It was kind of a normal week except I was done with lesson planning on Saturday instead of Sunday!  Whoa!

One of my M6 classes (12 grade) always wants me to sing or dance.  They love music.  So I brought in music related to the doctor since my lesson was on health.  They went nuts and got up and started dancing.  Then after the first song they wanted to play Doraemon songs.  I knew Doraemon was a cartoon, but had no idea Doraemon also had electronic dance music too.  Huh….Who knew?  The other M6 class was a bit different.  They sat on the edge of their seats watching the video that went with the song and had little interest in dancing.  The first class was oblivious there was a video.  So far most, if not all Thai music I have heard is horrible.  It’s like bad walmart sappy love song lounge music.  Doraemon throwing down the beats was a welcome change.  When I told Noi about the M6 class loving to dance she said that was because that class had a lot of boy girls in it. I assumed this was like a very effeminate boy. It does seem that is true.

I’m still amazed by the restaurants here.  It’s a wonder I’ve only gotten sick twice.  Not one place I have eaten in since I got to Thailand would pass a health department inspection in the US.  Yet, it all seems to be just fine.  All of them in my area are outdoor kitchens.  The number of chickens I saw running around kitchens this week alone was mind boggling.  We went back to one of the places I wrote about before where there were so many chickens and flies.  I’m now naming this food shop, House of Chicken.  No food shops appear to have names and if they did, I couldn’t read the sign anyway, so House of Chicken it is.  They were everywhere, pecking at a bag of food, playing in the sink of dirty dishes, pecking at the frying pan, running in the street.  The kitchens are like camping kitchens.  I feel like I’m just camping 24/7, but with a lot more chickens.  Yet, no one seems to get sick, including myself so maybe we are just over paranoid in the US?

I went to Tak with Noi one day after school.  I went to the bank to find out why I can’t transfer money on line.  The lady helped me register for on-line banking, but I don’t know she understood my concern and I don’t think it changed anything.  I also went to the store to buy cheese and cereal – both things I can’t get in my village and can’t live without.  I ran into the western teacher I had met in Chiang Rai.  That was kind of funny.  We stopped at a teacher’s credit union / co-op type thing after the store.  There was a younger kid in there.  I assumed his mom was one of the ladies working there.  All the ladies encouraged him and cheered him on as he tried to speak English with me.  He asked my name and where I was from, my favorite food, and a few other questions.  Very cute.

Of course there were no classes Friday afternoon because it was National Thai Language Day so there were speeches, dances and other performances all afternoon.  No one told me until about lunch time.  Oh well, that’s just one less lesson plan I have to do for next week.  There was a going away party for one of the teachers after school.  I was told about this in the afternoon.  I felt funny going since I didn’t even know who was leaving until she got up after dinner for all the speeches and photos.  But, I didn’t want to offend anyone by not going and I was curious what a going away party would be like.  It had lots of Thai music, spicy food, rice, sugary sweet sodas, whiskey, speeches, giving of gifts, lots of photos, lots of selfies, and karaoke.  I managed to find some food that I could eat.  I probably should have tried the whiskey, but I don’t really like whiskey.  I tried the atomic fallout green soda.  It was quite delicious.  They love to take photos of gifting.  So there is a overly posed photo of every gift she received being handed over by the giver.  Still, as I sat there and looked around, I felt very strongly like I was a guest at someone’s family dinner.  This is a family and they truly care about each other.  I did get a not so good video of my next door neighbor, Q, singing karaoke.  A lot of people asked if I did karaoke, but I don’t know any of the songs and I can’t read the words on the screen.

I left my motorbike at school because it was raining so hard when I left.  So, I walked up to get it Saturday morning.  The janitor, Q, and some of the other male teachers were sitting in front of the school office around the drink cooler obviously working on the left over whiskey.  They wanted to know where I was going.  “Teacher Rraine, where you go?”  They also wanted to know where I was going in October.  Then the janitor proceeded to say he loved me about 7 or 8 times.  “Teacher Rraine, I love you.”  I’m going to guess he thinks that means he likes me or he will miss seeing me when I leave, not that he actually loves me, but who knows.  He barely speaks English so I’ll chalk it up to that, that and whiskey.

The coffee shop was closed so I texted the lady that makes salads and burgers to see if she was open because I know she has coffee and wifi.  She was open so I spent most of the day there.  The tables and chairs were very uncomfortable, but there’s more than sugar on the menu so I got an egg ham and cheese sandwich was was delicious.  A lot of students came in while I was there.  It was a nice change of pace.  I did massage yesterday too.  It was one of the most painful yet.  When he worked on my shoulders I cried.  I was glad this was near the end of the massage because it felt like there was so much crying and screaming wailing wanting to come up.  I just don’t feel safe letting that volume of emotion out in that atmosphere.  After he gave me his phone number.  I think he was trying to tell me he would work on me at my home or his or come get me if it was raining.  He was either trying to give me a safe place to work next time or he was hitting on me.  I really have no idea.  I went home after and tried to release some of emotions I’m holding in my shoulders, but nothing came up.  How can that be?  I know it’s there.  Even as I write this, I can feel so much crying stuck in there, but I can’t reach it.  Maybe tomorrow….

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore