In Thailand, Mother's Day is actually the Queen's birthday. Both Mother's and Father's Day are celebrated on the day of the King and Queen's birth and mostly revolve around the royal familiy, with mothers getting only a little recognition. The one good thing though is that it is a national holiday and the offices are closed, aka no work. Yesterday was Mother's Day and I decided to willingly be Thai-napped so that I could see what sort of crazy festivities this country had in store for this special day. One of the ladies who I work with and am rather close with because she speaks English the best out of anyone, invited me to come to her house and celebrate it with her in her village. She lives about 30 minutes from my tambon so I thought it would be interesting to get out and see what some of other villages were like. Her nickname is Aw so I call her P Aw. Anyone who is older than you is addressed with a P before their name. Also, no one goes by their full name, they all have nicknames, which is amazing because their real names are waaaay too hard to remember. Their nicknames are even hard but I have gotten used to them. For example, the 6 ladies that I go to lunch with everyday are named P Aw, P Tdiu, P Pawn, P Booaloi, P Tdu, and P Jas. Also, the family that I lived with here for the first month were called Na Ooan, Na Ngat, P Pen, P Pawn, P Sawai, and Ah Ma. Anyways, back to the whole Mother's Day deal. So we went to a local high school where they had a bunch of activities. All of the government workers were dressed up in what looked like military outfits, which if you ask me is quite appealing ;) Everyone else was dressed in bright blue. Clearly I had missed the memo about the Queen being born on a Friday, which is blue day, so everyone wears blue every Mother's Day. By the way, each day of the week is a certain color, so people try to wear that color each day. I haven't quite learned them seeing how I'm not really into color cordinating with an entire country, but I'm sure I will pick them up eventually. First, it started with all of the pre-schoolers coming out and singing a song to their moms. Then, they handed flowers to each of their mom's, who at that point were all crying. After that, they played a 5 minute long movie about the Queen while everyone sang this song, which I feel should be their national anthem. It is also played before every movie showing at the theatres along with the video. I learned that last time I went to a movie in Bangkok. After this, they gave out prizes to the best moms of the year. There were about 40 awards and it took about 2 hours to get through all of them since the moms were 70 yrs + and needed the assistance of about 5 people to get up on stage and then down the other side. After awhile P Aw asked if I wanted to go walk around and see what activities were being held. Apparently the government had sponsored boothes at this where they were giving out different products for free. For example, there was a hair salon booth that was giving haircuts for free, a massage booth giving free massages, a health booth where doctors from Bangkok checked your health for free, and about 5 boothes giving out free lunches. I clearly enjoyed this part as we walked around and ate delicious Thai food while enjoying free foot massages. After this, we went back to P Aw's house, which doubles as a restaurant. She hooked me up with more food and fed me their delicious green curry and rice, one of my most favorite meals here. After that, her and her two sons took me back to my tambon and drove me home. It was a very interesting day, but not as crazy as I thought it was going to be. It was actually a really cool community activity getting many of the members involved. I did think it was a little interesting how it is related to the Queen's birthday, I feel like every holiday or special event celebrates the royal family in some way.
Other than that, not too much is new with me here. I am currently teaching English approximately 100 times a week to a variety of different groups. I just upped my school teaching time to Tuesday through Thursday at two different schools for an hour each day at each school. I also teach on Mondays and Wednesdays at my house and sometimes on Saturdays. I figured since none of my projects have really taken flight, I might as well fill some time with teaching English. Two of the projects that I am working on right now involve a recycling project at one of my schools and a biogas project taking cow and pig poop and making methane gas to cook with, rather than using propane like they do now. I am also currently planning a beach trip for October. I will be taking a week and half off with 3 other volunteers and heading to the beach. We will be visiting Ko Samui, Ko Tao, Krabi, Ko Pi Pi (where The Beach was filmed) and then ending in Phuket for the vegetarian festival with about 10-15 other volunteers. I'm super excited and think that this little vacay will be much needed by then.
Well I'm off to lunch but I will try to update this more often, I know it's been a while.
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
Sunday, 12 July 2009
Just a little more training...
For the past two weeks I have been in a town called Korat, about 3.5 hours northeast of Bangkok. I was put up in a hotel with the 50 other volunteers where we would train and go to useless sessions from 8-4 and then live like college students in our connecting dorms (hotel rooms) for the remaining time. When I say college I mean college. We not only drank obsene amounts of alcohol, stayed up late, went swimming at inappropriate times, we also had many games of beer pong going on throughout the hotel. It was a much needed break and so much fun to just hang out and be together with all of the other volunteers.
The Peace Corps tried to seclude us as much as possible from anything resembling civilization. For example, they picked a hotel that is on a university campus where it is illegal to purchase alcohol because it is a dry campus. The main town was about a 45 minute song-taew ride away which cost between 200 and 300 baht. Much to their surprise the determined volunteers did not let this hold us down, we still managed to have a fabulous time! We hung out, saw movies, went shopping at the mall, ate pizza and mexican food, went to a water park and ate our nightly dinners at a nearby night market. The song-taew would have been expensive with only a few people, that is precisely why I went on many 15-20 person trips into town :) All in all it was a great two weeks where we could do everything we had been deprived of for the past few months.
Before and after the two week training session I spent the weekend in Bangkok with a few other volunteers. The first weekend we spent the few days shopping and soaking in the forang sightings on Kao Son road. Forang means foreigner in Thai and Kao San road is a very popular street in Bangkok where you can find many tourists. Don't get me wrong, I am still loving Thailand and the people, but every once in a while it's nice to just be around foreigners. On Saturday before we went into Korat for training, everyone who was in Bangkok decided to go out and have a good time. But before I could make it out, the beer tower that I had previously shared with Kim, one of my closest friends here, caught up with me and prevented me from joining the party. I was politely escourted home with Kim and put to bed around 7 pm where she then continued to go out and have a fabulous time. Apparently she can handle her drinks better than I can, contrary to popular belief. The next morning I was rudely awoken by my host-brother from Chaibadan, where I stayed for the first 2 months in Thailand. He called me at 6:30 in the morning to say nothing but that he missed me. Mind you this boy is 8 years old and will go through spurts where he calls me every single day for a few weeks. Not only does he call me, he texts me as well, "sen loves haley" is usually his favorite one to use. I continue to wonder what his deal is as well as who the adult is that letting him call me so frequently. I have tried saving his number so I know it's him when he calls but he constantly calls from different numbers. He is a sweet kid but if this was happening to anyone I'm pretty sure they would eventually get a little irritated. After realizing how early it was I thought it was only appropriate to wake my roommate, Kim, and ask her how her night went. Apparently, her and Paul, another volunteer, went to a Ping-Pong show together. You might think that this would just be a fun sporting even watching Asians play ping-pong, well, you are wrong. A Thailand ping-pong show is one where women shoot ping-pong balls out of unusual orifices. Not only do they use ping-pong balls but they use razor blades, liquids and bottle caps as well. So you could imagine how disappointed I was to hear that I missed this amazing event...
