Homeward Bound

Turns out sitting on planes is less fun than not sitting on planes. Somehow, watching a movie is boring, food is less appetizing, reading makes you sleepier, and sleep is way more difficult to achieve while seated on a plane. My 24 hours of travel was generally not a great time. Not that it was particularly awful or offensive, but nothing entirely good came out of those 24 hours.

Turns out caffeine keeps you awake. In the span of 51 hours , I drank 5 cups of coffee and slept 2 hours. Generally, I aim for the ratio of cups of coffee to hours of sleep to be a little lower.

Turns out winter is cold. While in Thailand,  I had eagerly awaited the time when I'd arrive home in comfy sweater and hot tea weather. The image of me bundled up in Starbucks, talking to a friend while watching the snowfall constantly danced in my mind. Now that I'm here, though, I'm not really sure why I was so excited. True that I'm happy to be out of the blazing heat, but winter in the states means frozen extremities and general chilly discomfort elsewhere. A nice spring-like temperature would be excellent.

After all that complaining, it turns out I'm really glad to be home. Thailand reached a natural ending, and I'm glad to close that chapter in my life. Now I can rest and regroup in good ol' Jersey until my next adventure.

Chachachang Mamamaiiii

We made it! Chiang Mai is awesome. SP and I spent the first two days exploring the city on foot. We would basically find a store or restaurant online that looked cool and go find it, like a self-made scavenger hunt. We found the best pizza in town, the huge grocery store, and the only pumpkin pie in Thailand, among others. One night for dinner we went to this fancy-ass place where we sat in our own outdoor room thing (shown above) that was fairly inexpensive for American standards. Saidee took the midnight bus from Mae Sariang, arriving at 4am on Tuesday. We surprised her by going to a place that has cheesecake, her favorite dessert. We decided to all get hair wraps, and we found this awesome cafe where the owner does beautiful ones. In the cafe we discovered this subculture of young Europeans, who were once tourists but decided to stay. They all hang out in cute cafes, do yoga, play cool instruments. Last night we ended up at a cheesey Mexican place with karaoke called Loco Elvis. We sat next to two guys who...prepare for your mind to be blown...went to Colorado College, my tiny school no one on the east coast has ever heard of. They gave me tons of advise, made me so so excited for the fall. Later we're going to a Thai movie. And tomorrow we go home!

School's Out

 

Yesterday was our last day of school. They held a big assembly for SP and me where they gave us each a Karen shirt and bag. Two of the sixth graders read a speech in English, and each class came up to take pictures with us. At the end they requested we sing an American song. We made a deal that we'd sing only if we could have a giant group hug at the end. We put on our best purple dinosaur voices and sang the Barney "I Love You" song. When we finished, the boy standing next to me in the picture was the first to come hug us. He's a first grader named Boo, and it's very possible I love him more than any other person in the world. I've never exchanged more than the few English words we taught with him, but it doesn't matter. He sat on my lap each class, secretly knowing that he was my favorite. The moment he ran up to hug me was the moment I lost it; the tears came before I could stop them. The rest of the day was full of hugs from everyone...our favorites, the trouble makers, the kids whose names we still didn't know. Teaching at that school was truly such an amazing experience. I wish there was a way to continue their English education, because no teachers there know any English. Those kids have such potential. Hopefully I can go back in a few years, see Boo all grown up, and refresh what they learned in the two month English crash course we game them.

Tomorrow morning we're off to Chiang Mai! We have everything planned out (well, mostly just what we want to eat). Mexican, Italian, more Mexican, and one last Thai meal for good measure. We just have to get through the five hour bus ride. Weeeee!

Here Comes the Baby...I Mean, Bride

A staff member who's been here since day 1, who I've spent a ton of time with, and who always claims to be "single and ready to mingle" is getting married. Tomorrow. I found out today. I think I'm invited. She's 16 years old. He's 28 and has 4 kids. As far as I know she's unaware of the offspring part. But all the Thai staff here is supportive because her dad has a boat. I asked him if he's excited. He said no. Right now he's just hoping she won't be too expensive (because one must purchase a wife from her parents). Did I mention I might be a bride's maid? I don't understand this place. It's freaking me out.

Loi Krothong

Thailand has a holiday called Loi Krathong, a beautiful day of light. In school we made what are essentially candle holders out of banana trees, banana leaves, and flowers. At night we lit the candle and sent them down the river to join the hundreds of other candles, bringing any bad in our lives with them. Of course when I place mine in the river, it collided with the dock pole and turned over. I'm pretty sure that's like terrible luck by Thai standards. Hopefully since I'm a felung (Thai word for white person) it won't apply. The other part of the holiday is lighting these beautiful white lanterns, making a wish, and letting them float into the sky. All throughout the sky you could see dots of light, hundreds of wishes all being transported to the heavens. So beautiful.

