Happy Valentine's Day!

Written February 11^th:

I was biking down the road today (as always), and when I glanced up, I saw that all the traffic in front of me had stopped.  Now, this is a strange occurrence since I have yet to see a stoplight on any of my bike rides (there are lights in the busier parts of the city), and stop signs are thought of more as “caution” signs as you head into the intersection.  Upon further inspection of the road in front of me, at a distance mind you, was what looked like a large pipe being strung across the road.  It looked like some men were attempting to move a pipe about 1.25ft in diameter from on side of the road to the other…of course, me seeing this just means that I need my eyes checked again.  As I approached the said idled cars, I was forced to slow down and stop myself…not something I like to do on my bike when I’m out for a bike ride after work.  In front of me, was nothing resembling a pipe what-so-ever, instead, there were hundreds of ducks quacking and waddling across the road from one field to another.  I happen to be a person who thinks ducks are cute, so I thought this was the most adorable thing ever.  I think the men in charge of the ducks realized this (I had a big goofy grin on my face) because as I started going on my bike again, once all the ducks were safely across, they motioned me to take pictures…Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me…sad day.  What did this teach me, you might ask?  1. Taking the long way home can be both scenic and give unique “Thai” experiences. 2. Not having a camera on me at all times should be against the law.  Who knows when something picture-worthy will pop up.  3. Smiling is the key to life in Thailand…if you’re happy, smile.   If your angry, smile.  Confused, sad, excited, agitated…smile (ok, I already knew this one, but I thought I’d throw it in).

My mom (host) and I were talking two nights ago and she started to ask me if I thought it was hot…duh! It’s very hot here.  I proceeded to tell her this as she brought out a calendar.  She opens it up to April (the month of the water festival – YAY).  Then she turns to me, points to the calendar, smiles, and says “ron maak, maak” and starts to laugh a little.  I had to laugh too.  I am such a farang (foreigner).  Pretty much, she just advised me that the blistering hot, 90 something degrees that I am experiencing now, has nothing on what is going to kick my a** in April.  Fabulous!  At least I have a 3 day water fight to look forward to.   Translation: “ron maak, maak” = Very, very hot.  It will actually really depend on where I am sent for how hot it will be though.  If I am sent to Isaan, east, or lower north, then it will be very hot.  If I go to the south, I will have more rain, and I will have more wind from the water.  I still can’t decide where I want to go.  I am supposed to give a preference next week.  Hopefully, I will have some time to do some research this next weekend. 

I just want to tell everyone, that teaching was amazing!  I loved all the little girls that came to the class, and we had so much fun playing games.  Today when I was at training, a few of them came up to me and started chatting with me.  It was so nice to see that I was able to have an impact on them (no matter how small) in such a short period of time.  It almost makes me wish I was a teacher instead.  But, that is when I remember that with my job, I can do English Clubs in my spare time and spend the rest of the time doing other things.  I don’t have a set schedule, and I don’t have to plan my vacations around the school schedule…yup, the CBOD life is what is for me.

I got an email from my sister, Denise, asking me about my eating, so I guess I will give an update.  I am eating a little more.  Rice is still hard, along with many Thai dishes that are very fragrant.  I can do most noodle dishes, bread and jam sandwiches, and bananas very well.  Since the closest restaurant to my language class is a noodle joint, I am in luck. 

Karen and I were able to find a scale at the health center yesterday, and decided it was about time to check our weight status since we are about 1 month into training.  Of course, the scale is out in the open, and of course, there were two men waiting to see the doctor.  They thought it was great that we were checking our weight because this is something that is widely talked about in social conversations.  They decided to come over and watch us.  Me, being the slightly bigger girl that I am, was definitely feeling self conscious because I knew that I weighed a lot more than him (he weighed himself too so he could show us his weight).  Anyways, luckily, he didn’t make a big deal about the weights or anything; he just repeated the weight the scale said very loudly so anyone in earshot could clearly know our weight.  Anyways, long story short, after all conversions were completed, I believe that I have lost about 20 pounds since getting here.  Not bad for 1 month. I think the lack of processed foods and biking get to take the credit for that.  I will probably check once more before I get to site, just to see how much I am down from the beginning of training. 

