There are four coffee shops that I go to. One is a tiny room big enough for a counter and a coffee machine. They have a porch with a table on it outside. I don’t go here often because it isn’t in my village. There is one that kind of an outdoor thing with a roof. I don’t know how to explain it. It sits on the side of the main road into the village. The lady that owns it and her daughter are the sweetest people. From day one, they remember what I like and remember what ever customer likes, actually. This one is my favorite, but since it’s kind of like a shack, I don’t go there if I want to use internet or if it’s too hot out. Then there’s a modern coffee shop – the only modern thing for 50 miles. I spend quite a bit of time there because they have internet that works, coffee, air conditioning, and cake. The people here are also wonderful, but they don’t speak any English so I usually just point at things. Then there’s another one where the lady who owns it is so sweet and she speaks English. The first time I met her she gave me her number and told me to text any time if I wanted to order ahead or check to see if she was open. She makes salads, burgers and a mean egg and cheese sandwich. This week, I went into the modern one and had some cake. As I was paying, the lady handed me a note. It had written on it that they would be closed, the dates they would be closed and when they would re-open. Since I am the only English speaking patron and they don’t know English, I can only guess that they found someone who knew English to write the note and then kept it behind the counter until I came in. So sweet!
This week I did a lesson on Katy Perry’s song Firework for M6 (12th grade). I had done it for the younger kids earlier and it was so hard. I had a harder worksheet for M6 and debated just giving them the easier worksheet, but I didn’t. The questions were difficult, but what I saw was the students reading through the lyrics hunting for any clue to the answers. Basically, they are doing research in English. The didn’t get all the questions. My co-teacher Tussany told me the lesson was too hard, that she didn’t know all the answers. She wants to tell them the answers instead of let them struggle a little and find them. When I read over the answers later, most of them were right. Isn’t this the point of school? To teach children how to think for themselves, how to learn? If you just give them the answers and have them repeat, they won’t retain much. Tussany is my favorite to teach with, but it’s also disheartening to when she gives them the answers too quickly.
Pat’s still upset with me. I asked her if I could go to Mae Sot with her and Robin because I need to do a border hop too. For some reason, someone from the school needs to go with Robin. Something is different with his visa. She said she’d let me know when she knew what date they were going. She didn’t let me know. I had to go ask her again and she said they were going on the 26th as if it was the first time I had asked. She asked me if I had class that day. Of course, I have class every day except the days when they don’t show up for some reason unknown to me. I didn’t say that, I just told her that was the day I had the M1 classes. Then she just ignored me so I walked away. A day later she came to me and asked why I wanted to go to Mae Sot. She has to fill out a lot of paperwork in order for me to leave school and she can’t just take me if she doesn’t know why I’m going. To…get…my…passport…stamped…. I have to go to the border to get my passport stamped every 3 months. She acted like this was new information. Why did she think I asked to go to the border to a border hop with her when she went to the border to do Robin’s border hop? She just kept going on about what a hassle it is to fill out the paperwork and what did I expect she was going to tell other teachers when they asked why I went to Mae Sot. I have no idea what is really going on.
But leave it to Noi to cheer me up. She walks in later and asks if I have the menopause. She had the menopause at my age and you can take supplements to help with the hormone changes. Then she went on to tell me about another teacher that is having the menopause and wants more information on the supplements. I told her I’m not in menopause yet, but would gladly welcome it. I’m not going to have children so bring on the menopause. Since around 42 I’ve been having problems such as fibroid cysts, more pain, and more bleeding. After this conversation, I wondered if the reason that I’m bleeding more often than I should be is because my body knows I want to speed up menopause and it’s trying to deplete my egg supply faster? Hmmmm….the body is so interesting.
Here’s some random photos:
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Coffee Shop NoteApparently women can’t handle 10 push ups – Try 7Rain plan for School Bus Pickup
Boxed milk and other boxed liquids isle at the storeWonderfulTeachers From Study Tour Day
Every morning when I get to school, I go up to my office and put my things down. Then I go to the main office to sign in and then to school assembly. This morning, same as usual. My office is a tiny classroom that I share with Robin. We teach the advanced students in there since their classes are small. The classroom is one of a few air conditioned classrooms at the school. Yesterday morning I was standing at assembly and Pat came up to me. The past 3 months or so, if Pat comes up to me, it’s usually not a pleasant experience and it’s not just to say hi and see how I’m doing. But this morning was a new experience for sure. She asked if I had left the air conditioning on over night in the class room. I said that I had not. (I just came from there. If the air conditioning had been on, it would have been on when I dropped my stuff off). She just laid into me about how I need to be careful. That I was careless, thoughtless and wasting energy and she was going to get in trouble, not me. She went on to tell me that she even took a student over to verify with her that the air conditioning was running this morning. She kept going and going and getting angrier and angrier until she was yelling at me. I ended up apologizing for something I didn’t do and she stormed off saying “I’m sorry is all you should say”. She was chastising me like a 6 year old. I have no idea what is really bothering her that she is now making up reasons to be mad at me. I am way too old for this game, what ever it is. On my way back to the classroom, I asked her who turned off the air conditioning since it was off when I got to school. She had no answer to that, but sent Q up to feel the room (which was hot, not cool). Noi is the only other person with a key to the room and she wasn’t even at school yet. I’m 46 years old basically being told to shut up and apologize for something I didn’t do. Where’s the door? I can’t wait to leave this school. Noi asked the janitor if he turned off the air conditioner and he said he doesn’t have a key to the room so he hadn’t been in there.
By now I am so annoyed I can barely teach class. Not to mention, I’m a bit scared. I have no agent. I don’t trust the company that placed me here as they have already showed that they will sell me out to make their agents happy. And the person who is the head of the department I work in, has now gone from kind of unpleasant to scary. All the people that are supposed to have my back, don’t. I feel stranded, alone and unsafe. Then I remember that I have Noi, Tip and Ging. I honestly thought of calling Tip and asking her if she could help me get out of here as I don’t feel very safe right now . But, I calmed down after Noi took me to lunch and told me quite a few times that I take teaching too seriously.
