Sometimes I wonder if I am doing enough. Yes, I have only been here two weeks, and yes, my skills in the Thai language are limited at this point, but should I be out there doing more? The answer is probably yes. Yes, I could be doing more right now, I am sure. I could spend more time in the community. I can spend more time talking in Thai, learning the language, and I can be more insistent in meeting all the people in the community. But, the fact of the matter is, is that I am exhausted much of the time from trying to speak Thai and understand what is going on. I am exhausted from telling my host mother for the 4th or 5th time that ‘no, I really am not hungry…yes, I will eat this huge bowl of rice anyways…’. The people here are wonderful, kind, and accommodating (except when it comes to food), but I move at a different pace.
Overall, I am a quite person. My friends may disagree, as I don’t exactly have a shy, quiet persona in front of them, but I am a person who likes to sit back, take things in and process before I finally decide to act. In order to make it through my day-to-day life, I need moments where I can be by myself. I need time to read, watch a movie, and just chill out. These are the periods of the day the get me through the next. Going through training, I didn’t really get to have these moments, except in the confines of my room right before I would go to bed. That was ok, because I knew that I would get them soon enough. Well, I have now been in Thailand for three months, and I am just getting worn out. I am counting down the days until I am allowed to have a house to myself, and I am praying that I will get to move into a new place at the very beginning of next month. Then, I can make my own food, eat when I want, sleep when I want, and not have to worry about jumping out of bed, putting on an appropriate shirt (tank tops are not considered appropriate), and answer my bedroom door before my mom yells my name and knocks a million times. Yelling “just a second’ in English doesn’t help at all here.
Yesterday was amazing, because I had almost the entire day to myself. No one forcing food down my throat (ok, once), no yelling my name throughout the house, and I didn’t leave the house until 5pm (where I proceeded to go out and get bitten my many mosquitoes because my short walk with my mom because a long walk with a few stops). The best part was stopping by the 7-11 on the way home and picking up my dinner. What did I have for dinner last night? Cereal! I had me some good ol’ fashion frosted flakes. Yum! Best meal ever in the last few weeks. –maybe I’ll have that again tonight…hmm…
I only came into work for half days on Monday and Tuesday and yesterday was a holiday. I am finally starting to feel better, and am trying to start doing things again. Hopefully, this afternoon, I can convince myself to go do aerobics again. I am not sure if I should wait one more day to go out and attempt to kill myself with some amazingly awesome dance moves in the middle of the 100 degree heat…maybe one more day J
I spent Tuesday morning drawing a rough community map of my tambon. Once I finalize it, ensuring I have all the correct roads and everything, I will start to fill in information regarding where key people in the community live, where meetings are held, where community groups meet, etc. This is what I am hoping to be spending the next week or so one. I am hoping that it will be a fun task that I can get some people involved in. Of course, next week may not be the best week to be doing this. Next week is Songkran, a huge festival in all of Thailand. I believe that my Tambon actually extends the 3 day festival into a 6 day festival.
My Nayoke purchased two shirts for me to wear to Songkran. I got a pink and a purple one. He first gave me the shirts on Monday. The pink was too small and the purple too big. So, he came back Wednesday morning. This time the purple was too small and the pink too big…so of course, he tried one more time (I’m still not sure why I didn’t just go with him to pick them out), and this time the pink one is WAY too big and the purple is still too small. I’m not sure what the logic here was, but I believe that just purchasing two XL shirts would have done just fine…I am not an XXXL, doesn’t matter what country I am in, and how the sizes change…I am NOT that big. But thanks for attempting to be considerate about my size. I do appreciate it.
I know this post has a bit of a negative vibe to it, but I promise, things are good. This week has just been a very hard week for me, and I am excited to start over again next week with the festival. I just need to get a little R&R and all will be well. Cross my heart.
I feel the same way. My host family here really wants me to stay but I get no privacy. I'm sort of glad to hear I'm not the only one wanting to yuu kon diao. I feel kind of guilty every time I hear them say that (but it's the truth!)
ReplyDeleteChokdii!
Do you have a house already set out for you? Unfortunately, I don't...but I'm hoping some house hunting next week will resolve that...I'm also glad to know that there are other people in the same boat as me
ReplyDeleteYou'll find a house. I wasn't happy with the rent on one, so instead of trying to negotiate, my counterpart and host-mom took me to another (and much nicer) house but there would have been a roommate in the mix. I think they preferred finding a new place rather than confronting someone over unfair rent.
ReplyDeleteYou should try to bring it up in conversation with your neighbors when you go around in your neighborhood. I always go through the same conversation about why my hair's black when I'm American, where I live and will be living. Someone pointed out to me that there were houses for rent at one point.
Hope that works.