A Day in the Life of Eden in Thailand

You are curled up under a blanket in a dark room, fast asleep. Suddenly, you hear a knock on your door, and your eyes snap open.


Chabaa. 

You answer, Arài ná kháa?


Àp náam.


Okay.

Every week morning, your father wakes you up. Good thing too, because the alarm on your phone chooses to go off only half of the time. You check your phone, which sits on top of your suitcase at your bed side. It is 5:20 in the morning. At home, this felt very early. But this is your new home now, and you are not very tired. Yet.

You offer a morning prayer or do a meditation of some sort. Pulling the blanket off of yourself, you reach for the air conditioning remote and turn it off. You are very lucky to have air conditioning. Most people don't.



It is dark outside your window, but all kinds of animals are awake. Chirp chirp, haw haaaao. You hear birds singing that you never heard at home. Eeeee eeee! You hear geckos clicking. Mooooooooooo. You hear a cow coming from who knows where.


Shut the curtains, grab a towel, leave the room, and make sure you shut the door so mosquitoes, cockroaches, and geckos don't get in. But mostly mosquitoes. It doesn't matter how well-screened the house is. They will get in.


When you open the door, a wave of heat hits you. At first this was surprising. But now you expect it. You are used to being hot all the time. This is nothing to you.


Prepare yourself. You are about to enter mosquito zone.


Open the bathroom door, go in, and try to dance around and keep your legs moving so that mosquitoes don't land on them and bite you. Turn the shower on. Whoa, it's cold. But don't worry. In about a minute it will feel absolutely wonderful in this heat. Clean up, wrap yourself in a towel, and get out of there.


Guess what. Your ankle is itchy. They got you anyway. Dang it, you say. Mai pen rai.

Go back to your room. Turn on your Macbook and listen to some AC/DC. Put on a skirt or dress. Brush your hair. It's going to air dry, and it's going to be curly. Bringing a hair straightener would have been pointless.



You hear a voice at your door.


Chabaa.

Arài ná?

Gin khâo.

Ok, gamlang jà maa.

Head downstairs. Your Pa is a good cook, and he made some breakfast for you. It consists of rice and vegetarian meat made of mushrooms. Very delicious. Your family feeds you well. Put some food in a basket to take to your volunteer work. Go upstairs, brush your teeth, grab your stuff, and head out the door.


Walk out to the car, and get in on the front left side. This is natural to you now. Your mother will drive you to the school where she works, dropping off your younger brother at his school on the way.


Your mother pulls out of the driveway, honking as she does so. In this country, honking is not rude. It's a way to let people know you're there, and countless accidents are avoided every day because of this.


Your street is very narrow. It's about a third as wide as your street back at home. As you leave the neighborhood, you see signs written in Thai. You try hard to sound them out, but pass by them too quickly to finish. As you get on the main road and go faster, you see cars, vans, trucks, and lots and lots of motorcycles. Teen boys and girls on motorcycles with no helmets, sometimes three people per motorcycle. This is not strange. They are everywhere.


There is music playing in the car. It is Thai music, and your mother sings along. You doze off on the way to school. You open your eyes and see a 7-Eleven on your left. You know you are at the school. It's still early, but there are students there. You see them walking around in their uniforms, the girls with their dark hair braided. You wait in the library, doing homework or dozing off until it's time for school to start.


Loud music comes on over the intercom. This is the cleaning song. It's the students' job to clean up the school. You try to force yourself awake. You look out the window and see the Buddha statue which is at the front of the school. Next to the statue is the flag of Thailand, not yet raised on its tall pole. After the cleanup song, the school song plays.


A few minutes go by, and the school song plays again. All the students disappear. They are gathering for morning assembly. You hear the national anthem and watch a boy and a girl raise the flag. You stand up for the song and bow at the end. When in Thailand, do as the Thais do. Afterward, you hear a familiar Buddhist song that you hear every day. It is beautiful. You walk over to the assembly outside and see the students meditating. Then they do hand actions to another song. You don't understand the song, but you could sing it.


