6 months!

Recently I had a nice little surprise. I found an old CD that contained pictures of my first few months in site. Looking at the pictures, I realized just how much I have experienced in the 6 months that I have lived in my village.

I've had interesting meals

and met interesting people.

I've even met interesting people having interesting meals.

I’ve discovered new flavors of ice cream

and seen new ways of fishing

I’ve introduced kids to a sport I've always held dear

and they’ve introduced me to their favorite holiday

Learning about the culture has been fascinating!

From dancing

to parades




to dancing in parades




from honoring monks

to honoring structures

It's been fun

Maybe a little too fun....

Living in a village has its share of interesting and "crappy" moments—that’s just outside my door and that’s the culprit

But its mostly a very rewarding experience
It helps that I believe in my work

And that I enjoy the people I work with (most of the time)

And that I enjoy the people I work for (all the time)

Basically, life in the village has been pretty sweet....

...and pretty chill

A Blackout Story

So I’m watching the West Wing when the power suddenly goes out. It’s fine (blackouts are a common occurrence during the rainy season) until I realize that my house is the only one without power. Across the street, I can see several villagers huddled in my neighbor’s house watching a Thai television show. I tell my landlady that my power is out. She in turn tells her brother in law who then tells his father in law (my landlady’s father). My landlady’s mother (who I refer to as my grandmother) finds out and tells her cousin (who I also refer to as my grandmother). Pretty soon, I have my landlady, my grandfather, my uncle, and my two grandmothers either trying to ask me why my power is out or why they think my power is out. Of course, I do not understand much of what they are saying. I find my dictionary and with the help of my flashlight I look for the word “fuse”.

“Ah! Fui!” says grandfather and he takes me behind the house right by the cows. “Ni” he points to what I imagine is the fuse box. Only it looks less like a fuse box than it does a mini power station: a whole cluster of wires, more than a few switches, and more wires. He starts poking around and, not finding any solution, he takes me to another corner, behind the tractor. Again, I see another power station. There is a cluster of hay, and wood, and scrap metal that he has to navigate through as he pokes around. Worried that my grandfather might electrocute himself, I browse through the dictionary and find the word for electrician. “Mi chang fai fa mai?” I ask him.

“Kaw ja ma” grandfather answers, “he is coming.”

I have no idea how or when my grandfather got to contact him but stranger things have happened in Thailand. “Muaray?” I ask “when?”

“Mai nenon” he answers, "Not sure."

Such an answer in Thailand can pretty much mean the electrician is coming sometime in the next 72 hours.

Soon more villagers come. My neighbor from across the street who is pretty drunk (it is 8:30 PM after all—which means he has been drinking for roughly 5 hours) starts poking around the power stations; pulling on wires and flicking switches. I worry for him too. After several attempts he looks at me and offers a shrug.

Grandmother number one comes aside and, in a whisper almost, asks “Non ti ban dai mai?" She wants me to sleep in their house.

At this point, with the odds of me getting my power back getting slimmer with every poke and flicker of the switches, I start entertaining the idea of sleeping in my hammock. But before I can express this to grandmother, I see that my landlady is already shooing her kids away from the living room and sweeping her floor. They offer me a mosquito net. How can I refuse?

I tell them that I’ll just grab a quick shower—since the power of the village is still on, I know that I at least have running water at home. While my only source of light is my flashlight, there is enough light for me to notice little shadows running around the drain area. I shine the light and see a whole family of cockroaches running out of and around the drain. I grab a mop close by and with mop in one hand and the flashlight in the other (and the shower head between my neck and shoulders), I start attacking, hurting some and killing a few. The survivors run back inside the drain. I continue with my shower paying careful attention to whatever else might decide to come out of the drain (I’ve had centipedes and huge lizards in the past). The rest of the shower however, is uneventful.

I bring a small foldable mattress and my electric fan to my neighbors place. I notice my sleeping area has several spiders around but I am too tired to bother doing anything. I crawl under the collapsible mosquito net they have provided for me and attempt to take my fan inside. My fan is a little too big for the collapsible net they give me and I’m left with two choices: sleep in the heat or take my fan under the net and risk spiders crawling under the gap between the net and the floor. I decide to take my chances with the spiders.

I swat a few mosquitoes (they have penetrated the net), flick a few bugs (they have crawled under) and shoo a cat away (I have no idea where she came from) before I drift to sleep—thankful for the little lull in my posh corps existence.

Grasshopper Eating Students and a Terrified Volunteer

Spot Scene

I remember a book I once read (it may have been a poem) that talked about spot scenes: certain scenes from one’s life—usually pleasant—that are preserved in memory and are quite easy to conjure up… sort of like the “happy place” from Happy Gilmore. I’ve been blessed to have several spot scenes: watching the last sunset of the millennium by a pier in the Philippines with my mom and younger siblings; hiking up a hill in the middle of the night (quite inebriated of course) with college buddies; following the Isis’ gentle stream in Oxford on the way to the Trout; several moments with Caitlin; and many more. Lately, there has been one scene in particular from Thailand—not a single moment per se but a moment that occurs quite frequently—that has taken its place among my favorites. It is a scene that is always new and yet so familiar. A passage from another book I recently read describes it best. I don’t remember the exact words but it’s something to this effect: it (the scene I speak about) is like a new song that is played while you are asleep—you hear it when you awake for the first time…a strange song and yet you know it well.

