Yes, that’s what I said, Lice. I have lice. My head has been itching for a while now. I can’t deny it any more. I asked Pat what I should do. Within 30 seconds she had me in a chair with 4 students surrounding me picking at my hair. They confirmed it was lice and proceeded to pick them out for almost an hour. I think they would have done it all day, but I had to go teach. Pat was so sketched out she kept making funny faces and I could tell she was itchy just thinking about it. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t embarrass easily because there was nothing discrete about this adventure. Pat told me to give money to one of the students and she would get me the medicated shampoo tonight. I think I would have rather just attempted to find it in the school myself, but it didn’t go that way. Another student suggested I flat iron my hair tonight to see if that killed some. Brilliant. So tonight I washed my hair several times and flat ironed it. It is slightly better. Tomorrow I’ll be sporting a straight hair do to school and doing some lice killing tomorrow night.
I still have a rat living with me. The other night I heard a lot of rustling in the walls. I looked up and he was staring down at me from a rafter with such a look of confusion – ‘What is she doing here”? He paused for a second as we both stared at each other not sure what to do. He ran back into the walls.
I also still have cockroaches. I bought some bug spray at the store that I’m sure is toxic and shouldn’t be in my house, but neither should ants and cockroaches. I also bought this plug in mosquito repellent thing that I’m not sure does any good. So, the bug spray works great on ants and two days ago, I got to try it on a cockroach. I was skeptical since I grew up in Florida and nothing killed them there. I found one on my toilet seat. I didn’t want to spray the bug spray on my toilet seat in case it is toxic enough to burn my legs off. So I waited until he ran. He ran for a hole in the door. Perfect. The bug spray has a tiny nozzle that fits in the hole in the door and now he can just die in the door, out of sight. Oh no, it did not go down that way. Five minutes later I heard a loud flopping sound and looked over. In the middle of the room is the roach flopping around and creating quite the drama and he flopped across the room on his back, legs flailing everywhere. Just before he died I heard him say – “you did this to me bitch, now you have to watch me die”. So, the bug spray works great, but the roaches have attitude.
Yesterday I spent a good part of the day at the coffee shop trying to book my plans for vacation and eating/drinking sugar. I should call it the sugar shop instead of the coffee shop. I sat outside for a change because the weather was delightfully not hot! I also tried to cook some of the food I have before I have to toss too much of it out. I made scrambled eggs. I haven’t had scrambled eggs since I left the US so that was a nice treat.
Last night I went to Ging’s house for dinner. I was looking forward to seeing a Thai house from the inside to see how it compared to mine. Not much different except that they have lived there for awhile and have a preschool daughter so it has stuff everywhere. For a lot of houses, the kitchen is outside. That was the case at their house. So, that’s different than mine. I really don’t have an outside area. I helped her cook dinner as she told me the Thai names of everything we cooked. I remember none of it, but I now carry a notebook with me everywhere and it’s in there. Tip came over after dinner and took me to see her house which is a couple blocks away. She has a little electric cart that looks like a golf cart except smaller. She took me over in that. And she took me around the front of the hospital and showed me where the dental offices are, there are also acupuncture offices and they have massage at the hospital too. They both live at houses at the hospital. I also love that they speak to their children in English as well as Thai so they will learn both.
Today, I went to the market with Ging. Then I went to get a massage. I went to the same lady I went to a few weeks ago. Without exercising and sitting in these tiny plastic chairs all the time, and stress, I’m a disaster. It was a painful 2 hours. Still, I think it’s important and will get better as I become more comfortable living here. Some interesting things came up. I’ll put them in a separate blog. It was a beautiful day so I didn’t get much done that I wanted to do because it all involved a computer and I just wanted to sit out side. It probably didn’t get over 80 degrees today. I found taro ice cream and since I’m in love with taro milk, I thought this might be the most exciting thing to happen all week. No. It wasn’t. It was meh. I’ll stick to the lime vanilla ice cream bars I found at 7-11 in the future. I feel like I’m posting a lot of pictures of food in these blogs, but it’s interesting to me. So, here are your food and flower pictures for this blog:
I got a package from my best friend, Sharon yesterday! It was a huge box and it was so wonderful to see it! It was full of cheesy american junk food (goldfish crackers, smartfood popcorn and easy cheese). I’ve been missing cheese so much. It had some other snacks and a candle too. Pat helped me open the box and a couple of other teachers helped me look through everything. Pat wanted to try the easy cheese so I put some on her finger. She made a funny face and basically thought it was horrible. She proceeded to try to get everyone else that walked by to try it, but no one would. Ok, so easy cheese is not really cheese, but in a land of no cheese, it’s wonderful.
