Daily Life

I have recently realized that as my daily routine gets established in my village that my blog entries may not be near as entertaining as previously. As I wrote that sentence I immediately thought that this will most likely not be the case given that in the past seven months there has hardly been one uneventful week. Nevertheless, this blog will be a description of my daily life which some may find intriguing and others will wonder how I survive days filled with inordinate amounts of nothing.

Most days I wake up at around 7:30 a.m. and make myself my staple breakfast; oatmeal with sliced bananas on top. My dining table is actually my hammock from where I enjoy the small village around me as everyone begins their day. In all reality by 8:00 a.m. most everyone has been awake for two or three hours, but that is beside the point! I then normally try to be diligent and study Thai for at least an hour and afterwards if I feel the urge I go to the SAO office to see what is on the agenda for the day if there is one and if anyone is actually present. I often read my text books on American history and international relations that my mother kindly sent to me in order that I will be thoroughly prepared to take the Foreign Service Exam when my volunteer service is over.


At around noon I go and eat lunch at the noodle stand that is two houses down from me and is run by the excellent host Sa-bee-mon. There are normally other people from the village enjoying lunch at the solitary picnic table which constitutes the entirety of the seating in this named eating establishment. I usually spend quite some time talking with everyone on subjects ranging from how to grow basil to “Is it really true that Americans eat bread for every meal and don’t eat rice?”

The afternoons are usually spent riding my bike around the surrounding communities seeking to get to know their inhabitants. Most stops are characterized by the explanation of what I am doing and discussing life in the village in comparison to the United States. After the initial visit upon return nearly everyone is very eager to teach me the Karen language which is quite a monumental task given that everything has to be learned orally because of the lack of a Karen language dictionary and any other related learning materials. It is interesting learning a language where the base language of learning, Thai, is one that I am still in the process of learning. I knew many Europeans that also encountered this situation while I was living in Guatemala having to learn Spanish from teachers who spoke only English as a secondary language but I am quite sure that their English was much more refined than my Thai. It will be interesting to see how far I get with learning Karen before the next 19 months are over. I am really amazed how quickly time has passed. Many volunteers say that days seem to last for ever, but months pass with ease. I can truly contest to that reflecting upon my lazy days but still being continually awed that I have spent 8 months in Thailand.


At around 5:30 p.m. I embark on my daily run over the slippery mud covered roads that run through the mountains of my site. It is not an easy task running like this and this was made even more apparent when I ran on a nice cemented park path in Bangkok the other weekend. I think I should be thoroughly prepared for the hardtop of Bangkok when the marathon rears its ugly head in November although sometimes I do question that. Today I ran my longest run yet, 16 km (10 miles) and although my body made it through alright, my feet paid the price. Several large blisters are now adorning my feet! Once my run is over I either prepare my meal or am invited to eat with one of the local families. I cook more than I am invited over which is interesting given the fact that most of my PC friends have trouble eating all the food they are given every day. I think this may be due to the fact that up until one week ago I had anywhere from 7-12 people living in my house and I don’t think that inviting one person to eat while leaving the rest to fend for themselves would be very Thai like! I then spend the remainder of the night either reading or watching one of the seasons of any particular TV series that I may have in possession at that time on DVD. Buying full seasons of pirated TV series is quite popular with PC Thailand volunteers and each series is continually traded for others so that large sums of money are not spent.

This has been a short (for my talking abilities) description of my life in the Karen villages of Northern Thailand.

New Address and Phone Number

Well a few things have changed in my life since I moved "on top of the mountain" as my Thai friends fondly like to call it. Given that there is limited cell phone reception I had to change companies and therefore I have a new number. My number is now 0850341275. Once again, if you're calling from the States I think you may need to drop the 0 and the country code is 66. My new address will be:

P.O. Box 381
Chiang Mai 50000
Thailand

This is a bit simpler than the last one. I hope to hear from whoever has been brave enough to continue reading my blog!

My Village!

I get to watch this nearly every night. My life is not bad!

Just another one of my mountain roads that I bike on everyday.

A Buddhist shrine on the top of the mountain near my house.

A view from the mountain which is literally out my front door.

Yes, the insects are supersized in Thailand. This moth was larger than most small birds.

Me doing the dirty work with the SAO staff and some villagers

Huck Finn Thai Style

The other day I had my first adventure with some of the local kids. It was a grey rainy day and I had decided that venturing out of the house would take a whole lot of convincing. I decided to go to the SAO office and type some emails and along the way I was soon accompanied by my two new friends. While I used the internet they made the most of the time by seeing who could ride my bike the best. Given that they were small twelve year olds, my quite large bike was somewhat of a challenge for them. Soon they had overcome the difficulties and were inside urging me to go outside and watch them ride my bike. I went and watched for a little while and then went back to my emailing. Soon they were in the office asking if I wanted to go on a “by-teeow,” in other words a little adventure (literally translated as “taking a trip”). I told them to wait a few minutes and would go with them.

We set out down the road and they suddenly veered off into a meadow. They asked me if I had ever been out there and then asked if I wanted to go. They were very conscience of my well being and comfort and I would here those two phrases multiple times before our trip was done. We rode our bicycles, me on mine and the two of them on one, through paths that wound through rice patties and forests. Soon we reached a point where our bikes would do us no good given that we were going to head off through newly planted rice patties. We followed a path for a while and soon they saw a tree and told me that the giant bean pod looking things hanging from the very top were great to eat. They took off through the brush and soon were at the base of the tree. One boy hurriedly scaled the tree and about three quarters of the way up he stopped and began shaking the tree violently. Soon the bean pods had been flung off and the boys were collecting them and stuffing them away in their bags. The adventure continued.

We got to more rice patties and had to cross them on the ledges that held the water back from the higher patty. After a few minutes of sloshing through the patties we arrived at another tree. This time the tree was substantially bigger but was full of fruit. The same boy scurried up the tree with seemingly no effort at all. He chopped off one of the lower branches and soon we were tasting the red, yellow and green fruit. It seemed that the fruit was either not ripe or over ripe. The only fruit that I tasted was very bitter but they assured me that normally they are “a-roy mak” or “very delicious.” By the time we were done with this tree it had begun to rain fairly hard. They were asking me if I wanted to climb the mountain that loomed in front of us. I stated the obvious, that it was raining. They responded with “mai bpen rai” translated as “it doesn’t matter” or “don’t worry” among others. I convinced them that maybe it would be better if we climbed the mountain another day when it wasn’t pouring rain. They readily agreed.

On the way back we passed a grove of bamboo and I heard them chattering in Karen, but obviously didn’t understand what they were saying. They raced toward one of the shoots and exclaimed in Thai, “There are two of them!” Soon they had two gigantic beetles in their possession. I asked them if they bite and they told me, “Of course they don’t!” This held true for about five minutes until when the one holding them let out a little yelp. They quickly revised their statement saying that their long proboscis could suck and hurt. At this point in time we were trudging through the rice patties again and I was saying to myself how nice it was to have my Keen sandals on. It didn’t matter if they got wet and they were protecting my feet from at least some of the animals that were living in the rice patties. My thought was rudely interrupted by a slight pain in my foot. I look down and I had several leeches stuck to my feet. I pulled them off while I cussed myself for wearing Keen sandals. We made our way back to my house and I promised them that I would go “by-teeow” with them again another day.