And the scene is this:

I walk through a road surrounded by rice fields. It is the rainy season and the rice fields are lush carpets of green with hints of red, and yellow, and golden brown strewn about. Above me, the sky is clear save for a few well-fed clouds playfully making shapes. My students walk beside me laughing; teaching me Thai words while I teach them English. We laugh together as we avoid cow patties and little dead snakes on the road. Every now and then, rice farmers will pass us, heading home after a long day in the fields, their makeshift tractors coated in mud, old shirts still wrapped around their heads. They look at me and while all I can see is their eyes, I see them smile with appreciation. They know why I am here. I smile back, glad to be a part of their children’s lives…and thankful that they are a part of mine. My students and I keep walking. We pass little ponds filled with beautiful lilies and wave at other kids biking by, three kids to a bike…sometimes even four. The boys talk to me of David Beckham and the girls show me key chains of Korean and Japanese pop stars. The girls giggle as they push each other to invite me to their homes to drink water. Every now and then, they will ask me, “Do you love Mali?” (Mali, which is Thai for Jasmine, is the nickname my community gave Caitlin during her visit). They all swoon and giggle when I say “yes.” I walk some more as my students run around picking random fruit from trees and bushes, trying to get me to taste them. They stop insisting as soon as I give them the English name for the fruit and instead focus their energies on trying to pronounce the new words correctly. We laugh some more and we keep laughing until we reach the main road. Here, they all scurry off to their homes, but not without saying “goodbye teacher” and giving me a wai. I watch them walk off before I hop on my bike and head home.
It is a beautiful scene—always new and yet so familiar.

Like a new song that is played while I am asleep—I hear it when I awake for the first time…a strange song and yet one I know quite well.

Ultimate Ultimate Frisbee

Here’s an idea to assess a foreign language learner’s proficiency—have the language learner teach children who speak nothing but the target language a new game. And I’m not talking about Snakes and Ladders here or even Dodge Ball. No. I’m thinking more along the lines of hmm, say…Ultimate Frisbee. If anything, it will be entertaining. Believe me, I should know.

It was innocuous enough at first. I was passing the Frisbee around with two students and after a while, when I noticed they were getting bored, I decided to teach them Frisbee Golf. I figured it would be a fun, easy game to explain…which it was. It was also tremendously boring given the fact that my two playmates had no idea whatsoever on how to throw a frisbee. Soon, a little crowd gathered to watch the foreigner and two of their friends throw the “UFO” at trees (yup, that’s what they called it. They don’t quite understand what “paper” or “blue pen” means but they all know “UFO”). Anyhow, I soon notice the energy level dropping again. So I get the brilliant idea of introducing Ultimate Frisbee. I figure since there’s a bunch of kids, I can get them all involved. I say the word “teams” which they all understand and they begin running towards me wanting to be on my team (I am the cool, UFO wielding foreigner after all). To be fair, I tell the 5th graders to go be on the other team and I stick myself with two 3rd graders, a 1st grader, a 4th grader who looked like he could be beaten up by the 1st grader , and a 6th grader (I wasn’t about to give away all the talent).

After 5 minutes (and a million gestures…think charades) of trying to explain the game in Thai, I noticed that the kids were getting antsy (I don’t blame them. I was getting antsy just listening to myself).

“Kao jai mai?” I finally ask them, “Do you understand?”
“Kao jai!” they shout, excited that we might actually get started before the cows come back to graze in the field (This is an interesting point. Not only is this field the school field, but also the community soccer field, and a popular spot for the cows to graze on.)

So we play. Of course, it becomes clear to me that I might have left out one not too minor detail when I gave the rules: that dropped catches are an automatic turn over. You’d think I’d pick up on this right away (I am a pretty smart guy after all) but I was just so excited to be expanding these kids’ cultural and physical horizons that it took three of my kids literally diving for the rolling frisbee and then wrestling each other in the ground for possession to make me realize I had missed a key rule. One very cool thing about Thai kids though (and I think this is probably true of kids everywhere) is that they just like having fun. And wrestling for a frisbee amidst a field strung generously with cow dung is…well, fun! Kids don’t like getting caught up in all the technical nuances of a game. Just let us play is their collective mindset. So play we did. And it was an absolute blast! Sure, some kids got pretty banged up and a lot of knees were scraped, but they loved it. Plus, my little rules blunder actually worked out because no one knew how to throw the frisbee anyway! The disc spent more time rolling on the ground than soaring in the air. As long as it got anywhere remotely close to the designated end zone, there was always a kid willing to take it for the team who would jump on top of the frisbee (thereby sacrificing scrapes and bruises and ensuring that their mother would have more laundry to do) thus securing possession and therefore earning a point.
It was an afternoon filled with fun and laughter and I was reminded of two facts of life:

1) Kids are absolutely fantastic
----------and-----------

2) I may have my work cut out for me when it comes to learning Thai but damnit, I make for an incredible charades player.