Yesterday after school, Noi came and picked me up to take me to her house. I was excited about this for a few reasons. 1. It meant I finally was able to communicate “later” to her. 2. She has a garden and I was excited to see it. 3. Her husband is the one I met at Scout day that was so delightful to talk to. 4. I think she really enjoys my company and this feels more like someone that wants to spend time with me than someone who wants to take care of me so I will stay here, teaching. It may seem like a small difference, but when you are truly alone in a town, it’s a huge difference.
I wanted to see in her house to see what a Thai teacher’s house looks like, but I wasn’t invited in and I didn’t want to ask. They had a lot of plants and trees everywhere. They had a really old dog who just wanted to go lay in the road. She insisted that I pick stuff from the garden. They have a bunch of fruit trees in the back and she gave me some fruit I’ve never seen and I have no idea what it is. One, I think is like a pomelo, but giant. The other, it sounded like she was calling it an olive, but it’s too big to be an olive (or it’s a giant olive). I plan to to food prep tomorrow so I’ll update you then. They gave me bananas (I have way too many bananas now) and a bottle of honey. Someone else gave me a bottle of honey. So, now I have more honey than I’ve ever eaten in my life. I don’t know what to do with it.
After the garden, they took me to the temple. The temple near their house has one of the oldest Buddha images. It’s over 1000 years old. The pagoda next to the temple was rumored to once float in the river and then was moved later near the temple. They also showed me a temple for ordination of monks – no women or non monks allowed in. After the temple, they took me to dinner. I am grateful for the information on the temple. It was a good evening.
Today one of the teachers and the school driver took me to Tak to turn in my paperwork for my work permit. The lady rejected the paperwork because the signatures were photocopies and she wasn’t reading my passport correctly and was trying to explain that my visa expired soon, which it doesn’t. I have a year on the visa and I have to leave the country and come back every 3 months. I have until the end of March to do the border run. And there were two other documents she handed me that needed to be filled out. It all was confusing to me and to the teacher that came to help me so we went back to Sam Ngao. We will do originals, fill out the other paperwork and pick up where we left off in May.
After school today, my new friends Tip and Ging picked me up and took me up to the gardens by the dam with their two daughters and Ging’s husband. We started Thai lessons and they brought food for a picnic. It was a beautiful evening. They want to hang out again tomorrow. I think I will bring a fruit salad and hopefully they will accept it. It’s nice that everyone wants to buy me dinner, but it does make me a little uncomfortable. I’m not use to being this taken care of. And I want to be generous in return, but no one will let me.
(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
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What is this? Arugula?
Olives?Dragon fruit grows on this – I had no idea!Giant citrus type fruit
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dong mai lu angIs this an olive?What am I going to do with all this honey?
Last night after work, I went to wash sheet. No, that’s not a typo. They only use a bottom sheet here. There seems to be no top sheets. So technically I went to wash sheet and blanket. There are 4 washers they are next to someone’s house. The house has big roll up windows like a lot of houses do so people can sell stuff or have some kind of store out of their house. The windows were open for the first time that I’ve seen and the smell of chocolate came flooding out of them. I looked over an several chocolate cakes sat on the counter of a large kitchen. She had just finished cooking the chocolate that would be the frosting. Most people just put their laundry in and come back later, but I don’t really have anywhere else to go so I usually bring my nook and read. Yesterday I got to read while smelling chocolate. She cut the cakes up into smaller cakes, frosted them and put nuts on top. I bought one. That and clean sheet were the highlights of the day.