After that, announcements are made. You go back and wait until class. Once class starts, you go help one of the teachers teach English. The students are fun, but shy. You have to entertain them and get them involved. Do this a couple times throughout the day. When you have breaks, go to the library and read for your university class.

Suddenly, a woman from the cafeteria comes into the library. Náam linjee! She says. Lychee juice. You are excited. This stuff is your favorite. It costs only five baht, and your mom buys it for you almost every day. Korp khun mâak! you say.


Later, you go to the cafeteria to eat. You sit with the other teachers, but you have no idea what they're saying because they're speaking the local dialect. They love to practice English with you though.


Go home, driving on the left side of the road. All the while, you're still trying to sound out the signs you see and remember the names of the Thai letters on the license plates. When you arrive home, sit on the porch and do some studying. You look up and see the dark clouds approaching. Oh yes, please rain! When the wind starts to blow and the birds start to fly around seeking refuge, you know it's coming.

And it does. And it's beautiful. Everyone is afraid of getting wet, but you love it. You walk under it and relish it, because you know it won't last long. You take off your sandals and splash in the puddles. The water under your feet is actually warm. You are about to go back to studying when one of the neighbors across the street pulls up on their motorcycle and stops to say "hi."

You say sàwàtdee jâo, which is "hello" in the local language.

She answers, Chabaa wàtdee jâo!

Pai nai?

Pai talàad. Chabaa pai mái?


Pai khâa.

You hop on the back of the motorcycle. She is going to take you to the market. You feel the wind blow in your face and through your hair, and it feels free. On the way, you see dogs walking around the neighborhood. Whether they are stray or owned, you do not know.


At the market, you see a náampàn stand. This is like a kind of shake or smoothie with powder in it, and it's delicious. You choose either ovaltine or strawberry. Only 15 baht. 50 cents.



 Head home to eat dinner. Eat sticky rice, mangoes, pineapple, and fake meat while your family turns on the tv. You see all kinds of shows you didn't expect to see, such as "Psych" or "Police Women of Dallas," all dubbed in Thai. Go back outside and sit on the porch, soaking in the (somewhat) cool evening. The sun is about to set. Although you cannot see it because of the clouds and the trees in the way, you know it's setting because the birds start to all gather and go crazy. You hop on your bike and go to a local field to get a better view, although you still can't see it.

Look straight up and it's a beautiful orange color. The clouds look absolutely majestic, almost frightening. Your breath is taken away. You are standing in front of a canal. To the right, you see chickens walking in the street and cows in the field. To the left, a bridge. Occasionally someone rides by on a motorcycle. Across the canal you see a house. It has a tin patio. People's clothes are hanging up to dry. A woman is standing in the field far off, looking at the sunset. Still, you hear the birds going crazy. Night is approaching. It's just you and nature. Once it gets dark, if you are lucky, sometimes you hear monks chanting.



You see the silhouettes of the banana and coconut trees against the darkening sky. You hear the crickets singing. It's time to go home, but you need to stay just a little bit longer. You wish you could take a picture, but you just can't. No picture ever looks good. You want to just stay in this moment, just you, and God, and nature, forever.




And that's when you realize that Thailand has your heart.

Catching Up

This post is a recap, since I'm a behind.

Both of my host parents are teachers. The schools they teach at cover the entire public education system. In the States, we have kindergarten, elementary school, junior high or middle school, and then high school, but these schools have children ranging from age 4 or 5 to about 16. It is age 16 when students graduate and go on to university. My father's school also provides university-level classes, so it has many university students who attend.

Things have been going great at the schools I'm teaching at. Sometimes, teaching is really hard when the teachers decide to leave the room and have me fend for myself and teach the students on my own. It's not the teaching itself that's difficult, but the fact that many students just will not listen no matter what. Those who do listen are so focused that they can tune out the sound of the others talking, which is good.