After spending this last weekend in Bangkok to wrap up an amazing and extremely exhausting two weeks, I headed back to site on Sunday. I wanted to get home early so that I could take the day to unwind and relax at home, maybe even do some laundry. The van driver who took me from Bangkok to my town was nice enough to drive me all the way to my house and drop me off on my doorstep, I was relieved and excited to be home. After unlocking my house and dropping my stuff off I headed straight for my room to crash on my bed in my air-conditioned room. Before plopping down on my bed I realized that my sheets were strewn about, which was odd becuase I had made sure to clean my room and make my bed before I left. I then realized that my entire bedroom was torn apart. My clothes were ripped out of my wardrobe and every drawer was opened with the remains of what was not stolen laying on the floor. It was then that I realized that someone had broken into my house and robbed me. I quickly walked around my house to assess the situation and then went straight across the street to one of my neighbors who works at my office. I told him I needed help and to come to my house. About an hour later my counterpart, my boss and almost all of my neighbors were standing in my house talking about what had happened. We called the police and they came to take fingerprints and write up a report of the situation. I was so shaken up by what happened that I couldn't help but shed some tears about what had happened. I then learned that this was making things even more awkward because Thais don't usually cry unless someone dies so they didn't know what to do when I couldn't stop crying. It wasn't the fact that my stuff had been stolen, it was the fact that I live in a small community in a rural village where I am clearly the only foreigner for miles. Everyone knows who I am and I would go even further to bet that most people know exactly where I live. So this burglary had to have been planned by someone who knew me, my routine and my whereabouts. Also, the way that they broke in clearly showed that they had put in alot of effort to brake into my house specifically. They didn't come through the doors or windows like one would assume, they climbed the 10 foot cement wall behind my house onto the roof and ripped off a metal square of the roof and climbed in that way. No one wanted me to stay there last night so I will be staying with my homestay family until the owner of the house is able to replace the locks with heavy duty bolts as well as put bars in along the roof in the back of the house. I have realized that this is definitely not something anyone should go through in a foreign country without anyone that you know around for miles. Overall, it was an interesting situation but I am fine and lucky that I do have people in my community that care about me and helped me when I needed them.
So much for a relaxing day at home to unwind from a crazy two weeks, right?
The Peace Corps tried to seclude us as much as possible from anything resembling civilization. For example, they picked a hotel that is on a university campus where it is illegal to purchase alcohol because it is a dry campus. The main town was about a 45 minute song-taew ride away which cost between 200 and 300 baht. Much to their surprise the determined volunteers did not let this hold us down, we still managed to have a fabulous time! We hung out, saw movies, went shopping at the mall, ate pizza and mexican food, went to a water park and ate our nightly dinners at a nearby night market. The song-taew would have been expensive with only a few people, that is precisely why I went on many 15-20 person trips into town :) All in all it was a great two weeks where we could do everything we had been deprived of for the past few months.
Before and after the two week training session I spent the weekend in Bangkok with a few other volunteers. The first weekend we spent the few days shopping and soaking in the forang sightings on Kao Son road. Forang means foreigner in Thai and Kao San road is a very popular street in Bangkok where you can find many tourists. Don't get me wrong, I am still loving Thailand and the people, but every once in a while it's nice to just be around foreigners. On Saturday before we went into Korat for training, everyone who was in Bangkok decided to go out and have a good time. But before I could make it out, the beer tower that I had previously shared with Kim, one of my closest friends here, caught up with me and prevented me from joining the party. I was politely escourted home with Kim and put to bed around 7 pm where she then continued to go out and have a fabulous time. Apparently she can handle her drinks better than I can, contrary to popular belief. The next morning I was rudely awoken by my host-brother from Chaibadan, where I stayed for the first 2 months in Thailand. He called me at 6:30 in the morning to say nothing but that he missed me. Mind you this boy is 8 years old and will go through spurts where he calls me every single day for a few weeks. Not only does he call me, he texts me as well, "sen loves haley" is usually his favorite one to use. I continue to wonder what his deal is as well as who the adult is that letting him call me so frequently. I have tried saving his number so I know it's him when he calls but he constantly calls from different numbers. He is a sweet kid but if this was happening to anyone I'm pretty sure they would eventually get a little irritated. After realizing how early it was I thought it was only appropriate to wake my roommate, Kim, and ask her how her night went. Apparently, her and Paul, another volunteer, went to a Ping-Pong show together. You might think that this would just be a fun sporting even watching Asians play ping-pong, well, you are wrong. A Thailand ping-pong show is one where women shoot ping-pong balls out of unusual orifices. Not only do they use ping-pong balls but they use razor blades, liquids and bottle caps as well. So you could imagine how disappointed I was to hear that I missed this amazing event...
After spending this last weekend in Bangkok to wrap up an amazing and extremely exhausting two weeks, I headed back to site on Sunday. I wanted to get home early so that I could take the day to unwind and relax at home, maybe even do some laundry. The van driver who took me from Bangkok to my town was nice enough to drive me all the way to my house and drop me off on my doorstep, I was relieved and excited to be home. After unlocking my house and dropping my stuff off I headed straight for my room to crash on my bed in my air-conditioned room. Before plopping down on my bed I realized that my sheets were strewn about, which was odd becuase I had made sure to clean my room and make my bed before I left. I then realized that my entire bedroom was torn apart. My clothes were ripped out of my wardrobe and every drawer was opened with the remains of what was not stolen laying on the floor. It was then that I realized that someone had broken into my house and robbed me. I quickly walked around my house to assess the situation and then went straight across the street to one of my neighbors who works at my office. I told him I needed help and to come to my house. About an hour later my counterpart, my boss and almost all of my neighbors were standing in my house talking about what had happened. We called the police and they came to take fingerprints and write up a report of the situation. I was so shaken up by what happened that I couldn't help but shed some tears about what had happened. I then learned that this was making things even more awkward because Thais don't usually cry unless someone dies so they didn't know what to do when I couldn't stop crying. It wasn't the fact that my stuff had been stolen, it was the fact that I live in a small community in a rural village where I am clearly the only foreigner for miles. Everyone knows who I am and I would go even further to bet that most people know exactly where I live. So this burglary had to have been planned by someone who knew me, my routine and my whereabouts. Also, the way that they broke in clearly showed that they had put in alot of effort to brake into my house specifically. They didn't come through the doors or windows like one would assume, they climbed the 10 foot cement wall behind my house onto the roof and ripped off a metal square of the roof and climbed in that way. No one wanted me to stay there last night so I will be staying with my homestay family until the owner of the house is able to replace the locks with heavy duty bolts as well as put bars in along the roof in the back of the house. I have realized that this is definitely not something anyone should go through in a foreign country without anyone that you know around for miles. Overall, it was an interesting situation but I am fine and lucky that I do have people in my community that care about me and helped me when I needed them.
