Sabaai, Sabaai (สบายๆ)

Last week I was listening to a conversation in my office about my house that was being built. I was very excited because I assumed they were talking about it because I would get to move in shortly. Construction would continue and I would get to move in in a few short weeks. But, as the conversation continued I heard them mention the month October. What about October? What's going on? My Ron Nayok turned to me and said that the reason the house wasn't finished was because the workers disappeared so there was no one to work on it; to finish it. They were thinking that there may be a chance that in October, there would be more workers to finish it. So, please ignore the pictures that you saw on my previous post…that house is not destined to be mine. L

On Monday, my Balot took me on a bike ride to go check out a couple of available rental houses around the Tessaban. We biked to a coffee shop in a neighborhood of row houses. He pointed to the coffee shop and said that that was an option for my house. It was a cute house with a loft for a bedroom. I would have to sleep under a mosquito net, but hey, beggars can't be choosers. He explained that the coffee shop would move next door and I would have the place to myself…except, the owner wanted to park her car in my living room in the evenings. Hmm…ok, not my idea of fun at all, but I really want a place. Reluctantly I was willing to go along with it. Then my Balot and the owner started to talk amongst themselves. From what I gathered from the conversation, there was a miscommunication about the coffee shop. It seems that each night, they would move the tables and chairs next door, but then open the coffee shop in my living room during the day (at least that is what I thought I heard – We all know how well I understand Thai from my conversation with my Nayok the other week). My Balot agreed that this would not be a good thing for me and said that I couldn't take that house…so we moved 2 doors down.

This house was locked as the owner was out of town, but we could peer in through the grated front "door". Inside there were about 6 wooden cabinets, 3 chairs, and an air conditioner sitting in the middle of the floor. But, the set up was like the previous house. The conditions of me moving in there would be that I would have to be willing to keep the cabinets and chairs in the house with me. Hopefully, I will be able to use them (but who knows), but I immediately said 'yes'.

I now have a rental house! I get to move in on August 1^st. They are doing some repairs on it now to get it ready. I have no idea what type of bathroom I have. I can hope for the best; western toilet with a showerhead for my cold showers, but I need to prepare for a possible reality…bucket shower, squat toilet. But, it's ok, because I have my own house!!!

 

On other news, the last week and a half has been great. My Balot is spending an hour to an hour and a half with me each day learning Thai while I teach him English and we are going to lunch together to different restaurants in the area. I getting ready to go to Bangkok in two weekends for a Thailand Youth Theater Committee meeting so we can start planning the 3 day conference for next year and the Queen's birthday comes up the weekend after that for a 3 day weekend. I have discovered that there is a library being built in my tambon that I might be able to get some projects out of and I haven't found any bugs in my bed since coming back to site in mid-July. All in all, things are going well.

A bike Ride and a River

Yesterday afternoon I took a bike ride with my Balot (supervisor).  He was taking me to the villages near the river to show me the changes that have occurred in the few short months that I have been here.  Usually when I am on my bike I have the urge to speed through the streets feeling the cooling wind drive past my face as I smile and wave at people as I quickly pass by.  Biking is a new release, a new freedom for me.  I take random rides throughout the day around my village and beyond to get out and obtain that boost of energy I need to get through the remainder of my day.  Today though, we meandered.  You see, Thai people don’t view biking the way that I do.  For them, it is just another mode of transportation to take you from here to there.  And, they have no need to get anywhere fast, so when riding a bike, you slowly lower your foot down on the pedal to propel it ahead, just fast enough so that you are moving, but you can carry on a conversation with all that you pass along the way.  And, so we went. 

When we reached the river I was amazed.  I knew that the water was steadily rising, but I had no idea to what extent it really had.  I had biked through this part of town just 2 days ago and didn’t notice the things that I did this time around.  The river, which at first sight seemed to be more of a trickling creek, was now just a few feet short of the road.  A swift current ran through the center sending leaves and small branches to a new unknown home.  Two months ago I had visited one of my Balot’s friends’ homes along here.  You could look down a steep 20 foot drop to the river at that time; now, the river was sneaking towards the bottom stilts of his home. 

Further down, trucks were parked in the street because the car ports were covered in water and a few homes already had to create makeshift walkways to their front stairs because the water had already taken over their yards.  The rainy season is just beginning.  We still have over 3 months to go until it ends.  I can’t imagine what this area is going to look like once the river finally claims all of its territory.  One thing that I do know: I think I’m going to get to do some boating this year J.

Lesson of the day:  Sometimes I need to take the opportunity to slow down; “smell the roses”.  There is so much to see and learn just by watching what is going on around me. Elderly women resting on a wooden plank in the blistering afternoon, hiding from the sun in the shade.  Children chasing one another through the beams that rise up below the homes.  A father tickling his child until they laugh on their front porch.  So much is going on in this town that I have yet to learn about.  Next time I go biking, I think I’ll try it at a slower pace…see if I can find out something new.

Here are a couple pics of my unfinished house...its looked like this for at least a month now...I am hoping it will be done soon.  It is 1 story, 1 bedroom.

The back of my house.  The open space is the walkway from
the inside of the house to the bathroom

The front of my house.  Missing a few walls still.  My house is
only the left side, or the right, and someone else will live in the
other half.  Still don't know what type of front door I will have:
regular door or garage door??

Another angle of the front/side of the house...I have a couple trees.

Why have a parade at 2pm?

Wednesday:

Why have a parade at 2pm when you can have a perfectly good one at 9 in the morning.  Do we not want to take the weather into consideration when we choose to have these things??? 

Yesterday my Tessaban delivered a 3 foot candle to the monks at the Wat to start off the celebration of the Buddhist lent (at least that’s what I think is going on).  I woke up still baring my headache from the previous day and was not in the mood to show up at work, let alone join in a parade, but alas, part of my job is ensuring that I am participating in these sorts of activities.

Going into work I was determined to be there until 10am then head home for a nap before the parade in hope of conquering my headache once and for all.  I get to work, say my good mornings, flip open my computer, and turn it on.  This morning is a good morning, because I know that my sister, Denise, is already online and waiting for me.  See, while I was away for 2 weeks, they moved my desk at work.  Instead of being in an office with 5 people, I am in an office with only my supervisor, who happens to be on vacation for the week, so I have the office to myself.  Skype on!  It was great to talk to Denise, and we ended up chatting for almost an hour.  When we get off, I look through my emails from Peace Corps and volunteers, and check out the news for the day.  Ten o’clock passes as I chat online with a fellow volunteer who is having similar problems at her site as I am having at mine on getting things moving and going.  Eleven a.m. rolls up and I am out the door.  I am stopped by my Nayok (think mayor) questioning where I am headed.  As soon as I say headache he understands I am going home to rest.  Whew! 

1:43pm my alarm goes off.  Time to get ready.  Purple shirt on (Its purple day, and I need to wear the right color for the parade).  As I bike into work I hear the rhythmic beat of drums.  Several men, decked out in fun colored shirts and scarves are warming up for our debut on the streets.  A truck is carrying our monstrously large candle and men and women of the Tessaban are huddled under the shaded cover of the overhang of the office.  I already can feel the usual trickle of sweat down my back and my brow displays beads of it demonstrating that I am hot.  Very hot.  Yet, as I look at the crowd of people waiting to leave, I notice the women, and some men, have put on sun protection sleeves, long sleeved shirts, and jackets.  This goes back to when dark skin was an indication of low class.  Thai people still believe the lighter your skin is, the more beautiful you are, but on a hot day like this…no way am I putting on a jacket…no way. 

The parade takes about 20 minutes to complete.  Men walk up and down the sides of the road as we pass through collecting money (merit) from the locals to donate to the Wat at the end of our journey.  As we enter the Wat, we remove our shoes (I happen to love this part of Thailand; it’s nice to be all dressed up yet barefoot most of the time) and sit down.  The Tessaban presents the candle to the monks and chanting begins.  Apparently, I happen to sit with the group that isn’t as into ceremony as some, and we begin to proceed to take pictures of ourselves flashing peace signs and making faces – I think I will try to sit with these people more often.  When the chanting ends, the candle is lit (and I think it is supposed to stay lit for all of lent) and we leave. 