Written February 13^th

My weekend (Sunday) was great.  I woke up at the late hour of 7am and got to sit in bed and read for about an hour before heading down for breakfast (coffee).  Nice ‘n relaxing.  My intentions for the morning were to make a couple of calls out to the states, but I was distracted by two other PCers biking by and I ended up going on a 2 hour bike ride around the Tambons discovering where other people lived and checking out the scenery.  There are definitely a lot more working rice fields now, water is getting more widely distributed, and the land looks amazing with fields upon fields of rice growing at different stages. 

When I got home, Elle and I headed out to a gas station to buy gas (this is after a 10 minute conversation with many people in my family to discover if we had any gas in our shop or not).  Turns out it is very easy to ask for gas to be put into a ¾ liter water bottle.  Who knew?  All you have to do is bike up to the pump, point at the water bottle, and then point at the gas pump…awesome.  (Sidenote: People don’t always turn off there car when they are pumping gas here)  Elle and I proceeded to spend the next hour or so cleaning our bikes, getting our gears clean and re-oiling them up.  They are good as new…sort of.  We ended up on another hour bike ride looking for food finding a place along a main road.  The restaurant was in a building on stilts and you could feel the floor shake every time someone walked around.  The family who worked there was hilarious though and we had a blast. 

When I got back to my house, I proceeded to wash my clothes for the first time.  Now, I use this term loosely, because we are supposed to learn to hand wash our clothes just in case we don’t have a washing machine at site.  Well, my version of washing clothes was putting all of my clothes in the washing machine…The End.  My mom put in the detergent and the fabric softener, plugged it in and turned it on.  44 minutes later, she took out my clothes and hung them up to dry.  Thanks mom!  Hey, I guess I can say that I am at least one step closer to knowing how.  I promise I will get it all figured out in the next few weeks.

Anyways, my dad must have misinterpreted me saying that ‘I was going to lunch’ to ‘I was going to want lunch when I get home’.  While me and Elle were in my room exchanging movies on our external hard drives, my mom came up with some Pad See Ew (YUM!)…we had just eaten less than an hour before.  But, it was delicious. 

We spent the afternoon biking into another tambon to meet up with Megan W to pick up some peanut butter for Ellie.  Once there we headed out to Wat Sana and met up with the most hilarious monk who is Megan’s uncle.  Just for information: monks cannot touch women or accept anything directly from them.  If you want to hand something to a monk, you must first either, hand it to a male, or set it on something and then let the monk pick it up from there. But, there is no rule about speaking to the monk.  They also walk around each morning getting alms.  The people in each village give rice and food to the monks for them to eat that day.  Monks will not eat any food after noon.  So, we entered the wat and hung out with him, sitting on a mat.  He brought out his Thai to English dictionary started talking Thailish.  He got so excited about knowing how to speak English that he would keep talking louder and louder and interrupting us every time he ask one of us a question.  He was such a happy man.  We all left there smiling and laughing (Bonus laugh:  A man who was at the Wat as well accidently left with Chris’ shoes instead of his own.  He was on his way to Bangkok and had to turn around to give Chris his shoes back).

Overall, fabulous day…hot day. But good. 

Somehow, my mom got the idea that I liked pink.  I didn’t come to Thailand with a single article of clothing that is pink (unless there is some on a pair of underwear) and the only thing pink that I have is the pasine that was given to me by Peace Corps.  But, two weekends ago, I come home from training, and my mom presents me with this pink purse that goes over your shoulder and across your chest (one that is easy to carry without holding).  Don’t get me wrong, it is adorable…but pink.  I definitely don’t match when I got out wearing it…actually, nothing matched until this last Tuesday.  That was when my little sister dropped by my language class and handed me a bag that she said was from my mom.  In the bag was a pink t-shirt.  It has a very large picture of a girl with big hair winking.  The shirt if pulled all the way down seems to go half way to my knees.  If I tuck it under itself its not so bad.   So, I decided to wait til today to wear both the shirt and purse together to surprise my mom.  She was gleaming when I walked out of the house in the outfit.  She was so happy and proud…but that wasn’t all.  She reached into her purse and pulled out a pair of earrings.  They were plastic flower-ish type things, and pink.  I decided that I would throw on the pink earrings as well.  Unfortunately, they broke taking them out of the bag so I didn’t get to.  Heartbroken.   I have a feeling that I will be heading to me site with many more pink things than I ever would have thought.  If it makes my mom happy, I’m all for it.

 This picture was taken at a Wat.  This is a HUGE Buddah!

 Maybe by the end of two years, I can do a trick like that

Some ruins from way back when