However, most of the time, the teachers already have a lesson plan, and I help them teach it. A lot of the time, my role involves teaching the students correct pronunciation, since I'm a native English speaker. At my father's school, one of the teachers has been teaching the students question formation and how to use the words "what," "why," "when," "who," "where," "how" etc. What she does is she has the students ask me a question and then I answer it. I also teach students vocabulary at both schools. I try to be as entertaining and hands-on as possible, so they'll be interested and remember things. For example--last week, I taught my favorite subject: body parts. This one is easy because (for most people), all of your body parts are there so you don't need to bring any teaching materials. For example, I would touch my face and say "this is your face." Then the students would repeat "face" back to me. I wrote write the names of the body parts on the board, and I would repeat the vocabulary many times. I had the students stand up and touch the body part that I told them to. They get really confused by the words "head," "hand," "ears," and "hair" because these words all sound very similar, especially to a Thai person. Speaking slowly is key. The students got really into it and laughed a lot, which is a sign of success.

The students are so adorable. Yesterday at my mother's school, there was this group of little girls eating popsicles outside the library. When I walked out, they all yelled at the same time, "Pii Chabaa sawatdee khâa!" (In Thai, "Pii" is the title you give an older sibling or someone older than you.) So I said "sawatdee khâa" back and said "aròy mái?" ("is it delicious?" referring to their popsicles) and they answered "aròy khâa!" in their little voices. So cute. That is what it's like every day at that school, as I'm walking from room to room or going to get lunch. I'm always greeted by students. Yesterday there was a funny little boy who would say "Pii Chabaa, sawatdee khráp" and put his hands on his head and walk really close to me.

My Thai is at the point where I can get around without a problem.  I know all the basic things, like asking how much something is at the market and bargaining for a better price, asking where the bathroom is, telling people how long I've been in Thailand when they ask me and what I'm doing here, asking if a store or a wat is open or closed, asking where I can find such and such, asking for directions, the days of the week, and having really basic conversations like "what are you going to do today/tomorrow?" or "I'm learning Thai." But that's about the extent of my knowledge. It's great to be able to get by, but I want to actually learn Thai. What's frustrating is that the people in this area don't speak Thai to each other in nonformal situations. They have their own local dialect called Kham Mueang, or Northern Thai, which is similar to Thai and yet very different at the same time. I swear, it's a different language entirely. For example, in Thai, you say mâi pen rai but in Northern Thai you say bà bpen yaang. When people speak to me, they use Thai, but the fact that I'm not being immersed in Thai every day is making it more difficult to learn. I've found some great websites though, and I'm going to listen to podcasts to hear more. Also, pretty much everything on television and on street signs is in Thai.

In the mean time, I've decided that I'm going to learn some Northern Thai. It is a charming language and when I speak even a few words of it, the locals laugh because I catch them by surprise, and because I sound funny. To say "hello" in Northern Thai, girls don't say sawatdee khaa, but sawatdee jâo! Aròy mâak ("very delicious") becomes lam te te. The word sanùk, meaning "fun," becomes mêuan. I think if I can learn enough basic vocabulary in Northern Thai, I might understand people better.

On a change of subject, this weekend I discovered something totally weird: mosquitoes bite me more when I use mosquito repellant. What the heck? In our group I'm the mosquito magnet, and I've spent a great deal of energy complaining and trying to find a solution. Erin said, "I'm pretty sure they live in you or something." I would not be surprised at all. On Friday, I realized that nothing I do keeps mosquitoes away. Nothing. The others in my group don't get bitten as much, but I tried three different kinds of mosquito repellant and they still would eat me alive. I was so frustrated. Then on Saturday, I put all three kinds of insect repellant on me and I got bitten all over my knees. But then, on Sunday, I hung out with the group all day and spent a lot of time outside, never putting DEET or citronella on me, but I don't think I got a single mosquito bite that day. So weird. So on Monday (yesterday) I decided to do the same thing. I do have bites, but only about two really tiny ones. Today I will try the same. I'm coming to the nonsensical conclusion that mosquitoes are more attracted to me when I have repellant on. So weird.

This weekend, my friends and I decided to stay at a hotel and check out the night life of Chiang Mai. As it so happens, this weekend was an atypical one, because it was voting weekend for the province mayors. Because of this, few bars were open, and the ones that were didn't serve alcohol. Not that I mind because I don't drink anyway, but a friend in our group was looking forward to it and what she wanted never materialized. It was disappointing because not a lot was going on in Chiang Mai this weekend, unless it was underground. We still went to a bar though and had fun, eating good food and listening to some local guitarists play some nice music. I was surprised to hear them play a song called If by one of my favorite bands, Bread. That was the last thing I expected to hear in Thailand. So awesome! So I gave them a tip, but I think they were confused and amused because you just don't tip people in Thailand. I don't care! They deserved one anyway.

