Thai Living

Living here has taught us about living a simple life.  When I ride my bike into town I ride past this house.  The first couple times I rode by I assumed it was abandoned and empty, but then I looked closer.  There are people living here!  So many of the Thai people live with so little.  This house has holes in the siding, windows that can't close and patched metal paneling for walls.  It makes me grateful for what my room here and my house in the US!

Also, Thai people build fires anywhere, anytime.  They burn garbage all the time.  You have trash from your garbage can?  Burn it in your front yard.  You have green tree limbs you just cut down?  Just toss them on the ground and light them on fire!  Growing up in Arizona where the fire danger ranges from "high" to "extreme" it's hard for me to get used to.  Due to the constant burning it is not uncommon to smell smoke at any time of the day or night.

Tiny Hands

Tanner is really amazing with kids!  I love seeing him hold and interact with bitty ones.  Here he is holding hands and walking with Flynn (Tang's 1 year old son).

It just makes my heart melt!

Everyday stuff

I have had a lot of great adventures here!  A majority of my posts have been dedicated to trips, vacations and specials days here at school.  While I have had the chance to have lots of those kinds of experiences the truth is those are the exception, not the norm.  So this post is dedicated to what life here is normally like. 

Here is my room.

The door on the left is my room.  To the right of the sinks is the hallway to the bathrooms.

My bedroom/living room/dining room/office

It's about 12 by 15 feet.  The shared bathrooms are outside and we don't have a kitchen.  This is where we spend most of our time.  We have a bed, couch, table, fridge, wardrobe, shelves and a keyboard.  (And an AC unit thank goodness!)

Ny room doesn't have a doorknob.  On windy days when I am working and Tanner is sleeping the door wil blow wide open.  We have been working on getting a door knob for a while now.  We actually have one now, but it isn't on the door.  The maintenance guy doesn't have the right tools... But there is a construction crew that will be here in a few weeks and hopefully we can get it installed then!

 There are 6 bathrooms.  One is just for Tanner and me.  We use the second one on the left.

The bathroom is about 6 feet by 6 feet.  It has a shower and toilet.  They are outside so it's hot and easily accessible for the bugs and creatures.  There are almost always frogs in there and the last 2 nights there have been spider-scorpions in there.  They don't flush any toilet paper here, so everything goes in the trash can.  I am really looking forward to an air conditioned, indoor, non creature filled, flush the toilet paper bathroom when I get back to the U.S.!!!

Here's Alfred Croaksfield Green (AC Green for short).  He's pretty much always in one of the bathrooms or the hallway.  Tanner and I named him and say hello when we go by.

This the the view when standing in my doorway.  That is where I teach.  My bed and classroom are literally 30 feet apart!

I work until 5 and Tanner usually tutors from 4-6.  It gets dark around 7 and it's no fun to ride a bike in the dark (lots of bugs and crazy dogs come out when the sun goes down!).  So we usually just hang around here in the evenings.  It's quiet and not too exciting.  We eat snacks and watch lots of TV and movies.  

Sometimes we play the guitar or read.  It's really relaxed and chill and I get plenty of sleep.  That's it really.  That's my normal, day-to-day life!

Scouts Day

Every Friday morning we have scouts.  The teachers (myself included) wear scout uniforms.  We learn how to tie knots, make a sling and tie a tourniquet.  We play team building games, do relays and learn different fables and stories.  The kids love it!  Back in April we had a scouts day.  The kids were divided into their 4 troops (if that's what they are called... I'm not the best scout leader--I don't even know the proper terminology...)

Daily morning chants/prayers by the flagpole.

Practicing something they were supposed to have memorized. (Sometimes I have no idea what's going on.  They give directions in Thai and then the kids do whatever they talked about.  I just stand there until they tell me to do something or start speaking in English.  Haha.  This was one of those times.)

There were these two tunnels set up.  The groups had to recite something to the teacher at the entrance before she would give them permission to enter the first tunnel.  Once they crawled through the first tunnel another teacher and I would smear their faces with a mixture of baby powder and water.  Then they would have to crawl through the second (foliage covered) tunnel.  Another teacher was there with a watering can and would pour water over the tunnel while they crawled through.  

Auto and Post.  I always get a kick out of how high Auto wears his pants!