Ajan Bo

Today in the second grade, we went around a circle practicing basic conversation (how are you, what is your name, etc). The kids didn't really get it, or were too shy to speak by themselves. That is, except for one kid named Bo. Bo rotates between the roles of trouble maker, class clown, and smartest kid in class. Because of his eagerness to get the ball rolling today, he adopted a new role of teacher. The newly appointed Ajan (teacher) Bo directed the students through an entire basic conversation. The other girl and I had been losing patience, so thank goodness for Ajan Bo.

Stellar Day

Just a quick post to say..

WE FOUND PEANUT BUTTER!!! which allegedly didn't exist in this town. and nutella and whole wheat bread. My tummy is soo happy.

Yellow Flower

This past weekend we went camping at a place called Yellow Flower. There are three of us American girls as of Friday, when Saidee from Michigan (also a ginger!) arrived. We packed up tents, pillows, blankets, bug spray, food...the three of us were expecting some hard core camping. We drove the 2 hours in the big boss's truck, most of us in the pickup. Staff member Lay announced early in the drive that his "geek" (friends with benefits) just left for Chiang Mai and we should all be "single and ready to mingle" for the weekend. The two new girls might have been a little taken aback; it takes a while to get used to Lay. I've diagnosed him as a pathological bullshitter, always spewing crap that isn't well thought out enough to be lies but nonetheless lacking any basis in reality. He mostly just likes to hear himself talk.

Anyway, Yellow Flower consists of lots of yellow flowers. I know, you're shocked. Beautiful yellow flowers and tourists and shopping. No jungle or hiking to speak of. We set up camp on a grassy field right off the road, lit a campfire, ate Thai kabobs. The three of us bonded by the campfire, missing only some s'mores for the perfect comping night. One thing that's changed since they got here...I speak much less to Thai people. We usually talk normal speed to each other, which makes us hard to understand for the ESL crowd. So they have Thai conversations, not having to worry about isolating me. I don't know if this is good or bad, just different.

I have this theory that the ultimate sign of trust is falling asleep on someone, letting your unconscious self become completely vulnerable to another human. The night had been freezing, the ground hard and cold and wet. Needless to say, no one slept very well. On the ride home, we all sprawled out on top of each other and found comfort enough to sleep. And I really felt the little community we've formed here at the Children's Home. Each of us has a shoulder to sleep on. And it feels so great to have a home when you're away from home.

Garlic Bread in a Wok

After two weeks of Thai cooking, the teacher P'Dang decided that it was our turn to cook for her. We went the Italian route, making spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce and garlic bread. We crushed garlic and butter in a mortar and pestel, then toasted the garlic bread on a wok. Everything turned out awesome. Like, so good, especially given our limited resources.

As we were cooking, I jokingly said that I could see them putting the pasta over rice...but then they did. They also added fish sauce and these bean crouton things. Though funny at first, it did strike me later as kind of rude. We have eaten everything they've fed us, said we liked it, took seconds. I wouldn't dream if asking for ketchup with their fried eggs, even though eggs and rice taste like a whole lot of nothing to me. All the teachers added fish sauce. None of them hid their nervousness about trying it. The only comment we got was P'Dang saying "doesn't butter make you fat?" in significantly poorer grammar.

While we're on the subject, I'd like to say a few words about P'Dang. P'Dang is, as the Thai people say, "ting tong" (crazy). A few days ago she showed us pictures of her family, including a fair amount of selfies of her teenage daughter. She then kept insisting to our translator that I should plug my camera into the tv to show the students pictures of my family. On the way home from school she bought us hot milk(?), and her son magically appeared during the pit stop. The conversation somehow turned to how her son thinks I look like an angel. Did I mention that he's 14? After I was thuroughly creeped out, she put the icing on the cake by giving me a hat and telling me I remind her of her daughter. I think the translator summed her up pretty well by saying with a chuckle, "P'Dang...P'Dang, she make me headache."

The Next Picasso

I don't know if you all were aware, but I'm a pretty quality artist...

Anywho, yesterday another American gap student arrived. She came with us to school, and we made a pretty good teaching team, if I do say so. I get to speak fluent English, talk about college and politics and gossip about our Thai friends. It's fabulous. A third girl is coming later this week, and we'll all be best friends.