That's the latest news for now. I'll be posting more later this week! Choog dee!

Jungle Trek Weekend

Last weekend was quite an adventurous one. First, we rode elephants. That was pretty much the coolest thing ever. Our elephant was really sweet. Her name was Bumi and she was very smart and well-trained. She was so hungry though. She kept reaching her trunk up so we could hand her a ton of bananas and sugar cane while we were walking. It was hilarious because she would keep stopping to eat and we couldn't keep up with the rest of the group. I got to sit on her neck and feel her shoulder blades moving up and down with each step. I was afraid I would lose balance. I was just mesmerized with the feeling of her rough skin under my hands. Her ears kept swatting at my legs, over and over. So funny. We took a route that crossed a river, so when Bumi got in the water, naturally she wanted to rinse herself off. So she sprayed us with her trunk. I could not stop laughing!

Feeding Bumi!

I am officially in love with elephants. They are such kind, sweet animals.

 After our elephant adventure, we commenced our hike. Actually, I wouldn't call it a hike. It was more like a trek. Through the jungle, uphill. It was an intense workout. The best part? Our guide was a native Karen tribe guy from the mountains, and guess what his nickname is. Rambo. Yes, that's right. The name suited him perfectly, too.

See what I mean?

If I had to pick one person to be stranded in the wilderness with, it would be Rambo. He would keep me alive. As we were hiking, he would stop and pick random things up off the ground and eat them. He showed me some edible mushrooms. As we were hiking, he made us all walking sticks out of bamboo that he hacked with his machete. He also made everyone a hat out of leaves. He told us where the termites and red ants were so we could avoid them. And I kept getting hit by low blood sugar, so he carried my heavy bag for me multiple times while I ate candy.


We climbed over rocks, jumped over mud, crossed high over rivers on logs, etc. It was the quintessential jungle tour. A couple times we stopped by some waterfalls and went for a swim. We met some people from Germany and Canada there. Thailand's got some NICE waterfalls.

Finally, we arrived in the Karen village. There were tons of rice paddies with the mud packed around them very nicely. The houses were made of bamboo, wood, and some sort of plant material for the roofs.



These people live very far away from society, and their culture is unique, as is each tribe's culture. It was interesting to see the stark difference between this hill culture and the one we visited the week before. The religious views are different and the clothes are different. Each tribe is unique.

Most of the tribes in this area converted to Catholicism when missionaries came to preach to them. However, they still hold their animist views as well, and mix these religions without hesitation. Rambo told us that he was a Catholic, but later that night, told us about the magic that the elderly people in the tribe possess. People may convert, but they do not change their culture. And they shouldn't have to, because it's beautiful.

Mosquito nets are REALLY nice.

This was by far my favorite weekend in Thailand. It was surreal. We slept in a bamboo hut under mosquito nets with a hill tribe by a waterfall that was perfect for swimming in. At night, you could see the stars more clearly in the sky. It was beautiful.







 

 It was time to head home, so we hopped in the back of a pickup truck and rode down, stopped by a restaurant, and got some food. Afterward, it was time for rafting! The rafts were literally bamboo sticks tied together, and on top of that, the raft drivers were quite fond of splashing us and saying "it's raining!" in Thai. Needless to say, we got pretty wet.

During the whole weekend, engulfed in the scenery around ourselves and the circumstances we continually found ourselves in, we kept asking, "is this real life?" I will never forget that weekend. It was amazing, and I wish I could share it with all of you.