So much for a relaxing day at home to unwind from a crazy two weeks, right?
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Travelling in Thailand...
So the past few weekends I have finally started to take advantage and travel around Thailand. One weekend I decided to travel up to Phitsanoluk for a night to see some of the other volunteers. It was warden training that weekend so there were about 15 volunteers already up there, and apparently it was also the weekend for the annual bowling tournament, so clearly I had to go :) I left early Saturday morning and took a 6.5 hour bus ride, changing buses two times to get to this province, but it was definitely worth it.
When I got there I met up with everyone and we went straight to the nearby 7/11 and bought our supply of "fun" for the night (alcohol). Working at the site where I live means that I can't drink or do anything that is not completely well-behaved. I am basically on my best behavior 24/7, so it's weekends like these where I finally get to let loose and relax. After spliting up into the two competing teams, argyles vs. stripes, we headed off to the bowling ally in tuk tuks. A tuk tuk is somewhat like a taxi but usually is on three wheels and you are sitting in the back truck part (more like a wheelbarrow than a truck), which is conveniently made for people about 4 ft. tall. Being that we are volunteers and cheap as hell, we somehow crammed about 8 people in this and endured a very uncomfortable (but hilarious) ride to the nearby tesco. We took over the bowling ally and had a crazy night of bowling and dancing while in between turns. It was blast! The volunteers really know how to relax and have a good time, it doesn't hurt that many of them are crazy and super outgoing. I just stayed there for one night but it was so worth it!
The following weekend was Kim's birthday, another volunteer that I have become good friends with here. We decided that it was finally time to visit the beach since we are in Thailand after all. So we planned a girl's weekend at the beach in Hua Hin, about 3.5 hours south of Bangkok. We all got in on Friday night, some later than others, and went out for a great time starting with dinner at an Italian restaurant. After hitting up many of the bars in Hua Hin, we found ourselves at one playing pool and taking in our surroundings. This was the first time that I had finally encountered the whole prostitute situation in Thailand and boy was it running rampant in Hua Hin. We were surrounded with 50+ year old male tourists and Thai women under 30. It was rather disgusting but I suppose interesting to see. I have always heard about this aspect of Thailand but this time I actually got to experience it. Not only were there prostitutes everywhere at this street of bars, but there were also a handful of kids around the age of 10 as well. These kids were walking around with bouquets of flowers trying to sell them to the tourists. Some of them were even smart enough to trick you into buying them. One girl came up and kept yawning and acting miserably tired but said she had to sell them before she could go home. We got so close to buying all of her flowers until she got tired of trying and walked off with her friends and was mysteriously energetic all of the sudden. The rest of the night we just played pool at one of the bars for a bit and met some cool tourists from England. We also decided to invite some of the kids to play pool with us, it was either that or they could converse with the prosititutes. The kids were adorable and we had a really good time.
The next day, Saturday, we got up bright and early around 7am (early being the opperative word here since we went to bed around 5 am the previous night). We were going to stay at a nicer hotel that night to celebrate Kim's birthday. After changing hotels, we took a van up to a vineyard about an hour away. I was a little skeptical about this vineyard since the prices were so cheap and the van ride was free, but I thought we should give it a try since we were there. It turned out to be amazing! We rode elephants. drank a few bottles of wine and had a delicious lunch consisting of a fabulous cheese plate, ceaser salads and chicken sandwhiches. We did all of this for under $30! Once we got back to our hotel around 4ish, I passed out and took a nap while the girls went to lay by the pool, which was conveniently located right next to the beach. That night we took a relaxing stroll through the night market, which spanned about 3 or 4 blocks. We looked at all of the cool artwork and crafts and then went back to the hotel around midnight.
The following morning was our last day and we sadly had to return to our sites. Before leaving we all laid out by the pool and two of the girls took horse rides on the beach. They looked more like donkies but the girls loved it! Overall, it was a fabulous weekend and I can't wait to see what's in store when I actually take a vacation and go somewhere for an extended amount of time.
I have started to form a solid group of girlfriends here who are pretty amazing and so much fun to be around. I never thought I would meet such a cool group of volunteers. I have really learned to appreciate them, especially when things get rough at site, they are a great outlet to have because they usually know exactly what I am going through. These past few weekends have made me really curious as to what's in store for these next two years...
When I got there I met up with everyone and we went straight to the nearby 7/11 and bought our supply of "fun" for the night (alcohol). Working at the site where I live means that I can't drink or do anything that is not completely well-behaved. I am basically on my best behavior 24/7, so it's weekends like these where I finally get to let loose and relax. After spliting up into the two competing teams, argyles vs. stripes, we headed off to the bowling ally in tuk tuks. A tuk tuk is somewhat like a taxi but usually is on three wheels and you are sitting in the back truck part (more like a wheelbarrow than a truck), which is conveniently made for people about 4 ft. tall. Being that we are volunteers and cheap as hell, we somehow crammed about 8 people in this and endured a very uncomfortable (but hilarious) ride to the nearby tesco. We took over the bowling ally and had a crazy night of bowling and dancing while in between turns. It was blast! The volunteers really know how to relax and have a good time, it doesn't hurt that many of them are crazy and super outgoing. I just stayed there for one night but it was so worth it!
The following weekend was Kim's birthday, another volunteer that I have become good friends with here. We decided that it was finally time to visit the beach since we are in Thailand after all. So we planned a girl's weekend at the beach in Hua Hin, about 3.5 hours south of Bangkok. We all got in on Friday night, some later than others, and went out for a great time starting with dinner at an Italian restaurant. After hitting up many of the bars in Hua Hin, we found ourselves at one playing pool and taking in our surroundings. This was the first time that I had finally encountered the whole prostitute situation in Thailand and boy was it running rampant in Hua Hin. We were surrounded with 50+ year old male tourists and Thai women under 30. It was rather disgusting but I suppose interesting to see. I have always heard about this aspect of Thailand but this time I actually got to experience it. Not only were there prostitutes everywhere at this street of bars, but there were also a handful of kids around the age of 10 as well. These kids were walking around with bouquets of flowers trying to sell them to the tourists. Some of them were even smart enough to trick you into buying them. One girl came up and kept yawning and acting miserably tired but said she had to sell them before she could go home. We got so close to buying all of her flowers until she got tired of trying and walked off with her friends and was mysteriously energetic all of the sudden. The rest of the night we just played pool at one of the bars for a bit and met some cool tourists from England. We also decided to invite some of the kids to play pool with us, it was either that or they could converse with the prosititutes. The kids were adorable and we had a really good time.