So, two points of inquiry come up from this. One is that I hear all the time about how Thai people are the nicest people in the world. But often, it is said by people that have left some other country to come live here and they say it in a way to imply that the rest of the world if full of horrible people. So, I wonder what their lives and experiences were like where they came from. My experience is that there are a lot of nice people in America. I have a delightful, kind, and loving family. I’m the crankiest person in my family. I have some wonderful friends that would bend over backwards to take care of those they love. And I have met so many kind and wonderful strangers along the way that were just kind because that’s who they are, not because they were my friend or family. What if Thai people aren’t any different than American people or European people or any other people? What if the entire planet has a fairly evenly distributed amount of nice and not so nice people? What if one day you are one of the nice people and the next you are not? What if this is just part of being human and not part of being Thai or Chinese or French……?
The other point of inquiry is that over the years I’ve worked on this issue where I feel the need for revenge. I want those that have wronged me to see that they wronged me and to feel horrible about it deep in their bones for the rest of their lives. I know where this comes from and I also know that life will never happen that way. Even if it did, it wouldn’t solve anything. The horrible injustice will never be undone with revenge or regret. It will never be undone – period. I cannot undo my past. Being here in a high school has brought this up often. I haven’t written about it yet because it comes up and I notice it and say, “hmmm, there it is again”, but nothing shifts. Nothing new has been learned yet that I could share. As all this drama is happening with Pat and I feel fear for my safety, this revenge thing comes up. It’s a reaction to not feeling safe. At some point, I realize I actually have the power to take revenge. This woman has set me up to fail many times. She is a huge part of why I’m not loving it here. She might very well be a huge part of why no Western teacher will stay here for long. I have the opportunity to point that out. I actually have the opportunity for revenge that would get the desired result. I would never do this because I do understand that she’s not setting me up to fail on purpose – she’s just in over her head and managing two Western teachers, a whole department and teaching is stressful. And, most people would struggle in her position. But, if I think back, I’ve never taken a revenge opportunity either because I understood it would do no good in the long run or because I don’t want to be the bad person or because my mother taught me to be nice. What if the reaction of wanting revenge whenever I feel unsafe doesn’t go away because I’ve never taken revenge? Sure, I’ve said mean things in anger and I’ve done a half-assed job of creating drama that kinda of looks like revenge. But, I’ve never committed fully to the point of irreparable damage. If I did, would I then be free of feeling the craving for revenge? What happens if I take this current opportunity handed to me? What happens if I don’t? The answer is that neither choice will change anything. Really committing and going all in on the revenge might cure me of ever wanting revenge again or it might not. We won’t find out because I can’t do it. Suck it up and pretend nothing ever bothers me doesn’t work either. I’ve been doing that my whole life. So, there’s a third answer. I can’t quite tell you what the third answer is. I can kind of see it. It’s just over there in a mist, a mist that keeps me from seeing it fully. But since things are shifting and dissolving in my life, I’m sure that mist will lift in the near future and I can share that third answer with you then.
Earlier in the week, Thompien asked me to do something with her on Sunday, but I have no idea what. Pat was trying to explain what it was and I told Pat I thought some of the teachers were going to Chiang Mai for the weekend. Noi had told me we were going for a retirement party. Pat then tells me that everyone is going to Lampang to visit a school and then to Chaing Mai. I thought we were leaving after school, but now I find out there is no school on Friday and that all the teachers are going and leaving at 7:30am. Thanks Noi. I would have shown up for school at 8:00am by myself. Also, Noi never told me I had to dress to visit a school or how many nights we were saying. When I asked her about this, she laughed at me like I am stupid and told me she told me all this already. She did not. This thing where she’s nice one second and almost rude the next is getting a little old. I keep trying to tell myself it’s just information lost in translation.
So, I get on the bus in the morning. Noi gets there a little later and asks me why I didn’t sit up front. She likes to sit up front. I told her all the seats were taken. She said I should have gotten there earlier. Yea, off to a great start early in the morning. Most of the teachers are giddy. They are so excited about going for relaxation. I doubt there will be any relaxation on this trip. It’s fun to watch how excited everyone is. It’s also nice to see everyone in one place, not working. Well, some of it is work. We are going to visit a school that scores in the top ten for test scored every year. Noi called it a study trip. She asked if that was the correct thing to call it. I think it would be called a trip to visit another school. She didn’t like this answer so we are going on a study trip.
As soon as the bus took off, two teachers got on microphones and started talking. At first I assumed it was to fill everyone in on the itinerary. But they kept talking and laughing. It sounded more like a comedy duo team. They talked for at least a half hour, maybe an hour. I got out my computer and started working on some stuff. Noi couldn’t handle it and took off to the front of the bus.
It was interesting arriving at the school. This school has over 5,000 students. Ours might have 500. It looks like a real school and seems so modern compared to ours. We went into a conference room where we met with the directors of the school. There was so much pride, excitement, and a feeling that something bigger is going on here. They did introductions, speeches, a video presentation, and giving of gifts (with the obligatory photos, of course). They served us coffee and a trio of gelatinous snacks. Then we went off in different directions. All those of us in the language department went off to the foreign language building. They pushed me and Robin into a teacher’s office where there was one Westerner and they told us to go talk to our friend. He was as unprepared for this meeting as we were. The three of us chatted for a little bit. The teacher had only been there a month so he didn’t have much information and I had no idea what information I was supposed to get anyway. I left and couldn’t find anyone but Noi. She was waiting in the hall for me. We tried to find the others, but when we couldn’t we set off looking for the guidance department. Noi is in charge of guidance at our school so she wanted to ask some questions. The only people in the guidance department were students. Noi made them pose for a picture even thought they didn’t want to. Their students seem larger than ours. Then the school fed us lunch and we got back on the bus. Some teachers left with pamphlets. There was no studying. How could anyone have learned anything about teaching better from this? How is this going to make our school better? It was more like a “see how great our school is” trip instead of a study trip. I know why their school does better – most of their “advanced” students came from international schools. This school gets a lot of money from somewhere and therefore has better facilities – the science classroom I saw looked like a real science classroom.
