Also side note about site: I just told my family and I forgot to mention that when I told them they kept saying things like it would be cold there and there will be mountains(which is won't and there won't be) so I was all confused because I was pretty sure I was on the beach and southern but I just looked and them kinda confused thinking well maybe I got it wrong.  Maybe when my ahjaan told me where to stand on the giant map they made on the floor they got it wrong.  OR maybe when they handed me a folder that included all of the names of the people I will be working with and a map with my picture on it in eastern thailand, maybe I got it wrong.  Anyway after a good couple minutes of doubting myself I said I'm pretty sure its not cold, I'm pretty sure its warm and near the beach.  And they say, oh of course you are going to Trat not Tat(or some other thing that sounds like Trat but without an R).  So then I had to go through a good couple minutes of my family practicing how to say R's with me, which is mostly hilarious because my dad was sitting there laughing at me and coaching me but for this entire time he's been calling me losie. So yeah, it is what it is.

Feb 27

Today is once again HOT AS BALLS!!!!  Thats pretty much all I can think about right now.  I'm sitting in front of my fan with prickly heat all over me just sitting here waiting for it to get cool enough to toss and turn all night.  Also Snake Brand Prickly Heat is pretty much the best thing ever.  I'm pretty sure I must have mentioned this before but srsly its like my new (or old, or whatever) god. I don't go anywhere without it and whenever I get off my bike I basically just sprinkle about a 1/3 of a cup down my shirt and it feels like my skin is being frozen off.  Its amazing.  And yeah, I know there are a bunch of you saying it probably has something in it the gives me cancer or something and ya know what, you are probably right.  I have actually developed a rash once or twice from it but I have neglected to tell the doctor (that I am required to have on speed dial) because I don't want him to tell me that it's bad for me. Mostly because its not like I'd stop using it but then I would knowingly be using something that is bad for my health and peace corps might get mad at me. 

Also today we were in class and we were asked how many weeks we had left of PST and we all said all sorts of different answers but it turns out it 2 weeks. In 2 weeks I'm gonna be living in Trat and getting to know the community that I will be in for the next two years.  I can't really believe that this is happening.  Also its 37 degrees (100 F) right now at 8:30 pm in Si Prachan and its 3 degrees(37 F) in portland at 5:30.  

Feb 28

I realized today that I spend more a taco bell getting a meal than I do in thailand getting a meal.  Thats disgusting.

I also realized while writing that that I really need to clean my computer screen because on any give night I kill about 20 bugs by pushing them against my screen just hard enough to kill them but not enough to get enough of their guts on the screen so there's a mark.  So basically I have a great film of undetectable insect guts on my computer screen. and all over my hands for that matter.  and I wonder why my face breaks out.  

Anyway. another fun story about eating for you.  So today was fine but nothing too exciting happened so I'm going with this instead.  About a week or so ago I got a text from my friend Andy and it said, "chicken intestines for dinner - aroi maak maak".  I was super intrigued the next day because I want to try everything(which made me think of the Pink egg story and hopefully I will remember to tell it) so anyway I'm asking him about it the next day and he says its cylindrical and cut into about 1.5-2 in tubes and at the end of the tube it looks kinda like its folding in on itself again. This starts to sound kinda familiar and I start asking some more specific questions.  Is it kinda white and then in the middle have a slight brownish color. yep. Does it often come in an unknown broth? His did, but he's not sure what it usually comes in.  So it turns out this is something I have eaten almost every day that I have been in thailand and for breakfast no less.  I have gotten so comfortable with blindly eating what I've been given that I literally have been eating chicken intestines for a month and a half without realizing it.  It seems a little weird to get all weirded out now and to be honest they are pretty tasty so I'm just running with it. 

Oh so the Pink egg story though.  So I went to the market with my mom to get some sugar to make the kanoms we made last week and she got two bright pink eggs.  I know my fair share about eggs and there are naturally pink eggs(as in came out of a chicken pink) and these were not those.  Not only were they as hot pink as an egg could ever get but they also almost looked like they had paint on them or something.  I asked her what was different about these eggs. Were they already cooked? Is that why they painted them pink so everyone would know? 