The next day, Saturday, we got up bright and early around 7am (early being the opperative word here since we went to bed around 5 am the previous night). We were going to stay at a nicer hotel that night to celebrate Kim's birthday. After changing hotels, we took a van up to a vineyard about an hour away. I was a little skeptical about this vineyard since the prices were so cheap and the van ride was free, but I thought we should give it a try since we were there. It turned out to be amazing! We rode elephants. drank a few bottles of wine and had a delicious lunch consisting of a fabulous cheese plate, ceaser salads and chicken sandwhiches. We did all of this for under $30! Once we got back to our hotel around 4ish, I passed out and took a nap while the girls went to lay by the pool, which was conveniently located right next to the beach. That night we took a relaxing stroll through the night market, which spanned about 3 or 4 blocks. We looked at all of the cool artwork and crafts and then went back to the hotel around midnight.
The following morning was our last day and we sadly had to return to our sites. Before leaving we all laid out by the pool and two of the girls took horse rides on the beach. They looked more like donkies but the girls loved it! Overall, it was a fabulous weekend and I can't wait to see what's in store when I actually take a vacation and go somewhere for an extended amount of time.
I have started to form a solid group of girlfriends here who are pretty amazing and so much fun to be around. I never thought I would meet such a cool group of volunteers. I have really learned to appreciate them, especially when things get rough at site, they are a great outlet to have because they usually know exactly what I am going through. These past few weekends have made me really curious as to what's in store for these next two years...
Friday, 22 May 2009
Feeling productive and I love it!
I know I just updated this a few days ago, but this week has been action-packed and I already have so much more to update ya'll on...
So I'm pretty sure it took the first month at site for everyone to warm up to me and understand why the "forang" (foreigner) is actually here. Now that most everyone understands my purpose, they are no longer shy to ask me for help. This week was the first week that I finally started teaching. Monday was my first class at the SAO (where I work). I taught English from 4:30 to 5:30 to about 10 people. My counterpart has also been advertising this class to everyone we talk to so I think next week's class will have grown in size. On Tuesdays, I teach one of the local kids in my village from 6-7 pm at my house. Apparently his parents are friends with one of the people at my work so that is how this got set up. I teach for free since the Peace Corps won't allow us to profit from any of this, so in return for me teaching English his mom said she would help me with my Thai, which I feel is a great exchange. They also bring me food each class because I live alone and apparently have no idea how to fend for myself, but it is delicious so I don't argue with her :) Then on Wednesdays every week I will be teaching at one of the local schools for an hour from 2:30 to 3:30. The Paw Aw (head of the school) originally wanted me to teach a group of 80 students, but I obviously put my foot down and said that I would draw the line at 20. He was definitely trying to take advantage, which I have learned from the Peace Corps is not acceptable, haha. Then to finish off the week, I teach yoga to a group of health volunteers at the village health station on Friday from 10-11 am. This is obviously the most interesting of the classes that I teach, seeing how I have never been a yoga teacher and have only been to about 10 yoga classes in my life.
This was my first week for each of these classes and overall, it was amazing! The SAO class on Monday is a little boring and difficult becuase the level of English varies dramatically with each person. Teaching at the school was a BLAST!!! We played a game for most of the hour dealing with the names of the body parts. I drew two bodies on the whiteboard and then taped little pieces of paper with body part names written on each one next to the bodies. I then split the class into two groups so they could compete against each other. I gave each kid a number and then would call out a body part and a number and the two kids from each team would compete to see who could match the right name with the body part the fastest and then sit back down. The kids loved it!!! I gave candy to the winning team, which clearly upped the intensity.
Yoga was also a lot more fun than expected. I was a little nervous going into this, which is understandable from the lack of knowledge on my part. I looked up the positions online beforehand at the office and then practiced it once at home before the class. I understood each pose, but actually demostrating them was a little more challenging. The women were great though and just had fun with it. In fact, so many women showed up that I had to give two classes. They also want to continue the class and do it again next week, which is definitely promising. Usually Thais tend to flake out and classes don't last very long. It is still the first week though, so we'll see. I did meet some new friends from the class though. One lady even invited me to a monk party today. She showed up at my house this morning around 9, and hour before she said she would be there. I hurried to get ready so that I could go to this party and dance in the street to a Thai marching band for about 2.5 hours. These parties can be fun, but I have been to so many that I've lost count, and after awhile they start to get old. The songs are usually the same and everyone tries to pull the "forang" up infront of to dance, while the other 40-50 people watch. Being the live entertainment of the party is only fun if you have some liquid courage to help you out...aka liquor! Being sober at 9 in the morning and forced to dance for multiple hours in the hot hot sun starts to lose its appeal after awhile. It was fun though and I was able to meet quite a few more people from my village that I had yet to meet. It was good IRBing I suppose (intentional relationship building). They want me to come back tonight for the dinner and performance, aka ladyboys singing and dancing on stage to tacky Thai music. I'm not sure if I will go. I hope it rains and then I will just blame it on that, I do have to ride my bike there, haha :)
All in all, this week was fabulous and I have finally starting helping my community! They are definitely small steps, but in the right direction...
So I'm pretty sure it took the first month at site for everyone to warm up to me and understand why the "forang" (foreigner) is actually here. Now that most everyone understands my purpose, they are no longer shy to ask me for help. This week was the first week that I finally started teaching. Monday was my first class at the SAO (where I work). I taught English from 4:30 to 5:30 to about 10 people. My counterpart has also been advertising this class to everyone we talk to so I think next week's class will have grown in size. On Tuesdays, I teach one of the local kids in my village from 6-7 pm at my house. Apparently his parents are friends with one of the people at my work so that is how this got set up. I teach for free since the Peace Corps won't allow us to profit from any of this, so in return for me teaching English his mom said she would help me with my Thai, which I feel is a great exchange. They also bring me food each class because I live alone and apparently have no idea how to fend for myself, but it is delicious so I don't argue with her :) Then on Wednesdays every week I will be teaching at one of the local schools for an hour from 2:30 to 3:30. The Paw Aw (head of the school) originally wanted me to teach a group of 80 students, but I obviously put my foot down and said that I would draw the line at 20. He was definitely trying to take advantage, which I have learned from the Peace Corps is not acceptable, haha. Then to finish off the week, I teach yoga to a group of health volunteers at the village health station on Friday from 10-11 am. This is obviously the most interesting of the classes that I teach, seeing how I have never been a yoga teacher and have only been to about 10 yoga classes in my life.
