Passover Robbery and Easter

April 23

Today started amazing and ended terribly. I got to skype with my parents and grandma in the morning, then ran over to Ruth and Sacha’s for homemade buttermilk pancakes made from scratch! Monica just came back from her vacation in Australia, so she joined us as well. She works with Sacha at Partners and they do work in Burma. Mon is a mid-wife and nurse. Anyway, we had a lovely breakfast and chat and just hung out. Mon pointed out that we were very multi- cultural that morning: one Aussie, one Kiwi, one Canadian and one American.

After breakfast, we gathered around Sacha’s computer to watch some Community. (Ironic, right? Community watching Community. haha). People have been telling me for ages that I would love that show, and they were right! Ruth has the whole first season and most of the second on her computer, so we watched a few eps, then I had to head out to Inna’s to help prep for Passover dinner tonight. Last week at swimming, a group of us discussed what we should do for Easter and we ended up deciding to make a Passover sedar, which was the Last Supper of Jesus and the disciples. I haven’t done one in years, despite my best efforts to put one together last year, and Inna hasn’t ever hosted one, so it was fun for us to pull it all together. We went shopping for some of the stuff on Wednesday and people contributed things during the week, til we had all the ingredients for a fun sedar.

At Inna’s, I chopped onions, made crepes, boiled eggs, helped set up the table, looked up the plagues of Egypt and other assorted tasks to get ready for everyone coming at 6. Inna’s Thai friend, Mint, was also there helping. She is so sweet, she kept saying she could only help prep, but couldn’t stay for dinner, yet she kept staying and staying, until she was the last person to leave! Haha. It was nice talking to her a bit about where she’s working in Chiang Mai and how she knows Inna.

After setting up the Sedar plates, Inna and I changed into something a bit more presentable than scruffy jeans and tank tops and people started to arrive.  Here are the people who came: Rochelle, and two of her friends, John (Bible study), Kelly (houseboats), Jane (Bible study), Dane (friend of Jaz’s), Jaz, Mint, Inna and I.

Inna did a great job of hosting Passover; she is actually Jewish, so she knows all the Hebrew blessings, and it was awesome to hear them sung properly. We did the ceremonial hand washing, dipped things in salt water to represent the tears of the oppressed Jewish people in Egypt, talked about the things on the Sedar plate and what they meant, talked about the plagues of Egypt that led to the Jewish people being set free, and culminated in discussing the Passover itself, where the Angel of Death bypassed the Jewish homes. It was so interesting to hear the correlation between the Jewish Sedar and what we as Christians believe. Like the fact that when they put lamb’s blood on the doors, they did so in the sign of a cross.

In a sedar, there are 4 glasses of wine (or grape juice, in our case) drunk. At each of these, you eat a piece of matzah from the plate on the table and drink your own glass of wine. The third piece of matzah is called the Bread of Affliction, and it was this that Jesus broke during the last supper. In Jewish Passover, this is traditionally passed around and each person breaks off a piece. How cool that we can do it as Christians and it represents Jesus breaking his body for us.

After that, comes the Cup of Redemption that is also passed around from person to person. This is where, in the Last Supper, Jesus spoke of his blood being spilled for us. Man, that was a powerful moment in the dinner. I think we were all contemplating the enormity of what Easter season really means and how blessed we all are to be here and be able to celebrate it together in such an amazing place and amazing way.

After dinner, we all had some lively discussions and I talked a lot to Kelly and Aimee about why we were here, what brought us here and how God is doing things in our lives. It was a fun night!

I came home with a goody bag for Ruth and Mon, who had to miss it because they were waiting for a new fridge to be delivered. (Ruth and Sacha got a brand new fridge, but it stopped functioning after about 10 hours, so they had to get it replaced.) We all (Ruth, Sacha, Mon, me) watched a movie, and then went off to our respective beds to get a little sleep before church today. I got a phone call about 5 minutes later from Sacha in tears, saying that her brand new MacBook Pro with all her graphic design stuff on it for work had been stolen, along with her laptop bag! Plus, she had been unable to back up her work of the past year, so that is not recoverable. Such terrible news!

We later found out that in our neighborhood, there has been a rash of laptop theft over the past few months. So scary, that people can violate your space so easily and you don’t even realize for hours. We just have to be more careful about leaving our back doors open when we are hanging out at each others’ houses. So disappointing, because that is one of the things I love about living here, the fact that we are all friends and had the ability and the security to be able to leave our doors open, since there’s a 10-foot wall topped with barbed wire on the only side of the courtyard without an apartment. Guess you are never as safe as you think.  

Easter

April 24, 2011

I realized this week that this is the fifth country I have spent Easter in: US, Northern Ireland, England, Jordan, and now Thailand. It’s pretty cool that I’ve gotten to celebrate it in such different ways all over the world. This morning I was a Sacha and Ruth’s while the police came and talked to Sacha and then she went to the police station to make a report, poor thing, while Ruth and I went to church. Sacha ended up spending the day with her brother and sister-in-law who are in town visiting for a few weeks, so that was good.

Ruth and I went to a house church made up of mostly Americans, a few Candians, and some people from other countries, but it’s all English speakers. I have realized in my church attendance here that the churches here are very different from LA. They are all very homogeneous. Either it’s 99% Thai people or 99% white people, or 99% Chinese people, but so far I have encountered no churches with a true multi-racial makeup. Just an interesting observation.

Church was nice though, and we saw our friend Ben, who came to dinner with us last week. I didn’t know anyone, and Ruth only knew one or two people since she just started going there herself, but it was still nice to have a little group of people to celebrate Easter with. After church, Ruth and I went to meet up with Jaz, Kelly, Cath, Mon and Jaz’s friend Candace for lunch at Jerusalem Falafel. Yummy! Perfect place to celebrate Easter lunch.

Later we went to Kelly’s place for an evening swim, then decided to make dinner at home. It was nice to hang out and spend Easter night with Ruth, Jaz and Mon, our other neighbor. Have I mentioned I love our little community here at the townhouse complex? J Overall, a fun, though low-key holiday!

First Week Back

April 18-22, 2011

**As always, kids’ names changed for protection. Sophie picked her name herself. :) **

Monday was staff meeting and prep day. This week I am teaching school supplies again. The kids only had one full day of vocab before break, so this will be a good review for them and teach them some new words. I came up with a lesson plan for every day so that I’d be prepared for the week. Ha. The best laid plans…. After our meeting, Field, Ning, P’Bua, Inna and I went to lunch at the same place we did last Monday. Yummy again! Later I did some more prep with Field and she decided she wanted to give each class level a new name instead of just Beginner, Intermediate, etc. So we brainstormed for awhile, and decided that the littlest kids would be Dolphins, my class will be Penguins, Inna’s class will be Tigers and the oldest kids will be Eagles. See the progression from water animal, to water and land animal, to land animal, to sky animal? Cool, huh? Field thought of that. Dolphins are playful and fun, so that’s perfect for the little ones, penguins are so cute and fun too, tigers are strong and courageous, and eagles can fly highest and are the most majestic in the sky. We are going to unveil the new names, along with the new curriculum, in May, once the kids are back in school and we go back to the regular schedule.  