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interjection: this is one of those things that you are supposed to try not to do as a PCV.  You will try to make sense of a situation using this thing that you call Logic.  That thing doesn't exist here. Or it's does but it looks nothing like your Logic. Its your Logic flipped upside down and sideway and beaten up until the only thing that is really the same is the name.  So yeah, I don't know why I tried to feed her the answer in a nice little package that made so much sense to me.

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So low and behold she says, yes that's why they are already cooked.  I give myself a nice little pat on the back thinking I am so smart and I figured it out and I did it all in thai.  GO ME!! So we get home and we start to unpack the groceries and start back in on making the kanom's and she tells me to get the eggs. She takes one and hands me one and says 'gin daai mai' which is 'can you eat?'. Knowing that I'm not a huge fan of hard boiled eggs but not wanting to refuse what she obviously bought as a snack for us I decide I can take one for the team (and by team I mean me) and eat a single hard boiled egg. So the next thing I know I look over and my mom has what looks like a hard boiled egg thats yolk is made out of blood. Its kinda see through, dark red and coagulated just like a hard boiled egg would be but its dark dark red.  So ya know given my experience with blood before I asked is it blood? She cackled and cackled but assured me it wasn't blood. At this point I opened mine as fast as I could so I could inspect it further because her's was almost done. So I was just in awe for a while and then I opened it up. The yolk had the normal consistence on the outermost rim for about a quarter of a centimeter and then the inside was a bright orange pudding like consistency.  Now knowing that I want to try everything and being terrified to try this I decided that if I was going to do it I had to do it now and not smell it or anything because at every moment it was looking more disgusting.  So I ate a bite.  Honestly, it wasn't bad.  It kinda didn't really taste like anything.  I sat there chewing it, thinking about it and realizing that I really wasn't tasting much. But I was still unsure because I was looking at this disgusting thing knowing part of it was about to go into my stomach.  So I decided to take another bite and make sure it was as unassuming as I thought it was.  Immediately I almost vomited and honestly I can't tell you why. I mean besides the obvious.

Oh also today I read a hilarious headline in the bangkok post that was Meatballs pulled amid Horse Scare. Apparently Ikea had to pull all their meatballs off the shelf in a couple countries because there was some fear that they might contain horse meat.  But more importantly apparently Thailand has Ikea, which means Rosie has meatballs.  And considering the other things I've unknowingly (or knowingly for that matter) eaten I really don't think horse meat would even be in my top ten.  YAY FOR MEATBALLS!!

Feb 28

Recently I realized I talk to myself a lot.  I mean I guess I always knew that but it's become more interesting now that I don't have Punky to excuse it. The other day I was watching a tv show on my computer and I was alone in my room watching an american tv show and I out loud said, 'duai'.  This is concerning for a multitude of reasons. 1) I'm talking to myself. 2) I'm talking to myself in Thai. 3) Thai houses are small and when you randomly say duai(which means 'also') at 10:30 at night when everyone else is half asleep you probably sounds totally batshit insane.

Feb 2

Okay so I've been at my site for a full day now and I am crazy excited. Yesterday I went into Bangkok with 49 other PCTs(for those of you keeping count, aka no one, yes we did loose another PCT, her name was Allison and I cannot even lie and say that I will miss her. mostly because the only interactions that I had with her were annoying. so yeah, it sucks for her but oh well). Okay so we all go into bangkok and take a tour of the gorgeous PC office which is in an awesome 300 year old house in bangkok.  And then we are all off on our adventures…well kind of.

