This last weekend... I didn't have internet

September 9, 2008

Hello friends! We do not have internet on the weekends which is hugely disappointing to me as I had hoped to be able to research other organizations for my other two volunteer stints and to potentially look at grad schools.

I’m finding the remoteness of this location to be challenging and yet perhaps it is good. It forced me to look at my reasons for being here and to consider my goals. It would be easy to pack my bags and leave. It would also be easy to not work very hard at volunteering and not be satisfied with my effort.

My reasons for doing this are to expose myself to several different volunteer organizations and opportunities and to find out if I want to work in non-profit work in the U.S. (or internationally) and if so apply to grad school OR decide this is not for me and stay in insurance. Insurance is a good career and I’ve met a number of really great people through working in insurance. So I hope to decide this year what I want long-term.

I had to regroup Saturday night because I was completely out of sorts and overwhelmed and angry and frustrated and having myself a “happy” little pity party! Crazy I know. I’m fluctuating between incredible happiness and appreciation and love and the desire to crawl into bed and never leave – or at least long enough to pack my bags and come home!

I think much of the overwhelmed feeling also has to do with the physical need to acclimate and feeling a little unwell. I’m not sick but I’m struggling. I had a headache much of last week (minor) and then today I woke up with pain in the lymph nodes in my armpits. I’m not alarmed as I’ve had this at home occasionally and it’s usually when I’m fighting a cold. I’m making sure I get enough sleep (too much probably)! I’m trying to drink a lot of water too. The heat is draining and the rain was overwhelming although I’m really enjoying the rain now.

So enough of the touchy feely stuff! I’ll give you the run-down of the weekend’s events.

Friday evening Yaowawit School held a goodbye party for the family manager, Kellie, who was the person I was in contact with to come to Yaowawit. She’s an incredible gal. Kellie loves ballroom dancing so to surprise her invited the local ballroom dancing group as well as taught some of the teachers and children ballroom dancing. (The dancing I posted last week was the one session that I attended). The headmaster of the school loves dancing and music and so he taught us how to dance. It was absolutely beautiful. Much of the music was traditional Thai music.

The other Thai teachers dressed up in beautiful summer evening dresses and outfits. Fiona (the former volunteer from Australia who lives here now – she’s the one that picked me up from the bus station) was attending and she invited several other people. I met Amanda from Australia and Yuk (?) from Norway. Amanda and her husband have been trying to establish an elephant sanctuary and have had many road blocks preventing them for success. They recently had the final news this week that it wouldn’t go through so she and I were talking about things such as trying to make changes and being incredibly discouraged. I told her about Greg Mortenson’s success with helping children and building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan and how her reached his life work through a series of repeated failures. So I asked her to remind me when my goals are not working out to remind me of the same thing! She actually just received the book from a friend and finished reading it and so we had a good conversation about dreams bombing and trying to find other ways to reach them or do something else. They are terribly disappointed right now and rightfully so.

Dinner was served and it was absolutely wonderful. I’m sorry – I have no idea what it was but there were a number of lovely dishes and then there were snacks of dried fish – what I think of as sardines and peanuts as well as dried shrimp “chips” that look like pork rinds. They were ALL delicious – and yes – I love the dried fish!! Although at home I also love sardines so it’s about the same, just dried.

The dancing and music was amazing. I danced to some of the ones I know and hung out with the other teachers and the cooks. These women are so sweet. They are all very helpful. Much of the dancing and music later was karaoke style. Traditional Thai music for ballroom dancing and various individuals would get up and sing the songs. FUN!! They asked me to sing but I suggested I sing another time in the hospitality room where no one can here me practice!! Hee hee hee!

I took pictures and video but much of the video is probably too long. I will try to post it but no guarantees.

There was also alcohol which turned out to be wine, wine coolers and a variety of hard liquor such as vodka and whiskey. I had a wine cooler (or two) and a tiny shot of whiskey. Fun!

I went to bed about midnight (turned in early comparatively and could hear the singing for a while longer after I went to bed).

Saturday and Sunday are my free days so I slept in until 9:00 am. I chatted with Kru James for a bit. I wasn’t feeling well so I decided that I needed to start exercising to fight off any crud I might be getting. Sally, you will be proud of me! From my door to the main road is about a 10 minute walk and from there I jogged for 20 minutes and then walked the 10 minutes back. By the time I was done it was pouring which felt WONDERFUL as I’m pretty out of shape! It was actually rather “cool” yesterday so running at 10:00 am was tolerable. Most days it probably wouldn’t be!

Afterwards I ate lunch which consisted of the spicy fish dish and the cabbage and chicken soup (and rice) and a desert of some kind of green jello/pudding droppings in coconut milk. Excellent desert!