It’s getting hotter. By 11:00am I am uncomfortable. By the end of school, I’m not sure I’m going to survive. Today was the worst so far. I had a giant headache and was so physically uncomfortable. I couldn’t seem to stand or sit or find any way to get comfortable. I had an overwhelming desire to go home, but I have no AC so home wouldn’t solve anything. There’s no pool or ocean. I’ve never seen anyone in the river and I think I’d be eaten alive by bugs before I even made it to the river. No AC. So, after school, I went home and took a shower. It helped for a minute. I bought a coconut at the market yesterday and had the brilliant foresight to put it in the refrigerator. After a few minutes of hitting it with a knife I made a hole in it and had cold coconut water. This actually was the best thing I could do. The electrolytes in the water helped with the headache and I felt like I might survive. I’ll have to buy more coconuts. I’ll try to figure out how to get it open and eat the rest tomorrow.
Tonight, Laura and I went out to dinner again. As I was heading down to meet her, I ran into Noi driving up to the house to get me. She wanted to take me to her house for dinner. For the first time, I think I successfully rescheduled with her. She knows Laura and seemed to understand that we already had plans. I think we rescheduled for tomorrow.
When I met up with Laura, she said we were meeting a couple other ladies for coffee and then we’d go to dinner later. She dropped me off a the coffee shop and then went to run an errand. The two ladies found me when they arrived and started talking with me. They were delightful. They use to be English students of Laura’s when she was teaching English on the side. They immediately wanted to practice English with me, know how to get in touch with me later and said if I needed any help to let them know. I told them I needed help learning Thai. So, I think I may have found my Thai teachers and two new friends. Laura is leaving in a week and a half for a 10 month sabbatical. She set up this coffee on purpose knowing how nice these ladies are and that they would want to befriend me and that they will try to take good care of me.
I think this will be a huge help in settling in to live here after vacation. I’m trying to take it in that life is supporting me and taking care of me. It just doesn’t look the way I would have wanted it to look or would have expected it to. I think subconsciously in the back of my head I had the idea that I would learn to trust life, but that it would be by meeting other expats and building friendships that looked similar to the ones I left behind in America. One of those, of course would be the man I’ve been looking for for so long. I didn’t realize I had these specific expectations until the reality turns out to be so different.
While at dinner, it rained. Now it’s hot and muggy and I’m wondering how I will ever sleep.
(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
View from the laundry washers – chickenOne of the best pieces of chocolate cake I’ve ever hadSalvation
I tried to sleep in as late as I could, but I just feel yucky. I try to cry or scream or figure out how to release this, but I can’t so I just get up. Maybe leaving Mae Sot will help and that’s on the schedule for today anyway.
I had another meh breakfast and then my taxi arrived early to take me to the bus station. So, I was way too early, but that’s ok. I didn’t have any issue with my ticket bought on line so that was good. It was a different bus station than the one I came into and the bus was sold out so I’m real glad I got the ticket ahead of time on line.
The bus has a stewardess of sorts who takes our tickets, finds where we are getting off, gives us water and a very random snack. When I tell her Ba tan cuen, she doesn’t understand me although I know she does. I tell her about 3 or 4 times and she keeps saying Chaing Mai (the final stop)? She repeats Ba tan cuen with a distrusting look several times and then walks off shaking her head. Several times during the trip she asks me again. I try to explain I live and teach there, but she thinks I’m nuts.
I was told or read somewhere that this stretch of road is dangerous on a bus. I rode in on a van and was wondering what it would be like on a bus. It’s not scary so much as it’s just intense. There are a lot of trucks and buses on the road. It’s steep and full of switch backs. There’s not much you can do as you are getting tossed side to side a lot. I try to read, but writing or typing on the computer is out of the question. There are no run away truck lanes like there would be in Colorado, but I don’t smell burning brakes either. Some of the hills, the bus struggles to even get up. I’m sitting on the wrong side again to get any pictures of the mountain views. I tried to get pictures, but they don’t do it justice, of course. I’m dropped off at the correct stop even though she still looks skeptical and then I have to take the motorbike taxi back home.
Now I’m guessing the police stops on the way into and out of Mae Sot may have something to do with refugees. I’m not sure, but that makes the most sense. I did some research on line about the Burmese refugees. It was quite eye opening, but that is all I will say about it.