Tuesday: Started off great. I helped P’Bua with dinner, learned a few vocab words with Lucy, played with the kids some, and then we had reading time. I love this time because it’s with a mix of the kids from my English class, Inna’s class and Elizabeth’s class (now Judy’s while she is in the US). The kids get to show off their reading and comprehension skills and I get to explain some English words in a fun setting, rather than a full-on classroom setting. Today, I had Sophie, Nat, Fiona, Willow, Molly, Aaron, Ben, Elliott and Yvonne. They all clustered around the table and first I read to them, having them sound out and say some choice words, and describing them as best I could. That took about 15 minutes.

I had Sophie pick out a book to read, she chose Mother Goose. Great, a book full of words that we don’t use in colloquial speech anymore. Haha. Oh, well, it was fun to read anyway. After we finished that one, we still had some time, so the girls picked Green Eggs and Ham. Good old Dr. Seuss. By this point, the room had split up into girls and boys. So, I had the boys read Sam I Am’s part and the girls read the “I do not like them, Sam I Am” parts. It was pretty funny. I think they had a good time. It’s fun getting to know the kids’ personalities more. Nat is great at sounding out and reading English, so is Fiona. But, the other kids are not intimidated by this, they try just as hard, so I made sure to give each kid the chance to read some words on their own and not let the best kids jump in and say all the words before the other kids had a chance to.  

Sophie especially I have been getting to know better. She likes to play the guitar and often grabs it after English class and practices strumming. I taught her the D chord, so now when I see her, I always have her play that one. She is one of the kids whose homes we visited in November, and we bought a bunch of handicrafts from her mom, who then gave us snacks and cool sequin elephant bags. Her dad died in September, so I have a soft spot for her.

English class: So, as great as my kids were last time I taught, that’s how bad they were the first day back from holiday. Oy. I had a plan. I had a good plan. Field had even decided that I would just start off teaching the kids all by myself, because she is so busy anyway. I was excited about this. And then.

See, normally, I have between 6 and 8 kids in my regular class. Well, since Ning’s kids are off school, they have been coming too, which makes my class have 3 extra kids. My classroom is very small, with tile walls that just bounce the sound around. It can get very loud even when there are not 9 kids screaming over each other. The day started off with two of the boys,  Elliott and Flynn, punching at each other and just messing around, and that continued the rest of class. Then as the other kids filed in, the noise level just rose and rose. We started playing a game, but Flynn said something to Faith to set her off, and she tossed her cards down the table and decided she was not playing anymore. Then Flynn said something else, which sent her out of the room to the bathroom. I was like “Uh. What just happened?” I grabbed Judy to come figure out what had transpired, and she got the story and went to talk to Faith. She came back in the class, and at first didn’t want to play the game, but decided that everyone was having so much fun, she wanted in on the action, so she joined.

Later, Faith and Bastian got in a heated argument about something. Don’t know what. Elliott and Flynn were still fighting, so I had to separate them, and I tried to separate Faith and Bastian, but there’s only so much space in this room! I nabbed Ning to explain the rules of another game I wanted them to play, so that went better. There was no keeping them quieter than a dull roar though, no matter what I did. I decided I need to learn some more phrases like: sit down, listen please, no yelling, quiet please, and stop fighting. Dude.

 After that exhausting hour, I went downstairs for dinner and was talking to Winnie and Sophie for a bit. They were eating mangoes with this salt and chili mix and Sophie was joking around saying the salt was like the salt from sweat. She scooted over on the steps so I could sit down with them, and she asked me (again) what my name was. I told her and she asked what my nickname was. I said I didn’t have one, and she took it upon herself to bestow one on me. Guess what it is. Pa’kaa. It means “sour fish,” like the kind they put in som tam, or papaya salad. It was funny, but I was like “uh, should I be offended?” Then she gave Inna the nickname that means “spicy crab” which is another ingredient in som tam. She said she was manou, lime, and I was like “Hey! Why do you get to be lime and I’m sour fish? I want to be lime!” We were all laughing so hard. Then Field is like “Oh, it’s a good name. People like papaya salad. It’s funny.” I respond with “Yeah, it’s funny to you. That’s because it’s not YOUR name!” haha.

Wednesday: So, the nickname saga continued today. Sophie persisted in calling me the nickname and Lucy said I should just respond with “pa kaa now” which means “smelly sour fish.” Take that, Sophie! Well, the day started out with lunch with Inna. When we got back, there was sweet little Cassie, drawing on the bench, just like she had been there all along! I was so happy to see her! I got to hang out with her for a little bit. I wanted to just pick her up and hug her, but I didn’t want to freak her out, so I just sat next to her, and eventually she crawled on my lap to watch Snow White.

I had a Thai lesson with Lucy, though, so when she came, I had to put Cassie down. She was sad, but I told her I’d see her later. I learned some more sentence structure today, as well as the first 10 letters of the Thai alphabet. There are 44! I almost gave up before I started when I heard that. But, I figured I would start slowly and build on what I learned. At least I can have a foundation and learn letters as I learn words and sentences.

It was so funny, out of the blue, Lucy says “it’s not a beautiful name, Pa Kaa. No. You need a new nickname.” I totally agree!! After our lesson, Lucy was writing her name in Thai characters on the board, and I asked her to write mine, but it’s not translatable into Thai. Isn’t that sad? So far that makes five languages that my name is not translatable into: Arabic, Farsi, Spanish, Hebrew and Thai. Sigh. 

English class today was great! The kids were so well-behaved (other than Flynn, who I am beginning to suspect has ADHD) and are learning so well. Today I tried to get them to spell out the school supplies. It’s funny, when I write them on the board, they know immediately what word it is, but when I want them to spell it, they have absolutely no idea. Field wants me to teach them phonetics when we start the new curriculum in May. They can do word recognition, but they don’t really know how to sound out or read things. I did a little of that today as a sort of introduction, so hopefully we can build on that.

I decided that behavior will be points based. The kids HATE losing points, so if they start losing points based on how they behave, that might make them toe the line more, especially the boys.

After class, Judy was hanging out with Fiona, Lucy, Winnie and Sophie. I sat with them for a while, and Sophie was teasing me with the name again. Fiona was like “No, that’s not a good name.” Lucy said she wanted Manou and Fiona agreed. I was like “yeah! 2 against 1!” We went down for dinner, and after dinner, Cassie came over and climbed on my lap and just sat with me for the rest of the evening. During this time, Sophie came out and declared that my new name should be clue-ay, which means “banana.” Hey, I’ll take it, if the alternative is sour fish! She said too many people are named Manou, so I should be clue-ay. She was also talking about eating s’mores again, like we did in November, so I have to get some of the ingredients for that. They still have an entire case of Hershey’s bars from November in the freezer, so we just need marshmallows and crackers. Shouldn’t be too hard. I think we’ll plan to do s’mores and face painting for a special event one month.

We are planning to do a special outing or event every 3 months, so there will be 4 in the next year. I think we will end up doing s’mores, a movie, the zoo and something else. Should be fun planning it!

After dinner, sweet little Cassie, came up and crawled right up on my lap while she ate her dessert. I just love that kid! She’s always so content to just chill out on your lap and watch the other kids run around like crazy. I’m so glad she’s staying with Ning!

Thursday: Today’s English class was not as bad as Tuesday, but not as good as yesterday. I had 10 kids today in that small little classroom. We played a game where I used my backpack and put different school supplies in it. Each kid came up and would pull out whatever was in the bag and tell me what it was. I changed it up for each kid, so they got to practice different things. They seemed to have fun, and I guess that’s all I can ask for! Of course, with ten kids whose language I don’t speak, it’s next to impossible to get them all to calm down and pay attention. As soon as I have one set of kids’ attention, I lose another set, and they are all talking. I think it will be much easier when I only have the kids who are actually in the program, and not Ning’s extra kids, much as I love them. They are super cute, and pretty well behaved, and smart too! I just think it will be much easier to keep control when there are fewer kids.

