Getting to Know the Culture

The last two days have probably been the most interesting in my short Thai experience. Saturday we had an assignment, something the Peace Corps requires that is getting rather tiresome, to “map” our community. I’m still not 100 percent sure exactly what the actual map is for because I think by this time the four of us who were mapping are fairly able to find our own house as well as the others. Nevertheless, we had to mount our bikes and go on a mapping expedition. Ajan Danai (our teacher) came to my house first and we rode to Mike, Quilen, and Tony’s community. The point of the exercise may be just a tad bit clearer after this next sentence. Apparently Ajan Danai had drawn himself a map so we could get to the other guys’ houses. Well the map turned out to be as much use as a drawing in the sand during a storm. We couldn’t find the houses, but like in most countries every person was more than eager to help, even if they had no clue what the true directions were. After getting directions from some men that were glaringly wrong, we ran into some ladies that all knew, or at least I think although they were for some reason speaking a language I don’t understand, where the other guys’ houses were at. We followed one lady on a motor scooter and after only one failed attempt and a few more stops for directions we arrived at the right house. From there the adventure began.
We were truly celebrities as we biked around the community identifying “wats” (Buddhist temples), phone booths, clinics, water towers, and any other landmark that would supposedly be useful in order to locate our houses in the circumstance of total confusion (most likely drunkenness). We got no more than four blocks in to our journey when we came across a funeral party which apparently lasts seven days. Well, once we stopped there was no saying no to the over-eager group of men and women who by the time we stepped foot of our bikes had already erected a table, located chairs, and filled with several dishes of Thai food. Ajan Danai said we should try to stay just five minutes, but I don’t think anyone would realistically believe a time cap of five minutes would work in such a situation. At least ten million photos were taken, eight liters of Pepsi drank, and unknown quantities of food of unknown substance eaten in the next 45 minutes. We only made it out 40 minutes late. Not too bad I suppose. After leaving we finished jotting down all the irrelevant sights within the community and headed to my house. The rest of the activity was really irrelevant so I will just leave it at that.
After the community mapping activity, “Da Boys” as we are referred to now because of our being the sole all male group, decided a beer was in order. We found a roadside restaurant that appeared to serve beer and we were assured they did. Well they served beer, but only after it had been transported from the store across the highway by a daring young lady. I don’t think the five bhat markup was really worth her risking her life, but we are in Thailand. This all happened yesterday.
Today is Sunday, our day off. I talked to a few of the other volunteers and we decided to meet up in the big hub city. It was quite a decision given that most of us are not under 10 km from the hub. We arrived, used very fast internet which cost 60 cents an hour, used our Thai language skills to order “kow kap gai kap pak” (rice and chicken and fish: very complicated sentence structure). In between the internet and the display of language ability I took a little ride around town to get a feel for everything. We had planned on having a few beers after having lunch, so I kept an eye out for the perfect place. Well I found it. Near the train station was a small store that had one table out front. After eating lunch three of us headed there and before long at least 20 PC volunteers had congregated at this small establishment. In front there were myriad bikes, in fact if you didn’t know better you may have thought we were the human powered Hells Angles. The lady of the store must have been just about as happy as she had ever been because I’m sure we bought more beer in those three hours than had been bought in the last month. In fact, her husband kept on stealing chairs from their house to accommodate all of us. The owner had a three year old child who looked to be nothing less than a karate master. As all of us were drinking and carrying on he was practicing his moves on the dirt next to us. I have a video, but I’m not sure if I can upload it. If I can I will for sure let you know. As we were getting ready to leave the owner made sure she got evidence that she had an invasion of “farang” at her small store. We took several pictures and said goodbye. She may not know it, but she is going to be seeing a lot of us in the future given that we came to a consensus that her store would be the official Peace Corps watering hole during training. I hope she’s ready! That’s all I have for now!