SOLDIER, THAILAND

A week in review. This week we continued our Thai classes and went about choosing a small project to undertake with a local community group. When I say small, I mean small. We have a grand total of five days in the next five weeks to work with the community group. Obviously we have far too much “training” to do, which in all reality amounts to a whole lot of time that could be used in far more productive manners. I won’t say that everything during our “tech” days are irrelevant, but rather it could be condensed into a period that took up a quarter of the time. Enough venting. How can I vent when in all reality.....I’m in Thailand! Back to our project. Our gracious training staff identified four community groups that had interest in having us visit them and view their daily activities. For us, it was a chance to see if one of them had the potential to receive our attention for the lengthy duration of five days.

As I sit here typing I have had the luck to be greeted by a “SOLDIER, THAILAND.” The attention given to a gringo in Latin America provided entirely insufficient experience for what I am receiving in Thailand. I am a novelty, and even more so given my remote location. It is kind of nice to be away from the tourist destinations filled with “farang” debauchery and everything else that accompanies it. There are no preconceived “bad” notions about foreigners from what I have seen so far in my village. I suspect that it may have something to do with it being in the middle of agricultural rice growing region where water buffalo still roam free. No beaches, elephants, or rainforests here. All the better. I have told my new found soldier friend several times that I don’t speak English and only speak Spanish, but that has been no deterrence. He has seen it necessary to stumble over to me at least every three and half to four minutes to once more proclaim that he is, “SOLDIER, THAILAND.” A brain filled with “Thai whiskey,” something I have yet to determine its origin, and Beer Chang is not all too capable of understanding the concept of not speaking English. I’m sure that to most Thais all farang speak English. I could only imagine the anger of the French trying to enjoy Thai culture but instead quite regularly receiving the traditional greeting of “hello how are you goodbye” everywhere you went. But I digress.

The four community organizations that we visited were a women’s sewing group, a broom group, a health clinic, and a day care. From day one I pretty much knew that the day care would be our chosen project given Quilen’s fascination with local kids of the community and teaching them most importantly how to “bust a move” American style. Well Quilen has a pretty one track mind, but he sure does make things interesting. Our stated objective for the projects is to focus on the process of IRBing (intentional relationship building) and not necessarily the outcome. Well Quilen is a master IRBer, especially with the children. We visited the other three community groups, but to my surprise we decided on the day care. Granted it was not only because Quilen had sung on the megaphone “YMCA” for all the four year old children but rather because their funding from the SAO had been cut in half and they were in need of help. Our initial idea for a project is to help the day care teachers to develop materials that use recycled materials to create new materials that the children can learn with. It is in the most preliminary stage and it should be interesting to see what unfolds in the next five weeks during the five days we spend working with them. At the least it will be an interesting experience in getting ourselves involved in community activities being that our main task the first year of Peace Corps is to “ban len cha cak yan” or basically mosey our way around our assigned village on our bikes IRBing with the community. This is probably much to the dismay of the TCCOers who will be lucky enough to be teaching English starting day one!

I have realized that I have mentioned fairly little of my host family in my past posts and figure that a short commentary is way past due. I don’t know how it happens, but every host family I have gotten has been absolutely great. I have heard horror stories about host families stays and luckily none have them have ever included my name. I live with my “pa” and “maa” (father and mother in Thai...yeah not to hard but one of the few things that isn’t in the language) in a house that looks pretty basic from the outside but is pretty nice inside. The condition of the house means absolutely nothing if the nature of the people living inside is run down. Well the nature of the people living in my house would have to be described as a mansion. Where do I start? Surely it has to be with the food. I get amazing food and quantity is never something I have to worry about. I usually have at least four, usually more, plates of food to choose from to put on my rice, an absolute staple of any Thai meal. I thank the Peace Corps every day I eat a meal for sending me to Thailand! Although I get the same types of meals for both dinner and breakfast I manage to be satisfied. The strangest thing I have yet to eat has been the “nuu” or rat in English and the chicken heart “pat gap paow” (translation unavailable). When I finally figured out what “nuu” was they assured me that it was good because it wasn’t a house rat but rather a rat they went out and hunted at night in the fields with head lamps and guns. I suppose the guinea pig I ate in Peru is little more than an oversized “nuu.” I have eaten no bugs, frogs, or other non-western food staple up to this point, but have heard they are not all that bad.

Where do I continue? My second day here I arrived home from the hub to my “pa” showing me the new mosquito net he had gotten me. The Peace Corps mosquito net was obviously far too small and didn’t cover three quarters of my room like my new one. It doesn’t end there. I had been bringing my bathroom supplies to the bathroom every morning in my dap bag and really thinking nothing of it. Well a few days later there was a little wire hanging bathroom “thing” (for lack of a better word) waiting for me in the bathroom. My first few days here I told my family that I liked to drink Pepsi, which isn’t necessarily the truth but sure did make for a good conversation. Well everyday when I arrived home my “maa” would bring me a soda to drink. I couldn’t tell her I didn’t want it because it was always open by the time I received it. Well finally one day she asked me before she went and got it and I said that I would rather not have a Pepsi. She asked me if I wanted anything else...possibly a beer? I thought to myself, “a beer would be good right now.” As you can guess, I have been getting a liter of beer every night to cool me down after my bike ride home! I’ll have to see if I can change it up again soon. What next? Two things happened last night. With my extensive Thai language skills I was explaining how the mornings were very cold and that when I was taking my bucket bath in the morning that there were ice forming on the end of my nose. I’m going to digress once again for a short time.

I joked about being cold in Thailand in my first blog entry, but I didn’t think that outside of the buses and hotels that I would actually be cold. Well I was dead wrong. The cold season is really not that cold here, and maybe I have gotten used to the heat, but man has it gotten cold here at night. Once again, cold is relative and I’m sure that the blankets given to us by the Peace Corps (little more than oversized towels) have contributed to me freezing at night. The past week and a half I have woken up freezing cold. I am really not complaining because I can always put on clothes to stay warm, but there is usually no remedy if it is 80 degrees at night and you are trying to sleep. Cold in Thailand. I end it with that statement.

Bucket bath....After telling my little story I woke up this morning to go take a shower and my “maa” had heated up water and filled up a five gallon bucket in the bathroom so I wouldn’t freeze during my morning shower. I am a pampered soul. During the same conversation I was telling them how it never failed that a few dogs from the group of at least four hundred dogs that live in or near our house never fail to skip a night without fighting directly outside my window. As soon as I said that my host parents were offering to change my room to a different one available in the house, and even offered me their room. In the end I decided that in this respect I could probably “rough it.” Now that I think of it, I got even more out of our little conversation last night. I talked to them about fruit because that is what we had learned in class that day and today my “maa” shows up with bags and bags of fruit for me to eat. I am like a spoiled only child. Speaking of speaking. One of the best things is that my host family is really patient with my language skills, in reality lack of language skills, and spends copious amounts of time with me correcting my pronunciation and teaching me knew phrases. I got placed thirty minutes from the other nearest volunteer and am often jealous of their little communities with lots going on and other volunteers so close, but in the end I will be far better off because once I get home the only thing that leaves my mouth is Thai.....except for the random Spanish that is necessary to ward off drunk “SOLDIER, THAILAND.”

For those of you sitting at work or at home bored and in need of something to entertain you, I am glad I have helped you out with this excessively long blog entry. For those of you with little time but nevertheless have made it to this point in my blog......don’t lie to yourself! Hope everyone is well!