A couple cool things happened this week though. One, Judy told me the kids had been really quiet going downstairs, which surprised me, since they usually tear out of there before I can remind them to be quiet on the stairs. I have to remember to give them extra points for that next week. Second, Judy has been asking Inna and me to pray for the kids before they leave class. I thought I’d see if any of the kids wanted to pray today. I figured that they would be too shy, but why not ask? So, both Faith and Willow volunteered! And they prayed substantial prayers too. All I understood was them thanking God for me teaching them English, but they went on for about 3 minutes each! I was so impressed and pround of them. J

After dinner, Sophie decided I should learn more of the letters of the alphabet, so she showed me where on the wall the alphabet is printed out. I always thought those letters were the names of the colors of the paper they are printed on, but it’s really the alphabet! Lucy’s 4-year-old baby cousin wanted me to pick her up, so as I was saying the letters, sometimes she would correct me. It was so cute!! After we went all the way through the alphabet, Lucy said she knew all the letters, so that little one recited the entire alphabet. This doesn’t sound like much, but every single letter in the Thai alphabet is at least 2 syllables to say. Most are 4 syllables. Lucy taught her cousin all the words, so I think she’ll be a great pre-school teacher (that’s what she wants to study)! She just needs to get her ID card so she can finish university. 

Ning told me this morning that last night when she was putting all the kids to bed, she asked Cassie if she missed her mom and Cassie said “No! I’m having fun!” They have 8 kids in the house now, but the extra beds they ordered have still not arrived, so she was setting up air mattresses for the two new girls. The other girls all wanted to sleep on the floor too, so Ning pulled all their mattresses off the beds and pushed them all together so they could sleep like that. When she went to check on them about 30 minutes later, they were all sleeping together in a pile, like in Where the Wild Things Are. I think that is the cutest thing ever! She was sad she didn’t have her camera with her, because it was such a cute sight.

Today, Cassie was nearly inconsolable because she missed her mom so much. I’m not sure what set her off, but she was sobbing with Judy. Later, I was holding her too as she was crying. Poor thing, she’s had to go through so much this year. She’s supposed to see her mom tomorrow, so I think she’ll feel better after that.

Friday: Today, went to get my work visa. Yay! Finally approved. We thought that the next step was to request a letter to be made up to extend my visa for a year. But, apparently the laws changed again, and now I have to be working for 3 months before we can apply for that. This means that instead of paying to extend my visa just once, I have to pay to extend it twice. Sigh. I keep thinking that when I finally finish jumping through all these hoops, it will be time for me to leave! So frustrating. Oh, well, at least I won’t have to leave the country again!

Other cool news about that trip: when Dae was talking to the lady about visa extensions and stuff, they actually talked about The Garden of Hope, and it turns out that this office, which works with the Department of Child Welfare, has heard good things about TGOH. They want to come observe for a few days and see how it works with the volunteers and the Thai staff, like how we run English classes and activities with the kids. If they are as impressed with it as I think they will be, they want to copy the model and start using it with government programs in the rural areas of Chiang Mai that work with hill tribe families. Isn’t that awesome? I am so excited by the possibility! Of course, a large part of what we do is teaching Bible stories and songs, so I don’t know how much of that would be copied if it were a government program. Even so, exciting developments. We also met some people today who are interested in coming to volunteer for a few months. The couple would come for 6 months and a couple girls from YWAM want to come for the month of May. Since we lost Dtom (she went to help her family in her village, since her mom is sick) we are short staffed for sure, so extra hands will be amazing.

So, back at Taw Saeng, I played bingo with the little kids, watched the teenagers use       play-doh to recreate scenes from Easter week, did a guitar lesson with Field, Abby, Nat and Ben, then had dinner. I ate upstairs where we do worship in the mornings and Faa, Ning’s sister who runs the orphanage, ate with us and we had a great conversation. She told us about some of the kids in the house, the type of backgrounds they had, about her own history, which is also Ning’s history to an extent, how she’s working with a lawyer to get foundation status so she can get more monetary help from the government, etc. I was really excited to talk to her, because I have so many questions about all that stuff, and it seems that there’s never enough time to have long conversations with Ning and Faa during the day, when we are all running around keeping the kids entertained. I’d love to spend more time with them, especially now that I know the kids a lot better, since they’ve been coming every day for the last couple weeks. Faa also was telling us about Cassie, how she, and all the kids, actually, had come to the house with just a plastic bag of clothes. Cassie had 2 skirts, 2 shirts, one pair of pants, 2 pairs of socks, and one pair of underwear and shoes. So, tomorrow she is taking her shopping for new clothes, a school uniform (the kids go to a private Christian school) and then to the doctor to see if she is malnourished or needs medicine for any lingering effects of the assault in November. I’m so thankful that God has intervened and allowed Faa and Ning to take over the care of this sweet little kid. I really think she might be saving her life.

Song Kran Festival

April 15-17, 2011

When I woke up this week, my first thought was “OK, Back to work!” But then I remembered, I still have 3 days off! And this week is the Song Kran festival! This is to celebrate Thai New Year and it involves a city-wide water fight for most of the week. Water is considered cleansing and the festival began with monks lightly pouring water on elderly and respected people as blessings. The beginning of the week still starts this way, but by Wednesday, the city turns into an all out water-war zone. As you drive down the street, people fling water onto cars from the sides of the street and ride in the backs of trucks with buckets tossing water to other vehicles and to the people on the sides of the road. Some people fill up their buckets with huge blocks of ice to turn the water into freezing ice water and fling it on you. That is shocking when you get doused with glacier water while it’s 80+ degrees outside!

Since we were at the houseboats until Thursday, we went to “play Song Kran” on Friday. The place to be for this is the moat around the old city wall. We (Jaz, Sacha, Kelly, Rachel and I) took the truck, with squirt guns and buckets in tow and headed for the wall. We started at Gad Suan Kgaew shopping center, where they had shut down the street to traffic and it was just a mass of humanity walking around spraying perfect strangers with water. The closest experience I can compare it to is New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas. Just a joyous feeling in the air, lots of food vendors out, and, of course, squirt gun salesmen! Plus, they sell these great waterproof bags to put your money or phone or cameras in. They are seet-through, so you can still take pictures through them, it just give the photos a cool filter tint!

Along Gad Suan Kgaew were a string of stages where live music was being performed. On the moat side, there was even a huge foam machine pouring out on the audience so it was like a big bubble bath. It looked so fun! We walked along one whole side of the moat, got some food, took a ton of pictures, and just had loads of fun being in a water fight with an entire city. It was so great to see whole families riding in the back of a truck, little kids getting in on the action, even monks were squirting people from a truck! You are not supposed to touch monks because they have this whole cleansing ritual they have to do if they touch a woman, so I was asking Sacha whether it’s against the rules to squirt a monk, when one squirt me right in the head! I figured, hey, he fired first, there are no rules in war! So we all squirted the monks as they fought back. It was so funny, and such a surreal moment, these proper guys in their shaved heads and orange tunics just pounding us with water. Only in Thailand, eh? 