This was my first week for each of these classes and overall, it was amazing! The SAO class on Monday is a little boring and difficult becuase the level of English varies dramatically with each person. Teaching at the school was a BLAST!!! We played a game for most of the hour dealing with the names of the body parts. I drew two bodies on the whiteboard and then taped little pieces of paper with body part names written on each one next to the bodies. I then split the class into two groups so they could compete against each other. I gave each kid a number and then would call out a body part and a number and the two kids from each team would compete to see who could match the right name with the body part the fastest and then sit back down. The kids loved it!!! I gave candy to the winning team, which clearly upped the intensity.
Yoga was also a lot more fun than expected. I was a little nervous going into this, which is understandable from the lack of knowledge on my part. I looked up the positions online beforehand at the office and then practiced it once at home before the class. I understood each pose, but actually demostrating them was a little more challenging. The women were great though and just had fun with it. In fact, so many women showed up that I had to give two classes. They also want to continue the class and do it again next week, which is definitely promising. Usually Thais tend to flake out and classes don't last very long. It is still the first week though, so we'll see. I did meet some new friends from the class though. One lady even invited me to a monk party today. She showed up at my house this morning around 9, and hour before she said she would be there. I hurried to get ready so that I could go to this party and dance in the street to a Thai marching band for about 2.5 hours. These parties can be fun, but I have been to so many that I've lost count, and after awhile they start to get old. The songs are usually the same and everyone tries to pull the "forang" up infront of to dance, while the other 40-50 people watch. Being the live entertainment of the party is only fun if you have some liquid courage to help you out...aka liquor! Being sober at 9 in the morning and forced to dance for multiple hours in the hot hot sun starts to lose its appeal after awhile. It was fun though and I was able to meet quite a few more people from my village that I had yet to meet. It was good IRBing I suppose (intentional relationship building). They want me to come back tonight for the dinner and performance, aka ladyboys singing and dancing on stage to tacky Thai music. I'm not sure if I will go. I hope it rains and then I will just blame it on that, I do have to ride my bike there, haha :)
All in all, this week was fabulous and I have finally starting helping my community! They are definitely small steps, but in the right direction...
Sunday, 17 May 2009
The Big Transition!
So this past week has been a little more than hectic, to say the least. It marked the first month at site, which not only means that I can start travelling away from site on the weekends but it also mean that I am finally moving out of my homestay and into my very own house. You can probably imagine how exciting this is for me as well as the rest of the volunteers, being at site for a straight month without leaving your village is definitely a little overwhelming.
I was planning on moving out of my house on Friday, May 8th. For some reason I thought this was a great idea even though the following morning I would be leaving very early to spend a 3 day weekend in Bangkok, partying with about 30 volunteers. Before I moved in on Friday, I wanted to make sure that my house was ready so that I didn't get there and find everything was a mess. I asked the people at my work if we could stop by and make sure all of the furniture I had requested was there and the man who was previously living there had moved completely out. So it's Wednesday, two days before I move in, and I stop by the house at 4pm with the janitor at my work because everyone else was busy. We show up and are greeted by three little Thai children as well as the man who was living there....oh wait, I mean who are still living there. Yes, their shit is still everywhere and I am supposed to move in in two days! I am a little overwhelmed/upset but clearly try to hide it. He says it's not fully ready but the furniture is there and I can take a tour to see it. I find about three pieces of new furniture along with a food closet that is old, used, dusty and broken. Mind you, I am paying this man four times what he is requesting for rent and what I wanted in return was for the house to be fully furnished. After I left and went home, I immediately called a fellow volunteer to complain and then felt much better. I then called the only lady at my work who slightly speaks speaks English and tried to explain to her the situation.
The next day at work I am sitting at the computer and overhear P Aw (the lady who I spoke with the previous day) bitching out the man on the phone. She was doing this infront of the entire office and was not being shy about it, it was slightly awkward as I'm sure you could imagine. That day, Thursday, I went to the market and bought a bunch of appliances and some furniture for my house as I was assured that the house would definitely be ready.
The next day was Friday, the day I was going to move into my very own house. I get up around 6 am to pack all of my stuff and get ready to leave around 8 with one of the workers/janitor/handyman at my office. As I'm leaving my host mom and dad say they want to come help me move in during the morning and then go to work in the sugarcane fields in the afternoon. So we all head to my future rental house. My parents get there before me and as I step out of the truck the look on my host mom's face was priceless! It was a look of shock and slight disgust. She then proceeds to ask me how and why I am going to live here as well as why the heck I am paying this man four times the original asking price for this dump! We all take a quick walk through to see what works and what doesn't as well as to see just how much work and cleaning we have to do. The house was awful! It was filthy, the lights didn't work and the it was clear that he bought the cheapest possible furniture so that he could meet the requirements on my list of requests. I immediately began cleaning the bathroom, which I would not even think of using before scrubbing it top to bottom. At this point, I am on my hands and knees with a tiny scrub brush going to work on this bathroom and absolutely dripping sweat...to the point that I look like I just took a shower. Then, the Nayoke walks in. He is my boss and the head person at my office. Coincidentally, he also has a look of disgust on his face and asks me why I want to live here.
After much discussion with my family, the Nyoke and many of the neighbors, we realize that the houses on this side of the street are small and only worth 1,000 baht a month, whereas the houses across the street are 3,000 baht, but much bigger and with AC! At this point I am very disappointed and frustrated with my situation. If I knew any of this, especially the prices and that there were four vacant houses on the bigger side of the street, I clearly would not have settled for this house. The Nyoke continues to tell me about these big beautiful houses but that he can't do anything since I have already agreed to this house and that I didn't work with him in the beginning, I worked with the P Aw, the lady who slightly speaks English. After much conversation and a few calls to P Aw to try and have her explain how I'm feeling, we decide to go look at the vacant houses across the street. Unfortunately, two of them wouldn't work and one was out of my price range because of the amenities it came with. Then we came to last house, which is directly across the street from my orginal rental house, and it is PERFECT!!! Conveniently, the owner is also a good friend of the Nyoke. We looked around the house and see that one bedroom has AC and it is already furnished. The owner very easily and happily agrees to let me live there for two years and pay 3,700 baht a month, including water and electricity bills! I am more than excited at this point!!! I am so happy and relieved that I am not stuck with the shit hole and that I am going to live in a beautiful and CLEAN house! So we stand around for a bit chit chatting and I begin to woder if this is actually happening. You have to realize that all of this is happening in Thai, no one speaks English. It was not only confusing and frustrating, but extremely exhausting as well. They kept saying yeah, sure sure, but didn't do anything to start moving my stuff in. So I go across the street and slowly start to carry the little things that I could across the street to the new house, hoping they would get the hint and start helping me. By the end of the day I had all my stuff moved in, with the thanks of about 10 people who showed up to help me even though they weren't asked to. My host dad hooked up my sink and washing machine and the women helped me with my bedroom and kitchen. Everyone was SOOOO amazing and I couldn't ask for a group of nicer people. This definitely made me realize just how nice Thais are and happy that these are the people I will be working with for the next two years.