Of course, the second the bus takes off it’s karaoke time. We are on a two story bus and Noi comes up from downstairs and tells me I need to go downstairs because they are gambling. She knows I use to work at a casino so not only do I know how to play cards, I know how to cheat too. I’m not sure how that correlation happened, but I go with it. Gambling is illegal in Thailand so this was surprising. Downstairs was set up like a little lounge with a table and the seats all around it. I sat there for a couple hours watching. It took about 6 or 7 rounds of the game to figure out how to play the game, mostly. This is far more fun that karaoke. If people liked to I said I’d play with them later as we arrived at our next location.
We visited a temple. We all had to take songtheaws from the place where the bus to could park up to the temple. There’s a big Buddha, some ornate buildings and a pagoda. We walked by 3 gongs. People were rubbing the gongs. Noi read the sign. Whatever your age, put that amount of money in the collection box, then rub the gong that many times and make a wish. There were also bells to ring for good luck and flowers to buy for offerings and the big balls like I had seen at other temples. Only, these balls, people were putting gold leaf on them. I’m still floored by the amount of things to do or ways to give offerings at temples. There was also ice cream so that’s where I hung out the rest of the time.
After the temple we went to the farang mall (foreigner mall). It was exactly like an outdoor mall in Colorado with American stores. I didn’t see many foreigners there, mostly Thais taking pictures everywhere. I really had no interest going into any of the stores. I’ll be moving soon and already have too much stuff. They made me go in stores though. In one store, it was all technical athletic wear (I love this stuff) and they were playing electronica music that I like. Everyone was looking at all the funny shoes and clothes – of course, most Thais don’t like to exercise or be in the sun so water shoes you can hike in must look strange. It made me miss home so much I almost started crying in the store. I want to buy all the shoes and clothing and build a fort out of them and crawl inside and never come out. I had seen a picture of lasagna so I then went on the hunt for lasagna. I found an open air food court with no lasagna. Pat was there and showed me the place her friend owns and said I have to buy something. So, I got a salad to go for later. Pat got a burger and insisted I try it. It was horrible, but since it’s a burger, I should like it.
Then we went to the resort. It’s a huge resort with tons of little cabins and many meeting rooms/karaoke rooms. My roommate is Noi. I tried to pre-eat knowing the food the place would serve would probably be too spicy. Noi wouldn’t let me eat my salad because there would be dinner. I tried to explain the concept of eating something I liked instead, but it didn’t work. We got to the dinner place and the karaoke had already started. There was a buffet with literally nothing except rice that was safe for me. I think I’m getting less use to spicy food, not more use to it. Can you have an allergy to chili peppers? I was going to go back and eat my salad, but too late, Noi had already asked one of the servers to see if the kitchen would make me an omelet and soup. They brought me an omelet and soup – enough for 3 people. I went from nothing I could eat to way too much food. Then there were speeches about the teacher that was retiring. I find it odd that there are so many speeches, but that most people just have conversations at their tables during the speeches. They don’t whisper or try to hide the fact that they aren’t listening to the speeches. It’s weird to me. One of the things that I loved was watching the teacher hug one of his best friends during his whole speech. I think that is one thing we just don’t do well in America – male bonding with out all the strange heterosexual rules of proper behavior to make sure you don’t appear gay.
Then a ton of photos. I avoided karaoke for a while sitting outside making phone calls, but I knew there was no way to just sneak off to my room since Noi had the only key. At least 10 people had said “YMCA” or “Sing a song” to me so I danced for a while, sang YMCA and danced a little more. Noi was having so much fun I didn’t want to drag her away. I asked if I could have the key, but she said she was ok to go. It was 11:30 and they were going to close the room down at midnight anyway. Other than not letting me eat my salad for dinner, Noi made a pretty good roommate. Our room had koi fish painted all over the walls so it looked like you were in a koi pond. This was wonderful.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Modern school buildings
Another big Buddha
Overlook to Chiang MaiThese ball things again
Ha! The giant on the left is sleeping instead of guarding
Laundry Frog was sitting on top of my laundry bag this morning. I zipped up the bag or he might have been in it. I dumped him off and watched him start to puff up, but I quickly swept him out the front door again. I assume that won’t do much good, he obviously snuck back in and headed straight for the dirty laundry. It’s funny, but at the same time it’s more than I want to deal with in the morning. Thank god it’s not a snake.
Today I woke up and looked at my phone to find a text from Noi telling me we should go to the Dam to see the festivities and she’d pick me up at 9:00. I was planning on going up there anyway to watch Robin race. She was late, as always, and we missed Robin’s race. There was only a small part of the race at the finish line that you could see anyway and they were going so fast that I might have missed Robin if I had been there on time and blinked. We walked around and she told me “food is over there”. I said I knew because I came up last night. She was so shocked. How did I know? I came by myself? How is it so difficult to figure out that if you tell me there is a festival that there might be stuff going on? Now, I’m just angry all over again.
It takes about 5 minutes to see everything at the festival. As exciting as having something going on is, it’s actually boring. We walk by a booth selling food and it also has a giant fountain made of black jelly. Black jelly is popular dessert all over Southeast Asia made from leaves. It was big bowl with a square of black jelly in the middle. Black jelly juice came trickling out the top of the square. Noi likes black jelly so she ordered two. It looks disgusting, but I’ve heard about it and you don’t say no to Noi, so I guess it was time to try it. I like the black jelly bubble drinks so hopefully this is the same thing. The lady poured a thick dark liquid in the cup. Again, I assume this is some form sugar. Then she dipped the ladle in the fountain and pulled out black liquid and black worms of jelly. Half the cup was black jelly worms. She threw some ice on top. It tasted like very watered down licorice and the black worms were awful. I’m not sure why jelly balls or jelly squares are ok in a drink and jelly worms are not, but that’s my opinion on the subject. Black jelly drink gets a thumbs down.