Song Kran happens at the height of the hot season, so when we arrived at about 3pm, it was the peak of the heat of the day, so getting ice cold water poured on us actually felt awesome. It also soothed my sunburn under my tank top, so I didn’t mind it much. However, about 6pm, Sacha and I were starting to be over the whole scene, especially since the sun was starting to set and it was cooling off. By that point, my tank top was so plastered to my skin that the addition of ice cold water was actually hurting, so we decided to head back, while Jaz, Rachel and Kelly continued on through the Old City to the Thapae Gate, where there was a HUGE party raging with a bunch of their other friends. We came back to pick them up at about 8, and they had tales of greatness to tell. There are some great videos and pics that Jaz took that were super funny. 

Saturday I did a whole lot of nothing most of the day. Ruth had promised to teach me to ride a motorbike and she also wanted to go try out a Unanese restaurant, but she forgot about the restaurant and made plans with another friend to get dinner. But, she still gave me a driving lesson! She has the kind of motorbike with a kickstart engine, instead of automatic, so I got to practice that. It isn’t too hard, but she said in the cooler months, it can take up to 10 minutes to start it! Her bike is also a manual, so I wanted to try driving it since those types of bikes are cheaper than automatics. I figure that since I know how to drive a stick-shift car, I should be fine.

So, we go to the Chiang Mai campus and find a deserted road to practice on. First, Ruth shows me all the different parts and what they do. It’s pretty much like riding a ten speed bike, only you shift with your feet and there’s only one hand brake instead of two. Ruth has me drive up and down the road, practicing shifting and then practice turning. I pick it up pretty quickly, since I know how to ride a bike and can feel when I should shift. I’m not that great at turns, though. I always feel like if I turn too sharply, I’m going to lose my balance and crash and if I don’t turn sharply enough, I’ll crash into another vehicle! Well, apparently Ruth thinks I’m doing well enough that I need to try driving with another person on the back.

I’m like “OK, this is where I am freaked out by the awesome responsibility of having another person’s life in my hands, when I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING!” She’s like “Eh, you’ll be fine.” Thanks for the confidence. When she first gets on, I’m holding up the bike and she starts shifting around, all fidgety, to show me what some people are like as a passenger. I’m struggling to hold it up, yelling “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT??!!!” as the bike nearly falls. This is my lesson in keeping control of a bike with my hips, not my hands. OK, lesson learned. But still. WHY would you do that?!?!

Next up, she wants me to drive in traffic. I think this is an ill-fated idea, but she insists. We drive to the end of the deserted street to where the main road through campus is. During this short stretch, Ruth informs me that she is not even holding on. OK, that freaks me out even more. Bad enough that I have your life in my hands, on a vehicle that has NO protective gear around us and a helmet that will probably protect our heads, but not the rest of our bodies in the event of a crash, and now you inform me that you AREN’T HOLDING ON?! What is WRONG with you?! Anyway, I start to turn right, and freak out because I can feel myself not turning sharply enough, yet still losing my balance and I’m like “Augh!! I’m crashing!!” But, I recover and we’re fine. Ruth is like “Uh, what happened there?” I explain my whole sharp turn versus balance thing, and by this point, we’re at the roundabout, so we turn left, which is much easier than turning right. I practice shifting gears, and do a U-turn at the end of a median to go back through campus. I practice going over speed bumps, stopping and turning.

At one stop and turn, I turn left way too wide, and yell “Augh!! I’m in the right lane! I’m in the right lane!” to which Ruth calmly responds “So get in the left lane.” Did I mention they drive on the left side of the road here? Yeah, that takes some getting used to. We find a little parking lot with an island that I can drive around so Ruth can show me how to come to a sudden stop. She wants me to practice using both hand and foot brakes. My fear is that I’ll use them both, come to a sudden stop, and go flying over the handlebars! Luckily, that doesn’t happen. We circle a couple times with Ruth showing me how to come to sudden stop, then she has me practice alone, and then with her as an extra person. Again, scary. Life in my hands and all that. It’s fine though, no disasters or crashes. Whew. Ruth asks if I want to drive home on the HUGE highway that we live on, with people flying past at 70km an hour. Nope. I have no desire to do that. So, she drives home. All in all, a pretty good lesson. I think I have a passable understanding of the mechanics of driving a motorbike, even on with gears and a kick start. Not bad for only and hour and a half!

Sunday, Jaz ended up sleeping in, Ruth decided to go to her Thai church, Inna had a flat tire and I didn’t have Kelly’s number, so I couldn’t get a ride to church. L Sad times. I read instead, and then went to lunch with Jaz and Nu’D, her friend from Bangkok who is very sweet. A big group of us went to Kelly’s for sangria, salsa and chips and swimming. Fun! Of course, after we spent half an hour plastering on the sunscreen, we got to the pool and it started raining about 30 minutes after we got there! We swam in the rain for a bit, but then it started pouring and even that was nice. But, then we saw a huge bolt of lightening and this amazing, loud crack of thunder, and you never saw 6 people get out of a pool so fast! This group was Jaz, Inna, Sacha, Kelly B (who lives there), Kelly C (who I just met), Nu’D and me. We ended up just chatting and drinking sangria for a couple hours til we got hungry.

After some debate about where to go for dinner, we decided on Jerusalem Falafel because the lady who runs it is from Jerusalem, which just so happens to have the best falafel I have ever eaten. So, we trooped out, all but Kelly C. who was feeling ill. Ruth was also sick, so she didn’t come out either. Dane and Ben ended up meeting us there though, so it was a nice group. Good conversation and good food, right next to the pretty part of the moat at Thapae Gate.

At dinner, Dane decided we should have a bonfire and roast marshmallows, so Sacha dropped the rest of us at Kelly’s, went to the store and got some supplies. We fired up the fire pit in the backyard (hardly a bonfire, but sufficient for s’mores!) and had a nice old campfire time. We even got Anthony and Jono (new to me, but just leaving Thailand) to come over too. Ruth was feeling a little better, so she joined us for a while too. Back to work tomorrow. I’m excited!

Community

When I went to college, one of my favorite things about dorm living with the innate sense of community it inspired. I loved the fact that while I had my own space, if I got bored or lonely, there was always someone around to hang out with. There was always someone to eat with, walk to class with, or veg out with. I was so sad at the end of that year because I knew it was the kind of experience that would never be repeated. Imagine my surprise and happiness when I discovered that that same experience is being repeated here in Thailand, of all places.

I have happened upon the best type of community. The built-in kind, here in my little apartment complex, with the addition of nearby friends, always willing to share a meal or watch a movie, or let me use the piano. :) This trip to the houseboats was an awesome extension of that community. Jaz, the amazing organizer/roommate, had organized a 3-day adventure to the Mae Na dam where people can rent out houseboats for a few days. Some people actually live out there full-time. Jaz knows a British guy named Tom who owns a houseboat that is way, way out in the dam, isolated from the other dams in its own little inlet.

The boat group consisted of: Jaz, Ruth, Sacha, Keith and his girlfriend Tik, Inna, Kate and her visting friends Sarah and Hannah, Anthony from Bible study, and Kelly, who runs a fair trade jewelry business. Oh, and me of course. Ruth, Kelly and I arrived Wednesday morning and Kate, Hannah and Sarah were planning to leave Wednesday afternoon, so we all had a whole day to hang out and play around. 