I had everything mostly moved in by the end of the day on Friday and was able to sleep in a nice and spacious bedroom that night, which was, dare I say, actually cold because of the air conditioning that I have. The following day I headed to Bangkok early in the morning. I am an hour and a half van ride to bangkok, which costs 120 Baht ($4). I met up with all of the volunteers and ended up having two days of complete fun and debauchery, which was exactly what we all needed. Being at site for an entire month with no other forangs (Americans/foreigners) while being on your best behavior 24/7 in order to make a good first impression can really pent up alot of energy and stress. Don't worry though, we were more than able to release it that weekend in Bangkok and now we are all feeling much better at site :)
I am back at site now and have been living in my house for about a week. I did a complete Spring cleaning yesterday and love how clean my house is. I took all of the furniture out on the patio and completely scrubbed and mopped the entire house. I am very happy with my new house, and even though it can be lonely at times, it is well worth it. I have also began eating food that I want and not the food which I am given and am forced to eat. I eat when I'm actually hungry and eat food that does not consist of rice, it's lovely!
Other than that, not much else is new. Actually, this week I am starting two classes here in my village. I am teaching an English class at my office every Monday for the people I work with, as well as a yoga class at the health station on Thursday. Yes, I said yoga. Most of you are probably wondering why I am doing this, and that is a great question. The health volunteers said they need to exercise more and somehow that translated to me teaching them yoga once a week. It was either that or aerobics, which clearly takes way too much coordination on my part. It should be really interesting and I will definitely update ya'll on how that goes.
That's all for now, I need to stop spending so much time on the internet and use this time to be productive....like teaching myself Thai! :)
Love!
I was planning on moving out of my house on Friday, May 8th. For some reason I thought this was a great idea even though the following morning I would be leaving very early to spend a 3 day weekend in Bangkok, partying with about 30 volunteers. Before I moved in on Friday, I wanted to make sure that my house was ready so that I didn't get there and find everything was a mess. I asked the people at my work if we could stop by and make sure all of the furniture I had requested was there and the man who was previously living there had moved completely out. So it's Wednesday, two days before I move in, and I stop by the house at 4pm with the janitor at my work because everyone else was busy. We show up and are greeted by three little Thai children as well as the man who was living there....oh wait, I mean who are still living there. Yes, their shit is still everywhere and I am supposed to move in in two days! I am a little overwhelmed/upset but clearly try to hide it. He says it's not fully ready but the furniture is there and I can take a tour to see it. I find about three pieces of new furniture along with a food closet that is old, used, dusty and broken. Mind you, I am paying this man four times what he is requesting for rent and what I wanted in return was for the house to be fully furnished. After I left and went home, I immediately called a fellow volunteer to complain and then felt much better. I then called the only lady at my work who slightly speaks speaks English and tried to explain to her the situation.
The next day at work I am sitting at the computer and overhear P Aw (the lady who I spoke with the previous day) bitching out the man on the phone. She was doing this infront of the entire office and was not being shy about it, it was slightly awkward as I'm sure you could imagine. That day, Thursday, I went to the market and bought a bunch of appliances and some furniture for my house as I was assured that the house would definitely be ready.
The next day was Friday, the day I was going to move into my very own house. I get up around 6 am to pack all of my stuff and get ready to leave around 8 with one of the workers/janitor/handyman at my office. As I'm leaving my host mom and dad say they want to come help me move in during the morning and then go to work in the sugarcane fields in the afternoon. So we all head to my future rental house. My parents get there before me and as I step out of the truck the look on my host mom's face was priceless! It was a look of shock and slight disgust. She then proceeds to ask me how and why I am going to live here as well as why the heck I am paying this man four times the original asking price for this dump! We all take a quick walk through to see what works and what doesn't as well as to see just how much work and cleaning we have to do. The house was awful! It was filthy, the lights didn't work and the it was clear that he bought the cheapest possible furniture so that he could meet the requirements on my list of requests. I immediately began cleaning the bathroom, which I would not even think of using before scrubbing it top to bottom. At this point, I am on my hands and knees with a tiny scrub brush going to work on this bathroom and absolutely dripping sweat...to the point that I look like I just took a shower. Then, the Nayoke walks in. He is my boss and the head person at my office. Coincidentally, he also has a look of disgust on his face and asks me why I want to live here.
After much discussion with my family, the Nyoke and many of the neighbors, we realize that the houses on this side of the street are small and only worth 1,000 baht a month, whereas the houses across the street are 3,000 baht, but much bigger and with AC! At this point I am very disappointed and frustrated with my situation. If I knew any of this, especially the prices and that there were four vacant houses on the bigger side of the street, I clearly would not have settled for this house. The Nyoke continues to tell me about these big beautiful houses but that he can't do anything since I have already agreed to this house and that I didn't work with him in the beginning, I worked with the P Aw, the lady who slightly speaks English. After much conversation and a few calls to P Aw to try and have her explain how I'm feeling, we decide to go look at the vacant houses across the street. Unfortunately, two of them wouldn't work and one was out of my price range because of the amenities it came with. Then we came to last house, which is directly across the street from my orginal rental house, and it is PERFECT!!! Conveniently, the owner is also a good friend of the Nyoke. We looked around the house and see that one bedroom has AC and it is already furnished. The owner very easily and happily agrees to let me live there for two years and pay 3,700 baht a month, including water and electricity bills! I am more than excited at this point!!! I am so happy and relieved that I am not stuck with the shit hole and that I am going to live in a beautiful and CLEAN house! So we stand around for a bit chit chatting and I begin to woder if this is actually happening. You have to realize that all of this is happening in Thai, no one speaks English. It was not only confusing and frustrating, but extremely exhausting as well. They kept saying yeah, sure sure, but didn't do anything to start moving my stuff in. So I go across the street and slowly start to carry the little things that I could across the street to the new house, hoping they would get the hint and start helping me. By the end of the day I had all my stuff moved in, with the thanks of about 10 people who showed up to help me even though they weren't asked to. My host dad hooked up my sink and washing machine and the women helped me with my bedroom and kitchen. Everyone was SOOOO amazing and I couldn't ask for a group of nicer people. This definitely made me realize just how nice Thais are and happy that these are the people I will be working with for the next two years.