We sat by the river for at least an hour while Noi “played Line”. Line is what Thais use instead of texts. It’s kind of a mini facebook. Then we went to lunch. Noi spent all of lunch on Line. Then we went for coffee – another half hour of just sitting there while Noi was on Line. I literally spent 5 and a half hours with Noi today and about 4 and a half of it she was on Line. At one point I asked her if there was a place she recommended I get my hair done. I was just looking for a recommendation. She asked if I wanted to go now. No, any time is fine. She took me there anyway. It was one of the places I had been to before to get a pedicure. The lady said to come back in an hour. Noi asked where I wanted to go next and I said home. I got to do laundry although I think half of it will need to be redone – things won’t dry and then they smell like mildew.
I went back to the hair salon, not really looking forward to it. Before I left Colorado I had gone in to have all the red in my hair dyed black. My natural hair color is black so I wouldn’t have to dye it again here. But, the lady in Colorado dyed it a dark brown. The dark brown has turned to a dull frizzy lighter brown that I don’t like. So, I can live with it, dye it black or not care what people think and go back to a fun color. I know this lady probably has no idea what to do with curly hair and I’m not sure I can convey what I want. So, I point to a box of hair color and say c-dang (red). I try to explain that she can leave the black the way it is and just color the ugly brown with red, but that did not translate at all. There was a picture on the wall of ridiculous red hair she pointed to and I smiled and said yes. She colored all my hair and it’s more of a red brown, not even close to ridiculous. She cut my hair too which was scary as I’m not sure she’s ever cut curly hair before. She didn’t know how to style curly hair so she straightened it. It’s not what I was hoping for, but it’s not bad either. 20 minutes later it was no longer straight.
I did nothing useful all day other than get my hair cut, so why start now? I headed back up to the dam to see if Saturday nights festivities were better than Friday night’s. They were. There were a lot more people there and there was a lady singing. She was dressed in what looked like part of a band uniform and she was talking as much as she was singing. She was hamming it up and trying to be funny. Everyone was taking pictures so I figured she was famous. I ran into Pat and she asked “Who told you about this event? How did you know?” I refrained from saying anything sarcastic, but I thought about it for a second. Then about 5 minutes later I asked how her new house was and she asked if I wanted to see it. Confusing. She told me there was massage and I said, I had gone there last night. “You came up last night, with who? By yourself?” Again, why is this so shocking all of a sudden? I’ve lived here since January. I do most things by myself. This isn’t new information. I asked her about the lady singing and she said she was a famous comedian. That explains the hamming it up part. There was a guy selling Chicago burgers at the festival and Pat said she tried one. I decided to try one so Pat and her husband walked over there with me. The guy selling the burgers lives in another part of Thailand because he has a Thai wife and he travels around selling burgers. He was very proud that he came from Chicago and that because he was from Chicago he knows how to cook a good burger. Is Chicago famous for their burgers and I don’t know this? He was just as creepy as the German guy from Friday night. Pat’s husband asked me if the guy was Hawaiian. He was definately Italian to the bone. After I told Dam that I could just see the wheels turning in his head as he put this new information in and you could tell he was excited to have another piece of the puzzle in understanding Americans. And the burger was meh.
By now, the woman was done performing and a guy in a suit, tennis shoes, sunglasses and a big white hat was singing. His suit was white on the front and black on the back and he had a long black cape. He’s a famous comedian too. The crowd was so excited to see him. I watched for two songs, but I just don’t get it. I went home. After I got home, I got a text from Noi telling me there was a concert at the dam. I told her I was just there a half hour ago. “Really? With who”? Seriously. Yes really. Still, just me.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Black Jelly Fountain
Wow – This guy is having a rough lifeNew hair color
This morning half my class was missing. Do I teach a class when half of them won’t get the lesson? How do I teach the other half later without boring the first half? I wasn’t sure what to do. Of course, they just wanted to play games instead of have class. Then I thought, I’m the teacher, I can do what I want. I don’t want to teach to half the class. So, we played scrabble and bingo. I had two classes in the afternoon and neither class showed up. Well, that means less lesson planning, but still, where were they? I texted Noi to tell her they hadn’t showed up since they were her classes too. She was at a seminar. She texted back that they went to join the mountain bike festival and they were all riding bikes all afternoon. She said I should have gone. They had enough bikes for teachers too. Then she sent me photos of the students and teachers riding. And this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I am so over this place and the end of September is not soon enough to leave. There is nothing to do here. I work too much and when there is something to do, no one tells me. Pat and I talked about this in February and I told her I wanted to race when the festival happened. She didn’t see fit to tell me. Robin knows I want to bike, but he doesn’t see fit to tell me even though he’s already signed up to race in the road bike race. Noi tells me I should have gone with my class as if I’m some mind reader. How the fuck was I supposed to know my classes were doing this? Wouldn’t they learn more English by have an everyday conversation while riding bikes with their teacher instead of me sitting in an empty classroom by myself? How difficult is to send a text message – “no class today, go bike riding with them.”? And then everyone seems so surprised to hear I’m leaving. How is that surprising? Am I supposed to love living here when all I do is work or sit alone in my house? I would think people from a communal culture would get it.