I wanted to go out to the temple tonight to see what the holiday celebration might be like, but by the time I heard the monks on the loud speaker, I was tired and just wanted to shower and eat so I didn’t go out after all. Now, I’m kinda bummed I didn’t go.
I’m using my new phone as a wifi hot spot as I write this so that’s a huge hooray!
My house is just full of bugs and I’m over it. My bedroom floor was covered in wings when I got home. There were some bugs. I don’t know what they were – termites, flying ants? I swept it all up and didn’t do much looking at the bugs because I just don’t want to know. My head has been itching for days so I wonder if I got bugs in my hair now. I feel like I’m 8 years old again. I washed my hair twice today although, I doubt that will do any good. I looked at my sheets and they were covered in tiny dead gnats that I’ve been battling every night when I try to read on my nook. Still, the amount of bug on the outside top of the bug net lets me know it’s not a complete failure. Guess I’m sleeping on my sleeping bag tonight and washing sheets tomorrow. I did get an electronic bug thing that Laura recommended. It’s for mosquitoes, but maybe it’ll deter other bugs too. Fingers crossed. Alright, I’m going to leave it on that note so all of you reading this can share in my creepy crawly feeling.
So, there are roosters in Mae Sot too. No sleeping in. I debated leaving the hotel or not. I’m still not sure what this mix of hating and loving Mae Sot is. I have the thought that if I decide to stay in Thailand, but leave Sam Ngao, I’d like to live in Mae Sot. But, I don’t want to leave the room. There isn’t much in the way of sights to see. I thought about trying to get to see a waterfall since there should be some fairly close, but decide on going to the Border Market instead. But first, I have to get my bus confirmation for tomorrow printed, get breakfast (free at the hotel) and figure out how I’m getting to the bus tomorrow. Google translator for the win. Bus confirm printed and they will call a taxi for me tomorrow morning. Breakfast was disappointing, but good enough to tackle a market. They call a taxi for me since it will probably be an hour bike ride. The hour ride to the market might be wonderful, but then it will get hot and I won’t want the ride back. Lonely Planet says the market is unique because of all the Karen, Hmong and Burmese crafts that can be found there. Plus lots of jade and gems from Myanmar. It’s the best market I’ve seen in Thailand. Not too big, but so many things, textiles, clothes, electronics, cosmetics, jewelry, jade, jade, gems, jade, metal work, wood work, furniture, strange food, on and on. There was one entire row of dried fish products. It was right next to the Friendship Bridge that goes over the river that is the border. There were tons of cars on the bridge, but people walking over with suitcases too. I read that this border was only opened in 2013. I also read that there are tons of refugee camps near Mae Sot. There were people camping next to the river and both sides were run down and horrible looking. Even though it’s just lines on a map, it’s very weird to stand in one foreign country and look at another.
So glad I took the taxi because it got hot. As I’m sitting waiting for a taxi, I realize why I’m having such polar opposite feelings. I like Mae Sot. It’s not a big city like Bangkok, but it’s a city and everything is moving. Product moved from here to there and then over there. Stuff and people in and out and around. There are plant nurseries, warehouses, mom and pop shops all next to houses and farms. There are animals and cars and bicycles all going down the street together. Cultures and religions are all intermixed. The city feels like it’s breathing on it’s own. There’s a rhythmic flow to all this movement that I don’t understand, but it does and it is just doing it’s thing. Then, on the other side of the river is a country that is trying to rebuild and figure itself out. There are thousand of Burmese refugees living in refugee camps in Thailand. Some of those camps are near Mae Sot. The feeling at the bridge is tentative, movement, but forced and uncomfortable. Many of these refugee camps have been set up for 20 to 30 years. Many refugees have never known a life outside a camp. Even though the border is open and it appears easy to come and go, I’m literally sitting under the bridge between a relatively free, vibrant country and a very uncertain country. There’s a lot of opposites and an energetic line of fear and confusion in the middle. This is what I’ve been feeling so strongly. And of course, it resonates with all the parts of me that want to trust in the flow of life and all the parts that still don’t trust it’s a safe world. I don’t cross the bridge, mostly because I don’t want to pay any fees, but symbolically because I want to live in the flow instead of the fear. I will have to cross that bridge another day in the future when I need to do a border hop for my visa. We’ll save it for then.