Headache still present, I walk back to the office, jump on my bike, head home and straight to bed.  A successful interaction complete, now it’s time to get rid of the headache once and for all. 

(Side note: when I did wake up later that night, my headache was gone – YAY!)

Thursday:

My Nayok (remember, mayor of a city), comes into my office and sits down and starts talking to me in very fast Thai.  Of course, I am only understanding every 5^th word, but he seems so enthusiastic I smile and continue to nod my head like I understand…until he pauses and looks at me as though I need to respond to something.  *Crap*…ok, smile gone, ‘sorry, I don’t understand’ comes out of my mouth – in Thai, of course.  He attempts again…again, comprehension, no go.  Ok, he starts to talk slower, smaller sentences, but is still using many words I don’t understand, but he smiles and is happy when I repeat words back to him….again he gives me a questioning look.  Finally, he points to pictures of the king and queen and I begin to understand; we are talking about them.  Then he tells me, on Monday, July 18^th I am to go to his house at 7am and we will go to the Wat together.  To do what, I have no idea, but I am excited, and he is excited that we both understand the plan.   – Successful interaction

Sunday:

Have you ever felt trapped on a bench before?  Felt the weight of the world building in your head, forcing you to lie on the bench and not move?  Imprisoned in an open space.  You can smile at people, you can talk to people, and you can look up clearly at the sky through the leaves of the tree above you.  You can do all of this, but you can’t sit up, you can’t walk…you are trapped…imprisoned where you are, where you lay.

I was sitting on a shaded bench in the early afternoon reading a book.  I decided to start in on the Lord of the Rings series because I wanted to read some long books, and I had been thinking about the movies lately (currently, I am on book 2).  I felt a slight pressure in my forehead (crap, another headache coming on).  I looked up.  Everything went brighter for a second (think of suddenly turning up the brightness on your computer very quickly – all colors pale into a bright white) then the darkness started to close in.  The black circled around the outside of my vision threatening to fill in the still bright gaps. 

It’s happening again.  My ever so fun, almost, fainting spells.  Ok, I gotta lie down.  I lie down on the bench for 5 minutes and then slowly sit up.  Immediately everything goes black…back down again.  This time I wait 10 minutes (in the states, the entire period would be over in a 5-10 minute period) and try again.  Good…oh wait, nope…blackness.  And, I am down for the count…again.  I think I was laying down for a good 30 minutes before I could sit up and only feel the pressure in my head without any other side effects i.e. blacking out.  I grab my stuff, jump on my bike and head home.  Time for a glorious afternoon of TV shows and movies. 

Don’t worry.  I’m going to be emailing the doc tomorrow to ensure there is nothing going on.  He seemed pretty positive the first time that this is just some weird low blood pressure thing, but I’ll let him know anyways.

Monday:

6:23 am my alarm goes off…ugh.  Too early.  I reset my alarm for 6:37am.  Again it goes off…ok, I have to get up to be at my nayok’s house in time to go to the Wat.  I get dressed, run down stairs.  My host mother asks where I am going.  I explain to her, and she gives me a puzzled look (this should have been my first clue).  She shouts out to the woman across the street and asks what the Tessaban is up to today.  The lady says she can’t remember anything going on (2^nd clue).  I jump on my bike and ride over to my nayok’s house.  I get there and someone comes out of the house (also a store) asking me what I am looking for.  I explain I am looking for my Nayok.  They tell me that he is in the shower (3^rd clue) and can be out in a few minutes.

I wait.  A few minutes later he emerges, not in the colored shirt of the day (4^th clue), but in regular street clothes.  He asks me what I am doing.  Uh oh.  I reminded him of our conversation from Thursday.  His eyes narrow in question…he has no idea what I am talking about and tells me that there is nothing going on today.  Oh, ok…and I walk away puzzled myself.