Noi just kept sending me pictures of the fun I missed. I sat in the coffee shop crying for 20 minutes. I’ve been holding back so many tears. I haven’t been trying to hold them back, they just seem to hang out beneath the surface and never quite come up. I decided to go home and see if I could cry more. I felt like I could cry for days. I got home and no crying came. Huh, ok, so we’re done with that for the day. Then I decided to drive up to the dam and see what was going on. There was supposed to be a market and other festival activities. There was a massage tent set up and all four of the masseuses in town were there so I was able to get a massage from the man I usually go to on the weekends. There was a small child with squeeky shoes running around outside the massage tent. The shoes have squeekers like dog toy squeekers in them. She ran up and down the street for about 45 minutes. Squeek squeek squeek squeeeee squeek squeek squeeeeeeee squeek. There was also bad Thai music. So, I found some sort of relief in the fact that I had a massage to the sounds of bad Thai music and squeeky shoes. Then I found Tip and her family and hung out with them for a little bit. They went home kind of early (little children). I was intrigued by the shake that Dam (Tip’s son) got. It had condensed milk, some white cream I can only guess was white sugar in liquid form, ice and grape jello. She put everything in a blender and mixed up real good before adding the jello. That she barely hit the blender for so that it was still in chunks. Then she threw powdered ovaltine in the cup at the halfway mark and on top. I’m not sure if this would be good or horrible. I should have ordered one just to see what it was all about, but I didn’t. I have no idea how to order it now.
I ate dinner alone by the river. It was kind of sad, but also quite relaxing. I’ve had enough people for the day. The lights on the bridge lit up the water below. That brought lots of bugs and that brought lots of fish. The surface of the water moved an rippled as bugs moved on top and things moved underneath. It wasn’t fish jumping. It was more like snakes or river monsters gliding just below the surface. It was fascinating to watch. I vowed never to swim in the river – ever.
There was a beer garden and a stage so I went to check that out after eating. The beer garden looked very uninviting as it was only groups of people at reserved tables so I stood near the stage for a while. There’s no place to go hang out at night here so I was determined to hang out. A German guy walked by me and asked where I was from. He was kind of creepy and I didn’t really want to talk to him, but I couldn’t run away either. I told him I lived here and taught English as Sam Ngao Witt. He said that was a terrible school. He lives here and his son can’t speak English. I asked if his son could speak German. Oh yes. He told me about 6 or 7 times that that was a bad school and shook his head like I should leave school before I got killed. Ok, I’m not a fan of the school right now, but the fact that his son doesn’t speak English is just as much his fault as the school’s fault or his son’s fault and it doesn’t make the school a scary place. The conversation just got more difficult and awkward. Finally, he left and I decide that hanging out alone standing next to the beer garden listening to Thai music did not qualify as hanging out. I went home.
At home I wrote a facebook post about how frustrated I was and how, even though there are some wonderful things about living here, I’m ready to move on. I got a lot of responses telling me there’s no shame in giving up and moving on and a lot of “oh I’m sorry you have to suffer so much”. This is not the response I wanted. I don’t regret my decision to move here at all. I’m angry, but not suffering. I have no shame in moving on. I never mentioned shame. So, I realized that my facebook post did not paint the right picture. Or, people are so use to suffering and drama that they read what they want and use it to feed their need for drama. Or facebook is just not the right venue for such thoughts. So, I questioned why I wrote it in the first place. I know facebook works in this way. I know that most of the people reading it don’t know the rest of the story because they haven’t read my blogs. The people who read my blogs seemed to get it and respond in a way that showed they got it. I didn’t want the pity party or the “look on the bright side” or “here’s my advice because I know more than you”, but I knew I would get some of that. So, what did I want? Here’s what I figured out. 1. I was angry so I wanted to vent and there’s no one here to talk to. 2. I’m tired of people on facebook that say things like “oh you live in Thailand, how lucky” as if I’m sitting on a beach drinking Mai Thais instead of working my ass off and terrified of my own bathroom. I’m mad at these people. 3. I have friends that can’t be bothered to send me a text or email and say “hi, how are you?”. They only want to see me post pretty pictures so they can like them. I’m mad at these people. 4. I know I can’t confront Pat directly for the ways she has set me up for failure and for the fact that she can’t be bothered to spend 10 seconds to send me a text to tell me what’s going on. I know she doesn’t do it on purpose and that she is very stressed, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m mad about this too. I can’t confront her because you don’t confront people here and it would do more damage than good. Thai people deal with negative feelings mostly through passive aggressive behavior. Most of them truly don’t have negative feelings, but when they do, it’s socially unacceptable to show them. So, I think I was also hoping she’d see the post and know how I feel. Punish passive aggressive behavior with passive aggressive behavior. Well, that’s a shitty plan. So, no more pity party and no more posting things on facebook other than the pretty pictures. I deleted the post. If you really want to know what I think, tune in here. You’ll get plenty of it.