I had signed up for a cooking class at 3:00. I have 2 hours to kill so I head out on bike in search of a coffee shop. Either there are no coffee shops in Mae Sot, or google maps is lying again. I give up and find a restaurant that has coffee. Then I arrive at the place where the cooking class is and it’s delightful. It has a fair trade hand made crafts store in the front, the kitchen and then a tea garden in the back. The tea garden is so nice. There’s one other lady in the cooking class. They give us a cookbook full of local dishes (none are Thai). We get to pick a snack, main dish, salad and drink to make. Then we go to the market to buy the ingredients. We make the dishes and then get to eat them in the tea garden. There’s enough food for at least two more meals so I’ll get to eat them tomorrow. We picked a lime basil juice which might be one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. We had a ginger salad, Karen pumpkin curry and banana coconut wraps.
There was another lady in the tea garden at the same time and three of us got to talking. The woman in the cooking class with me works for the US government and is here for 6 weeks interviewing refugees. It sounds like it’s part of the process of deciding which ones will be allowed to relocate to the US. The other lady is here for about the same amount of time working in a clinic for refugees. She’s in between medical school and getting a job back in the UK. I learned a lot more about the refugee issue, although I mostly learned that I don’t really know anything about the subject. This cooking class is the most enjoyable thing I’ve done since I got here.
(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Gem Stone TreesOoooooo Shiny thingsThey put water in these powders and put all over their faces
The Friendship Bridge looking toward MyanmarStanding in Thailand with Myanmar behind me
So I got up super early and drove to the hospital. I was told to park there since the bus stop is next door. Riding an old motor bike in the dark with bad headlights is sketchy, especially when you come upon a dog sleeping in the middle of the road. Dogs are a major source of motorbike accidents in Thailand. There was no one at the bus stop at 6:30. There were a three kids there by 7:00am. So, I was obviously told the wrong time. Was it a joke on the foreigner? Oh well, at least I wasn’t late for the bus. It was a big loud bus full of students. There were adults too, but mostly students. The bus honked at everything that moved and as it was approaching every stop. It was standing room only by the time we got to the bus station in Tak. It was nice to see a teenage boy give up his seat next to me for someone else. It’s typical for younger people to give up their seats for older people. I then had to change to a mini van to get to Mae Sot. The seats on the mini van were tiny and every seat was full. It was a very interesting drive. The roads were steep and very curvy. Of in the distance you could see row and row of mountains (shadows of mountains really since it’s so smoky here). We drove through several national parks so there was nothing but jungle. The steepness of the roads reminded me of Colorado, if Colorado had jungle.
We went through 3 police check points. I found that odd. At the 3rd one, a policeman checked IDs. I wondered what they were looking for. Drugs, gems, poachers? When we got to Mae Sot I got a motorbike taxi to my hotel, well to the wrong hotel and then to the right one. This was foreshadowing for my afternoon. Mae Sot looks different than anything else I’ve seen in Thailand. I can’t quite identify what it is that is different. It’s a border town near Myanmar and has a large concentration of hill tribes, Karen and Hmong. It also has a large Muslim population and Chinese population. The only thing I can figure is these influences made tiny differences in buildings, streets, clothing, etc and creates a distinct, but indescribable difference. I tried to define it or capture it in a picture but i just can’t.
