There’s a bullfrog (or I assume it’s a bullfrog) near where I live. He is so loud and monotonous. I can even hear him when the ac is on and I have earplugs in.
There’s always one fly or gnat flying around me at all times. It doesn’t matter where I go or what I do, there is always one.
At school, the guy that sells homemade ice cream at lunch serves it over colored rice or some other substance. Today I tried it. Mine was over some gelatinous thing and a pumpkin like squash. Why is this good? Ruined my ice cream. But the prize goes to – Ice Cream Sandwich. I watched him put four scoops of ice cream on a hot dog bun and give it to one of the kids.
I think I have lice again. Started doing the shampoo again.
At my house there are hundreds of butterflies with grey on the outside of their wings and purple on the inside. This creates an amazing effect. As I walk up to my house I cannot see any butterflies because they are sitting there with their wings closed, but as I step I disturb them and they flutter. The ground shifts and turns to a sea of fluttering pale purple. I usually walk up to my house, back to the street and back to the house a couple times. I assume these are from the worms that drop from trees. Well done Mother Nature, well done.
I went to the market and walked up to the guy that sells popcorn. He remembered that last week I got two bags of popcorn and immediately prepared two bags for me when he saw me. Two bags of popcorn cost 20 baht ($0.57). Maybe next time I should get 4.
There’s a sign on the main road that is a picture of a cow. I remember back in February when I was deep in culture shock and I first saw the sign thinking, “I bet if were to see a cow on the highway right now, it would make me happy”. There are no random cows on the side of the highway. Today, I came around the corner to see 4 cows on the side of the highway. No people, just cows walking along the road. My prediction was correct, seeing cows on the side of the highway does make you happy.
(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore
Board in an English Classroom – Where’s the English?
For my first class yesterday, the Thai co-teacher, Q, was nowhere to be found. The rest of the other teachers were in a circle meeting. Sometimes they have circle meetings after morning assembly, literally, standing in a circle in front of the school. I don’t usually go to these as no one tells me about them and I wouldn’t know what they were talking about any way. So, I am sitting outside a locked classroom wondering what is going on. 13 year olds are running amok all over the second floor of the language building. Mostly, they are running and sliding across the wood floor trying to knock each other down. I would have loved to join them, but I wasn’t wearing socks and I think this might be one of the things I’m too old for. It might be like the last time I tried slip and slide. It looked fun, but it wasn’t, it was just pain. I was sitting on a bench and at some point most of my class came and sat on the floor in front of me. They started asking me questions. Some of it was in English and some in Thai. Some, I have no idea. They wanted me to sing. They wanted to see my eyes without glasses. Why don’t I wear contacts? Then they had me repeat things in Thai. I think they were having me say student’s names, but I’m not sure. I could tell if they were trying to get me to say something not nice, because the girls would giggle, act all offended and hit the boys. Even though most of it was me not understanding them and them not understanding me, they sat there for at least a half hour completely engrossed in everything I said or did, until Pat came up and opened her room for us to use.
I have half of my lesson plans done for next week. I have high hopes that they will all be done by Thursday so I can get ahead. I’d like to be ahead by a week. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.
The monk I am teaching two nights a week has just such sweet energy. He is smiling ear to ear when he comes to class. You can tell he is excited to be learning English and thinks I’m silly. I try to be as silly with them as I am with the kids. I have an hour between school and the Monk’s class. I decided to stay at school and work on lesson plans. That hour seems to go so slowly, but then class goes quickly.
Today was my busy day with only one free period so I’m wiped by the end. My second to last class is 16 year olds – over 50 in one class. It’s insane. They were 15 minutes late. I can’t keep their attention for more than 30 seconds. You’d think it was kindergarten. Noi is my Thai co-teacher for that class and she stepped out half way through. The rest of the class was a total loss. How are you supposed to teach speaking to 50 students in 20 minutes? I was talking to Pat about it and she said that they know I can’t hit them so they think I can’t punish them. Thai teachers hit their students to keep them in line. I’ve witnessed it so many times. It’s difficult to watch. They are so much better behaved when a Thai teacher is around. My new plan of attack for most classes is – not good = no game. For this class, it will be no game and homework.