 Me, Ruth and Kelly

 Keith and Tik, Kelly and Sacha reading and Kate and Sarah in the background.

It was just like summer camp! We lay around, reading books, played some Scrabble, and did a lot of swimming and chatting. 

 Kelly, Tik, Keith, Jaz, Ruth, Inna, Kate, Hannah and Sacha playing Scrabble

Kate, Sacha, Sarah, Hannah and Jaz

In the afternoon, after Kate, Hannah and Sarah left, Ruth and I jumped in the 2 person kayak, while Jaz and Kelly took out the paddle boards and we went out on the lake. Well, after a while, Ruth and I got tired, so we headed back to the houseboat. But we got LOST! Well, not lost exactly, we actually ended up getting all the way back to the inlet where the houseboat was, but we couldn’t see that the inlet kept going around the corner. We were sure we were lost, so we turned around to try to find Jaz and Kelly and finally got back to them. They were like “What are you doing here? We thought you went back!” We explained what happened, and headed back. So, in the end, we ended up doing 2 round trips instead of just one, all because the land blended together in a way that we couldn’t see the break in the hill. But, on the upside, we got a great workout! 

Jaz, Tik, Keith, Anthony, Ruth, Kelly, Sacha

 Me and Sacha

The best part about the boat was the cook! We didn’t have to worry about lunch or dinner, and it was all delicious. After dinner, we made a campfire and had s’mores, played some guitar, and just chatted til well into the night. I’m afraid we kept up the other people who were staying on the boat with our raucous laughter til about 1am. Ruth is just a crack up that late at night, channeling a Chinese grandpa to give us life advice. (She’s Chinese, so it’s not racist!)

Thursday morning we slept in and then Jaz made pancakes! We had a leisurely day with me trying to teach Ruth to dive, all of us doing cannonballs, flips and jumps into the water, and lots and lots of swimming and paddling, plus, some laying out and reading for good measure. I, of course, despite putting on sunscreen, got quite sunburnt. Sigh. I see skin cancer in my future. 

 Jaz, Kelly, Ruth and me on the way back to the mainland

Rock Climbing

Yay! Rock climbing day at Crazy Horse Buttress! I am so excited that Jaz is such an organizer. She gets everything going for everyone. She has been climbing for a long time, so she has all the gear, as do a few of her other friends. Keith from Bible study and Galina, a girl who works at a YWAM school and is staying with us for a few days, were eligible to lead climb (meaning attaching the rope to the anchors in the rock so the rest of us could just top rope and be safer). We had a group of 9 people! Jaz, Keith, Galina, Ruth, Ben, Tim (a Canadian), Robin (from San Fran), Kwan (who works with Galina) and me. We only had the one rope, so we each took a turn climbing. This was about twice the height I had ever climbed at the Rockreation gym in LA, so it was a bit daunting. 

Ruth had to go to a wedding and had to leave at 1, so she went first up the rock, after Jaz had lead climbed and attached it to the rock. She had never done it before in her life, so she made it about half way, what I would say is the length of an indoor climb in LA, and then came back down.

Next was Keith, then Ben, followed by Tim and Robin, then me, Kwan and Galina. Tim and Robin had gone cave exploring, so I went to find them to tell them they were up next and discovered the amazing cave they were in. It’s so beautiful and huge. I can imagine it fills up with rain pretty well when it’s rainy season here.

When it was my turn, I did pretty well for a while, but got to a tricky part, just below the top anchor and decided that seeing the anchor was good enough for me! I was like, “OK, I’m done.” Tim was belaying me and giving me advice on where to reach and put my feet and Jaz was cheering me on from below too. She was like “No! You are only a meter and a half from the top!” To which I wanted to reply “I don’t know what that MEANS! I’m American!” Well, after a rest, I decided to soldier on, and I did summit. Jaz took a picture and told me to admire the view. This was a mistake. Upon admiring the view, I decided to look down. This was when I realized that I was only attached by a small rope basically hanging in midair on a rock and was higher than I had ever been without my feet being on solid ground. I was like “OK!! Get me down!” The rappelling is the best part, but Tim was pretty generous with his slack, so I came down a lot faster than I was anticipating! Still, it was pretty fun. I’d do it again.

While Galina climbed with Keith; Ben, Jaz and I hiked up the side of the mountain to an amazing viewpoint of the countryside. Too bad it was so smoggy. L Tim, the mountain goat, kept on climbing up to the very tip top of the mountain. By the time he made it up there to take a picture of us, though, we had already headed back down.

Keith was lead climbing a really hard rock and I was a little worried for his safety. There was a point that he had to blindly reach around to clip his carabiner in to the rock and if he had slipped before he clipped the rope into it, he would have fallen a ways and smashed into the rock wall. He’s an expert climber though, so he was fine. By the time he got back, Tim had returned with Jaz and had a go at it. He made it up and we started back to town so Ben could meet Ruth at the wedding.

I chilled out for a bit at the house and Jaz went over for dinner with Sacha, so she hollered at me across the courtyard to come eat. J Jaz left to go meet her aunt and uncle for massages and street market so I stayed with Sacha and played some piano. I am not good at accompaniment, sadly. I really want to be good at it, but I usually end up just playing the melody in the end. I wish I could play the really beautiful flowery piano stuff, but I just need to practice more I guess. I am so much better at classical because if you get lost, you can just make it sound like you are playing that part slower on purpose. If you are playing songs, you kind of need to keep up with the pace of the song. It didn’t help that I was trying to play songs I have never heard before! Sacha loves Brooke Fraser, as do I, but I don’t know any of her solo albums. I really like the music though.

Anyway, we ended up just hanging out and talking about music and watching videos on YouTube for a couple hours. Yay for cool neighbors whom I can be instant friends with and geek out about movies, music and Glee. :) Ruth and Ben came back from the wedding and I heard about the Thai Christian wedding, which sounded interesting. We all had early church Sunday, especially Sacha since she has to sing, so I took off.

Visa, the Saga Continues

The morning started with me calling Ruth at 6:20, as promised, to make sure she was up to go to the hospital. She had turned her phone on silent, so there was a little freak-out, but very minor as she called me five minutes later to say she was up. We headed out at about 6:45 and got to the hospital a little past 7. Here is where Ruth is a total angel sent from God.

She’s like “What are you going to say to them? You don’t speak Thai.” To which I replied “Dae said they speak English here.” Ruth looks at me skeptically and says “that means they can say hi, goodbye and how are you feeling. I better come with you.” Over my protestations, we abandoned poor Ben in the car and went inside the outpatient portion of the hospital. She talked to the receptionist about what I needed and we told her about the syphilis test. (They were VERY specific about the importance of this test for the work permit.) We went to sit in the waiting area and almost immediately, they took my blood pressure and weight (Hey! I lost 6 pounds in 2 weeks!) and showed me into a room with a doctor. Ruth spoke in Thai to the doctor and again explained that I needed it for a work permit. He asked me like 5 questions, including what medications I was allergic to, and when I gave him the list, he said “You need to make sure you tell doctors that you are allergic to this medicine, because amoxicillin is very common.” Gee, really? You don’t say. Wow, I’ve had these allergies for half my life, and it never occurred to me to tell doctors not to prescribe me medications that will make me SWELL UP AND POSSIBLY DIE. This guy is clearly new.

