Takes the Cake

This weekend we mostly had plans for no plans: just relaxing.

Saturday we visited a new street stand for breakfast and tried out their fruit salad: cut-up apple, dragon fruit, papaya, dried banana, carrots, and peanuts drizzled with spicy lime sauce (see pic). Deeeelish.
The women working at the stand couldn't stop smiling at us, and once we sat down to eat they were over-accomodating, even pulling up extra chairs to set our bags on, which we had just thrown on the floor beneath the table. Every day I wish more and more that I had some kind of proficiency in Thai - I would love to be able to communicate with people whose hospitality and kindness I've so come to appreciate. I picked up a few Thai language books at school, and during my free periods I try to browse...I even tried out writing "hello" (sawadee kah) and "my name is Caitlin" (chuu Caitlin kah) in Thai characters last week (and it took a good 15 minutes to copy just those phrases). I'm setting a goal to learn something - anything - new every week.

After breakfast Saturday the four of us ventured out to City Park Hotel, just on the outskirts of town and a considerable bike ride away. It was nice to escape the "ajaan farang" stares in the city for a day. The hotel was blissfully deserted, and there appeared to be very little risk of running into one of our students while wearing a bikini. So, we spent the hot afternoon submerged in cool pool water, laying out on the hotel's partially-disintegrated wooden deck chairs, and getting some solid reading time in. I've just started book #2 of the summer (Posession by A.S. Byatt - borrowed from the extensive library collection of Aj. Emily)... The quiet life of Nan has some definite perks.

Saturday night we had plans to meet up again with our friends from Tha Wang Pha, and in the meantime we essentially had two dinners. Because really, our life here revolves around eating. The first meal (which was intended as a snack, but who are we kidding?) came from the market: I tried out a fresh veggie salad from the salad lady, a very mysterious but delicious hot milk egg treat from the man next to the waffle man, and a waffle from the waffle man for dessert. I also sampled a cup of sweet yellow corn from the corn lady, who is the prettiest lady at the market and speaks very good English. (These are pretty much the terms we describe our food lives in: "Where'd you get that? The fish man. Where should we eat tonight? Definitely not the pink noodle lady"). We ran into Prakop outside the 7/11, and she made sure we had made plans to watch the USA game that night.

Of course, we did: although the game didn't start until 1:30am our time, we ventured over to the Nan Steakhouse around 10pm for Dinner Part II and to stay up with Ingemar and our visiting friends to watch the match (the Steakhouse is the only place we know of with a TV that will stay open past 11). We watched the first game, then some Wimbledon, then finally the USA-Ghana game, then ran sprints and did jumping jacks to stay awake, then watched the overtime periods, then our miserable loss.... 6 hours later we were truly exhausted, slightly regretting our decision to stay up so late, and could barely keep our eyes open for our 4am bike ride back home. But trying a bite of the ostrich steak made it all well worth it. So. Good.

This morning at work I spent three hours carefully cutting out and laminating sets of vocab word flashcards ("Classroom Objects") for a game that wasn't nearly as successful as I'd hoped and that lasted all of 10 minutes. Such is the life of a teacher I guess. My great success of the day was learning how to correctly pronounce Khunsuek's name in my 6/1 class. I've been saying it wrong for weeks, and knowing that I was messing up because the whole class erupts with laughter every time I call on him - but in typical Thai fashion, no one ever corrected me. So finally I stopped everything during the lesson today and asked him to yell his name at me. Got it now. I'm also getting a sense for who the "teacher's pets" are in 6/1. A prime candidate is Cake. In the last 5 minutes of class today I was asking students if they'd come up with group names yet for the singing competition, and a lot of background chatter started up. Cake, who sits in the front row and was also the only student to volunteer to sing a solo in our competition, looked at me and shouted exasperatedly: "Teacher Caitlin, I'm SORRY!" She then turned to the class and yelled, "QUIIIEEET!!!" Thanks, Cake. During 2nd period, Emily was giving speaking assessments to her first graders, and as they waited to be called out one-by-one into the hallway they were in the English office watching a movie while I worked at my desk. I was helping keep an eye on them, and one in particular - Tony - to "tell Aj. Emily if he gets his behavior sticker today." All I can say is, Tony definitely did NOT earn any kind of sticker today. Who knew a 6-year-old could be so defiant and mean? Yeesh.