Hmong village visit

Last weekend we went to stay overnight in a Hmong village about an hour from the Nan province. We went to meet up with friends who are on a field study program there. It's amazing how different hill people culture is different from Thai culture. Hmong people don't wai like Thais do. The Hmong languages are nothing like Thai in any way, and only a few words are the same it seems. They have no writing system as far as I know. Although not having a writing system seems like it would be a hinderment, it has actually allowed these various tribes in the mountains to be very mobile and adaptable to new environments when needed. Throughout history, when people tried to subjugate them, they succeeded a lot of the time in escaping because their mountainous home is hard to reach. However, things have changed and most of the new generation of Hmong people can speak Thai.

 While Thais are mostly Buddhist with a mix of Animism, it seems to me that Hmong people emphasize Animism more than Buddhism or another religion. My Hmong host family had a special room in one corner of the house where they performed their rituals. The room had an important wooden column in it, and a spirit was believed to inhabit it. Spirits were believed to inhabit many other places in the house, but this was the most important. At the bottom of the column was some burned incense sticks. Tied to the column was a pig jaw, because a pig was slaughtered and given as an offering to the spirit. There was also a shrine to the spirit of the room attached to the wall, with burned incense and sacrificed chicken feathers. Because this is the most important room in the house, the people do not point their feet toward it when sleeping. My friend Amanda and I slept on their firm bamboo bed, which was still surprisingly comfortable. It was very nice to have a mosquito net, because I have been attacked by mosquitoes almost constantly.

A dragon spirit is believed to inhabit this lake, so the people made a spirit house for it.

The next day, we woke up very early to go on an excursion to another Hmong village up in the mountains. This village had houses with thatched roofs and the weather was cooler because of the elevation. Although the people didn't have much, they seemed very happy and were kind to us.

Hmong people! :)

Near the area where the mayor of the hill village lives, there was a random deer there. It was surprisingly doglike and liked to lick people! So cute.

While hiking, we visited a cave where ascetic monks went to escape from the outside world.

This is what was outside of the cave.

That's all for now! I'm about to go on a trek through the jungle and ride an elephant. Big animals scare me, so wish me luck! Choog dee!

Just Laugh at Life!

Last Monday was Buddha's Birthday, but the celebration began Sunday night. In Chiang Mai, thousands of people make a religious pilgrimage up the mountain in the middle of the night under the full moon. Some friends and I joined in the nine-kilometer hike to Doi Suthep. This event was a lot of fun, and it was also one of the most chaotic nights of my life.

Hiking up the trail.

First of all, the monsoon rains came in and fell very hard. We were almost sopping wet by the time we had put on our long, hooded ponchos that made us look something like Frodo from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. We crammed ourselves in a rot daeng (red vans used for public transportation). It was crazy how much it was raining. Fortunately, the rain stopped by the time we arrived at the bottom of the mountain and began hiking. There were so many people, and they would laugh at my friends and I because we were these random white people that they didn't expect to see there. Ladies were handing out free water and people were stopping along the way to pay obeisances to revered monks. After hours of hiking in the middle of the night, we finally made it to the base of the temple area. We were dead tired.

At the base of the Doi Suthep temple grounds, there is a really long, wide staircase leading up the mountain to the temple itself. Framing each side of the staircase is a long dragon sculpture going all the way up.  We had planned to climb the stairs, but there was no way that was going to happen. There were SO MANY people that the entire staircase was literally stuffed with them and they were barely moving at all. It was a sea of black hair. I had never seen so many people in one place in my life. There were thousands of them. It was kind of like a mosh pit, except everyone was calm because this was a sacred, religious event.


We said, "forget this, this is taking too long." So we decided to climb up the other side of the dragon railing, on the outside of the stairs. Luckily there was a paved area to climb there. Many people were already doing this, so we joined and we were going five times as fast as the people on the staircase. We were making progress, but we noticed that it was getting steeper and steeper. We were slipping! I couldn't help but laugh at myself and how ridiculous I was. It was a long, steep way down and if someone fell, it would have been like dominoes! Some Thai people even jumped off of the paved part and climbed through the jungle to get up to the top. It was complete chaos.