It is wonderful to be able to have an issue, feel like shit, question it and go “Oh, I was angry, that’s what was going on”. Then it’s over and there’s no guilt, no regret, no beating myself up. I have spent a lot of my life beating myself up and I no longer do that. I didn’t think I shouldn’t have written the facebook post or I shouldn’t be angry or poor me. This is why I deleted the post. I figured out why it wasn’t working for me, because people want to see all this drama that I just don’t see. I was angry long enough to cry for 20 minutes and long enough to write the post, but then once I wrote the words, I’m not angry anymore and moved on. So, by the time I got the responses the responses didn’t fit the situation anymore because my view of the situation had already changed. It just seemed silly to leave the post up. So, in other blogs when I talk about where I don’t think enlightenment is something that happens once and then you live happily ever after, this is what I’m talking about. I still get angry. I still have feelings. I still think things should be different than they are. Then I notice that something doesn’t fit, something is off and I question it. Then I learn and the whole body/system/process or what ever you want to call it is reset to a new place of balance or a new point of normal. Then you do it all again and again and again. Over time this process happens faster and faster. By the time you read this you are thinking, “Oh poor Rraine, she is suffering so much” and I’ve moved on and am thinking “What are you talking about? I’m not suffering. That was a whole minute ago. Everything is fine.” Living in the present doesn’t mean not having feelings, it just means not buying into the concept that those feelings define you. It means not buying into the concept that something is wrong if your feelings aren’t always happy, peaceful or some other thing we define positive to be. It’s not buying into the concept that something needs fixing. There’s nothing to be fixed, because nothing is wrong. And my decision is still to leave here in October, not because I want to end the suffering or because I’m miserable, or because the grass is greener over there. If I left for any of those reasons, I guarantee you there would be suffering and misery over there because if there’s suffering or misery, I’m the source of it, not the situation or location. I am leaving because this is no longer where I need to be.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
If you are a mother of a little girl, you probably have a unicorn in your purseTip, Fai and DamYes, my face is this greasy 24/7 hereFai is not loving the stationary bike
At breakfast yesterday, I ordered an iced latte with my food. The lady asked why I wanted an iced latte when it’s so cold out. It was probably around 78 degrees. I laughed and told her it wasn’t cold. I thought it felt wonderful. I texted Tip and Ging when I got my bus ticket to see if one of them could pick me up. I didn’t hear from either one for over an hour so then I texted Noi. She said she’d pick me up and I told her I’d buy her dinner. She said ok. What? Was Noi actually going to let me buy her dinner? She picked me up, but was kind of prickly. She’s been this way a lot lately where she’s snide and laughs at everything I say. Not a “you’re funny” laugh, but more of a “you’re so stupid” laugh. She was this way again. Then she took me home, no dinner. Huh, you agree to dinner and then just pretend it never happened. I’m not sure what is going on. Maybe it’s all just lost in translation, but the energy I’m reading tells a different story. I’m not even sure how to bring it up or if it will do any good. Typically, if a Thai person is upset with you, they won’t admit it. They’ll just smile and say it’s all good.
As I mentioned before, Sport Day is three days long. I missed the first two days because I was in Chiang Mai, but I got to attend the last day. I was a few minutes late leaving the house. I got to school and there was no one there except 3 or 4 teachers and maybe 10 students. Does school start later today? Finally, I find Pat and she says we need to go watch the parade. Oh, so that’s where everyone is. So, when did the parade start? I must be really late. I thought we might go somewhere to watch the parade, no, she meant watch it from the school gate. So, I went out to the street in front of the school and watched them march back into school. It was kind of like the Sports Day I saw back in February, but smaller. This was just our school. The last one had been all the schools in the area. The girls leading each group were dressed to the hilt with makeup, done up hair, high high heels and tiny dresses. Then there were others in traditional Thai clothing. And the rest in their sport clothes. There were banners too. They were divided into 5 colors and these were the teams for the three days. Once everyone was on the field, the teachers had to all go down to the field for pictures. Wow, they take so many pictures and once again, I have no idea what they do with these pictures. The teachers were all in a dark blue color. Thanks for the heads up. How difficult would it have been for someone to tell me? Some of the students were in the same color. I think they were the ones not competing, but helping with set up and logistics. Today was all about cheering and running. There was a tent in the middle of the field. Students would run out from the tent to bring water to the runners and they’d fan the runners with straw hats when their race was done. Sports day has a fluffer tent! There were quite a few students who almost fainted after their race. Have they not trained for this? Then again, if I had to run, I would definitely had fainted. It was so hot today. How could it be so pleasant yesterday and miserable today? I spent most of the day trying not to move and wondering if I would make it. I looked around me in dismay. So many people were wearing hoodies and most of the teachers and students were wearing long sleeves made out of sweater material. Sweat was just pouring off me as I sat still in the shade praying for a breeze. I just don’t understand.
Not only was I hot, but I was bored. I went up to the school building and tried to help with making lunch, but everyone seemed to have their duties and there wasn’t much for me to do. Noi was making a chicken dish. She made two – one would be not spicy. Right before she was ready to mix the not spicy one, she dumped a bunch of pepper in it. I asked if I could have some before she mixed the pepper in. She looked me in the face, said not spicy, mixed it and then filled up a bowl for me. Wtf? She told me to eat it. I tried a bite and it tried to take the tip of my tongue off. I put the bowl down and walked away. Now the only thing left for me to eat is fried chicken and rice. I almost went home to make lunch there when Pom found me and started trying to feed me. So I ate fried chicken and rice with her.
After lunch there was a teacher – alumni football game. Q was playing. Q doesn’t even walk across to the other side of school – he rides his motor bike if it’s longer than a 50 second walk. He’s playing football – that involves running. There was no breeze, I had a huge headache and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to 4:00. Noi called me and asked me if I wanted to go get coffee. I figured the caffeine might help the headache and I could sit in the air-conditioned car for a little bit. I might live after all. She acted all normal and told me next weekend all the teachers are going to Chiang Mai for the weekend for one of the teacher’s retirement party. They booked a resort and I was going too. Ok, well at least I got more than a half day’s warning on this one.
The rest of the afternoon was the awards. It was fun to watch. Each group went nuts when they won an award. So much screaming and dancing. Then two representatives from the team would come up to get the award and a giant bag of junk food. Then they would take photos of receiving the trophy and junk food. I’ve notice that it is very important to get a photo anytime something is given to you. I think this says a lot about how the act of giving is so important to Thai people. I don’t think it matters much what is being given so much as the act of giving is important (and the getting it captured in a photo).
That cold shower was awesome today. After school, it was the first thing I did!
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Where is everyone?
Me and Pom
PrizesCooking LunchFried Chicken“Around the World in 1 Book” Books 1 and 2
This week was full of the same school stuff. I struggle to get the lesson plans done for next week. Then it’s Science Day so half my classes are canceled for that day. A lot of my lesson plans for the next week get done because the class was canceled this week and I just move the lesson plan back. Science day involved a lot of class plays about science or songs or experiment demonstrations. There was also a fashion show that didn’t appear to have anything to do with science. There were boys dressed like girls dancing like working girls, there were girls in dresses made from garbage bags, boys and girls dressed in traditional Thai dress, a guy in his military clothes with a girl in a plaid shirt, a girl in a hoochie mama dress and one Michael Jackson. As usual, I sat there not quite understanding what was going on, but they were having a fabulous time and that’s fun to watch!