First we all sit in the parking lot like a bunch of idiots trying to figure out who needs to go where and how to get there and who needs to eat before hand and what they want to eat and how to get there and then where they ACTUALLY want to go.  So yeah, I'm about to shoot myself in the head, not because its all so dumb, because it's not really, I just want it all to be done already.  Also we are 49 sheep and we have been carefully herded and contained and told where we were supposed to be for every minute of every day for the last 2 months and then they literally say, okay, you're free and we have absolutely no effing idea what the hell we are supposed to do.  So anyway I end up with about 9 other people of those people I am sure there are at least 20 different plans in different peoples heads so I decided we should probably walk outside the peace corps building and get on our way.  I figure the impetus will make someone make a decision and that will force everyone to choose to either do it or not(keeping in mind we are sheep).  So yeah I start walking outside and it works and then we are all outside.  A couple of us talk a bit about getting a taxi and continue walking because we are on the wrong side of the road. We cross the road and we continue walking.  Then someone points out that we still want a taxi and we realize we have to walk up to the next block because this block is only busses.  So we end up walking a couple blocks and thinking we can see victory monument where we can get on the Skyway(above ground subway) which will also take us where we want to go, so we keep walking.  After about 10 blocks in 100 degree heat with bags we realize we were wrong so we should get in a cab.  We have 10 people so we get 2 separate cabs. At this point my friend Phil is taking the lead because he lived in Bangkok for a year and I trust him.  So he talks to the cabbie and we all get in and I have already looked at the map and have a general sense of where we're going.  However, we picked up the cab on a one way street going north and we wanted to go south east so we go north for a bit and our cabbie passes a few little streets and I double check with Phil to make sure he double checked with the cabbie on where we were going.  He did.  So we turn east finally and I feel relieved and on the next street the cabbie is in the turning lane to go north.  So yeah apparently Morchit(pronouced basically like More Shit) sounds a lot like Pleonchit (apparently pronounced like something close to More Shit). Anyway, so yeah we figured it out and turned around and it turns out we arrived only about 10 minutes after the other taxi.  

So that was the adventure of the day and then we ate mexican food, which was awesome for bangkok, but really just made me want the food cart that used to be at 34th and Division. And then I started getting worried because I am a worry wort and it was 12:30 and my bus was supposed to leave at 2 and it was a friday and Trat is a fairly touristy area and there are lots of ferries to the islands and and and basically I snowballed and got worried that the bus was gonna be sold out.  So my friends Joel and Andrew and I made are way the 6 whole stops on the sky train to the station. Side note the sky train is cool and not really what I expected but hard to describe the closest thing I can relate it to is the BART. So then we get to the station which was also not what I was expecting. I guess I was expecting more of a building. I'm pretty sure the one 'room' of this bus station didn't have any walls it just had ticket counters that kinda sorta served as walls.  Anyway, I bought my tickets and I asked what time it left because I hadn't specified a time. And boy am I glad I asked, because I would've taken my sweet time at the 3 or 4 market stalls in the station and gotten myself some treats for the 5 hour trip, but my trip was leaving in ten minutes. So I say bye to the boys and run to the restroom to pee before being locked in a bus for what will probably be more like 10 hours.  And low and behold I get on the bus and who is sitting in the back waiting for me, Joel and Andrew! It made that 7 hour ride way more fun to have friends for 5 hours of it. 

So. Site.

It's interesting.  It is very developed.  I don't think there will ever be a time that I will known here as The Farang and thats because there are too many of us.  Today I saw more farangs than I have in the entire time that I've been in Thailand. I have so many awesome opportunities and I think its gonna be an unbelievable post but I am also very sure it will be nothing like what I thought(even with my adapted expectations given thailand).  If I choose to live in the house that I am currently in(which is awesome but has some interesting downsides) then I will be a kilometer from work, 2 kilometers from a telco/lotus(the equivalent of a target or walmart), 5 kilometers from the hospital and wat/school that I will work with and about 7 kilometers from the school for autistic children.

March 3

So the motto of my district is 'Mangosteen fruit yield big cocks. Traditional Boat race. Courtesy unity.' 

Too good for too many reasons. Mangosteens, big cocks, road races and courtesy. This town was made for me. Also, for real though there are big cock statues everywhere, as in chickens. And its because Trat's animal is a fighting hen, or so my new meh said, but then when I asked if they fight she said no, so I'm pretty sure there was some miscommunication there somewhere.  

The more I stay here the more I realize how challenging it will be in a large part because it is a tourist area.  Getting to be a part of the community will be that much harder because everyone will always assume that I'm a tourist. In a lot of the smaller towns once they know there is that farang in town everyone is excited to meet them because they want to see them and practice their english and whatnot. But here they have a lot of farangs around anyway so none really gives me the time of day because they assume I'm just passing through.  Also, another thing that I'm really interested in is the home stay situation because the house that I'm in right now is very centrally located in terms of my work and stuff but it's on a main highway so I will have to bike on a 4 lane highway everyday which is a little nerve racking. But more importantly, there isn't really a community around the house.  There's no real village feel.  I'm not sure if thats true of all of Trat but it seems like it couldn't possibly be.  I just think that as much as this house is amazing and the post is amazing. The mental images of me inviting the local kids over to do arts and crafts in the afternoon after school just doesn't really seem feasible anymore, for a multitude of reasons.  I am now more interested in seeing the other home stays because of this fact.  