It’s market day so that helped me feel a little better after a long day. I didn’t buy much, but something about the energy of the market makes me feel more balanced. Or maybe it’s something about the day to day activity of shopping that does it. I have been finding quite a bit of enjoyment out of the “mundane” day to day activities like washing my motorbike, shopping for food, cooking, cleaning, etc. I like the lack of thinking.
Tonight I talked to a realtor and the rental agent for my house. The realtor is going to take a look at my house and work up some numbers. The rental agent is very helpful. I don’t want to have to put the house on the market, but I can’t just sell it to the current renter wondering if it’s really worth $30,000 to $70,000 more than he’s offering. He offered $30,000 less than it was listed for last summer. I also am looking into moving my furniture out of the house and into storage. All of this house stuff has been weighing heavy on me lately and I try to not let it bother me, but it does. I know it’s stupid because something will happen and it will be fine. Even if it doesn’t sell and I try again next summer or move back in, it will be fine. After talking to both of them, I feel so much better. I’m not sure if I’ve really started to let it go or if this is a lull in the worrying. My next door neighbor is the one who recommended the real estate agent and I like him. Yay – a real estate agent I like for a change!
It’s been much cooler lately which is a relief. It’s very humid which almost undoes the benefit of cooler. But, at least it’s not hot and humid. Instead it’s very warm and humid. One advantage of the daily rains is that there are more lemon yellow butterflies. There are more butterflies than I’ve ever seen – more than the butterfly pavilion in Denver or the butterfly garden in Singapore. Everywhere you look the sky is moving with yellow.
Friday Noi wanted to take me to lunch outside of school. We left early and the place she wanted to go was closed. There was a cone with a big light on it in the road so we couldn’t turn on it. As we drove by she said someone was dead. That was why the place was closed. How did she know that? She said she saw the tent. I saw a big awning coming from a house and covering most of the street in front of the house. I guess it’s like a reception where people come to pay respects to the family. We went to another place to eat. As with most Thai restaurants, it’s a covered area in front of a house with an outdoor kitchen. The lady that owned this one was real nice and quite happy to have us there. She had chickens and roosters running around everywhere. I had a hard time eating because I just wanted to watch the chickens. I didn’t have my phone with me so I didn’t get any pictures. I’ve never seen so many in one place. They were pecking at my feet. The roosters that would fight were in cages. Some of the roosters were huge. I asked if she raised the roosters for fighting. Noi said she didn’t. She didn’t mind if they died for people to eat, but would not have her roosters die for fighting. She could make a small fortune if she sold them for fighting. The health department in the US would fall over and die if they saw Thai restaurants. Yet, I haven’t gotten sick from any restaurant in Sam Ngao and the food has always been good. Maybe we are over cautious in the US.
Friday night I had dinner with Tip and did a reading lesson for her daughter. I wasn’t sure how to teach reading to someone that never read before, but I found some beginner reading lessons on line and Tip printed them. Fai did pretty good. I had hoped Ging would come over with her daughter too, but the timing didn’t work out.
My printer stopped printing even though I got the ink refilled. Maybe refilling the ink cartridges doesn’t work. I tried to get stuff printed at school, but it seems like a huge imposition to print color at school and I can only print black and white when I can find Noi in her office. Otherwise her office is locked. I feel frustration and a small amount of panic. This took me out of the state of indifference and has consumed most of my thoughts. I asked Noi if she would take me to Tak to get new ink. She took me yesterday and insisted that I bring the printer. I didn’t understand why I needed to bring the printer since I just needed to buy new cartridges. She kept asking about the ink tank. I kept saying that it didn’t have an ink tank and I didn’t see how the ink would get in the cartridges if they put a tank on it. Well, color me stupid. The printer shop in Tak put an ink tank on the printer and a thin cord that goes to the cartridges. Take that Cannon. Serves you right for trying to create a printer that goes through ink so fast and thinking we would have to buy expensive cartridges every month. This morning, I printed the rest of my lesson plans for this week. I keep getting the message that the printer is low on ink, but the prints came out fine. So, fingers crossed that this will continue to work. I relaxed a little.