I finished reading the rest of the children’s stories which are heartbreaking. Some of the children are orphans, some just needed educations and have absolutely no access to it – they may have parents that both are alive and love them but they are gone much of the time and the children have no help with foraging for food or getting to school. For some of the children that come from one of the fishing tribes, getting to school involved trudging through about 1-2 feet of water at low tide to another part of the island and then walking about 4 kilometers in the jungle. There was a boat they could use but they were too small to use it. My guess is neither option is very safe and the parents are gone for a week or two. Other children here were left with a grandparent or aunt or someone who could barely make their own ends meet without having the extra ability to financially or emotionally take on children.

I had hoped to do research as well as make my plans for teaching for the week but the internet was down (both the computers with cable access) as well as the wireless for my laptop. The signal was strong but the connection was no turned on? I’m not a computer person so I found this to be confusing!

Instead I spent about half an hour with a couple of the girls, showing them my pictures from home and my pictures on my phone from the US. They had me repeat them for about 4 times before I finally said… “finished!” They are like little sponges. They love attention and getting to look at pictures and to talk.

I also had to request a blanket as I’ve been cold at night. I have one regular cotton sheet and a blanket that is a silk sheet and I’ve been wearing my sweats and the two sheets/“blanket” to stay warm. They brought me a large beach size towel so I was confused. We got out the dictionary and looked up blanket. What I am thinking of is a large towel is what they are using for blankets. (Terry cloth). It definitely helped me stay warmer!

Saturday afternoon I came back to my room and laid down thinking I’d get rest a few minutes and then work on lessons for the 5^th/6^th grade class for Wednesday. I passed out for 2-3 hours! When I got up I felt quite recalcitrant. I didn’t want to eat any more rice, I didn’t want to listen to any more Thai music, I didn’t want to listen to the rain, I wanted the internet and phone service, I wanted to be anywhere else besides the middle of the rain forest with nothing to do! I was BORED and over it and annoyed with myself and asking myself why the heck I’d done this! All I wanted to do was to be home on my couch eating Tostitos chips and cheese dip and junk food and MUNCH and watch American TV. So I ate trail mix and yoghurt for dinner and pouted and read a book. Whiner I know!

Then I decided that I needed to get a grip and refocus on my goals for being here and what I really wanted to gain and give with this experience. I won’t be happy if I do a crummy job so my options are to whine and go home or to switch gears, bust my butt and work hard and try to do a lot for these kids and the community in whatever way I can find. Gave myself a tad bit of a pep talk!

Today, Sunday was market day. The trucks load up at 7:30 to go to the market which is about 2 miles away? So I had to get up at 6:00am – I had a nice surprise call from my mom. Yay! I miss home and my friends and family! We chatted for a bit – if you want to call let me know and I’ll e-mail you my number. You can get an international calling card – I’m not sure what other options you have? Anyways, we got to talk for about 20 minutes which was great.

At 7:30 a ton of children and several teachers besides myself loaded into two trucks and drove to the market. The market is amazing! There are a ton of fish and even skinned frogs and fresh vegetables and fruit, clothes, shoes, sweets, pans and kitchen stuff, and my most valuable purchase… toilet paper! Although THAT is another story entirely! One of the children tagged along with me and helped me so I bought her what looked like cotton candy.

Purchases:

Dragon fruit (purple and looks like a white kiwi on the inside): 48 baht (40 baht/1 kilo)

Bananas: 10 baht per large bunch – these are small and REALLY tasty!

Cucumbers: 9 baht for 3 (15 baht for 1 kilo)

Toilet paper: 8 rolls for 45 baht

Head band: 25 baht

Pants/capris: 100 baht – yellow ones that didn’t look nearly as ugly mustard yellow when I bought them

Sweat shorts/capris: 75 baht.

Cotton Candy: 20 baht

My little friend purchased some kind of shrimp and seaweed/greens thing for 10 baht and another sweet treat kabob for 10 baht.

The market was a great deal of fun and they had to come find me to tell me it was time to go! I felt a tad bit bad about that! Both truckloads of children and the couple of teachers were already loaded up waiting!

I ran into the primary school teacher (from the 5^th/6^th grade class I’ll be teaching once a week) and a couple of Yaowawit teachers with their children.

Enjoy the pictures… heh heh heh!

Once back from the market I hung out with the kids and took pics of them and let them use the camera. Then I tried the internet again (one can hope)! No luck. So then it was off to my room for some reading. I got a call from my boyfriend which was an absolute treat! Dylan I miss you! I opted to skip lunch again and just eat yoghurt and a granola bar from home and to sit and read for an hour on the patio.

