Alone, never!

I haven’t written a blog for quite some time because there hasn’t been a whole lot to tell. Most of my days are either spent in the SAO office learning Thai or in the car driving between my village and the office. Wedged in between are meetings where I get to sit around and not understand more than five or six words every ten minutes, but I suppose that is the nature of learning a language. In fact, I know! I always catch myself reflecting back on my language learning experience in Guatemala and in some respects it provides solace and in others anguish. It has calmed my nerves about the rate of language acquisition but has brought on slight depression knowing how long it will take before having a somewhat intellectually stimulating conversation is not like trying to figure out a calculus equation....but life goes on!

I recently got selected to be the representative from Group 119 to be on the Project Advisory Committee (PAC) for the Community-Based Organizational Development (CBOD) program. I will be working with the Thai government, Peace Corps directors, and receiving input from current volunteers in order to evaluate the current CBOD program and formulate future project frameworks. I think it is an excellent opportunity and will put to use some of the very expensive skills that I acquired in graduate school. My first meeting will be next week and I am eager to see how it goes.

Last week I had a little business outing with the SAO staff. The SAO bought hundreds of frogs, thousands of fish, and several pigs for the villagers in the tambon to raise. I went with No to the fish farm and picked up nearly a hundred bags of fingerling catfish that were packed into the bed of the pickup for the four hour journey to the tambon. I was a little skeptical that the fish would survive the journey in the brutal Thai heat, but soon we were on our way. We met Boy and Eood a short while later and found out that the acquisition of the frogs was pretty poorly planned. They had bought plastic clothes baskets to transport the frogs but had only cardboard to cover them with. With frogs being a fairly wet species it isn’t hard to imagine the outcome of this action. The cardboard soon became thoroughly soaked and frogs were having a hoe-down in the back of Eood’s pickup. We stopped near a market, in the hot sun, and proceeded to buy more baskets to place over the other basket. Frogs were jumping everywhere and I was running around chasing them try not to get run over by the cars speeding by on the road not three feet from where we parked. All the while the fish are in the back of the other truck sitting in water that had to be at about boiling point. It was funny how slow my Thai friends worked to get those frogs back into the baskets. I don’t think there was much thought about the state of the fish. When we finally arrived in the tambon there were at least 20 frogs dead and what seemed to be half of the fish, although I haven’t heard official numbers (as if there would be any). Even though the operation was not a total success it makes me happy to see that my SAO is actually supporting community projects because many of my friends who are in the CBOD program find their SAO to be office oriented and unwilling to venture out into the communities they represent.

This trip was the first visit I had made to my village since the beginning of the rainy season. I thought it was gorgeous up there before and now it simply seems like paradise. The formerly nude forest is abound with leaves and greenery and the rice patties have new rice shoots creating a carpet of green. The temperature was in the mid 80s (cool by Thailand standards) and the sun was shining brightly. I visited my future house which is still under construction and I couldn’t be happier with it. There is a rather funny/frustrating story to go with my house visit.

I found out a few weeks ago that the SAO is getting moved up to my village. It appears now that the women will stay at the current office and the men will move up to the village. This is great because I have become good friends with everyone that works here and I will have easier access to the resources of the SAO. But there is a little hitch. Like I have stated before, there are very few houses that are vacant in my village given that most of the residents are poor farmers. Due to this fact, my SAO assumed that two of the SAO staff would stay with me in my house. I have been debating whether it is because they don’t have a place to live, that they feel like it is a good opportunity to get a free place to live because the Peace Corps is paying for my house, or that they just have the overwhelming Thai thought that no one should ever be alone for more than 20 minutes. My house has three bedrooms and I felt guilty telling them that I wanted to live alone, especially since housing is so hard to come by. I rationalized my decision in this manner: although I am good friends with the guys in my SAO, I just need some private space. I know if they were to live with me my house would quickly become the community gathering spot and I would have no privacy whatsoever. I also figured it is not my responsibility to bear the burden of yet another poorly planned Thai endeavor. Before they decided to move all these people up there they should have secured proper housing, and proper does not mean my house!

What it all comes down to is that Thais don’t understand how individualistic Americans are. I can spend time by myself and be arguably happier than with a big group of people. This is something that Thais just can’t comprehend. Plus, Thais are deathly afraid of Thai ghosts (I am not kidding) and being alone would leave a person vulnerable to them. I guess I will just have to tell them that I will use some of the devices that Americans have invented in order to eliminate all the ghosts from my country. I think it is time to unveil the Ghostbusters series!