My plan for this weekend was to get a week ahead on lesson planning, but the trip to Tak took all day so, I’m ready for this week’s lessons, but not ahead. We went to breakfast which was a delicious soup and chicken with ginger. Then we went to the morning market to buy more plants for Noi. I like the market in Tak. Then we went a few other places. One of them had tiny pineapple. Noi bought some and told me they were the most delicious pineapple. They come from Chiang Rai. They are the most sweet and juicy of the pineapple. There are pineapple that come from somewhere else in Thailand and they are bigger, just as sweet, but not as juicy. Then there are pineapple that come from Phuket. They taste good, but are so fibrous that you can’t eat too many. If you eat too many, they will destroy your tongue. The pineapple that will destroy your tongue. I enjoyed the non tongue destroying pineapple very much.
Then to Tesco to do the printer. Ice cream at Dairy Queen and the bank. I should have bought food in Tesco, but by that time of the day I was exhausted and just standing around was more my speed. The meat department has bins and bins of meat just sitting out and you grab tongs and a bag and pick what you want. Then they weight it and put a price on the bag. I was mesmerized watching people pick through bins of raw meat. I couldn’t even move to go look at the veggies. After Tesco we went for lunch at a noodle shop Noi has been wanting to try. The ladies working there were real nice and excited to learn about why Noi was with a Westerner. This was one of the first Thai meals that I didn’t like. The meat had a strange consistency and it was too spicy. I didn’t eat the whole thing because it just got hotter and hotter until I felt like my lips might melt off. It hurt for at least 30 minutes after. Am I allergic to chili? How do people find this enjoyable? How did the first person to try a chili think that this was a good idea to eat twice?
The subjects of conversation were religion (as usual) and politics. She has been told that the US has great welfare and that the government pays to take care of all old people and poor people. There are no poor people and no beggars in the US. In the US when people get old, their children do not help them. Thai children always help their parents. I tried to explain that some do and some don’t. This was difficult for her to understand. Americans are not helpful to other people. She wanted to know if Thailand or America had more charities. I have no idea. I find that most of what Thais think of the US is black and white. We are all one way or another. There is no concept of how huge our country is and how diverse it’s people are. There’s no concept that maybe it’s not that much different from Thailand and other countries. Everything that is a Thai way belongs only to Thais. For instance, Thai people are very nice. This is true, but I have met some not nice ones too. It is also true that I have met just as many nice Americans. Is it possible that a more true statement is people are nice? Then she asked what I was going to do later. I told her I was going to get a massage. She told me if I go once a week for massage I am addicted to massage. That made me laugh. I tried to explain why I thought it was important, but I just couldn’t. She asked about the lady who does massage. I told her sometimes it’s a man and sometimes his wife. Men should only do massage for men, don’t you think? I told her I was so glad that wasn’t true since he’s better than she is. She asked why I thought he was better and I told her he was more present. She didn’t understand. To her presence is the fact of being in the room and someone can’t be more or less present. They are present or not. I tried to explain presence from an energetic and spiritual sense, but I’m sure I didn’t do a good job of it. It’s too late in the day and my brain is already fried. Then that led to “Do you believe in heaven?” I swear we’ve had this conversation before. I said I didn’t. She proceeded to tell me about heaven and hell and doing good deeds in order to have a better life next time. Maybe I just don’t know the facts and that’s why I don’t believe. There was also an aspect where I’m from America so I must be Christian and I explained that I’m not Christian and not all of Americans are. There was also a conversation about fortune tellers. I said I didn’t believe in their predictions. I don’t think anyone really knows the future, educated guesses can be made, but no one knows. She educated me on fortune tellers, again, because I must not know about them or I’d believe. I find her questions so challenging, but also fascinating as well. With each conversation I become more and more sure that everything is just one. There is no good or bad and no right answer. There is no future to worry about and the past can no longer hurt me.