Ruth went with me to the blood draw area and waited for my blood to get taken. We found out that it would take an hour to process, so Ruth waited with me. No, I’m just kidding, I didn’t make her do that! She and Ben went to breakfast but she made me promise to call her if I needed any more help when I went to pick it up later. Ruth rocks.

I had to get money out from the ATM to pay the exorbitant admin fee of $500 for the work permit to get started, so I went to the 7-11 across the street. At this point, I was praying that the ATM would work. I have tried to use my debit card at several large stores and to purchase plane tickets and it has not worked! So, I was holding my breath at the ATM. It only allowed me to get out 10,000 baht, but thankfully, I had changed the rest of my cash earlier, so I had the extra 5,000 in my wallet.

Next, I tried to get some more visa pictures taken. Dae thought that I could just use the ones I got in Singapore, but I was short 5 pictures anyway, so I still needed more. I asked at the Holiday Inn if they knew of a place, but the photo shop across the street didn’t open til 8:30, and that was the time my medical form was meant to be done, so I just went to wait at the hospital.

Finally, at 8:45, they told me to pay at the cashier and get my form, so I did. Only $5! That’s one bill that was easy to deal with. J I tried to get pics at the photo shop, but they wouldn’t be done til noon, and I thought that was too late, since I was meeting D at 10:30. Well, by this point, it wasn’t even 9am, so I thought I could get all the stuff done with D and get over to TS to help with initial setup pretty quickly. Of course, when I got to the Kijkandee office, nobody was there. Great. I decided to just take a Song Thaew to TS and get a ride back with Rob who was coming for a meeting at 10:30 also.

When I went back for the meeting, everything seemed in order, and D told me about the timeline for the work permit and visa. It’s kind of weird that I’ll be working this whole time, way before I get the work permit, but I guess it’s just a formality so that I can have the longer visa. I was pretty frustrated because initially, I had asked if I should wait to go get my visa in Singapore and she had said to go right away. Today, she said “Oh, this is why I thought you should go after Song Kran festival to give you more time to get your long term visa.” I was so annoyed because I had specifically asked about this and she TOLD me to go right away!! But, I just smiled and said “yeah, too bad about that.” Sigh. Well, what are you gonna do?

And then! She looks at the medical form and says "Oh, this says VD is clean. You were supposed to get syphilis." I'm screaming internally "Syphilis IS VD!! What is WRONG with you?!" But I calmly told her that I told 4 different people at the hospital that I needed the syphilis test and this is what they gave me. It's just going to have to be good enough." I think in my entire life I have not used this word in conversation as much as I have in the past 2 days.  

Back at TS, I found Judy cleaning up a storm, and since I couldn’t help with the seminar, seeing as I don’t speak Thai, I joined right in. Now the place will be spick and span and organized when we come back from vacation! After we were pretty much done with the classrooms, I went down to ask P’Bua if she needed help in the kitchen. That day, we had ordered food special from a restaurant for the kids, so she was starting to clean out the kitchen. I started by cleaning the fridge and freezer and then turned and noticed the wall behind where the stove is was COVERED in grease spatters. So, using a super powerful Simple Green type spray, I scrubbed that wall til it shone. Those tiles have never BEEN so clean! P’Bua scrubbed the stove and countertops while I did the wall and window above it. We finished about the same time, so she did a quick mop of the floor and we left it shiny and clean!

In the background, the kids were learning some important stuff. Since we are located basically in the red light district, statistically, 99% of the kids at the center have either been propositioned or assaulted already. This only gets worse during Song Kran because people get crazy and way more assaults can take place, so the Thai teachers were teaching the kids how to protect themselves. I was looking at the kids in the morning, thinking how easy it would be for them to get taken advantage of, especially the teenage girls. I was just praying for their safety and that no harm would come to them.

They also taught the kids about bad stuff and bad people on the Internet and to beware of people trying to meet them from the Internet. I think that is really important too, especially in this day and age of Internet predators. They seemed to really learn stuff and get something out of it, so that was good.

We said a final goodbye to Dtom and started to shut things off. As the kids were leaving and we were closing up for the week, Ning was waiting for the painters to come to tell them what to do while we are gone for the week. I decided to wait with her and walk to catch a Song Thaew later. Thank goodness I did! Just as we were leaving, Dae called and said I had to get new visa pictures RIGHT NOW. There is a photo shop just up the block from TS, so we stopped in there to get photos and they said to come back in an hour.

Ning was able to hang out for a while and wait with me, so we walked over to the mall and got some juice drinks. It was nice to get to hang out with Ning, because she’s so sweet and such an amazing person, and I only ever see her at work, so I really want to try to get to know her and Field outside of work too and be actual friends. I told her about my visa woes and what had happened that day, and she said the same thing happens to her, so she has started to only communicate via email so it’s less frustrating. Nice to know it’s not just me!

After I picked up the photos and said goodbye to Ning, D picked me up and drove me about halfway home before her turnoff, which was really nice of her. She didn’t need to do that, so it was a nice break from a long Song Thaew drive. Plus, it made my ride the rest of the way cheaper!

When I got back, there was beautiful piano tuning sounds coming from my neighbors house, so I dropped my bags and rushed across the courtyard to Ruth and Sacha’s house. I was so excited!! The guy was still working on the piano, even though it was 5:30 and he had arrived at 4pm. He was so precise! I left my door open so I could hear when he was done tuning and I could go play. J Ruth called while I was home and invited me out to dinner with her, Ben, and some other friends who were in town. I swear, every night I’m expanding my circle of friends here! I actually have a better social life in Thailand than I ever did in LA, because here everything is so cheap it’s easy to agree to go out for dinner.

Well, I went over to their house to play the piano and Ruth was playing but got off when I arrived. I was like “Dude, it’s your piano. Keep playing.” But she said “Hey, you paid for it!” so I couldn’t argue with that. J I played a few songs and then we headed out for dinner at a Burmese restaurant called D-Lo.

It was delicious! (Is there any other type of food here?) We got a lot of dishes to share. We met some food critic friends of Ruth’s (Robin and Chris) who were in town sampling the local cuisine. Some other people came to eat too: Chris, who works a lot in Burma as a newpaper photographer, Wan who does lots of stuff with lots of organizations and another woman whose name I have completely forgotten, but she works at YWAM with Jaz.

After dinner, it was on to jazz night at North Gate Club right next to, you guessed it, the North Gate of the old city. It’s situated right next to a fusal field. Fusal is soccer (or football) that is played in an arena style area, like the US arena football. I made some comment about how they must be playing shirts and skins since none of the jerseys matched and here is Ruth’s quote of the day: “You know, you have a very verbal ticker tape.” HA. So true. The problem is that I never realize when the ticker tape (aka your internal monologue) is in my head and when I’m really saying it out loud. Ruth assured me it’s not a bad thing, just a funny thing.

We headed into the bar and met Wan’s twin brother and his girlfriend, Beth. We all got drinks (so cheap!!) and listened to some cool Latin-infused jazz with 2 sax players, a bassist, electric guitarist, drummer and bongo player! We were there for about 2 hours, and Jaz joined us at some point. She started talking about our plan for rock climbing tomorrow (woo hoo!) and finally, we decided to leave at about 11pm so we could get some sleep and prepare for rock climbing.

I drove home on the back of Jaz’s motorcycle and noticed that the city is really beautiful at night.