I snatched another nap this afternoon and then woke up and went outside. There are four engineers – the men building and maintaining the place – who live in the house building across from me. One of them, Perapon, invited me over. He’s been playing American music (yeah!) such as Elton John and John Denver and Whitney Houston and Peter, Paul and Mary… yes you get the picture… sad American love songs! He served me water and we tried to talk using my Thai/English dictionary. Fun! Then I went to the house building kitty-corner to mine where the laundry woman lives. Her name is Kimsri and she and the cook who lives in the other building across from me, Numthip, chatted with me. I’m enjoying showing pictures from home of my step-daughter (that’s a fun one to try and explain)! And my dog and cat and friends and boyfriend and postcards of Seattle… We had fun chatting.

Then Numthip invited me to go to Takau pa with them. Turned out to be a trip for noodle soup and a couple stops at 7-11 and such. “Uncle” Jew drove us and another cook, Pannapa and her 9 year old son Wasin and Kimsri (the laundry gal) went. We drove a pretty nice Toyota truck. Right hand drive of course on the left hand side of the road.

Dinner was noodle soup and is a lot like Pho in the US. It may be “Vietnamese” in the US but my guess is the basic concept of the noodle soup with the sprouts and basil is actually an Asian thing. The meat we had was pork or beef balls. The pork balls taste a little like sausage. This dinner was delicious. We also had “Thai French Fries” as Pannapa called them – fried pork skin/rinds which are yummy! I also had a “chai” tea that was made by the Muslim (?) shop/restaurant next door/ The restaurant/outdoor vendor where we were eating was VERY different from any in the US. It was pouring rain and we’re sitting at a picnic table under a large awning/carport area and the soup is made in a cart near the street. Essentially eating outdoors. It was fun! And the company was great. I can’t understand most if anything of what they say and they speak very little English but they are very kind. Kimsri just won the lottery so she bought us all dinner!

We hit a 7-11 on the way back.

Purchases:

Pen: 7 baht

Small notebook: 9 baht

Potato Chips: 20 baht

Washcloth: 29 baht (Obviously not an essential)!

It takes about 30-40 minutes to drive to Takua Pa which is the nearest city/town. Kapong is the village nearby and they have a post office and such but no 7-11. I need to purchase an international calling card and these can be found at the 7-11’s but the one we stopped at didn’t have any. Bummer! So I’m still without phone access. I can receive calls but I can’t make any. ARGH.

Anyways, I’m typing this in my room so that I can just post tomorrow when I have internet. I need to head to bed. It’s 9:15 and I want to get up early and exercise.

Have a fabulous day!

Joyann

Okay ladies and gentlemen… it’s time for the delicate lesson in Thai toiletry which was given to me by the British volunteer, James. Heh heh heh! The Thai teachers have not had this conversation with me so when I ran out of toilet paper and asked James where to get more he had the honor of giving me the spiel. First and foremost, you buy your own toilet paper which can be purchased at the market. He generously loaned me a roll(!) and then proceeded with the lesson…

Toilet paper is not supposed to be flushed as it clogs the toilet. If you need to pee, you pee and then shake yourself off (or have a quick rinse). You do not use toilet paper. If you need to “poo,” you use the faucet/hose next to the toilet (which is similar to what you find next to a kitchen sink in the US), spray yourself clean with this and use toilet paper to dry your “bum.” The toilet paper is only for drying, not cleaning, and is to be disposed of in the garbage can next to the toilet. BWWWAAHHHHH!!!!! I was cracking up! Especially when James did a shake to show me how it’s done! (Fully clothed of course). Awe well, when in Rome, do like the Romans, eh? According to James it is much more sanitary anyways and he had a faucet installed in his home in New Zealand when he lived there. Much to the chagrin of his plumber!

Enjoy the pictures of the bathroom and shower! At least I have one I can sit on and not one of the squatting toilets that others have here! They make some generous allowances for us foreigners!

Me running Saturday. The roads here are pretty well maintained. I just need to get used to what side traffic is on!!

I want to post so many more pictures but the take forever to load!!

On the left is Pannapa (cook), Numthip (in the middle, cook) and Kimsri (Laundry person). These are the women I had dinner with last night. They are very sweet. (Picture is from the party from Friday).










Some of the purchases from the market. The purple/red fruit is the dragon fruit. Similar in some ways to a kiwi. Yum!










A ride in the truck back from the market. You can get about 20 kids in the back of a Toyota!









Picture from the Sunday market












Mmmm Can you guess what this is? Frogs!









The teachers all dressed the party for Kellie on Friday. Kellie is on the left in white.









My favorite! Dried crunchy fish and peanuts and "shrimp" chips in the background.












A video clip of an example of the ballroom dancing. Sorry - it's pretty difficult to see! This is from the party on Friday.