Apparently, my successful conversation on Friday was not as fantastic as I thought it was…I wonder what we were really talking about????

Well, I was up anyways, so biked to the lake and enjoyed the cool air of the morning.  It is not often that I get to feel a cool breeze without the immediate following of rain.  I made a few calls to the states and continued reading my book.  Not the morning I thought I would have, but still a good one.

2 Weeks Away from Site

Friday: BKK…yes, I went to Bangkok yet again.  It’s not like I love the city or anything, but it is a great central place to meet up with everyone and there are places to go out to at night…and, I had to go to BKK before heading off to Issan to enjoy a three day weekend in Khao Yai National Park.  The first national park of Thailand.  We stayed at our usual hotel…you know, the one that only cost 450 baht a night and you cram 5-7 people in a room.  Apparently, some other PC peeps had discovered a farang bar the last time we were out there, so we decided to hit that up for the night…it was just like being back in America.  It was a good ol’ dive bar.  There we met some people from New Zealand, Australia, UK, and Kenya….I guess everyone had figured out where to go…the only Thai’s there were ones that were brought by other farangs…drinking, dancing and friends.  Good times.

The next morning we packed up to head out to our intended destination.  I am used to all sorts of bus’ in Thailand…there are fabulous ones and dingy ones, but this bus was the all-time worst that I have been on so far.  Luckily our trip was only 3 hours.  The bus gets underway, each of us has our own set of seats so we can sprawl out and get some sleep because we hadn’t gotten much the night before.  I have been dozing for about 15 min when I feel something fall on me.  I open my eyes, look down, and see a black speck on my chest.  I wipe it off and close my eyes again. 

15 min later:  I feel something again…open my eyes.  This time, there are 4 or 5 specks of black.  Again I brush them off.  I just want to go to sleep.

10 min later: Again…

5 min later: AGAIN…ok, this is getting ridiculous…I look around; there are no seats to switch too.  The bus is getting hotter as we move toward noon and I am stuck in a seat that is raining black stuff on me…for another 2 hours

10 min later:  Ouch!!!  What the… I look down.  A screw.  Yes, a screw fell on me.  The bus was shaking so violently, that it unscrewed the screw causing it to fall onto me…so much for sleeping; now I have to keep watch for the killer screws that want to gouge out my eyes.

For another hour I continuously am wiping black specs off of me and am vigilantly watching for additional screws that may attempt to attack me.  Finally!!! Finally, a seat opens in the back.  I move to in.  Immediately sweat starts pouring down me.  This seat is situated in the sun and it sits right on top of the engine.  But, on the bright side, there are no falling screws…score one for Megan.  I attempt to sleep again as the bottom of my seat slides out from under me with each vibration of the bus.

Finally, we arrive…

Our first day in Khao Yai we took a half day tour through an underground cave, watched 2 million bats fly out of a cave for their nightly hunt, and swam in a beautiful mineral pool after dark.  The underground caves were full of bats, spiders, and other bugs and living things.  We were shown each and every one of them and were given the chance to hold all except the spider and bats. 

Above ground, watching the bats leave their cave was amazing.  We ate fresh pineapple and watched the bats swirl out of the cave in spirals as they headed into the night.  As the wind shifted the spirals would swoop in a new direction.

All the black things on the ceiling are bats

I'm holding a spider that has evolved into more of a crab...the front legs have pinchers

Who doesn't love holding snakes

I think the ears are adorable

Bats weaving through the sky

I don’t know if any of us really knew what we were getting into when we set out on our second tour.  We thought we were going to have a few short walks in the jungle to see different viewing points then head back to our song taew for a drive to the next point.  Well, we were partially right.  Our song taew was our main source of transportation, but we had a 3-4 hour trek into the jungle ahead of us…and it was raining.  I am so glad I remembered my rain jacket.