Then house and car stuff comes up and I lose the belief in no good or bad and no future for a little bit. The guy living in my house wants to buy it, but for $40,000 less than I think it’s worth. He want’s to buy my furniture, but isn’t willing to pay what I think it’s worth. So, I’m looking into moving my furniture out and now I’m contacting realtors. Money represents safety for me and thinking about it actually upsets me. In a lot of areas of my life I no longer fear for my safety or worry about how things are going to turn out, but with money issues, I still do. Maybe that’s why this appears to be so difficult right now. So, I can learn to release my need for money to safety. I remember childishly asking for life to provide me with some surprise money that would get me out of debt. Then I will believe that everything is ok. Of course that hasn’t happened. Still, last week I got a bunch of checks in the mail that I had forgotten Jay mailed to me. I was able to deposit them through an app on my phone. It was around $300 which won’t even make a dent in my debt, but the timing of it sure made me laugh. Of course, if surprise money in the amount of $30,000 comes my way, that will be ok too.
So, if you add it all up, I think I’ve had every critter possible in my house. I can’t even think of what else there could be. Here’s one category of critters that never came to mind: worms that fall from trees. Yes, that is a thing. So, now is the season of worms that fall from trees. Thankfully, there are only a few in the house and I think they came in on my clothes or shoes. There are at least 20 to 100 on my door and on the wall next to the door at all times. I sweep them away and five minutes later it looks like I never swept. I drove under a tree today with about 30 of them just hanging in mid air from tiny cords. I find them kind of fun to watch as they inch along, but I’m not too fond of their ability to hang from trees and then try to catch a ride on you. I also saw a giant (about 1′ long) yellow centipede last night zipping down the road. It was quite alarming in the light of my headlamp as I walked up to my house, but since he was not in my house, I don’t think he counts as a horror. Still, he is burned into my memory and I can’t get him out so I thought I’d share (picture from internet).
Friday night I tried to work on lesson plans, but by 7:30pm I couldn’t keep my eyes open and I was real dizzy so I went to bed. I slept for 12 hours. And by sleep, I mean toss and turn, but that’s normal for me. Wow, I never knew giving blood would put me down for days.
I did laundry and mopped the house Saturday morning. I find that I have to mop every 3 or 4 days since there is all kinds of dead bugs, mouse and lizzard poop everywhere. I hadn’t cleaned up after the termite invasion so it was good to mop. I went to the coffee shop and worked on lesson plans all day. I promised I myself I would leave by 4:00pm even if I wasn’t done with lesson plans. I tried to leave at 4:00pm but it kept raining and it wasn’t a light rain, but a downpour. So, I didn’t leave until 5:00pm. It was still raining, but not bad. I rode up to the massage place and the guy was in! I’ve had massages from him and his wife. She’s good, but he’s better so I was glad she wasn’t there. Two hours of pain. Everything hurts. I really need this as part of my daily routine right now, but I just don’t have the time. I feel like bodywork is an important part of working through some of the stuff that I’m trying to work through. I’ve been doing conscious movement every day as well and trying to get my body to stop holding all this stuff it’s holding. It feels like it’s holding more than usual, but I don’t think it’s actually more. I think it’s just different stuff, stuff that can’t be worked through cognitively. I wonder too, what taking blood and forcing my body to make a lot of new blood is doing. It kind of feels like I had described before when I got sick and lost a lot of muscle weight. I had felt I was at muscle zero and rebuilding from there was a good thing. What if this is a rebuilding of the blood system?