I got to my hotel and I didn’t want to leave. I was overcome with a strong feeling of “I like Mae Sot” combined with “I hate it here”. There was a lot of fear and I just wanted to crawl in bed and hide. I watched tv for awhile and tried to find a phone store on google maps. I tried to convince myself that it was ok if I locked myself in my room all weekend. The part of me that needs a new phone and reliable wifi won. The hotel had bicycles I could use for free and “how do I rent a motorbike” was not being understood. So, I took the bicycle into town on a wild goose chase sponsored by google maps. The first place it took me was a Tesco which are like Walmarts here. They usually have other stores around them including phone stores. I went in and there were only two rows of shelves with stuff on them. It was creepy. The next place didn’t seem to exist. It kept taking me down roads that I swear were in the wrong direction. I had no idea where I was. The streets are narrow, full of cars, bicycles and motorbikes. Terrifying and fabulous all at the same time. There’s that mix of opposites again. There are stores and delivery trucks everywhere. The variety of things being sold and/or delivered was mindblowing. I still can’t process it and I saw it. The third place I went was a print shop. A guy across the street was drunk and bathing with a hose, fully clothed. Then he came over and sat in front of the print shop and then back across the street. Back and forth, soaking wet. I decided this would be a good time to go eat. The combination of Lonely Planet guide book and google maps got me to a Canadian restaurant that boasted having cheese. I tried to regroup. I had a cheese burger and fries. I got a hold of the phone company by Line (a text program widely used in SE Asia) and they told me there was a store in Robinsons and one in a different Tesco. Some British people eating next to me told me where the other Tesco was.
I have a new resolve to get this phone since I don’t want to go through this again tomorrow. On my way to Tesco, I stopped for a pedicure. She tried to get rid of my ingrown toenails which I usually don’t mind because they drive me nuts, but she cut too deep and my toe bled and still hurts hours later. So, now I’m grumpy, scared, hot, lost and injured. I found the dtac store and no one speaks English. I try using my phrase book and the guy behind the counter pulls out his phone and has me speak into it. It translates what I said to Thai. It doesn’t do the best job of translating. Some of the things he said got translated horribly to English, but it was enough to get a new phone that can be a mobile hot spot and to get a data package paid for. And I asked him to download the translator app too – google translator, who knew? Now, hopefully, it works at my house! I went back to the hotel and locked myself in. I tried to nap, but couldn’t. Around 8:00pm I decided I needed to go out and eat and see if I could get a massage. I used my new translator to ask where to go for a massage. They said 2 hours in my room for 500baht ($14). Deal! Who needs dinner?
(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Can I just stay here forever?Cheese on my burger and friesOn the phone store huntThose are funny looking dogs, no goats
This week has been ok. The morning dreads have been replaced with the morning “nooooooo”. But I think that is a little better. The main issues I’m having is the foggy brain, just being so tired early in the evening and the very frustrating lack of wifi. I want to learn Thai, but nothing is sticking. I can’t go watch videos on line because I can’t get on wifi. The wifi hotspot that Xplore Asia sent me is useless. The school’s wifi might work for an hour or not at all. It seems like after school I cook or do one or two things and then it’s late or I’m tired. There might be a time warp in my house that also take brain cells away. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. It’s getting hotter so that may contribute too.
Monday, I only had two teachers show up for teachers English class. I wonder if I’m not making it fun enough. Is it too hard? Do they think they want to learn English, but really don’t?
Tuesday, a teacher brought me breakfast. It was a “sandwich”. This sounds wonderful. I look in the bag. It’s a hotdog with butter, ketchup and lettuce. I don’t care for ketchup so it was a hotdog with butter. I’ll make a salad later with that lettuce. That evening, I went to the market. I also got gas for the stove in my house. So, now I can fry things. Next week I’m looking forward to eggs for breakfast! Tuesday night I cooked up a ton of greens that my next door neighbor bought from a student. He bought them to be nice, but he doesn’t cook. So I kept some and left the rest in zip lock baggies at his door. I hope he eats it, but who knows? Maybe if I had cooked rice too.
Wednesday evening I went out to dinner with the missionary, Laura. I got to go see the church she is working on. She is overseeing the building of the new church. It’s also a nice time to spend with another native English speaker. She’s lived in Thailand for quite a while so she has some good pointers too. She also understands that salads are not a strange thing, but can be quite delicious.
Last night I was supposed to teach teachers, but there were none. I think there’s still some interest, but I think maybe once a week is more their speed. Who knows? I took the opportunity to do laundry. After that, I thought I’d go see if I could get a pedicure. Laura had shown me a place where a lady does hair and will also do nails. But, it wasn’t open. Well, that’s about the extent of the things I can think of to do in town so I went home. The rest of my evening was cooking and defrosting the refrigerator. Defrosting the refrigerator in 5 easy steps – take food out, unplug refrigerator, open door and let ice melt all over kitchen overnight, put food back in, plug in.