I had everything mostly moved in by the end of the day on Friday and was able to sleep in a nice and spacious bedroom that night, which was, dare I say, actually cold because of the air conditioning that I have. The following day I headed to Bangkok early in the morning. I am an hour and a half van ride to bangkok, which costs 120 Baht ($4). I met up with all of the volunteers and ended up having two days of complete fun and debauchery, which was exactly what we all needed. Being at site for an entire month with no other forangs (Americans/foreigners) while being on your best behavior 24/7 in order to make a good first impression can really pent up alot of energy and stress. Don't worry though, we were more than able to release it that weekend in Bangkok and now we are all feeling much better at site :)
I am back at site now and have been living in my house for about a week. I did a complete Spring cleaning yesterday and love how clean my house is. I took all of the furniture out on the patio and completely scrubbed and mopped the entire house. I am very happy with my new house, and even though it can be lonely at times, it is well worth it. I have also began eating food that I want and not the food which I am given and am forced to eat. I eat when I'm actually hungry and eat food that does not consist of rice, it's lovely!
Other than that, not much else is new. Actually, this week I am starting two classes here in my village. I am teaching an English class at my office every Monday for the people I work with, as well as a yoga class at the health station on Thursday. Yes, I said yoga. Most of you are probably wondering why I am doing this, and that is a great question. The health volunteers said they need to exercise more and somehow that translated to me teaching them yoga once a week. It was either that or aerobics, which clearly takes way too much coordination on my part. It should be really interesting and I will definitely update ya'll on how that goes.
That's all for now, I need to stop spending so much time on the internet and use this time to be productive....like teaching myself Thai! :)
Love!
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
Living the Thai Dream...
It has been a little over 2 weeks since I have moved to site and I am learning to appreciate it more and more each day. I must admit, it was very hard at first, I didn't have my bike and I got to site right in the middle of a holiday when no one was working. Now, I actually have transportation...aka my bike, and I have been going to work everyday at the local government office from 8 am to 4:30 pm. I have already learned so much about my community and the 14 villages that I will be working with. For the past week I have been going to each village and talking with each village headman. I feel like I have somewhat made myself known here in the community, but definitely have more IRBing to do (intentional relationship building, as the Peace Corps calls it). I haven't rode my bike much since my office has taken me around to each village and showed me where everything is. I think once I get out on my bike everything will look much different, since I will be living it and not just looking at it through a window.
I have 1.5 weeks left until I move into my own rental house...finally! I have been living with host-families for the last 4 months and can't wait to be able to just do my own thing. My office is going to help me move in and hopefully take me to the tesco lotus, which is like Target, Thai style. I will finally be able to go home and relax, without worrying about speaking Thai or having people watch my every move. Don't get me wrong, I have loved living with Thai families. I learned how to cook about 10 different Thai dishes as well as learn about the Thai culture, up close and personal. For example, last Saturday I got up around 6:30 am, since I never get up passed 7...ever, and as I got out of the shower my Nayoke (boss) was standing there waiting to take me to a monk party. I then went straight to the party, around 8 am. I sat there while others had already started drinking. The marching band showed up a little later, and when I say marching band, I mean marching band. It was complete with trumpets, saxophones, and drums that you hold while you walk. After listening to them for a bit we all loaded up in the trucks and went to the temple down the street. We all piled out of the trucks for a good 15 minutes and danced while the band was playing. We then walked back to the house, which was about .25 miles away but took a good hour to get back becuase we were dancing the whole time! The soon-to-be monk was being carried on this bull looking pinata/chair thing that about 5-10 men were carrying. Just to paint you a better picture, we were walking in the middle of the road with about 100 semi-drunk people at 9am dancing to a marching band while a monk was being hoisted up on people's shoulders. This party then continued for the rest of the day and late into the night. These parties are all day extravaganzas and the family usually blares music from the obnoxious speakers for about 3 days straight. This is definitely the Thai culture that I learned to love and probably wouldn't have experienced it this intensely if I was living alone. Needless to say, after 4 months, I think I can handle living alone and waking up after 7, not because of the monk party music or the roosters crowing, but because I actually want to :)
Next week is definitely going to be a full week seeing how I will be moving into my own place and going to Bangkok for the weekend to play with the other volunteers, since it will have been a month at site and we are finally able to leave our provinces. Look forward to a blog update complete with many new and interesting experiences.
I have 1.5 weeks left until I move into my own rental house...finally! I have been living with host-families for the last 4 months and can't wait to be able to just do my own thing. My office is going to help me move in and hopefully take me to the tesco lotus, which is like Target, Thai style. I will finally be able to go home and relax, without worrying about speaking Thai or having people watch my every move. Don't get me wrong, I have loved living with Thai families. I learned how to cook about 10 different Thai dishes as well as learn about the Thai culture, up close and personal. For example, last Saturday I got up around 6:30 am, since I never get up passed 7...ever, and as I got out of the shower my Nayoke (boss) was standing there waiting to take me to a monk party. I then went straight to the party, around 8 am. I sat there while others had already started drinking. The marching band showed up a little later, and when I say marching band, I mean marching band. It was complete with trumpets, saxophones, and drums that you hold while you walk. After listening to them for a bit we all loaded up in the trucks and went to the temple down the street. We all piled out of the trucks for a good 15 minutes and danced while the band was playing. We then walked back to the house, which was about .25 miles away but took a good hour to get back becuase we were dancing the whole time! The soon-to-be monk was being carried on this bull looking pinata/chair thing that about 5-10 men were carrying. Just to paint you a better picture, we were walking in the middle of the road with about 100 semi-drunk people at 9am dancing to a marching band while a monk was being hoisted up on people's shoulders. This party then continued for the rest of the day and late into the night. These parties are all day extravaganzas and the family usually blares music from the obnoxious speakers for about 3 days straight. This is definitely the Thai culture that I learned to love and probably wouldn't have experienced it this intensely if I was living alone. Needless to say, after 4 months, I think I can handle living alone and waking up after 7, not because of the monk party music or the roosters crowing, but because I actually want to :)
Next week is definitely going to be a full week seeing how I will be moving into my own place and going to Bangkok for the weekend to play with the other volunteers, since it will have been a month at site and we are finally able to leave our provinces. Look forward to a blog update complete with many new and interesting experiences.
Sunday, 19 April 2009
Now a real U - Thong resident...
