Feeling the Independence...

This post is a long time coming, but completely necessary...

About 2 weeks ago I had the opportunity to take an afternoon and travel to That Phanom with Sarah, and Jes' uncle Clark.  Clark had been visiting for a few days, and he was a complete delight to hang out with.  One would think it would be awkward to spend time with someone else's relative you'd just met, but not with Clark; he has a truly a wonderful and generous spirit.

It was the first time that I'd been the host in this country, and it really helped me to see how much thai I've learned, and how independent I can be in this country:

1. The saawng tao dropped of us in front of the That Phanom temple, but I had no idea if that's where it would pick us up. So I was able to ask the driver and get a real answer that I understood.
2. When we still couldn't find the saawng tao pick up stop after our adventure, I was able to ask a street vendor where it was...and understand her answer.
3. We were on a crowded saawng tao on the way home, and a handful of young monks climb on as well.  One said in my direction "sokesan" (I feel sorry for you). I answered with "mai pen rai"...and he got so excited that I understood what he'd said. There started a wonderful conversation, completely in thai, about everything and nothing at the same time.  It was one of the first spur of the moment conversations I'd had with a stranger, and it was soooo nice to feel "fluent" in my speaking and understanding. As he was getting off the saawng tao at his temple, he said, in perfect english (a complete surprise to me), "you can visit me here anytime." It was so fun to see that he probably would have been able to speak with me in English, but we chose to communicate in Thai instead.
4.  On the same saawng tao ride, a khun yai (grandmother) got on, and asked a whole bunch of questions about us and what we were doing in NKP, etc.  Again, I was able to answer all her questions without too much difficulty, and it was awesome.

It was just one of those days that everything went right. (I'd even been able to teach Sarah's youngest students a complicated game earlier in the day). It felt amazing.  It was the first time that any sort of "adventure" had gone so smoothly and without any sort of communication confusion.  It was just so liberating and freeing.  It felt amazing to know that, even left to my own devices, I CAN figure out how to do things "the thai way."  I'll forever remember that day as the first day I felt the complete confidence to be completely independent here.