The wonderful crazy teacher lady bought us hot yellow milk. It came in little bags. I don't know why. We put instant coffe in it, though I doubt that's the customary way to drink it. Again, I don't know...

Crazy Bananas

I walked into the teachers' room this morning to find a new bunch if bananas. The next two teachers who walked in carried a different variety to try, totally 34 bananas for one girl. I walked into first grade to find that the first grade tacher had bought me two huge bags of fried bananas. And that's in addition to the apples, papaya, coffee, pastries, and delicious lunch with leftovers for dinner.

Moral of the story? I love job. I work for the sweetest people in the world, teach the most precious children, and eat like a princess. Wanting to express my gratitude is enough incentive for me to learn Thai, since "kap kun ka" (thank you) doesn't quite do it.

Thai-isms

Today was a day of laughter. Here's a few highlights...

Me: "How are you?"
Student: "I am teacher." He meant "I am good," but all those English words got jumbled in his head.

After burning the remainder of the rice plants, Lay announced, "I like to fire." He meant "I like burning things," or "I like fire," or "I'm a pyromaniac." Fire should totally be a verb, though.

Doe doesn't like his skin or eye color and always talks about switching with me. "If you want to change eyes, you have to see a doctor in the mosquito." Not sure how hospital turned into mosquito...

Me: "How many people are in Thailand?"
Doe: "I think sixty million thousand."

After a very successful class, Kang told me, "I think if you stay in Thailand, you make money a lot." I believe he intended to complement my teaching, saying that I could make a lucrative career out of teaching here.

Just now I was telling Doe about the miscommunication that often occurs when Lay, running trips for American teens, rounds the kids up to make cement. "Cement" with the Thai accent sounds more like "semen" than "cement," and the Americans are never quite sure how to respond. Doe asked what semen is; I told him to ask Lay. Lay snickered, "show him." I declined the offer, and when Lay finally gave in, the blushing Doe worked with me for the next ten minutes on the correct pronunciation of "cement."

Today I walked to the classroom next door to borrow scissors. I found the students sitting quietly as the teacher snoozed on her desk. Literally. She was assed out, head resting on arm. I found my scissors and left, laughing until I cried. In America, if a teacher fell asleep in class, she...well, she wouldn't be a teacher anymore.

Swans

A flock of swans bathed in the nearby pond, the one refreshing image during a green-brown day of swealteringly sweaty rice cutting. They were beautiful, "so-ee ma ma," and so elegant. During our first break, the big boss of the whole operation fetched his rifle from the truck. He casually shot one, then two of the peaceful creatures. The big strong hunter men took notice of the horror on my face, chuckled a little. Within minutes the birds were de-feathered by one of the boys. He called my name and made dancing puppets of the carcasses, as if we were in 1st grade and he was showing me a dead bug on the playground after getting tired of pulling my pigtails. I looked away, swallowing tears and an angry remark; I'm not sure which would've come out first.

My favorite staff member came over to me, asked if I believe in karma. I nodded and asked why he wanted to know. He shrugged. "If you kill a lot, maybe it comes back to you." I think that's the wisest thing I've heard a Thai person say. Maybe he understands just a little bit.

Later, when I was dizzy from dehydration and fatigue, I noticed the clean white feathers scattered on the muddy earth. I almost wanted to collect them, keep them pure, celebrate the lives that were. But it wasn't my place; there was enough human interference for one day. I let them sit, taking a mental picture and wishing peace to their clean, white, unadulterated swan friends.

Ouchy..

I burned my leg on the exhaust pipe of a motorbike. I wasn't even riding it, just standing next to it. I was fine, though, and it didn't blister at all, until a staff member was teaching me Thai boxing and scraped over the burn with his jeans. An entire layer of skin came off. Now it looks super nasty, and band-aids don't really exist in this place.

It's also burning hot. November is supposed to be the start of cold season in Thailand, but it's still, pardon the expression, hot as ballz. Instead of Hummers or gas-guzzling sports cars, I vote that Americans do as the Thais and switch to primarily driving motorbikes. Better to burn away some skin than the whole freaking planet.

My New Recipe

I have a new recipe :).Today at lunch the  teacher showed me how to cook noodles, and I want to share because it was so good. So first get a wok, or settle for a big saucepan. Saute garlic in oil, then crack a few eggs in there. Add Thai flat noodles (pronounced something like pasa-ee-oo), soy sauce, brown sugar. Keep mixing, and thrown in diced carrots, lettuce, and cauliflower. When it all looks done, try a noodle to make sure it's "aloy ma ma" (very delicious). Then you're good to go, and so very Thai.