Where do I even begin...these last few weeks have definitely been a whirlwind! Let see, on April 5th we moved out of our homestays and back into the hotel for a few days before we all shipped off to site. It was so nice to spend time with the volunteers one last time before we all left and at the same time slightly sad. I feel like we all got so close with one another because of such an intense experience that we were all going through together over the last 3 months. I have realized now how nice it was to be able to go to training every day and bitch with the volunteers about what I was going through with my fam and whatnot. Now, at site, I am the only volunteer with the closest being about 3 hours away and I have found only a few people who can speak very little English. On April 9th we had our swearing in ceremony where we all became official volunteers. Then immediately after the ceremony, we left with our counterparts and headed to our sites. In my case, I headed off to Bangkok to get all 4 wisdom teeth pulled! Yes, I did say that I got my teeth pulled in Thailand. I spent 5 days there recovering from what was a very intense and much different surgery than you would find in the states. I was not put under and only had local anesthetic so I knew what was going on the entire time. The doctor was also much more hardcore. When it hurt and I would yell a little she would just say "oh sowwy" and continue yanking the tooth out. Immediately after surgery, with very little instruction, they sent me back to the hotel by myself. It was a very interesting experience and looking back wasn't completely awful, or at least not as bad as I thought it was going to be going into it. The minor detail is that while I was in Bangkok, all of the political uprisings were also taking place. I was not allowed to go certain places because of the political protests, which eventually turned violent with the military in the streets shooting their guns. I didn't see much of this because I mostly stayed at the hotel, except when I went to find yogurt or mashed potatoes at KFC....my diet for the 5 days. Oh, and this was also the same time as Songkron, the Thai new years water festival. This is where everyone goes into the streets and gets wasted all day while having a huge water fight. This sounds amazing, but while having a completely swollen mouth and on painkillers enduring drunkards approaching me and wiping the white pouder all over my very painful mouth and face, while also having huge protests consisting of thousands of people and military men with guns only blocks away...wasn't the best situation you could imagine. I got through it though and I'm still alive and well.
I left Bangkok and arrived at site last Tuesday, the 14th. I got to my homestay around 4 pm, right in the middle of their Songkron celebration. Everyone at my house was drinking and singing kareoke. I sat and watched for a while and then saw one of the guys that hangs out at my house alot go into the yard and grab a chicken. He then proceeded to find a random stick and beat the chicken repeatedly over the head. He let it suffer a while on the ground before throwing it into a pot of boiling oil. He finished by taking the now dead chicken and plucking all of it's feathers off. I think by the ridiculous look I had on my face my family then realized that I was definitely a vegetarian. They all laughed at me and my unique reaction to this Thai method of making dinner.
For the next few days I did nothing but lie around in the hammocks all day and play dominos with the girls that live next door. It was a little frustrating since I thought I was going to be extremely busy meeting people and seeing my town, but it was the middle of a holiday and most people were either with their families or out of town. On Saturday in my town we had the big finale to the Songkron festival. In the morning I went to the temple with my family and we did religious ceremonies for about 3 hours. It was really interesting except the fact that they don't have chairs in the temple. Everyone sits on the ground, and trust me, after 3 hours of sitting on the ground your body definitely hates you. I am starting to form little calices on my ankles from sitting on the ground ALL THE TIME! In my homestay there is no furniture, well at least until they found I was going to live there. Then they bought a table and 4 chairs, which we never sit at because there are always like 10 people at my house. I am a fan of the hammocks however. My house has 4 hammocks and they are constantly occupied by someone. Taking naps in the afternoon in the hammocks has become part of my routine. Americans should definitely adopt the idea of hammocks as a main piece of furniture. I have also noticed that hammocks are the new basinet in Thailand. The two kids under the age of 2 at my house take their daily naps in the hammocks everyday and it works like a charm! Anyways, after the 3 hours of religious ceremonies they had a huge water festival/water fight at the temple. Everyone puts on hawaiian style shirts, which apparently are also directly associated with Songkron here, and throws water on everyone. Then in the evening we went back to the temple for dancing. This was a great end to the holiday.
Today is Monday and it is my first day at the SAO, the government office where I will work. I have actually gotten alot done today, which finally makes me feel productive. The Peace Corps has about a thousand forms for us to fill out regarding information about our site. I sat in the office and started to ask the questions, soon I had about 5 people surrounding me trying to help me with the the forms. I think that once the awkwardness of being new and foreign passes and the Thai people feel comfortable around me, things are going to be great. The Thai people are so nice and friendly and really want to help, they just seem to be a little timid and afraid they won't be able to communicate with me....which might be the case sometimes :)
I left Bangkok and arrived at site last Tuesday, the 14th. I got to my homestay around 4 pm, right in the middle of their Songkron celebration. Everyone at my house was drinking and singing kareoke. I sat and watched for a while and then saw one of the guys that hangs out at my house alot go into the yard and grab a chicken. He then proceeded to find a random stick and beat the chicken repeatedly over the head. He let it suffer a while on the ground before throwing it into a pot of boiling oil. He finished by taking the now dead chicken and plucking all of it's feathers off. I think by the ridiculous look I had on my face my family then realized that I was definitely a vegetarian. They all laughed at me and my unique reaction to this Thai method of making dinner.
For the next few days I did nothing but lie around in the hammocks all day and play dominos with the girls that live next door. It was a little frustrating since I thought I was going to be extremely busy meeting people and seeing my town, but it was the middle of a holiday and most people were either with their families or out of town. On Saturday in my town we had the big finale to the Songkron festival. In the morning I went to the temple with my family and we did religious ceremonies for about 3 hours. It was really interesting except the fact that they don't have chairs in the temple. Everyone sits on the ground, and trust me, after 3 hours of sitting on the ground your body definitely hates you. I am starting to form little calices on my ankles from sitting on the ground ALL THE TIME! In my homestay there is no furniture, well at least until they found I was going to live there. Then they bought a table and 4 chairs, which we never sit at because there are always like 10 people at my house. I am a fan of the hammocks however. My house has 4 hammocks and they are constantly occupied by someone. Taking naps in the afternoon in the hammocks has become part of my routine. Americans should definitely adopt the idea of hammocks as a main piece of furniture. I have also noticed that hammocks are the new basinet in Thailand. The two kids under the age of 2 at my house take their daily naps in the hammocks everyday and it works like a charm! Anyways, after the 3 hours of religious ceremonies they had a huge water festival/water fight at the temple. Everyone puts on hawaiian style shirts, which apparently are also directly associated with Songkron here, and throws water on everyone. Then in the evening we went back to the temple for dancing. This was a great end to the holiday.
Today is Monday and it is my first day at the SAO, the government office where I will work. I have actually gotten alot done today, which finally makes me feel productive. The Peace Corps has about a thousand forms for us to fill out regarding information about our site. I sat in the office and started to ask the questions, soon I had about 5 people surrounding me trying to help me with the the forms. I think that once the awkwardness of being new and foreign passes and the Thai people feel comfortable around me, things are going to be great. The Thai people are so nice and friendly and really want to help, they just seem to be a little timid and afraid they won't be able to communicate with me....which might be the case sometimes :)
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