I had planned to take a day off work in a couple weeks to go get my China visa. When I was talking with Noi about it, she said no, I had to go next week. Next week is Sports Day and there will be no classes for 3 days so I have to go then. So, I went to Pat to see if she could help me get a message to the monk that I would have to postpone his last two classes. As usual, all of this is happening at the last moment. As usual, when I tell Pat, her response is “up to you”. No, Noi didn’t paint the picture of me having a choice. It’s not up to me. Once again, I get two different stories from two different people. So now I’m stressing to pull everything together to be able to go to Chaing Mai this weekend so I can be there bright and early Monday morning with the Chinese embassy opens. But, it needs to be done and I’m glad I’m able to take any days off work to do this. And it will be one stress off my mind once it’s done. In order to get the visa I have to show proof of booked hotel rooms and flights, but I’m not guaranteed a visa. And of course, the hotel and flights are not refundable. It usually takes 4 days to get a visa, but you can pay extra to have it done faster. You have no idea if they will let you pay to expedite it until you get there and then you don’t know if it will be same day or 3 days or no visa for you. This could be a very expensive weekend so I will be glad to have it done and not sitting in the back of my brain. Yes, Sports Day is 3 days long.
This morning I planned to get up early, do laundry and pack for Chiang Mai. No matter what time I set my alarm for, the birds wake me up at least an hour before that and I lay there trying to convince my body to go back to sleep. Laundry done. Packing done. I saw Ton as I was walking to take the garbage out. He is the Chinese teacher I use to share an office with. He is always so sweet. Sometimes I think he is hitting on me, but I can’t tell. Someone told me they thought he was gay. It’s hard to tell who’s gay since most Thai men have a lot of feminine energy. He asked if I wanted to do something today. I’m not sure if he was asking me to do something with him or if he was asking what am I doing today. I told him about Chiang Mai and trying to get my China visa. Of course this interested him since he’s a Chinese language teacher. I still have no idea if a 25 year old “gay” guy just hit on me or is just being nice.
Ging, her husband and Tent picked me up at 11:00 and we went to lunch. Then they took me to the highway to catch the bus. The car lot across from where we ate was playing bad techno dance music so loud. It made you feel nervous. I wonder if the people that work there go home wondering why they feel so awful. Ging’s daughter, Tent has never liked me much and usually ignores me when I say hi to her. Today she decided I might be ok. I’m not sure if that is her final decision. While waiting for lunch, she asked her dad to draw birds for her. He would draw a hen and a duck. Then she’d draw poop coming from the hen and duck. This went on for about 4 hens and ducks. After that she wanted me to draw an owl. My owl was pretty good. I also drew a cat. Her next request was a cat family which was easy. Then she wanted a dog family. I have no idea how to draw a dog. By then, lunch was over and it was time to go. I think if I can figure out how to draw a dog family by the next time I see her, I’ll be golden.
After a couple of digging deeper blogs I thought I’d write one that was a little shallower. Here are some random thoughts or observations that I’ve had lately.
The people behind the drink carts or at small coffee shops in Thailand are actually high tech mixologists and would give any bartender a run for their money. Any time you order a drink, it takes at least 10 minutes to make and involves many different substances and stages of mixing those substances. First they pour something into a measuring cup. Then they put something else in the measuring cup and use a spoon to stir it. Then they pour that into another cup and use a squeeze bottle to put something else in. Sometimes there are canisters of unknown powder and sometimes a blender is involved. If fruit is involved it’s guaranteed to be delicious. I think they are just mixing 12 different types of sugar into water, but I’m not sure.
I have been noticing that most of my classes have similar dynamics to them to the point where it appears that each class has the same students in them. Each class has one very small boy who is smart and outspoken. Each class has at least one larger sized gay boy who has a constant sidekick, a short overweight girl. Each class has a tall skinny girl who looks like I did as a teenager, all legs and no body. She is usually very good at English. There is always a quiet boy who appears that he isn’t pay attention or isn’t getting it, but he’s just shy and actually was paying attention. He’s usually not fat, but bigger in stature. There’s one or two girls with a short bob haircut that are not twins, but look like they could be sisters of the other similar girls in other classes. These are the popular witty girls. Then there’s a bunch of gay boys that are skinny and wiry and have fabulous dance moves. There’s usually one overweight kid who could crush you in a fight, but wouldn’t crush a bug. There’s the snobby girl, the boy with learning disabilities, and the future military guy. The part that strikes me is not that each class has similar personalities, but that they physically look the same. In Thailand, each class travels around for the day together – they all go to the same math class, then the same English class, then the same PE class, etc. They don’t go to classes based on their individual aptitude. When you group people like this, do typical stereotypes or architypes develop out of this? Does the body shape and some of the physical attributes follow the personality or does the personality follow the body? Is this what happens all over the world? Does each city, tribe, community, family, etc, recreate similar architypes to balance out the group? Is this nature’s way of creating balance in a human grouping? Is this patterns of nature just repeating everywhere humans go similar to how the crystalline structure of a particular crystal will repeat its pattern over and over? Is it more obvious in this situation because the students have been grouped like this all through school? Hmmmm the human crystal.
