Showering with a frog...

February 16th

I never would have thought that I would be happy to shower with a frog.  It turns out that they make very good shower companions.  I get to get clean, and he gets to eat all the ants that are deciding to come out of the wall attempting to interrupt my shower.  From now on, I will welcome any frog who wants to join me in the shower into the room.  I am not a fan of ants, especially while showering, so I find this to be a win-win situation for all of us. This was the first time seeing this frog, but if I see him again, I might just have to give him a name.

It rained today, truly rained, for the first time since coming to Thailand.  It kind of made my day.  We were at a school doing an interview when it started to sprinkle a little bit.  We didn’t think anything of it.  It wasn’t until we started to bike home that it started to really rain…and I loved it.  I was biking through puddles, laughing with the passing cars at my predicament at being on a bike in my riap-roy clothes getting soaking wet and not caring that I was getting all muddy in the process.  It was nice to have that moment, thinking about how much I really do like the rain sometimes, and getting the chance to just experience it for a short period of time.  Needless to say, when I got home, I was covered in water and mud, but who cares…cause I got to take a shower with a frog.  Then, I sat in my room, reading a book, listening to the rain through my open windows.  Now this is a great life.

February 17^th

Ok…I may have liked showering with a frog yesterday, and I may have decided that they are good additions to the shower because they eat the ants for me, but I have officially changed my mind.  It turns out that frogs are only good in the bathroom if you have your contacts in.  If you are wearing glasses and would really like to take them off to shower, it may be a bad idea to have a frog in the room, unless you are sure that they will not move the entire time.  This was the issue I had tonight.  I guess it turns out that the frog kind of likes the confines of our shower area because he has chosen to stay there.  When I went in there after work, I was surprised to see him again, but didn’t mind…until he started moving.  The entire time I was in there, he was leisurely hopping around the room.  I assume he was having fun with the water, but who knows.  The issue with this is that today I chose to wear my glasses.  What if I took them off, showered, and then stepped on him.  Not only would I feel bad for the frog, but gross, they are squishy.  Yuck! So, what do you do in this situation…of course! Shower with your glasses on.  Ugh, I don’t want to be doing that on a regular basis.  I guess they are clean at least.  Moral of the story is…just because something was great once, doesn’t mean it will be great a second time under slightly different circumstances.  Tomorrow, I will check the shower first to see if I need to throw a pair of contacts on. 

…I think I am going to name him Dilbert (after a bear I met in Americorps).

February 18^th

Until I was dancing down the street this morning in a sea of men, women, music, and drinks, I did not know the power of baby powder.  For weeks, my fellow PCers and I have been enduring the hot days, sweaty bike rides, and un-airconditioned rooms (sometimes) without the assistance of baby powder that can be purchased for a measly 30 baht.  Where has this life saver been?  The only answer that I can think of, is that we all thought that baby powder really wouldn’t work to cool you down and prevent some of that sweat from dripping down your back.  In my opinion, I don’t believe I was thinking straight when I thought this, because you see Thai children going to school with streaks of baby powder going down their faces and you see men and women applying it liberally throughout the day.  I should have known that these people were not putting it on just for the hell of it; it really did have a purpose.

So we were going down the road, dancing in the crowd, each of us (the PC peeps of Tambon Bon Heep) dripping in sweat.  My mom came by with some baby powder and put it in someones hands…they decided to give it a try.  I was still skeptical, so I kind of hung back to see how it would go…that is when my little sister came up to me, two hands full of baby powder and slapped her hands onto each side of my face.  I officially had been powdered for the first time.  It was great.  I could immediately tell the difference.  Soon, I had it on my face, arms, and neck…glorious!  Thank you baby powder, you made my life a little bit nicer (3 hours later, I had my very own bottle of it).

Oh, and I got my results of my mock language test back.  When I take my real test I want to be at Intermediate Low.  I currently stand just a little bit below Novice High (so a little over 1 step down from where I should be).  Personally, I am very happy with those results.  I have a few more weeks to practice my Thai before the real test, and I hope to make it to the right level.  If not, I just have some tutoring in my future (fine by me because I was thinking about doing it any way).

February 19^th

So good!!!! My mom bought be a chicken burger from KFC! It didn’t have cheese or bacon (which I love!), but did have lettuce (which I usually don’t like) and way too much mayo, but it was delicious.  Probably the best chicken burger I have had in years.  Even though it wasn’t a really burger and didn’t have my usual condiments (BBQ sauce, cheese, and bacon) it definitely satisfied my craving for a burger for a little while.  They were laughing at me because I got so giddy when I saw something “American” waiting for me at dinner tonight. 

Monday I find out my site and then on Thursday I get to go to Bangkok.  We were told that we have some time to look around while we are there, so I am hoping to get a little shopping done.  I really want to buy a handbag; something in-between the little purse that I brought and my backpack.  Sometimes I need more room than just a purse, but don’t like carrying around my backpack all the time.  Maybe we will hit up a restaurant or two and if we have enough time go see a movie.  I hear that everyone stands up and sings the National Anthem before the movie starts, so that would be interesting to see in person…and the movies play in English (bonus!).  But, we will see how much time they give us.  I think we are only in Bangkok for the night before we head out to our future sites for a visit.

My mom and I finally sat down and talked tonight and actually had a real conversation.  I don’t know if we completely understood each other, but we definitely were able to understand most everything that was said.  It was a lot of fun to finally have some time alone with her to talk.  She is really an amazing woman who can do most everything that she puts her mind to.  Smiles never leave her face and she makes sure everyone else is taken care of before she even thinks about herself.  Occupations that she currently does have, or had in the past are: nurse, tambon representative, hair dresser, weaver, cook (she is amazing at cooking, and the teachers often eat at my house every day – unfortunately I can’t eat much of her food because my stomach won’t take it currently).  She also has held some positions within the village I believe and helps my dad out when he catches fish and in his shop (bike and motorcycle repair).  I don’t know what I am going to do to thank her and my Thai family for everything that they have done for me during my stay here.  I am going to have to figure it out fast…only a month left.

February 21st

I get to find out my site in about 3 hours!!!!!!!!

Here are some pics:

This is at a temple I went to this last weekend.  The Buddah head is in the tree.  It was a crazy cool tree.

This was "served" (maybe) at the monk ordination at my house on Friday.  I thought it was hilarious how it was set up..the pig kinda looks like he's smiling.  My family laughed at me taking a picture of it.

Wot Maha Tot

My mom and little sister dancing in the streets at the monk ordination...yes, I danced too