Erin and I had just congratulated ourselves on making it so far into the jungle without falling a single time.  It was at this point that we looked ahead of us and saw a trail of people climbing a muddy path up a hill making it more treacherous with every step that they took.  With my first step up, I knew I was a goner.  One, two, three, four steps.  Five ste- bam – I hit the ground. Ugh!  And, down I slide.  I get up again.  Make it three more steps, and then I slide again, right in between Erin’s legs.  We are laughing so hard there was no way I was going to be able to get up.  The tour guide had to come down and grab my hand to help me stand up again.  I think it ended up taking about 10 minutes to get up this little hill because I could not stop laughing at myself.

And, that was just the beginning.  After that point, the trail only seemed to get slipperier.  I may not be a graceful walker, but I am a graceful faller because I came out of this with no serious injuries and I feel 50+ times (no exaggeration implied).  The park was beautiful though.  You could hear the birds calling to one another, monkeys jumping through the trees, and you could see bugs and spiders inching their ways up vines and across the ground.  We ate lunch in a small building on stilts looking over the park before heading on to find more wild life.

Leech socks.  We had to put them on before we started trekking
into the jungle

After falling all over the place - leech socks are officially brown now

A leech got me - twice actually

After a fun filled weekend at Khao Yai National Park, we moved back to central Thailand to Suponburi for Reconnect.  This included a 3 day conference with our counterparts and then a little over a week of additional training in speaking, reading, and writing Thai along with other skills to assist us at site. 

The counterpart conference was great.  I learned more about my community than I had learned in 3 months, and I got more specific details about what they would like me to do while at site.  I am going to be spending the next couple of months talking to people and doing research on fish and aqua-culture, to see if I can implement some of my supervisor’s ideas.

We were all excited that the fourth of July occurred while we were at the conference.  This was the first real American holiday that we were going to be able to celebrate together, and all 63 of us from group 123 were going to be there.   The US Embassy helped us out a lot by providing us with hamburger from the states and other supplies from a store at the embassy.  Some fellow PCer’s cooked our burgers, while others made potato salad.  ****I ate my first homemade chocolate chip cookie in 6 months, and it was amazing!!!! – Thank you Frank for using American products and a New York recipe…it was delicious.

Of course, it’s not only the food that makes for a great fourth of July…We spent the previous day creating costumes for our parade that we were putting on for the PC staff and our Thai teachers.  Almost all volunteers were part of the parade depicting characters from the Mayflower, immigrants, the industrial revolution, space travel, etc…  I must say…we put on a pretty kick ass parade if I do say so myself.

Then came our firework…yes, I did mean to say that singularly…it was a single firework put on just for us and our celebration.  Sparklers were handed out as well and we danced and laughed around the parking lot remembering times when we used to do this with our friends back home.

Winners of the contest

And, finally, who can have a fourth of July in Thailand without a costume contest…Ok, it was more of a way to introduce ourselves to the new director, but we put on a show to include all the volunteers and we had a best t-shirt contest hosted by 2 fabulous volunteers and judged by our new director.  I didn’t win, or place…but I thought by outfit was pretty good…oh well….after it all, we danced, drank and sang…until we all finally dropped into beds until our 8am meeting.  Overall, good Fourth of July.

I learned to read/write Thai much better at the meeting and I am slowly able to decipher sentences and figure out where one word starts and another finishes.  I am super excited to keep learning at site. 

After Reconnect, I spent a couple more nights in BKK before heading back to site.  At Mo Chit (the bus station in Bangkok) 3 women from my village recognized me – I didn’t recognize them, oops, and had me get off the bus early and head back to Bangrakam by truck…yes! 1 hour was cut off of my bus time and I got home early.  I got home, took my first cold shower in 2 weeks, ginned some kaao (Thai-glish for ate some food) and was asleep by 7pm. 

I arrived at work this morning to discover that my desk had been moved to my supervisor’s office, a package had arrived for me while I was gone, and my house is still in the process of being built.  Such is life – jai yen yen.

I soon will be leaving my office to head home and start my 2 week’s worth of laundry.  Fun times!!! But, I had a blast and that is what really matters.

Whew!  Tired maak maak…sleep will be coming soon too, I am guessing.