Wednesday during the afternoon assembly, I looked over and saw a cow in front of the school. He was too far away to get a picture, but I thought it would make a great picture of rural life. I figured I’d get the picture later when I was waiting for Laura to go to dinner. Not more than 20 minutes later, I go looking for the cow, but she is gone. Then Thursday as I’m coming home with a bag of wet laundry balanced just so on the back of the motorbike, who do I see, but the cow walking down the street. If I stop for a photo now, it will unbalance my bag. I’ll just go home, hang the laundry and get a picture of her when I head to get my nails done. Five minutes later, she’s gone. How far could a cow get in 5 minutes? Where did it go? They don’t move that fast, do they?
Today when I got to school, a student brought me breakfast from one of the other teachers. I have no idea who it was from since my ability to remember teacher’s names is only slightly better than my ability to remember Thai words. It was something beautifully wrapped in leaves and the leaves smelled horrible. I unwrapped one and of course it involved rice. It looked like sticky rice around some pink fruit. It tasted ok. Later in the morning, I ate the other one. On closer inspection, it looked like half a banana wrapped in rice. The pink color is a mystery. After school today, my plan was to go get a massage! Yay! It wasn’t open. I waited for awhile, just in case. I texted the phone number on the window. I figured calling them would be a waste of time since they didn’t speak English and I could say massage in Thai, but I’d have no idea what their answer would be. Maybe with a text they could translate. But, no response. Well, let’s go do that pedicure. Not open either. I settled for a lime vanilla ice cream bar from 7-11. Once again, I ran out of ideas for a night on the town.
Now that I’m sitting in the time warp, I’m thinking how is it 8:00pm already? Screw it, I’m going to bed. I have to finish packing for the weekend and then I’m done. I have to get up early because rumor is a bus will come to the bus stop around 6:30am and there may not be another bus to Tak in the morning. Or there may be many. No one seems to know. I’m going to Mae Sot for the weekend. It’s a larger town on the border of Myanmar and should be something interesting to see for the weekend.
(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
So exciting – These two bananas grew in one skinTwin bananasBreakfast SandwichThis cat followed me around for a half hourThe shutters in one of my classroomsOne of the houses at schoolLaura and her churchLaura, the builder and the churchChurch builders’ gardensunsetpretty treesLet the defrosting beginMystery breakfastStill a mysteryTaking tests
Two thing I normally wouldn’t eat because I don’t like or dislike them are: oranges and cucumbers. But, here, cucumbers are served with most meals. And someone is always handing me an orange. So, I’m eating a lot of both.
Normally I put lots of cream and sugar in my coffee. But the amount of sugar the put in coffee in Thailand is astounding. I’m actually craving and enjoying (when I can find it), coffee with no sugar.
I would have written a blog yesterday, but wifi seemed to disappear off the face of the planet for a day. I couldn’t connect to the school wifi and although I could connect to my portable hot spot, it didn’t allow me on any websites. All day today was the same issue. Tonight, I seem to have wifi, so fingers crossed that I have it at least for the time it takes me to write this. I find that this wifi difficulty puts me into a downward spiral of “I want to go home” and “I don’t think I can do this until October”.
I had three exploration goals for yesterday, one of which scared me quite a bit. 1. I was almost out of gas for the motorbike. I had been told the cheapest gas would be from the mechanic who fixed the bike, who I don’t like very much. So, this scared me a bit – would I make it to the next village without running out of gas, would he be there, would I be able to communicate what I needed, and would he rip me off? I’m not sure why I don’t trust him, but I don’t. Maybe because he doesn’t smile and everyone here smiles? But, I got there without running out and he was there and understood my charades. They store the gas in old liquor (?) bottles. Not sure if I got ripped off or not. Next time I’ll go to a gas station and see how much it costs. The gas stations scare me a little too. They aren’t like gas stations in a big city, but that will be a blog story for another day. 2. My second goal was to go to the Sunday Market. It’s only on Sunday mornings and I have been asked several times if I went to the Sunday Market, but because of my lack of transportation, I had not been able to. It’s held on the grounds of the village temple and part of a school’s athletic field. It was quite impressive for a small town. It took me over an hour to walk through it all. I stopped to get a few things. I definitely turned some heads as I am the only foreigner and probably looked lost. I did see a few students. I also ran into my new best friend, Noi’s husband who was playing in a small band. 3. My third exploration goal was to go to a new coffee shop. There were at least two I saw in this village. The first one I went to was closed. The second one was tiny – two tables. After making my latte, the owner sat down at my table with me and struck up a conversation. I use the word “conversation” lightly. Her English was as bad as my Thai. We tried to use the phrase book I had, but that only helped a little. We showed pictures of our family. But, no matter how difficult it was, I think she might have sat there all day with me. After I paid for my coffee and was about to get on my motorbike she came running out with a bag of fruit and handed it to me saying Valentine’s day.