I taught them how to play Cat and Mouse one week.  They loved it so much that we play it regularly.  I think that teacher Reena (the one on the left) loves it more than the kids!  She it the one that always suggests that we play.

At my station we did a relay race.  They had to get 15 pompoms from one side to the other as fast as they could.  The first person stood on a chair and dropped then into a cone in a teammates mouth.  As soon as there were 5 pompoms in the cone, the person laying down would so a sit up and dump them into a bowl.  The next teammates would have to carry them one by one in a spoon to the final cup a few feet away.  I timed each group that came through and they loved comparing their times to the other teams.  They had a lot of fun and I did too!

After the game rotations we did some skill rotations.  There was an obstacle course, crossing a tightrope type thing, team plank walking and rope climbing.  I was based at the rope climbing station.  Let me just say that Thai children are NOT athletic!  They work INCREDIBLY hard in class and their academics are rigorous but they are not coordinated or athletically inclined.  It was pretty hilarious watching them try to climb the rope.  There were 25 students and only 4 could climb to the top (7 feet up).

And for good measure...  Here are some pictures of me in my uniform!

Ground Breaking

Tang and Ake are building a new school in Phitsanulok.  It is set to open next May.  They recently broke ground. Before they started leveling the ground and building they wanted to have a ground breaking ceremony.  Tanner and I needed to take care of our visas so we went along and made a day of it.  Tang, Ake, Tanner and I met Tang's friend there.  Tang said he has a sixth sense of sorts, so he was there to act as an intermediary with the spirits of the land.  Tang make some food and money offerings.  She also burned some incense and prayed.

After the symbolic money was burned and the incense burned all the way down Tang's friend said the land spirits gave their approval to start building.  Tang and Ake used a shovel to move the first couple shovels of dirt.  Then when we finished the crew came right in and started to clear and level the ground.

This dog was hanging around and I was amused by his shirt.

There was a farmers market around the corner so we walked through that and bought some veggies and fruit.  Then we went to a temple in town.  It was incredibly bright which made it hard to get a good picture.  You may also notice that I am wearing a sweater.  We left at 6 in the morning and there was a slight chill in the air (this was back in January).  I could have done without the sweater, but I've only worn it 3 times in the 13 months of being here so I thought I'd take advantage of the chance to wear it.

After we checked in at the immigration office and got our visas stamped we got lunch and headed home.  At lunch I tried 6 new things!  Some of the volunteers recently reminded me that it's good to be adventurous with food.  I feel like I used to be better at that but over the years I lost that desire or started to prefer the safety of sticking to what I know I like.  Anyways, I have been making a point to say 'yes' to trying new foods.  I hated one of the things I tried (an incredibly bitter vegetable that looked like sliced green bell pepper), felt indifferent about 2 of the things and really liked 3 of them.

Sunday Train

The train is the best way for us to travel to Phitsanulok (that's where church is, where the English movie theater is and where we can buy cheese and tortilla chips).   The train we take on Sundays leaves at 6:50am.  It isn't air conditioned.  Sometimes we get seats and sometimes we stand.  A ticket is 9 baht (about 30 cents).  It takes 45 minutes to an hour. 

Last Sunday there was a crazy drunk guy at the station.  He really wanted to talk to us.  We ended up all moving away and Tanner dealt with him.  The floral wearing drunk got really close to Tanner and even went so far as to rub his arm and lift up his pants to see his socks!  A HUGE thanks to Tanner for putting up with that guy so we didn't have to!

The downsides to taking the train:

1) Crazy people at the station [see above].

2) It doesn't run very often so sometimes you have to leave earlier or later than desired.

3) It's really uncomfortable.

4) It's dirty, hot and not good for long legs

The upsides:

1) The VIEW!  I love looking out the window and just taking everything in.  This particular stretch passes a whole lot of rice fields and I love it!  There are these tiny little huts in the middle of the fields that are charming (and incredibly uncomfortable I am sure).  There are also these fantastic while birds that hang out in the fields.  My students told me that the farmers hate those birds becasue they eat the rice, but I can't help but love them.  I've been here more than a year but I still can't get over how green everything is.  As an Arizona native I just expect things to be dry and brown but that is not the case here at all.  I snapped a few pictures and took a video from last week's ride.  As a side note--it's quite difficult to take pictures on a moving train...

2) The price!  $.30 is a great deal in my book!

3) It's a really authentic Thai experience and provides good people watching opportunities.