The canteen at school is the cafeteria. It consists of some stalls with food sellers in them. There are 4 or 5 food sellers and a 3 or 4 sugary drink sellers. I started trying the sugary drinks because I like sugary drinks. In theory, the blue one should be the best because blue sugary things usually are. It was horrible. Then I tried the purple – it was grape – not my favorite. Then I tried pink – strawberry (pronounced stabureeeeeeeee). It’s so delicious. I’ve been getting it at lunch for a couple months now. I started noticing that after lunch I would be so tired that I wanted to just nap. I assumed it was the heat. But, now that it’s not as hot, I still notice it. The last time I had strawberry drink, I also got a headache so bad I thought I might have to go to the hospital, but I was too tired to ask for help. I have concluded that although it is quite tasty, strawberry drink is indeed toxic and it tried to kill me. I have switched to over sugared coffee (pronounced gaffe).
There is a teacher here who is a short man who is always smiling and has so much energy. I’m pretty sure he gets more done in a day than I do in a week. This is the energizer bunny. I started noticing that he giggles after almost everything he says, maybe after everything he says. It is really delightful. I think the world would be a better place if everyone giggled after they spoke.
The game, Clue, is almost impossible to explain how to play. After an entire half hour of trying to explain how to play it, I was still getting blank stares as if they were saying, “and how is this fun”? The Thai co-teacher’s brain was about to explode as she didn’t understand either. All I could think was how when I was a kid we would play this game for hours and hours and hours. You couldn’t drag us away from it.
I started packing – trying to figure out what I will need for the next 3 months, what I will need if I find a job in SE Asia and what needs to be mailed home. The only conclusions I have come up with are: 1. The giant suitcase I came over with is ridiculous and I will go mad if I have to drag that around for 3 months, and 2. I have way too much stuff.
Some of my students have made me stuff. I got a paper cat which I posted a picture of a little while ago, two cards and some paper flowers. They yellow rose is quite an amazing piece of artwork – see picture below. This is the part I will miss – the students.
There is artwork all over some of the classrooms. They love minions and one wall has the zodiac signs in minions. I’ve looked at it a million times and then one day I noticed for the first time that the Capricorn (my sign) is the purple frizzy haired minion. Awesome.
Ton (the Chinese language teacher) has been feeding a puppy. Even though he doesn’t let the puppy in his house, he says it’s his new dog. He named the dog ice cream. Now ice cream hangs out at school during the day waiting for Ton.
Got up yesterday morning ready for a day of “relaxing” Thai style. I decided to eat my salad for breakfast since I’m sure breakfast will not resemble breakfast. Noi told me “No. There’s breakfast”. She left for breakfast pouting. I went down later to get coffee. I had some toast too. I was right though. The choices for breakfast were toast, boiled rice or fried rice. I’m still just shocked at the amount of rice consumed here.
The resort we are staying at is pretty. It has lots of little statues everywhere. I think this is a common Thai thing. Some of the statues should be re-painted or trashed as they have fell into great disrepair. This seems to be a common Thai thing too. A lot of things seems to not have the proper cleaning, upkeep, repair or maintenance.
After breakfast it was photo fest. Photos on the stairs with the sheep. Photos by the phone booth. Photos photos photos. When you take a photo, you have to have everyone in it if you can. Then you have to know what to do with your hands. When I got to Thailand, the thing was to do the peace sign next to your face. That is still an acceptable pose, but isn’t the “in” thing anymore. Now, it’s tiny hearts. You put your first finger and thumb together as if you are holding a tiny heart by the point. Or, at least that’s what I think they mean by tiny hearts. And jazz hands seems to be making a comeback.
We got into vans and went up Doi Inthanon. Doi Inthanon is Thailands highest mountain. The top is at 8415 feet elevation. Our resort was near the base of the mountain. There were many flower sellers at the gate to the park. You could buy flowers to give as offerings at the temple at the top. It cost 300 baht for foreigners to get in and 50 baht for locals. The van struggled going up. Everyone in my van opened the windows to feel the cold. They were oohing and ahhing at the cold which wasn’t actually cold yet. Then we came upon a heavy mist. Then the temperature dropped. The temperature at the top was 48 degrees and the mist never let up. I was soaked by the time we were done with the photo shoot up there. The top was had a gift shop, a small shrine and a walkway. Then we drove a short distance to the temple which was two pagodas and some gardens. I think there was a great overlook too, but there was too much mist to see anything. More photos. I’m angry with Teva. They use to make the most wonderful shoes. This last pair I bought has tried to kill me so many times. The slightest wetness and they become so slippery. I barely made it down the pagoda steps. Your prices went up, but your quality went down – shame on you Teva.
