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