Sawatdee Ka Thailand!

This is a long one, so hang in there.  It’ll probably be easiest to do this day by day, so here we go:

Thursday, Sept. 30

Let the traveling begin!  Luckily, there were no delays or set-backs in my flight plan, and I made it to LA in a reasonable amount of time.  The flights seemed to go quickly and I was excited to meet everyone in the WorldTeach group.

I wasn’t really nervous/upset about leaving home, which sort of surprised me, but I think my excitement overcame many of my fears and allowed for the day to go smoothly.

I arrived in LA around 4:30, got my bags and headed to the international terminal to wait for the group to arrive by 9 pm.  This meant I had several hours to kill, but I used the time to make last minute phone calls to friends and family and it made the hours fly by.  I also used to time to creep on people that may have been in the group with me.  After noticing a few people that looked like they might be headed to Thailand for a year, I finally got the courage to approach one person and ask.  Turns out she was with WorldTeach.  From that moment on, we quickly accumulated the rest of our group and started to get to know eachother.  Most of the volunteers are right out of college, or a few years older.  One man, Peter, is probably in his 50s and quickly assumed the dad role and we followed him like ducklings throughout all the airports. Which is a little ironic, because he has taken on the class clown role since being in Thailand.  We joke that we can’t take him anywhere without him making a huge scene. 

Friday, Oct. 1

I briefly celebrated my birthday in the LA airport, with a scoop of ice cream from haagen-daaz.

The flight to Taipei was long and boring, and we all alternated between movies and cat-naps.  What was really great was that we all sat together on the plane, so there was none of that “oh no, I can’t go to the bathroom because I don’t wanna step over a stranger” and we had the opportunity to get to know each other better.

Saturday, Oct. 2

Taipei to Bangkok flew by, and we were welcomed with the hottest heat ever.  Once meeting Nell (last year’s field director who is helping with our orientation) we packed all our bags into 2 vans and were instantly dripping in sweat.  Luckily the vans were air-conditioned, and we spent most of the 13 hour ride in and out of sleep.  I tried my hardest to stay awake so I’d be able to sleep that night, but I still napped for a few hours.

I had assumed we’d stop two or three times during the trip, but our driver was so concerned about our comfort that we stopped every two hours for gas, snacks, and bathrooms.  Bathrooms…my first experience with a squat toilet was an interesting one to say the least.  It took a while to get used to, but I think I’ve got it down now. We also stopped for lunch, and we didn’t really know what we ordered, but we all regretted it with the first bite.  It was delicious but set our mouths on fire.  Lips and tongues tingling, we headed back into the vans for more dangerous driving and beautiful scenery. The number of times we could have been in a head-on collision compared to the number of times we weren’t is astounding.  Thais pass on every side of the road and without any sort of notice.  At one point we were driving over a mountain in the rain for about 3 hours and it was full of switch-backs…but of course, our driver would pass in the middle of a turn anyways.

We arrived in Pla Pak, our orientation site, at about 1 am, and hopped immediately into bed.  To our surprise, all of our schools had brought mattresses and bedding to Pla Pak, AND there’s air conditioned bedrooms (one for girls, one for boys) AND there’s one western toilet, AND there’s wireless internet, now, that is.

Sunday, Oct. 3

We woke up relatively late to breakfast right outside our doors in the makeshift kitchen the school provided us.  During orientation, we will be making our own breakfasts, eating out for lunches, and being cooked for by a local teacher for dinner.  So far all the food has been fantastic, and we’ve learned how to avoid/work up to the spicy stuff.

Then we had a quick meeting in which we got our orientation materials and a little more information about our placements.  Mine is about 3 km from a larger city and temple, so I’ll have access to that, which is exciting.  I think I am also pretty close to at least 1 other volunteer.  We’re all provided with bikes through our teaching contract, so I should have no trouble getting there.