It's a Wild World

Just finished playing basketball with some of my kids and I'm about to head home and bask in a little slice of heaven I call the cold shower (today was ridiculously hot and humid!) but just wanted to share some amusing bits from the afternoon.

So I'm dribbling the basketball around waiting for school to finish when I see a bunch of my students screaming and running away from one of the teachers. So I head over to see what the commotion is about and there, wrapped around the teacher's shoulders, is this huge snake! So of course everyone is excited to see how the foreigner reacts to the creature (the kids make it a point to show me every insect they get their hands on whether it be deepfried--yup they eat bugs over here--or still alive). The teacher comes close enough for me to see that the snake is at least 6 feet long and not very friendly looking. I, of course, manage to keep an interested face--I nod as the students ask me whether I like snakes--and somehow maintain the poise of someone for whom being several inches from a 6 foot snake is a normal occurence. The teacher, satisfied that there will be no crazy facial expressions from this foreigner, turns around and heads to the school soccer field. I follow curious to see what fate awaits the 6 foot beast. Will it be burned? Beheaded, it's corpse left to feed the ants? Or is snake a delicacy here?

The snake is set free.

With all the questions running through my mind, I forget that I am still in Thailand--a land where people don't just go about killing animals. It's weird because despite the number of insects I've been offered to eat, I have NEVER seen any Thai actually kill a bug of any sorts. A mosquito is feasting on your leg? Shoo it away, that's what your hands are for. So there was the 6 foot snake, on the soccer field and the teacher actually had to chase and shoo it away. So now, not only does my school soccer field double as a grazing field for the village cows, but it's apparently a sanctuary for 6 foot snakes as well. Lovely.

About 10 minutes later, while playing basketball, three of the dogs that hang out in my school (some of them even walk in during my classes...as I type this, one of them is actually under the computer table asleep) had a little argument that they chose to settle...physically. These 3 went all out, howling and snarling and biting and wrestling each other to the ground. Of course none of the kids were surprised by this and instead focused their attention on the foreigner's reaction. I think I maintained a pretty stoic face (though I was a little concerned as the melee inched closer to the basketball court). Almost simultaneously, the chickens next door decided to settle their own little argument physically and while they weren't loud enough to drown out the growling (and whimpering) of the dogs, they made quite a scene of their own. Between the brawl of the dogs, and the ruckus caused by the chickens, and the knowledge that a 6 foot snake was roaming my soccer field, and that a huge beatle with a mettalic green coat was being shoved into my face by my students, I could not help but just laugh at the situation. It was all at once bizzare and amusing and, once I knew all the dogs involved in the fray made it out okay, most entertaining. What a wild world!

Monks By The Lake

To clear my head (I find that I need to do this often) I usually go for a walk. One of the best things about living in a village is that, if you learn how to appreciate the simple things of life, you never run out of beautiful things to see--whether it be a new tree you never noticed before, or a new path you never took, or simply watching the villagers go about their daily lives. Two days ago, I came across some young monks hanging out by the lake. I've walked past this particular lake several times but I never noticed the little dock that the monks were sitting on. One of them was a friend of mine who recently became a monk (all Thai men are encouraged to don the robe once in their life even if only for a short period of time) and he invited me to sit with them. As I sat there, I could hear the singing coming from the temple beside the lake and it was just perfect. I sat with them for about 40 minutes, answering the questions they had about America and asking them questions about life as a monk. Eventually an older monk who spoke a little bit of English arrived and we got to talk about life in the village and such. It was a great way to spend the afternoon and reaffirmed my belief that there are many special things to see out there...you just need to get out of your chair, get up, and walk to see them.

Some pics:

"Excuse Me, What's Your Name?"

They come out of nowhere
As if from some enchanted game
The village kids come asking
“Excuse me, what’s your name?”

No time to think about it
Nor wonder from where they came
The village kids come asking
“Excuse me, what’s your name?”

Take whatever route you wish to
Every road turns out the same
When the village kids come asking
(Every day they come asking)
Yes, the village kids come asking
“Excuse me, what’s your name?”

Who you are does not matter
Be you man or be you dame
The village kids come asking,
“Excuse me what’s your name?”

Your mood does not matter
Be you ill-tempered or be you tame
The village kids come asking
“Excuse me what’s your name?”

No method to the madness
No rhyme, scheme, nor aim
The village kids come asking
(Everyday they come asking)
Yes the village kids come asking,
“Excuse me what’s your name?”