After Doi Inthanon, we went to a market that had some fresh food, but mostly dried fruit. Then it was off to The Royal Agricultural Station. It is this huge complex of mountain side greenhouses and farms. A very small part of it is like a botanic gardens that you can visit. It was beautiful. The temperature was still cool and the sun was shining again. There was a cool breeze. It was peaceful. I took a ton of photos of flowers. Can I just live here? I don’t want to leave. But, I didn’t have a choice in the situation so we took the vans back to the resort to get on the bus. Next stop was another market. I’ll call this one pork rind market. More pork rinds than I thought physically possible. There were also vats of things that looked pickled but smelled like death. I stayed at the market for 2 minutes tops. I couldn’t handle the smell.
Then we went to the previous School Director’s house for a party in honor of the teacher who is retiring. As the bus turned on to the tiny road it took down at least 5 powerlines and just kept driving. Local Thai roads are called Sois and are the width of an alley. I couldn’t drive a bus down one of these. This was one of the nicest houses I’ve seen in Thailand and it still had an outdoor kitchen. It was small by USA standards, but the nicest place I’ve seen since I’ve gotten here. People were already singing karaoke when I got there. They couldn’t have gotten there more than one minute ahead of me. They must have made a bee line for the karaoke. Yes, it was karaoke on the bus up to the party too. The only time there wasn’t karaoke was during the speeches and photos. There was a tray of hors d’oeuvres brought out. One of the items was sliced century eggs. I’ve read about these and seen them at the market. I haven’t had the nerve to try them. Now they were sitting in front of me. Now was my chance to try a slice and not be committed to the whole egg. The preserve the egg for weeks or months in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime and rice hulls. The white of the eggs turns to a dark brown translucent jelly. The yolk turns black, brown and orange. I stared at them for a least a half hour. In the end, I chickened out (pun intended). I did not eat the century egg. The dessert was the one where they put jelly, fruit, pinto beans and ice in milk. I don’t get it. Someone asked if I wanted a whiskey – yes. They kept my glass full. Noi had 2 glasses and was all red faced and said she felt tipsy. She couldn’t figure out how I seemed normal when I had 3 glasses. I laughed. I’m sure I had at least 8. Granted, they are the smallest glasses known to man and she’s half my size. It just made me tired.
There was an awkward conversation where one of the teachers asked me why I wanted to leave. How do I explain that I am tired of living in that house when hers is probably not as nice as mine? How do I explain that I’m tired of being left in the dark about everything? How do I explain that there’s nothing to do and I have no social life? I tried to explain that I worked all the time and was lonely. Not sure if that was a good enough explanation. If I had felt more welcome back in February, maybe things would have gone differently on that subject. I don’t feel unwelcome here, but I don’t feel part of the community either. Yes, I enjoyed the weekend, but come Monday I know it will be back to working constantly. And the next time they get together to have a meal or watch tv or do whatever it is people do here, I won’t be invited. What do they think I do in the evenings – hang out with my other 40 friends?
Back on the bus – karaoke all the way home. I think we probably had 8 hours of karaoke today. I know why I dislike Thai music. It all sounds like karaoke music. Thai music and karaoke sound like a 13-year-old just got electronic keyboards for Christmas and composed 400 songs.
Today I had been invited to go to another district to watch teachers set up for some conference. It was going to be all day and evening. Tip had also invited me to hang out with her. I decided to do laundry and hang out with Tip. Then when I contacted Tip, she was busy doing homework. So, what did I stay home for? I would have been exhausted if I had gone to the set up thing, but I still wish I had gone.
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.
So, it’s been a week since I saw the disappearing frog in my bathroom. I don’t know how they get in or where they go after I see them. I never bought a laundry basket because it would be just one more thing I can’t take with me when I leave. Plus, I’m not up for riding a motorbike with a laundry basket. I use my duffel bag as a laundry basket. I stuff dirty clothes in there as I go and when it’s full, I do laundry. This morning, I went to throw some clothes in there and looked down into the bag and saw a black ball. I don’t own a black ball. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I was sure it was not pretty. I suspected it was the frog. I dumped the bag out and carefully put the clothes back in one piece at a time until all that was left was the black ball. I couldn’t tell if this was the same frog I saw a week ago, but something was terribly wrong. This frog was so round it couldn’t bring its feet in. You could barely see its front feet or head. I used a broom to sweep it outside. I didn’t get good pictures because I was afraid to get too close in case it exploded or turned into a demon. So I used the zoom on the camera which made for a bad photo. By the time I left for school, the frog was gone. So, I looked it up. He’s a banded bullfrog and can expand when threatened and produce a toxic glue like substance. He must have puffed up when I dumped him. I hope I don’t have toxic glue on my clothes now.