I accomplished my 3 things. I have a ton of online stuff I need to do, but can do that later when it’s dark out. I should go explore somewhere else during the day. Wrong – I had no internet that night. But, I didn’t know that would happen so I went home and had some soup that the teachers made for me Friday night. They made me soup that wasn’t too spicy. Shortly after eating the soup, I got a call from Noi. She asked if I would have lunch with her. My past attempts to reschedule have all failed and I know that “No” is not the correct answer so I said yes. She came and picked me up and took me to a restaurant I hadn’t been to yet. She ordered pad thai and I have to say it’s the best tasting meal I’ve had yet in Thailand. So, I ate the whole thing and felt like an umpah lumpah by the time we left. She then took me to the roadside drink stand I had been to with the military students. She showed me a fruit that looked like a tiny grapefruit and asked if I had ever had it. It was a type of citrus. Of course I haven’t. The lady juiced it and added some soda water and a tiny bit of sugar to it. She said she figured I didn’t like too much sugar so she made it less sweet. How did she know that? It was perfect. I tried to pay, but Noi wouldn’t let me. She said next time. Then she laughed and said she thinks she won’t let me pay next time either.
So, after I get dropped back home, I still have daylight left. I had asked Pat where I could get a massage. She said at the golf course. I haven’t had a massage in awhile and I’m hurting, but the golf course is up by the dam and the whole dam area is kind of ritzy so I assumed this would be out of my price range and I might need an appointment. But, it can’t hurt to find out. I needed my phrase book to ask for massage, but it worked and they led me to a small house next to the clubhouse. There were just two mats inside, but one was open. I asked how much bracing myself for what would be cheap by American standards, but probably expensive by Thai standards. 150 baht for an hour. This is 100 baht less than in a bigger city. This is about $4.20 us dollars. DEAL! She was pretty good too. So, I now think that if I can get a massage a week, I might survive living here.
I pretty much forget every bit of Thai I learn within 5 minutes of learning it. This is very frustrating. I’m going to start carrying a notebook and writing things down and see if that helps. My brain is quite foggy and from time to time just tries to shut down altogether. I think if I can either make more of my own meals or somehow get my body to adjust to amazing amounts of carbs, I might be able to use my brain again. Another thought that has come to me is that the foggy brain, wanting to shut down and not remembering anything might actually be part of my awakening process. I’m starting to disengage more from my ego identity and stories and I feel like my brain wants to reboot. I keep getting pulled back into story because I have to teach or I have to buy gas or I have to make a hotel reservation or some type of activity my ego use to do. I just want to lay around and do nothing, but there are things to do so I’m kind of stuck in the middle right now.
Today I was woken up by a man speaking over a loud speaker at 5:00am. My ear plugs wouldn’t block it out. This has happened before and it was the monks telling religious stories during a religious holiday. I’m not sure if it was the monks, but it was an unpleasant time of day to be woken up, especially when I don’t wake up in the best mood to begin with. At lunch, Noi calls me and asks if I am coming down to the cafeteria. They have noodles today. I tried to explain to her that Pat made me lunch and I didn’t want it to go to waste so I was going to eat with Pat. Noi called me a little later asking where I was and I tried to explain it again. I think she got it this time. Nope. About 10 minutes into lunch, a student comes up to where Pat, Mae, and I are sitting and hands me a bowl of noodles. Now I have two lunches again.
(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
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