Also we had a water buffalo beauty contest last week.  

I just got a phone call from my home stay family in Suphan Buri and it was the cutest thing ever.  Shhy called because my mom missed me and they wanted to check in on me and see how I was doing.  I'm in utter awe.  I have been thinking that this home stay was wonderful and everything but it was a little lacking in the family part, which is totally true and I think that's why they didn't originally offer to be my home stay family. [backstory: I am currently staying with the roong nayok or asst mayor who will be one of the people that I work with once I'm at site. Most PCTs for their site visit are staying with their counterparts and simply visiting the possible home stay families.  I am planning on doing that tomorrow.  I will meet the three official home stay options that I was given. However, before I left for site visit I talked to the head of safety and security and he said that I could stay at any of the three houses but he recommended pretty strongly over the other two.  One is a very wealthy man with a very large house but they found out on the last visit that he has two wives so Panyutat didn't think the best of him. The other 'bad' option is bad because the bathroom is not attached to the house and so that is a security risk in Panyutat's mind.  The interesting thing is that my counterpart told me that the remaining house is in a gambling area and so she is a bit worried about me biking alone there especially if I'm going to bike at night.  Now, I have been here all of two days and there is no way in hell I would be biking at night unless I was downtown in the faring area because out here houses aren't close together and theres a big highway and only a crazy person would do that. So yeah there's one good option left and I don't know anything about it, but I suppose I will find out tomorrow.] anyway that was a long backstory and I'm pretty sure I didn't even say what I wanted to.  But the point is I miss my suphan buri family and I miss having family around.  One of the possible home stay families has a lot of people and I think I will probably choose that one no matter where it is because that will be really good for my sanity.  I like the people in this house but I think if I stay it in I will go crazy. Partly because of my 40 year old brother who I may have inadvertently been on a date with last night.  Also, every time I'm with him he's just a little too attentive and he translates everything for me and often speaks for me. Also because his mom is my superior and has the office next to mine and might be my language tutor, so basically she will be in my life no matter what and I have decided(it seems as though I'm still trying to convince myself, I know) that I am not gonna live here. 

Okay anyway today we went to a fishing competition.  Now this in and of itself seems fairly boring as fishing is not the most active of activities.  So I was assuming this would involve more of a picnic kinda thing and hanging out while some people go fishing. So I happily go with my new meh/the rong nayok/Vilai and Paap(my 40 yr old bro who I might be dating) and we drive the half mile down the road to park at the Tessabaan and meet some of my future coworkers. And we all get on one of the 25 bright pink tessabaan owned bicycles which are totally adorable and we bike the quarter mile to the fishing site.  So now, this fishing site is a thing to behold.  It is a large manmade hole in the ground, about 200 ft by 100 ft with slanted sides and special grass at the top so that the walls of this 'lake' will not slide down. It doesn't seem like it is that deep because there are about 10 feet of the walls of this lake showing so I can't imagine its much deeper than about 5 feet.  Now first I get introduced to all of the people who are sitting and watching this event which includes two puyaibaans(village chiefs) and some of my coworkers in the tessabaan(it's gonna be terrible when I actually have to remember all their names and what they do). One boy was pointed out as the head student of the community college and Vilai said I could work with him.  He seems a bit shy and joked it off and then with his friends said that he's single which they chose to continue to tell me. Thats pretty much how it works here. Just this weekend I have been asked 4 times if I have a fan(bf), I almost want to make one up so I don't have to keep explaining that I don't want a bf but I think Thai boys are nice and handsome but I just don't want a boyfriend. Its a hard concept for Thai people.  Anyway, so we go around to each of the 10 groups of people checking out their catch of the day and the first couple haven't caught anything and then we get to the third group and they have caught one fish but for some reason its still in the water but they have it leashed to the side.  So its apparently a predator fish and eats the other fish and just to make matters worse you can't eat it.  So they tied it up.  Its at this point that it occurs to me that this is a man made lake and there doesn't seem to be any pipes running water from some other natural source so I ask how the fish got here. So this competition is made up of guys fishing in a man made lake thats about 5 ft deep with pre-caught fish and there are probably at least 40 poles in the water and no one has caught anything.  But wait.  This is where it gets exciting. The announcer on the loudspeaker starts to get all excited and I'm pretty sure somethings happening and low and behold someones got something on the end of the line and slowly slowly he reels it in only to find out that it is someone else's line.  