I’m very scary. Almost every small child is terrified of me. Any time I run into a small child, the parent tries to get them to say hi to me and child hides. Fai is the only one that seems to have a different opinion.
Three times this month I went to bed with all my clothes on. Each time I woke up in the middle of the night wondering why I was more uncomfortable than normal. Oh yea, because I still have a bra on. One time I woke up because my belt buckle was cutting into my stomach. How did I fall asleep with a belt on? I don’t take ambien.
I have a pair of leather flip flops that I brought to Thailand, but only wore once. I bought them in Mexico a long time ago and they are hand made with beautiful tooling on them. I decided I should get them out and wear them. I pulled them out of a plastic bag only to discover they were covered in fur – mold? Strange, but fixable. I washed them off and set them up to dry. Two days later, covered in fur. Ok, I have bleach that should do it so I washed them off with bleach. Fur. Wash. Fur. Wash. Fur. It’s been over a month now and I can’t wear them. What is going on? Where is the mold coming from? How do I get rid of it? Why?
Today I asked Robin to drive me around town so I could take video of where I live. I thought it might be neat to actually see it in video instead of photos. I watched one of the videos and it was so shaky. I didn’t look at the others, but I bet they are the same. I expected it to be a little shaky, but this was more than I expected. So, now the question is – do I just delete them and give up on the idea – do I try to re do them – or do I put them on youtube and just make people endure the shaky? I wonder if they will induce seizures.
I took my camera out and it said the battery was dead so I put another battery in. It took some video and then said the battery was dead even though the battery showed full one minute before that. I kept switching batteries back and forth and they kept saying full, no battery then full, then no battery. I got a few batteries and then the card was full. So, I switched cards. I noticed both cards had the same amount of memory and I was sure I had one that was a lot bigger than the other. The new card was already full. It was full of pictures I never took. The pictures were from Burning Man 5 years ago. I knew who’s pictures they were by looking at them, but they weren’t mine. How did our cards get swapped. Does she have my pictures from Burning Man 5 years ago?
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
I’ve been worrying about getting a Chinese visa. I have to show proof of hotel bookings and flights in order to get a visa. But there is no guarantee that you will get a visa. So, it’s a huge expensive leap of faith since, of course, the tour and the flights are non-refundable. Thus, worry. Then, a visa takes 4 days typically. I don’t have 4 days off work. You can pay to have it expedited, but there’s no guarantee that it will then take one, two or three days. All of this has been running around in my head for a couple weeks now driving me crazy. So, I’m glad it’s visa day. I’m not sure why I’m worried. I’m not a threat to China. There is no reason why I should be denied a tourist visa. But I had dreams of having my application thrown out because I wore a tank top or because I misspelled something or left something off my application. Stop it brain! There was a line when I got to the embassy. AT 9:00 they opened the door and everyone walked in. Security at the China embassy is lax compared to the US embassy. The US embassy checked your passport before you came in. You could only come in one at a time. You had to put all electronics in a plastic bag and leave them at the security desk. Then everything else went through an xray machine and you through a metal detector. At the China embassy we just all walked through the metal detector as it beeped and the guy behind it ate his breakfast. Then you take a number and wait your turn. She took my paperwork looked over it about 7 times, then told me how much it would cost and told me to come back at 3:00. I went back at 3:00 and went through lack of security again. I paid for my visa and got it! Easy. So, I’m going to China for two weeks in October!
While I was waiting for 3:00, I decided to try a new coffee shop to have lunch and work. I found one called Clay Studio Coffee in the Garden. It was across the street from a terra cotta clay museum. They still make statues and wall murals that look like they were made a long time ago. I didn’t go to the museum, but it’s top of my list next time I come back. The coffee shop was in a garden full of plants and terra cotta stone carvings. You could sit in the gardens or in the shop which looked like a green house. This may be the prettiest coffee shop I’ve ever seen. I wonder how I might be able to live there. Then I think about all the bugs, geckos and snakes that probably live there and I think that it’s the perfect day time coffee shop.
Then I went to my favorite pizza place for dinner! I’m also attaching some random photos I took walking around. I like the combination of glitzy temple next to run down dirty building. It’s always interesting to see.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Coffee Shop EntranceEnter a captionMy new coffee shop friend
Rraine Drops 