Back at Taw Saeng

My first day back at Taw Saeng and I was ready to get back to teaching. Today was a special day because one of the Thai teachers, Dtom, was leaving. She has been here for 2 years, but her mother is ill and is having a hard time getting around, so she is moving back to the village to help her family. The kids were very sad, as were the staff. I don’t know how we will replace her; she’s so good at her job. She teaches art and computers (neither of which I am qualified to do) as well as songs, games with the kids and is just amazing.

Judy brought art supplies and special paper for the kids to make goodbye cards. My class ended up being a quick review of what they had learned on Tuesday (school supplies, which I also know now, thanks to Lucy) and then they went to work on their cards. Have I mentioned how amazing these kids are at art? They can draw really good likenesses of family members, animals, anything you can think of, pretty much. I can barely manage stick figures on a good day.

After the kids were done, they went downstairs for dinner and as they went in to the building in their class lines, they each gave Dtom their card. I don’t know how she wasn’t a crying mess; I certainly would have been!

I said goodbye but then realized that I would see Dtom tomorrow. The reason the kids will not see her is because we are having a special day for the kids over 9 years tomorrow. It’s part of the prevention side of TS. I’ll explain more about it in tomorrow’s post.

As I headed home, I had the Song Thaew drop me at the piano shop near my house. The day before, when we were hanging out with Ruth and Sacha, we discussed the woefully out of tune piano Sacha has. She explained that she has tried several times to get someone to come tune it, with no success. Basically, they always say they will call her to arrange a time and then never do, and she is too busy to follow up on it. Well, I just cannot stand playing an out of tune piano, and I don’t think the neighbors should be forced to listen to one either, so I said I’d stop off at the piano shop the next day and would split the cost if I could get someone to come out to tune it.

So. The piano shop. I walked in, and just the owner was there. I said the requisite “Sah wat dee ka” (hello) and asked if they tuned pianos. He said yes, and asked where I lived. I whipped out my handy dandy Big Map Of Chiang Mai and pointed to my street. He said “That’s close!” and I said “Yeah. Can you do it?” He asked me for more specific directions, and if I spoke Thai. I said “No, but my neighbor does.” So I called up Ruth, and she answered and I told her to give directions to the piano tuner so we could finally have a working piano! She set it all up, found out the price and we were good to go. Tomorrow at 4pm we will have an in tune piano!

When I got home, I decided to relax a bit and watch some season one Big Bang Theory. You guys, that show is funny. I mean, I already know that it’s funny because I have been watching the current season, but the first season is REALLY funny for a first year show. Well, in the midst of my laugh fest, I get a text from the visa coordinator at Kijkandee Foundation, which is the parent NGO of Taw Saeng and are the ones getting my work permit and year long visa. She says I have to come in tomorrow at 10:30am to turn in all the paperwork for the work permit. I am so not prepared for this!

I have to turn in: transcripts (fine, I brought them with me, I have no idea why, but here they are), 12 visa pictures (these are not the same size as passport pictures, they are 2x2 inches, and I have not had a chance to do them yet), a medical report with a syphilis check (why? I have NO IDEA) and my passport.

Well, first of all, I had agreed to help with the special event at TS that was beginning at 9am, and I was supposed to meet them there at 8:30am, so this means I have to bail on that commitment. Not to mention, where do I go to get the medical thing done, how long does it take to process, what does it cost, etc. Then I have to worry about getting visa pictures taken and how long they take to develop. All before 10:30! I was obviously freaking out.

First, I called Rob and he gave me some advice and said it was ok for me to miss the 8:30 meetup. Then, I called the visa coordinator and she told me what hospital to go to. I found it on the map and circled it so I could show it to a Song Thaew driver. I still owed Ruth money for the plane ticket she bought me on her credit card as well as for the piano tuning the following day so when she got back from massages with her brother, she came by. I filled her in on all the distressing stuff, and like the amazing person she is, she was just like “Oh, I’ll drive you. What time do you need to be there?” I was like “No way! It is too too early. I have to be there at 7am!” Apparently, she wanted to go to that neighborhood for breakfast anyway, so she insisted on driving me. That alleviated some stress so I was able to sleep! 

Oh, but we got good news today. My sponsor child (I’m gonna call her Cassie) has spent the past week with her family and they came by today to go look at Ning’s house to see if they want to let her live there with Ning and Faa. They liked it and Cassie loved it so she is going to live with Ning from after Song Kran festival on! Great news! I’ll still get to see her and she can still come by the center. I’m very excited by these developments.

 

Unexpected Vacation

So, I got up early this morning because I was supposed to give my first piano lesson with Ning at 10. I got to TS early so I could change some money. I figured there is no reason to hold back American cash, I may as well just have it all in Thai money.  I also needed to put some money on my cell phone.

However, just as I was getting to TS, Ning called to tell me we were having the day off because of a national holiday. Great, info that would have been nice to know before I spent 20 baht to get there. Oh, well. Day off, right? So, after a Song Thaew back home, I was able to finally post some blogs with pictures (yay!) and catch up on some email.

Jaz called me and asked me to take our little portable internet usb thing to Inna’s house so she could upload some videos for YWAM (where Jaz works).  Well, without a vehicle, I had to walk. It didn’t look that far, but Jaz suggested I cut through Chiang Mai University because it was a safer walk.

Well, Jaz, Ruth and I had gone running the other day at CM University, so I thought I could find my way. Well, I didn’t so much get lost, as I just didn’t really know where I was because the streets end up curving and stuff. Plus, since it was a holiday, there were no students on campus to ask directions of, and Inna doesn’t really know the campus well enough to give me directions. Oh, did I mention it was broiling hot that day? Well, it was. About 90 degrees out. So of course, as soon as I got good and lost, it started to thunder. And lightening. Jaz gave me further directions as to how to get thru campus, and I thought I could make it before the rain began. Just as I turned the final corner and saw the track we had gone running at, the sky opened up and a tram just happened to pull up. He drove me to the main road and I ran for shelter through the downpour. Inna came to get me because I didn’t have an umbrella. I mean, it was 90 degrees! Who would have thought it would suddenly start thunderstorming? Poor Inna. She has been sick all week and had to come meet me to get the internet stick.

Jaz came to pick me up and we stopped for dinner at the market. She was supposed to head up to Mae Sai to take a truckload of disaster supplies to the victims of the Burma earthquake, but with the rain, she decided to put off the trip til tomorrow. At the market, she told me the names of all the things we were ordering and had me order stuff. The people at the market would tell me the price in English, but she told them to only speak to me in Thai or I’ll never learn. Of course, she said this in Thai, but some things you can just infer. Hahaha However, she’s right. I do need to learn so I don’t have to rely on other people to translate all the time. It gets frustrating. But, the problem is that I only know a few things so far: numbers, colors, school supplies and a few choice phrases like “I only know a little Thai.” It’s a slow process, but I hope I’m learning fast. I can never learn fast enough though. I want to know everything RIGHT NOW.

Jaz has season two of Lie to Me on dvd, so we watched a couple eps and then she went to pick up Ruth and her brother Ben at the airport. They just flew in from Bangkok and Ben is staying for a week to visit. He works for World Vision in Toronto. We all hung out at Ruth and Sasha’s (she’s a Kiwi who works for another NGO, Partners) place next door for a while, then I headed home.