Finally, we hoisted ourselves up. It was crazy how steep it was. When we finally arrived at the temple, we heard a monk chanting a mantra over a loudspeaker. People were everywhere. Lots of people were sleeping under the roofed areas, and others were wandering, lighting candles and performing religious ceremonies. We removed our shoes and joined the crowd and circled around the main tower of the wat that points to the sky. We were about to go see the view of Chiang Mai at night, but suddenly a big, strong soldier showed up and yelled very loudly in Thai, "don't go!!" Cops were all over, regulating the scene. I was trying to figure out what was going on, and then I realized that they were clearing a path in the crowd so that the mayor could enter. After that, the hustle and bustle resumed as normal.

Despite the chaos, the atmosphere was very spiritual.

People trying to go down the stairs.

We decided it was time to leave, so we were about to go down the big stairs. The situation hadn't changed and the crowd was getting really tight, so we decided to climb down the side again for time's and claustrophobia's sake. We were just as ridiculous going down as going up. A Thai guy said "come!" to me, probably because I wasn't going fast enough. After awhile, my friend Meredith and I decided to just Rambo our way down through the jungle. The trees were not very stable--they were the kind of trees that flop around when you lean on them. On top of that, it was muddy and slippery. The whole time, I was thinking, "I am absolutely crazy."

We made it down in one piece, but I realized that my insulin pump was acting up again. (for those of you who don't know, I'm diabetic, and it's this little device that keeps me from having to take shots every time I eat.) Earlier that evening, it had been making strange beeping noises and telling me the battery was dead, when I had in fact put a new battery in. This was about the third or fourth time this was happening, and I decided to just give up and take it off. Amidst all this other crazy stuff that was going on, it was just pawdee (perfect) that my insulin pump wasn't working. Mai pen rai.

Something even more pawdee that night was all the Thai massage ladies lined up down at the temple base area near the stairs. They were giving foot and leg massages for about three or four dollars. Hello! Genius. So we took this opportunity and got foot massages on the mountain at two a.m. I was falling asleep.

We hiked down further to find a rot daeng to catch a ride down the mountain on. Needless to say, they were all totally stuffed with people. We tried to jump onto one as it was starting to pull away, but there wasn't enough room for all of us. People were climbing on top of them, on the sides, on the back, everywhere! The cops said, "don't get on top!" But the moment the cops left, people climbed on top of them. When I found a rot daeng that had just barely enough room, I hurried and jumped in. More people climbed in until there was literally no room inside. I was very lucky to get a seat. My friends were standing on the back and holding on for dear life as the vehicle turned left and right down the curving mountain trail, trying not to hit people who were hiking up. Across from me, I saw a girl talking to someone behind her. I looked through the window behind her and saw someone's legs. I realized that people were holding onto the side! I started to laugh. That is not an easy feat, especially on a winding road heading downhill.

It was about three a.m. It was Buddha's Birthday. I was in Thailand. I was crammed in a vehicle going down a mountain next to total strangers with people on the floor, on the outside, and my friends on the back of it, holding on for dear life. Out the window, I saw ambulance after ambulance going down the street, with their sirens going off. I didn't understand the language being spoken around me. I had very itchy mosquito bites all over my legs. My insulin pump wasn't working. And I was leaning my head against the inside of the rot daeng, falling asleep. I think I win.

After being in Thailand for awhile, random things don't phase me anymore. Once I was at the market and a lady was breast feeding her son while she was selling stuff to me. Just yesterday I saw a naked guy walking around (which is not normal for Thailand--he was mentally disabled) and I just looked away as if nothing had happened. I love Thailand for that reason. It's turning me into a person who can fall asleep in the back of a rot daeng amidst utter chaos. I just laugh at everything now. If there's one thing I've been learning, it's that we Americans need to calm down and just laugh at the little surprises in life! Life doesn't have to be so stressful! If you accept that you have no control over things and stop expecting things to work out a certain way, it's very liberating and life becomes more of an adventure. If you're late somewhere and caught in a traffic jam, just sit back and enjoy the scenery around you because there's nothing you can do about it. If you didn't do well on a test and there's nothing you can do to change your score, then why worry about it? You tried your best. If your insulin pump stops working, just Skype your parents in the middle of the night while you figure out how to take shots for the next three months. (Fortunately, things worked out just fine and my pump is working normally now.) Always remember mai pen rai and you'll be just fine.