Today, I went to the Sunday market. I didn’t walk around for long, but long enough to run into the really nice guy that is always excited to talk to me. He sells veggies. He said he had missed seeing me at the market and was glad I was back. I was going to cook today, but didn’t. I spent the entire rest of the day getting all the lesson plans for this week in order. I was hoping to get ahead of lesson planning today. So, I’m a bit disappointed. I’m also concerned that I will never be ahead and that I will spend all my free time doing lesson plans. I’m also concerned that I might get behind at some point. On one hand, I don’t have a ton else to do. But, this isn’t how I want to spend the next 4 months either. Everyone that offers me advice says stuff like just play more games. But, I have to come up with the game and how does it teach English? How does it teach English that isn’t too easy or too hard? Half the games I’ve tried were a total fail. Then people offer ideas that seem like they would be a ton more work and not actually make things easier. Plus, people forget that the game has to be easy enough to explain with out using Thai. One person suggested I just go to Bangkok and buy some books. With what money? Bangkok is a 9-12 bus ride from here. There is an overwhelming amount of information on line. Half of it would work for kindergartners and the other half would work for university students. The in between stuff is not useful. I just hope that I get faster/better at this soon so that I can get ahead. Or maybe sports week will happen again and I’ll have a whole week with no classes and I can get ahead.
It’s been raining everyday in the afternoon and sometimes at night. This is bringing out a lot of lemon yellow butterflies. They are very pretty. How come lemon yellow butterflies are nice to see and termites, cockroaches, spiders or other bugs are not? Why is one bug a positive thing and another is not? Opposites – duality – not truth. Now every time I see the butterflies, I question this belief system. The long winged bugs in my house the other night were termites and are normal. Noi told me she had to turn off all her lights and use only a flashlight.
Pat’s turned kind of cranky lately. She’s been very unfriendly. I assume I did something to upset her. As much as people talk about how nice the Thai people are, the issue I have with that is that if something is wrong, they won’t tell you. They will just smile and pretend to be nice. I know a lot of people find this a pleasant thing, but I don’t. So, I probably will never know what upset her.
Today someone brought me bananas and I have no idea who. One was another double banana – two bananas in one peel. This makes me happy. Noi brought me a Chinese dumpling thing and a can of mystery milk. I drank the milk and still don’t know what flavor it was. The can says white malt, but it didn’t taste like malt. It has a bear and wheat on it. Maybe it was wheat flavored or bear flavored.
Today I saw two girls walking into the language building with their hands tied together. At first I thought it was some friendship thing. Then I saw them sitting on the floor talking to Pat and they were both almost in tears and appeared very shameful as if they being tied together was some price they paid for doing something wrong. I assume they spent the whole lunch period tied together and were telling Pat what they learned so they could get untied. They were sitting on the floor because Pat was sitting. Any time a student passes in front of a teacher, they bow their head lower so if they want to talk to the teacher and the teacher is sitting, they have to sit on the floor so they will be lower. I find this custom to be both respectful and annoying. I still can’t get use to students doing this to me. Or when they wai to me I’m not supposed to wai back, but I feel that I have just as much respect for them and I want to wai back. I usually just nod my head back. I’ve also seen some other punishment that I’ve found either disturbing, or at least strange. If a boy’s hair is too long, a teacher will take scissors to it and cut huge patches out in front of all the other students. Then they walk around with some short hair, some shorter and patches missing altogether. None of them actually have long hair to begin with. Then they have to go home and shave it to get it back to all one length. I’ve seen students hit with a cane. I’ve seen them doing pushups – and they were the worst form I’ve ever seen. I saw one student get a sign stapled to his shirt and he had to go through lunch with it on. I asked Pat what it was for and she said he had tried to touch a girl’s boobs so they put the sign on him.
Near the end of the school day, Tip texted me to tell me she was getting ready to go to yoga. What? There’s a yoga class here? How come I don’t know about this? Is there a gym no one’s told me about? No. I got excited over nothing. Tip is friends with the Chinese Medicine doctor and her assistant at the hospital. Ton is the assistant and has been teaching Tip yoga. Jeab and Ton are in my class with the monk so I went after school to join Tip for yoga. They started at 4:00 and I was late since I’m in school until 4:00 so I only had 20 minutes of yoga. It was just Ton, Tip and I. It kind of resembled yoga as I know it. The only reason I broke a sweat is because there is no air con in that part of the hospital. Still, better than no exercise which has been my exercise plan lately.