There were some necessary items that we were told not to bring (towels, toiletries, etc) so Jes (this year’s FD) wanted to get to the market to get these things for everyone.  There were a few spots in the truck, so me and five others hopped in the bed (don’t worry, in Pla Pak, its rare to even pass another vehicle, the town is so small…so no crazy driving here).  The market happens twice a month, so we kinda lucked into it, and I’m so glad that we did.  It was so cool to see the vendors, street food, and all the people staring at us, the farang. We didn’t stay long, but we did get to try some new fruits, and banana-ish fruits fried in coconut oil, which were sooooo good. 

The rest of the day we sort of had to relax and get settled.  It cooled down tremendously, as its been raining here since Sunday. 

Monday, Oct. 4

Our first day of real orientation.  The first two hours were spent learning Thai with our teacher Ajarn Oh. Well, scratch that. The first hour we spent learning Thai. The second hour we spent with some high school students who were harvesting the rice field on campus.  So yes, we all tried our hand at cutting some rice.  The kids were really excited when they saw us and were eager to show us how to do it.  I’m not sure why they are on campus as this is their mid-semester break, but who knows.

Then we went out to lunch at a restaurant down the road and ordered about 7 dishes per table so we all got to try everything, which was a great idea so we got a taste for everything.

The rest of the afternoon was spent learning Thai culture and working on our TEFL certs.

Today, Tuesday, Oct. 5

Today was one of the first days I really felt at home here in Thailand.  We woke up, had breakfast, went to Thai class, and did some TEFL practice.

Here comes the exciting part though – this afternoon we had a ceremony to meet our school directors (principals) and a teacher from the school.  We had to get all dressed up, and we spent the morning frantically trying to memorize our thai phrases to use when meeting our bosses.  We learned how to Wai them correctly and were given garlands to present to them upon meeting them.

We were all really nervous about the meeting, but it turns out we had no reason to be.  My school director (whose name I don’t remember…oops. For now we’ll call him PA – the term for directors) was really nice, and Nit, the woman who built my house came to meet me.  PA spoke pretty good English I think, just didn’t say much to me.  Nit, on the other hand, spoke English fairly well as she’d lived with a Peace Corp volunteer in the past, and just couldn’t keep her mouth shut.  She brought a little notebook with English in it to help her remember.  She told me couldn’t wait for me to come and live next to her, and that we would teach each other our languages, and she would even teach me how to cook Thai food.  At one point in the frantic meeting (we had to fill out our work permit paperwork too, yikes!) she got really excited and pointed towards the door.  She said, “there’s my husband, Loi, he came to meet you. He can’t wait to have you near us and for you to be like a daughter for us.”  Loi waited outside throughout the 2 hour meeting, doesn’t speak any English, and is not a teacher, and really had no reason to be there at all other than to meet me. 

It was incredible, and totally put my mind to ease about the situation.  I’d been pretty nervous about being in a village by myself and not knowing if anyone at all spoke English, but it sounds like I will be very well cared for in Goot Chim.

After the meeting, the students at Pla Pak threw us a party to welcome us.  It was sort of a surprise party.  We’d heard them practicing for the last few days for what we thought was a rice harvest festival, but it turns out they’d been practicing for this party the whole time.

Massive amounts of food were served, and then the students put on a dance/singing show for us with traditional costumes and music.  There was also some sort of ritual that they lit the top of a palm tree statue on fire, and while it burned the oldest man was maybe praying.  After it stopped we were all given an egg to hold in one hand and then they all took white strings and tied them around our wrists and wished us a happy, healthy, and fortunate year.  I guess the strings may fall off on their own, but you aren’t supposed to take them off for 3 days.  I hope we learn more about the ritual tomorrow in our cultural class.

We got up and danced with them several times, and the night ended with karaoke, in which we were forced to sing (as a group) bizarre songs that they thought we would of course know.  “Last Christmas” was the song of choice for whatever reason. We all left the party about 2 hours ago, but I can still hear the karaoke going on across campus.

Its been an incredible few days, and I can’t wait to experience even more.  All the people that I’ve met, volunteers as well as Thais, are great, welcoming people.  We all get along really well, and we’re forming our own Thai family here!