I have many more stories to tell in my next post. Until then, choog dee khaa!

Adjusting

What a glorious morning it is this morning! As I woke up and was getting ready to take a nice, cold shower, I realized that I had no fresh mosquito bites. None. Unless there are some lurking somewhere where I didn't notice...but normally at this time of day, they itch like a MOTHAH, and I had no itches. Hallelujah! I think it's because I went to Seven 11 last week (there are Seven 11s everywhere) and bought some really sweet lotion that repels mosquitoes. It's only 13% DEET but it works beautifully. Go figure.

I've been helping the English teachers at a couple of schools, and it's going fantastically. My host mother is a teacher at one of the schools I help out at, my host dad teaches at the other one. Yay for free rides! The students at the schools are so dang adorable. They always look at me, smile, and wai me. Waiing is a greeting used in Thailand and some other countries. When you wai someone, you put both hands together and lower your head a little bit. Then they return your wai in a certain way depending on whether they're older than you, younger than you, or some other indicator of status. Waiing is a huge part of Thai culture.

Me with the English teacher named "Kru Bee" and some other volunteers who came to help teach.

When I walk by, the kids say "Pii Chabaa!!" (which is my Thai nickname and means "hibiscus"). Many of them say "good morning" too, and use a little bit of English on me. But then when I talk back to them and say "how are you?" some of them recite the "I'm fine, thank you" that they learned in school and others run away out of shyness. I wish they weren't so shy, because then they would learn English a lot faster! Oh well.

This lizard lives in one of the trees at the school. He can change colors. Pretty sweet.

Students meditate in the morning before class.

 The younger kids are hyper and crazy, but when I can get them to pay attention, their brains soak in the new vocabulary like a sponge soaks up water. And they can reproduce the sounds I make very well. Everyone says that childhood is the prime age to learn a language, and I agree because I've seen it firsthand. The older kids are very smart too, but a lot of them are shy because they're so afraid of making a mistake and being laughed at by their peers that they don't want to give it a try. That's one of the biggest obstacles to learning, which is unfortunate. However, when they do try, it's very fun. They love to play games, which is a great way to learn. And they love to laugh at me when I try to speak Thai to them.

I've been adjusting very well to the new surroundings and culture here. For the first month, I was having a great time but I was still struggling a lot and going through a little bit of culture shock. So many things in Thailand are different: the way people look, the way people talk, the way the scenery looks, the way people behave, what's polite and what's impolite,  what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. But last week while I was riding home in the car, I had this moment where I suddenly realized that I felt completely comfortable in Thailand. It was like this calm feeling just came over me, where everything that had been foreign to me before now seemed normal. The strange alphabet was no longer strange to me. When I see ants crawling on the table, I just ignore them. Jumping spiders don't scare me as much as they used to. It's normal to see stray dogs walking and sleeping everywhere. Crazy traffic maneuvers are commonplace. Furthermore, the idea of driving on the right side of the road weirds me out, as does the idea of not taking my shoes off when I go inside someone's house. Although I don't know everything about the language and culture, I feel like I'm not struggling to get by anymore, and the feeling is GREAT. It feels like freedom and it was worth every moment of culture shock I had to go through to get here! Although I will tell you one thing--I'm probably going to have some INTENSE reverse culture shock when I get back. I'll probably speak English weird too, and I won't be able to drive for about a week or two...so don't laugh at me.

I encourage everyone who gets the chance to drop everything and go live in a foreign country for awhile. It will change your life and your perspectives. It will open your mind a ton and you will learn more than you can imagine. It is exhilarating. Please do it, for yourself. Even if it's scary or difficult. The things that you learn from it make it all worth while. And when you come home, you come back as a better world citizen. You know more about what is going on in the world, and you are more aware of the fact that your little corner of Earth is just one small piece of a huge picture with nearly endless possibilities. When you live in another country, you realize that everything you took for granted at home may not actually be the case somewhere else. I can tell you one thing though: Everywhere you go, you will find kind, wonderful people. As Dr. Brown, the director of our Thailand program said:

 "Anyone who tells you the world is a horrible place has never left his own backyard."