Tip took me to a shop with a really nice lady that makes salads, burgers and coffee. She was really nice and gave me her number so I can call ahead next time I want a salad. She makes her own dressings too. This means I can get a salad without that mayonnaise like dressing that is all I can find elsewhere! Score. We went to the market. Tip has a little golf cart like thing that we drove from her house to the other side of the hospital where the market it is. It was like speed walking through the market. She was on a mission and didn’t want to do much else. I was ok with this as I was getting tired and wanted to go home.
Tuesday was a long day. I have the most classes on Tuesdays and I’m exhausted by the end of the day. Pat has been bringing me lunch most days. It’s nice, but at the same time, it means I don’t go to the cafeteria (they call it the canteen) with the other teachers. So, today when Pat said she couldn’t bring me lunch I decided to go to the canteen. It’s a bit strange and felt overwhelming. There are several different food sellers and I have no idea what I can eat and what I can’t because I can’t handle spicy food. Noi was there and helped steer me in the right direction. I felt very watched and stared at as all the students are in there eating and a lot of the teachers are. I sat at one of the teacher’s tables, but they all soon got up so I ended up eating alone. I didn’t love the food. Overall, it was a somewhat unpleasant experience. I’m just so tired of not being able to communicate. But there just isn’t enough time in the day to all my work for school and my brain is fried when I go home so I can’t seem to take in any information and Thai is just not sticking.
At some point I asked Xploreasia if they would work directly with my school to replace me when I leave. I have an agent that charged my school to “find” me and then told me she is not my agent. She hasn’t done anything. I’m ok with that because she is an unpleasant woman. Xploreaisa decided to contact her and tell her everything I said instead of just giving me a yes or no on the subject. She is now livid as I listened to her screaming and yelling at Pat yesterday about how horrible I am and how I’m complaining. Then she told Pat that next semester she was going to charge more. I don’t trust that Xploreasia has my back. I don’t feel I can trust the placement group at all. And now this lady is going to try to punish the school because, well, I’m not even sure why.
Even though I was tired and just wanted to go home after school, I had a date. The coffee shop near my house also is a hotel with a few rooms. I had Tip reserve a room for him there since it’s brand new and closer to me than the hotel at the dam. We went up to the dam and looked around a little and then went to dinner and just sat and talked after dinner. He is from England and is riding his bike from Chiang Mai to Phukett. It was delightful hanging out with him. Tinder for the win!
Today was ok. I had my first class after school teaching a monk and three other people. They knew a lot more English than I expected and I went through my lesson plan way too fast. I was struggling trying to figure out what to teach. The monk is getting ready to go to India for a month and wants to improve his English for his trip since it is spoken in most places. So, now I have to come up with lesson ideas for English he might need in India. I no longer want to do this, but I can’t exactly back out now. I think I can pull it off, but it’s going to be a lot of work. I assume it will get easier once I get into the lesson planning.
Tonight after dinner I looked up and could barely see the ceiling. There were long winged bugs flying everywhere. And of course, that’s not enough of an issue, but there’s a giant tokay in my house just hanging out above where I was sitting. How does he get in there? I watched him for a short time and he wasn’t moving. There’s bugs of plague proportions and he’s not even eating them? Why is he even here if he’s not going to eat bugs? I tried spraying the bug spray I have in the air. That didn’t even put a dent in the amount of bugs flying around. All it did was make me choke and gag and now hours later I have a horrible headache. I have skipped a shower 6 times here. Three because it was too cold to shower, twice because there was no water and tonight on account of bugs. The bugs were covering me so I figured getting wet was going to make it worse. I grabbed my computer and phone and am now hiding in my bedroom. My bedroom appears to be plague free for the moment. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that out loud. At least they weren’t biting bugs.