School today was fabulous. We did alphabet relay races, number relay races, and colored pictures. After lunch I taught the kids how to fan themselves with a book cause it was so freaking hot, but it turned into a circle of Thai babies fanning me! I swear I didn't ask for it. Allthat was missing was a shirtless hunky man feeding me grapes. I also got my hair braided and attacked by ticklers. After school they swarmed around me holding my hand and sitting on my lap. We can't say two words to each other, but love is totally happening.

And of course, yay at the elecrion results. I'm feeling super good about my choice of college. CO here I come!!

Day 1 of teaching! I basically sang the alphabet song and "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" all day long, with some Simon Says thrown in there. We counted to ten and learned how to say "my name is..." Sadly, the English teacher needed the lesson as much as the students. Everyone was so warm and welcoming though; I see myself getting very attached to all the little smiling faces.

In other news... I taught at the children's home as well at night. A student requested that we learn about "ing" verbs, something that doesn't exist in Thai (they don't really have any tenses or verb conjugation, it's fabulous). And it turns out I have no logical explaination for when to use them. So that was fun. I think I'll stick to simon says from now on..

The view from the children's home.

Hey hey hey!

So I'm taking a gap year to travel, and I kept thinking a blog would be a nice thing to do, but it hasn't happened until now. Better late than never :). I'm not great at internet things, but I'll do my best!

Here's a quick lil' synopsis of my year so far...I spent a month in the UK watching football, drinking lager and lime, and singing karaoke to Frank Sinatra (not really sure why that last one happened). The first week I was accompanied by my three best friends, and we went everywhere, from chillin' with the Beatles in Liverpool to visiting good ol' Billy in Stratford-Upon-Avon to watching the olympic triathlon in Hyde Park.When they left, I popped over to Spain to my wonderful English friends' holiday home. Spain heat was rough, but my friends and I still managed the 3 hour hike to Africa (well, a view of Africa) and have the best time ever. Last phase of the trip I shipped up to Scotland to stay with my beautiful friend who inspired me to take this gap year and her lovely family. In addition to getting rained on a ton, I got to see Glasgow, Edinburgh, Helensburgh, and Oban. Each was more beautiful than the next, and all with the friendliest people ever (when I could understand their accent). The only bad part was leaving. I totally cried. Hopefully I'll be back to visit soon, though!

Next I traveled to Spain for yoga teacher training at the stunning Suryalila Retreat Center (aka Yogaland) with Frog Lotus Yoga. Yogaland was filled with inspiring people, delicious vegetarian food, and (obviously) lots and lots of yoga. I went in expecting to learn how to teach yoga but left with a better understanding of what it means to be a good person. I gained a whole new outlook (and inlook) on myself and my relationship with the universe at large.Yogic philosophy is super awesome; I highly recommend looking into it. The last night a few of us sat in a circle chanting in Sanskrit around a single lotus candle. Probably one of the most beautiful moments of my life, I totally cried again (more like sobbed). I have a yoga family now, and I'm so very grateful for that experience.

Now I'm in Thailand! The company Rustic Pathways opened the Rustic Pathways Children's Home a few years ago for kids whose families can't afford to send them to school. Each student (there's 27 of them) at RPCH has an American sponsor that funds his/her education (http://rusticpathways.org/hilltribesupport.html). For two months I'm living at the home to teach English, learn Thai, and make new friends. The first week, since schools were closed, I helped the Rustic Pathways staff with the rice harvest (what? rice doesn't grow in the supermarket??). We cut rice, tied rice, carried rice, threw rice into a giant truck thing, bagged rice, dumped the rice out onto the floor, rebagged rice, and carried the bags of rice to the storage house. Oh, and every once in a while we took a break to eat rice. But it's cool, because the rice we harvested feeds the home for the whole year. Besides for rice, I've drank coconut water and eaten papaya straight off the tree. I attended a Thai boxing match, planted a bamboo tree, and swam in a gorgeous waterfall. Last weekend we went camping in the jungle, where I learned that 1. Thai people aren't very concerned about litter, 2. Thai people eat frogs for breakfast, and 3. Thai people also eat turtles, rats, birds, bugs...basically anything that moves. But we had a blast, and I learned how to shoot a slingshot...which should totally come in handy back in Jersey.

That takes me to today. This morning I went to speak with the school at which I'll be teaching. Starting tomorrow I'll teach full time, grades 1 through 6.  Apparently the knowledge of English is basically nothing, so this'll be a good challenge. I'm a little nervous but super excited. Wish me luck!!