Home to Chaing Mai

This morning, I got to truly sleep in for the first time since coming to Southeast Asia! Ahh, luxurious Singapore life. Pak Kheng had a meeting in Chinatown at 11, and decided to bring me along so I could see true Chinatown. I didn’t have to pick up my visa til 2pm, so I had time to kill. So, have I mentioned how amazing Pak Kheng and Philip are? Yes? Well, I have undersold them. They are truly angels sent from God to make my trip survivable. Yes, I probably could have managed without them, but I would have paid a lot more for housing and food and would have just stayed in the cheapest hostel imaginable and seen nothing of the city but the Thai embassy.

They have been so much more than generous; they have practically adopted me into their family. They’ve stuffed me with delicious food, paid for my transport everywhere, showed me how to get to the embassy and more! I am speechless with thankfulness.  All I did in return was help with the grocery shopping. And even there Pak Kheng kept trying to buy me things to take back to Thailand! Luckily, I only had my one small backpack which was already pretty full; otherwise, I would have ended up with a suitcase full of British food (not that I’d be complaining about that, let me tell you!).

Anyway, Philip drove us to Chinatown and we walked around some and got some drinks before Pak Kheng went to her meeting. I wandered the streets looking at things and ended up spending $2 on some cute chopsticks. They are just for decoration, which would be the case no matter what, since I cannot envision a meal I would ever endeavor to prepare that would require chopsticks. Spaghetti?  There was a bunch of really cool stuff they had for sale, so it was also a good thing that I had no money to spend on trinkets. Where would I put it in Thailand anyway? I have no piano on which to display things. 

The meeting lasted about 45 minutes and then we jumped on the train to Orchard Street near the Thai embassy. We had lunch at a Japanese restaurant and I tried hot pot for the first time. For those who don’t know (like me) this is where they bring you a little pot on a gas burner and fill it with raw meat and veggies and broth and you cook it all up together. It’s actually pretty yummy.

After lunch, we started to head outside, only to discover a torrential downpour! And this was the one day I left my umbrella at the house. Of course!  Well, since this whole area is basically one big underground mall, we just went a level below and tried to get closer to the embassy. By the time we popped back aboveground like little groundhogs, the rain had ceased. I went to wait in line, and saw a few familiar faces from yesterday. Luckily the guy who had to prove his monetary worth was in line to pick up his visa, so success for him. Yay! The line moved quite quickly for how many people were in it. There was only one window, but I got to the front in next to no time.

All along the street in front of the embassy are huge posters advertising a shipwreck exhibit at the art/science museum that Pak Kheng had been wanting to see for a while. We decided last night that we’d spend the afternoon there after I got my passport back. We took a bus this time, so I could see more of the city on the way. The place where the museum is located is called Marina Bay Sands. This is a super exclusive mall that has whole floors and even stores that are invitation only shopping. Fan-cy! Architecturally, this place is beautiful and amazing. The museum itself is shaped like a lotus opening up. It sits on what used to be a bay into the sea, but has now been closed off into a reservoir. They also installed a fountain into the water just off the boardwalk. Across the bay is the Durian Building, so called because it looks like the smelly fruit that people eat here. I still have to try that. 

The exhibits showing at the Art/Science Museum were Ghengis Khan and Shipwreck. A few years ago, an underwater explorer came upon what turned out to be the oldest shipwreck ever discovered. It tells archaeologists a lot about the history of that region and dates from over 1000 years ago! There were some really amazing designs in the teacups that were discovered and some cool gold sculpted dishes and goblets. It kind of reminded me of the Titanic exhibit in Las Vegas because it was so well preserved, but this stuff was centuries older. 

Upstairs was the Ghengis Khan exhibit about the Mongolian leader. Did you know that a lot of things that are in our constitution stemmed from Khan’s laws of his kingdom? Like religious freedom: Ghengis Khan believed that everyone should be able to practice their beliefs without restriction. He also believed people should be promoted based on merit and not on who they knew or were related to. And this was in the 13^th century!  All I remember from Ghengis Khan is that he was a brutal warlord. I didn’t realize he contributed so much to modern society.

The museum is built in a circular manner, so in the center is a fountain built from the 4^th floor that drips water down to the bottom floor. When we came out of the shipwreck exhibit, I was like “Oh my gosh, its pouring!” Of course, then I realized that it was just a fountain. But, when we were ready to leave, it really WAS pouring outside! We had to make a run for it through the rain to the mall. Thankfully, by the time we got to the bus stop, it had pretty much let up. After a quick shower and some dinner, again delicious of course, as prepared by Ophelia, we headed out to the airport. 

BUT. First of all, I forgot to check the terminal so we went to the budget terminal first. Then, we got a call from grandma that I had forgotten my bathroom stuff! What?! I double and triple checked that I hadn’t forgotten anything but I forgot to check the bathroom? Argh. Well, I got checked in, Philip when back to retrieve the stuff (they live really close to the airport) and Pak Kheng stayed with me so he could call her when he came back and I could RUN to the gate to catch my flight. Of course, all the stress and rush turned out to be pointless because, even though the board at the front of the airport said that Boarding had started, when I got to the gate, all out of breath, the plane hadn’t even deplaned yet!

On the plane, I read a funny article about cereal. Apparently, three cereals you should stay away from are Froot Lops, Cocoa Puffs and Frosted Flakes. Why? Because, get this, they have more sugar than health benefits. Really? Do they really think people are under the delusion that these yummy, sugary cereals are coated with healthy fibery goodness? Come ON! You eat them precisely BECAUSE they are not good for you! Silly airline magazines.

Visa Day

This morning I was off to the train by 8am and in line at the embassy by 8:45, the first one. I was joined within minutes by another person, and by 9am, the line stretched halfway down the block. I was very glad I was early because it lessened the stress a lot knowing that I would be first to talk to them. I got to the window and handed over my paperwork. The lady asked me if I was getting paid in Thailand and I said no, then she asked how long I’d be there and I said for a year. She replied “Without getting paid?!” I was like “Yep.” She took my paperwork in the back, returned, told me to sit in some waiting chairs and that someone would come talk to me. I sat there for about 45 minutes, and she called me back to the window to tell me it was approved and asked for money. I can come pick up the visa tomorrow.

While I was waiting, I was chatting with a guy from England and he was there with his buddy who lives in Thailand and is a Muy Thai instructor. His wife and son are in Thailand right now but he had to come get a visa for some reason. He has been married to a Thai woman for 7 years, so I would think by now he’d have citizenship, but I guess not. Anyway, he was stressed cause he had all his paperwork in order and then he got to the front of the line and they said he had to show that he had $2000 in Singapore money in an accessible bank account. I hope he got his stuff all sorted because he has been away for a couple months I think and is anxious to get back to his family.

After the visa thing was sorted, I jumped on a bus to the Singapore Botanical Gardens, which are beautiful! I wandered the gardens for a few hours and saw all kinds of plants and sculptures and even some swans. It’s a huge plot of land—155 acres! There’s a 6 acre rainforest right in the middle too, as well as several ponds and food areas. 

I started to get overwhelmed by the humidity and headed back to the train station for some lunch. I jumped on the train back to the house and plan to relax for the rest of the day. I was going to hike down to the beach for a swim, but I think I’ll save that for tomorrow.

Instead I ended up napping, watching TV, reading and generally just being a layabout for a couple of hours! I ended up helping Pak Kheng go grocery shopping after supper, for which she was very happy. I thought it was the absolute least I could do to repay her kindness and generosity. Post shopping, I was overjoyed to discover that they get Castle in Singapore!!! I love that show, in all its cheesy glory!