Today I didn’t have any classes. I went to school anyway so at least it looked like I was working. I did work on future lesson plans which is good because they still take me forever. At lunch I went home and made a grilled cheese sandwich and then went to get coffee. It was way too sweet, but that’s really my fault for not practicing “no sugar” in Thai. Then later in the afternoon one of the ladies in the school office made a coffee run so I had another way too sweet coffee. I love that they put coffee in bags and then give you a side of ice so that your coffee isn’t watered down. I just love that they put liquids in plastic bags. I know that if you don’t have a cup or bowl to put the liquid in, you just stab it with a straw and drink out of the bag. I have no idea what the correct protocol is for when you have a cup of ice. Do you still stab the bag with a straw? Do you cut a hole in the bottom or do you oh so carefully undo the rubberband and hope to not spill any? I’ve done the latter.
In an attempt to learn the student’s names I asked them to put their names and favorite activity on a piece of paper and then draw a picture of anything they’d like to on the back. Just after a few classes, I realize that this is an impossible task on my part. There are over 500 students and I haven’t been able to remember one name yet. Attached are some of my favorite pictures they drew.
After school, I went back to my house and sat on my “couch” in front of the R2D2 green evap cooler. I’m supposed to go to the temple for the festivities tonight. I just wanted to stay on my cool couch forever and not move.
Chelon, the teacher that is a historian of the area and who put together a booth at the temple and directed the play that was going to be done tonight had asked me and Robin to attend the festivities. She had told Robin 6:00pm so Robin picked me up at school a little before. We got there and people were still setting up. None of the teachers were there. Robin had never been to the temple so we walked around the temple grounds for a while. The guys in the band, Noi’s husband is one, were delighted to see me again and tried to get me to dance. There was a lady last night that insisted I take her picture. Tonight she insisted again that I take her picture. One of the guys in the band really took to Robin and gave him the sash he had been wearing. He also insisted that I take a picture of him. So many villagers were excited to see us and smiled or wai-ed us. There were food vendors but none of the food looked good to me. There were a bunch of tents with food too. Robin ran into a lady he knew from the dam and she invited us to eat with her in one of these tents. Most of food was too spicy for me or had fish in it, but I still managed to find some to eat. My mouth was on fire for about an hour from a tiny bit of tom yum I put on my plate. I really like tom yum, but jeeze, why so much pepper?
The festivities really didn’t start until 8:00pm. So I was fairly bored by the time they did. I never did see any of the other teachers except Chelon. She bought us cotton candy. I felt like a very happy 8 year old. There were a lot of people standing on the stage while people gave speeches. Then in the middle of one of the speeches, fireworks started going off behind us. The area has been in a horrible dry spell. So, let’s set off low exploding fireworks right next to the people and lots of burnable things. I love not quite safe fireworks. After the fireworks, they set off what looked like a geyser of sparks. The geyser of sparks went off every 5 to 30 minutes for a good portion of the rest of the evening. Then the play started. It was the history of the town of Ban Na. Ban Na is the town that had to be relocated/abandoned when they built the dam. It is now deep underwater. Islands near the dam were once mountains. The best I can tell is the people of Ban Na moved around in boats, grew rice, and had a nice life. Then there were men with swords. Then the people had a peaceful time. Then the town fell to drinking and fighting. And I have no idea what the rest of the play was about or what the ultimate fate of Ban Na was (well, I know about the dam, but that didn’t seem to be part of the play). After the play there was traditional Thai dancers and then a parade of sorts on the stage with people in traditional dress, carrying offerings or banners. Even though I was rather clueless of what was really going on, the part that I really liked is that this isn’t some cultural show for tourists. This is the real thing. This is the real history told through dress, play and pageantry as told by locals for locals.