Also

March 4

So yesterday I got distracted and stopped writing apparently.  But today was awesome. I went around to everywhere again but this time there were people there. It was fantastic.  The highlight for me was what they call the autistic center.  Now from what I've seen there aren't very many autistic kids there but they are a bunch of disabled kids and it was the first time I felt genuinely comfortable since I've been here I think.  I totally forgot proper protocol and what not and immediately sat down on the floor with the kids and started talking to them. One of the girls was fascinated my me and eventually told me her name which I totally couldn't understand but it was already a break through.  I found out a lot about the place because there was another farang that was there with his 3 year old hanging out during physical therapy aka lets play on some foam pads.  It was totally awesome and I already want to spend all my time there.  But that said I also have a lot of other awesome stuff to do and I was taken to the office today and they showed me my very own desk.  Its crazy. It's right outside the nayok's(mayor) office. It actually kinda looks like I'm his secretary, but I'm not.  The nayok is totally cool.  Its interesting because I met lots of people with my host mom, the rong nayok, early in the day and then in the afternoon we didn't really have anything to do so the two girls that do the social coordinating and had been running around with us all day took me around and reintroduced me to everyone. Everyone was completely different and it was great to see the fun that will be had in the office.  So for instance, everyone who is an officer wears a tan colored uniform and depending on your post you may get some pins and stuff.  It looks very similar to army uniform with the flags on the left front breast and whatnot except that its tan.  So anyway everyones wearing those but everyone takes their shoes off at the door so everyone is wearing super formal uniform with slippers or socks or silly painted toenails or(my personal favorite) bright green crocs that look like monster feet. Its awesome and they wear these into the most formal meetings at the tessabaan.  It's awesome.  

Oh also I saw some of my possible home stays today and its a real toss up. Okay well, first the one that Panuthat thinks is the best my host mom decided wasn't good so she wasn't going to take me.  I told her I would probably agree especially because she knows what she's talking about but I would still like to see it so I can talk to Panuthat about it.  So she calls and the dad is in Chatanburi cockfighting and the mom is not ready for guests.  So oh well.  Then we went to this other house which seems like it would be awesome as an apartment after the three months because it is a huge bedroom with a little living room area and its own bathroom that is attached to the main house by a wall but is totally separate. That one seems awesome but I could see myself being isolated just like in this one.  The one I like the best, which is totally like me, is the one with the big family and the totally nondescript room.  I think it will be awesome. There's a ya(grandma), a dad, a mom, two school age girls, a girl who is 29 and a coworker who seems like she's around my age but for all I know she could be 20 or 40(I'm getting better but sometimes I still have no idea how old people are). They also have all the fruit trees and they have something that they were trying to describe to me as purple potato but they wanted the english name for it. I have no idea what it is except that I think I had at the market in suphan buri and I called it purple potatoes. It kinda tastes sweet like yams but it's purple and a different kind of sweet.  

Oh also I just remembered. When we got to the tessabaan this morning the nayok called my mom to say that he was very sorry that he couldn't be in the office to meet me but he was very busy helping the community.  It was windy today and so a roof fell off so he had to go help.  That's how this government works.  Isn't that insane?  I feel like I can't remember the last house I lived in where I knew my neighbors name but let alone have my roof blows off because of the wind(okay given the setup is a little ridiculous for the comparison, but still) and in comes Sam Adams.

Okay headed back to Suphan Buri tomorrow early morning and I'm excited for a night in a hotel, although having AC has been the equivalent of being in a 5 star hotel.  I'm also really excited to get back to my family because I had no idea I would miss them at all but they've become such a part of my routine and not having them has been really weird. Also this family eats too healthy and every time I want something my older brother tells me why I shouldn't have it.  He's kinda a brat. A 40 year old brat.  Anyway, yay bangkok and yay suphan buri and yay for hopefully not getting lost.