Thailand has a stray do problem. They have a stray cat problem too, but since cats are small and aren’t pack animals they seem to cause less issues. When I started here there were two dogs that hung out at school and a few dogs that hung out near where we live. There are some pet dogs too, but they don’t roam around so they don’t pack. Then lately, I’ve noticed a lot more dogs around school. The female school dog is very vicious when she sees one of the other dogs. One of the packs looks fairly healthy without the mange and only some ribs showing. One of them has a jingle bell that is so loud I keep expecting to hear Christmas carols. So, I assume this pack were pets not too long ago. The other pack looks like ‘When Zombies Attack’. They are scrawny, starving, have little to no hair, mange, and most of them only have two or three good working legs. One night this week I was sitting downstairs and heard a low growl outside my window. I assumed it was a dog, but wasn’t completely sure that it wasn’t a dragon come to set my house on fire. Then I heard another one on the other side of the house. I wasn’t scared because I was in my house, but now I’m a bit sketched about going outside at night. The growling went on for 15 minutes and then turned into a gang fight in the street. I heard people yelling out their windows, but that didn’t help. Then it sounded like dogs dying. Eventually it stopped. They must have moved on to another location because I heard the same thing, but from farther away. It went on for hours. It sounded like a systematic extermination of the weaker dog packs. I expected to find dead dogs everywhere the next morning, but the only dogs I saw were alive. I can’t even tell if any are missing because I only know four. The two school dogs appear to be the same and the jingle bell dog appears to be the same. I haven’t seen the black dog whose back legs are paralyzed.
Thais seem to be obsessed with money and seem to be very superstitious. There is a lot of making a wish and then giving an offering to a specific temple to have that wish fulfilled. Gambling is illegal, but they love their lottery. They believe in ghosts and fortune tellers and holy water. They are quick to give to others and in general are very generous. They believe that if you live a good life in this life and make the right offerings and prayers then you will come back wealthy and happy in the next life. Not once have I heard happy linked with being spiritually aware or with having great relationships or with having a job you like or any other thing. It seems to always be linked with money. This also kind of ties in with what I’ve been experiencing about living in the future, but in this case the future isn’t even this lifetime. A lot of what they do is to secure a better life next time. There is no now. I question if the monks who are seeking or have found enlightenment actually have, as it seems that the Buddhist religion is propagating most of the superstition. Most of the monks look sickly and have obvious musculature problems. If they are living in True Nature most of the time shouldn’t their bodies be more free of character patterns, old stories, stress and defenses? Or have the monks forsaken living in their bodies in search of the spiritual world and their bodies therefore suffer from bad nutrition and neglect? Then I think on other religions and think that it isn’t much different. Hindus pray to tons of different gods for tons of different reasons. Christians are good in this lifetime for the promise of Heaven in their future. The new age spiritual movement is full of things like figuring out your past lives or taking drugs so that you can find enlightenment at the cost of not being here. Is it a religious thing or just a human nature thing?
“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge”. – Daniel J Boorstin
There were quite a few bombings in south Thailand Thursday night and Friday morning. It is speculated, but not known that this has something to do with the new constitution. I am nowhere near the south portion of Thailand. Plus, I live in a very rural area. Overall, I think I’m as safe here if not safer than the US where crazy stuff happens all the time. So, stop your worrying.
Friday afternoon Noi picked me up to take me to her home in Lampang. Her family would be planting rice today to celebrate Mother’s day and then the rice should be ready to harvest on Father’s day. Her family owns several small farms. As we drove out of town, there were a ton of banana sales on the side of the highway. They were selling whole branches of bananas, not just bunches. Apparently there had been such strong wind last night that a lot of banana tress fell over so they were trying to sell the bananas before they went bad. We stopped at about 8 of the stands. The second to the last one had a price Noi agreed with so she bought some bananas.
I thought I’d be spending the whole weekend in Lampang and packed accordingly, but halfway there she told me she had to come back early for a seminar. By the time we got to the farm, they were long done planting rice. It was still fun to wander around the farm even though I didn’t get to plant rice. Noi’s family is very nice and welcoming.
We took her daughter and a friend to a building where there was a Mother’s Day ceremony and then we went to the local temple. I found it odd that to celebrate Mother’s Day, her son was somewhere else, her daughter went to a ceremony and we went sightseeing. The temple was closed so we just wandered around until it was time to pick her daughter back up. By the time we had dinner, I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, but Noi took us for pizza even though she doesn’t like pizza. She knows that both her daughter and I do.
They dropped me off at a nice hotel in town because she thought I’d be more comfortable there then her house. In theory, this is probably true, but the hotel just seemed musty and old so I wasn’t real thrilled. I wish I had just been able to book my own hotel ahead of time. Oh well, lesson learned.
Saturday we were able to go back to the temple. It was a big older temple. It was pretty and there were many buildings, some of which were like mini museums. We went in every building and my head was spinning by the time we were done. At the main building she told me about a metal elephant. You kneel and make a donation. Then you make a wish and lift the elephant with only the ring finger of your left hand. Then you make the wish again and pick up the elephant again. If you cannot lift the elephant on the second try, your wish will come true. If you can lift the elephant on the second try, your wish will not come true. I’m now doomed to a life of worry and unhappiness. Although the elephant was very heavy, I was able to lift him. There were also long sticks and I saw people trying to stretch their arms out wide to hold each end of the stick in one hand. Then there was a table with grooves in it and people were trying to balance coins standing on edge in the grooves. How did stupid human tricks become part of Buddhism? Why are Buddhists so superstitious? I don’t think this is what Buddha would actually want. Oh well, who am I to say, since I failed the metal elephant test? Maybe if I pray at the temple every day for a week, I can undo the elephant’s decision.
After the temple was coffee, running errands, going to the market and then back to Noi’s to get chickens. She got a box and cut holes in it and then had me hold the box as she put two chickens in it to take back with her. She’s selling them to someone back in Sam Ngao. She said they are not good for eating because they are so small, but they are good for decoration. I’ve never heard of owning chickens just to decorate your yard/house. Of course, the whole way home was tons of questions. I love her questions, but they also wear me out. I was ready to skip dinner and go to bed at 7:00.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Dragon Fruit Flower
English Check
Creature eating a snake dragon creature
Fire
If you pray to this Buddha, you will get moneyIf you bring a stick to support the tree, then you will be supported
Rraine Drops 