When the show appeared to be over I was ready to go and Robin seemed ok with that. My new buddy who keeps getting me to dance tried to convince me that it was too early to leave. I should stay and dance. It took quite a lot of slowly inching away to be able to leave. Chelon seemed so touched that we both came to this and walked us out to the motorbike and stood in the street as we drove off.
Yesterday I got a body scrub. It’s the first time I’ve felt clean in over a week. I just am hot and sweaty all the time in Sam Ngao and I don’t feel like I’m really getting clean when I shower only to be sweating 3 minutes later. Then Wednesday I didn’t have any water at the house so there was no shower to be had. I had some coffee shop time, some pool and read Game of Thrones time and I did some coloring in my new Under the Sea coloring book.
I tried Tinder again. Made some matches and chatted with a few guys. I was hoping to meet someone to have dinner with, but didn’t. I posted about it on facebook and got a bunch of replies cheering me on or telling me how to Tinder better. At some point it just seems like a lot of work and by the time I was hungry I was glad to go eat alone. I need to move somewhere cooler. I think the heat takes all my energy and motivation. Of course, I’m also questioning all my thoughts and beliefs about ‘alone’ too since that has historically been my biggest issue. In the past I would swing between craving a relationship and not wanting to be around any people. Now it no longer feels like a swing with big highs or lows on either side. It feels more like an electrical short. One minute I want company and conversation, the next I want to sit alone, then another minute I’m completely indifferent. It switches so quickly that it feels silly to make any plans because it’s going to change. It switches quickly, but none of it has much emotional charge to it. There’s no craving, no sadness, no longing, just a quickly changing preference. Now if only that would happen with my opinion of the heat…..
Today has been uneventful – breakfast and more coloring. I ventured out to explore more of Chaing Mai and then went and hid from the heat in a coffee shop. Think I’ll try to explore more after I write this blog. Or give up and go back to the pool.
So, those of you following how I find AH Almaas relevant to my journey, the rest of this is for you. I know that I’m not seeing life correctly. With this knowledge, it shouldn’t matter where I live or what I do. There is no real basis for waking up with the dreads, not liking teaching, hating the heat or thinking I should be planning what is next. The chapter I’m reading is talking about how the world we live in is all concepts in our mind. “Even if our mental world is lonely, and we gain little pleasure from our experiences, our thoughts are familiar and give us an illusion of security and control that binds us to them. We may see no alternative to this way of understanding ourselves and our world. Because we believe it’s reality. How can we think of an alternative? Even if we think of and long for freedom, we think of freedom within that world”. He suggested a meditation where you observe your thoughts. Not the content of the thoughts, don’t try to figure out what they mean, but just notice the thinking process. When does the thought arise, when does it stop, how long is the gap before the next thought arises? It doesn’t matter what the thought is about or how it makes you feel, just look at the strings of thoughts and gaps. No need to do something or react to the thought, see it as thinking itself. I’ve tried this a few times. It’s interesting. That’s all I’m going to say about it right now. Try it and see for yourself.
The US Consulate has the most expensive notary ever. I got ripped off by my own country. It cost me $50 to get a document notarized. That was just what I paid the consulate. If you add up bus tickets, hotel, taxis, scanning and mailing, it cost $94.
I must have watched too many spy movies. I expected the US Consulate to be a big fancy building with a big gate and lots of important looking guards. It’s a unassuming window with one unarmed guard standing outside a door. A small sign above the window says American Consulate. I’d post a picture, but I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of it. I had to give up my phone and go through an xray screening thing, then wait in a room, then wait in another room. Then a series of 3 more windows, one to check in for my appointment and hand over the paperwork I needed notarized and my passport. The second window to pay $50. Let me repeat, $50 to get a paper notarized. At the third window, I signed the paperwork and got the notary stamp. Then I got my phone back as I left.
I found a wifi shop and was able to get the document scanned so I could have a copy and could email a copy. Then I found a post office to mail the original. So, now my lawyer should have power of attorney to help me with the car lease that’s not being paid on time. Hopefully this will be useful in the future when I sell the house too or I will have to go through this process again.
Rraine Drops 