I'll keep you posted on our Independence Day in Nan plans for the coming weekend. Let's just say we've been planning for weeks and intend to go all out for our party of 4: the day may or may not involve a kiddie pool, temporary American flag tattoos, jean cuttoff shorts, and a game of makeshift Bagg-O. We'll see what a little resourcefulness and a trip to Tesco Lotus can produce.

Also if you're sick of reading blog posts and want some snail mail from Thailand, leave me a comment or email me your address! I'm making a trip to the post office this week.

A Cappella

To stick with the topic of food, but on a less disgusting note - here are some new favorite foods:

1. sticky rice with mango. I can't really put into words how good this breakfast dish is. Seriously. Delicious. (and cheap: 15 baht)

2. pineapple chicken fried rice

3. fried eggs! not a new food per se, but if there's one thing I've been missing from America it's hearty breakfast food. Luckily, I've learned this week that there's no shortage of eggs here - they come on anything and everything. And the yolks of the eggs here are bright orange instead of yellow.

4. black rice or bananas in coconut milk - my favorite Thai dessert

I got a package from home this week, so now we know - mail works! And thanks, Mom :) I now have a year's supply of stickers to give out, and all the ClearCare contact solution I could ever want.

In my advanced 6th grade class this week, I assigned a singing competition (which will actually take place next week, and be judged by me and Aj. Prakop). Each student is singing in either a duet or group to a song of their choice. I gave out lyrics to some easy English songs, but only one was well-received: every boy in the class will be singing "Wavin' Flag," the World Cup theme song. When I asked for other suggestions, the girls eagerly shouted for me to bring lyrics to "A Whole New World" (from Aladdin), "Love Story" (Taylor Swift), and "At the Beginning With You" (from Anastasia). I followed through with their requests, and the next day, everyone was happy and eager to begin practicing their song.

I have 3 requirements for every group: 1) learn the lyrics by heart, 2) have accompanying dance moves or action with the song (that one's mostly for me) and 3) think of a group name (the Wavin' Flag boys have already come up with one they're very proud of: "Tattoo Colors" ?). Costumes are optional. I probably would have hated my 6th grade teacher if she gave me this assignment... but I've never seen the kids so excited. Every day when I walked into class this week, iPod speakers in hand, they would shout "Ajaan, ajaan! Practice songs, practice songs!" For the last 20 minutes of class I let them break up into their performance groups and rehearse. Since I only have one set of speakers and one iPod to bring in, "rehearsals" often involved me singing songs a cappella over and over so that they can hear the rhythm and how some of the words sound. I may have confused them even more. We'll see how this goes.

The Kindergartners now recognize me outside of class... When I walk past them at lunch or after school, I am instantly flanked by a mass of 5-year-olds shouting various butchered versions of my name. They love to pet my skirt and hang from my arms with sticky ice-cream covered hands. Gross and cute, all at the same time.

On Thursday, we were asked to attend the teacher's faculty meeting "to receive bo-kett." We sat at the meeting, listened to a teacher give a lengthy introduction in Thai, and then were presented with bouquets of roses along with the other 6 or 7 other new Thai teachers at Bandon Sriserm School. We each said a few words to the staff about how grateful we were to be teaching at their school this year. Then the Director stood and made some creepy comment in broken English about how he thinks we are very beautiful, especially compared to his other teachers. The teachers all cackled, we sort of smiled, and then took our seats again. Just another one of those awkward moments we encounter with this man on a daily basis.

Yesterday marked 3 weeks in Thailand. WHOA. Weekend updates to follow!

- CP

Food That Shall Not Be Eaten

Remember the "dark brown tofu-looking blocks" I mentioned in one of my first posts? The ones I took a big bite out of to be adventurous, then regretted it, then hoped I would never find out the real identity of? (http://cpinthailand.blogspot.com/2010/06/breakfast-fail-and-tesco-lotus.html)

Welp, mystery solved: congealed chicken blood.

Bike Lessons

The other day I was asked, "What was the biggest shock when you first arrived in Thailand?"

I'm still mulling over that question because I still can't really give a straight answer. A lot of things about life here - actually, almost everything about life here - is different from home. But it's not different in a way that I can put things in categories of "opposite" or "the same" as the States. And I'm usually too busy trying to absorb things as fast as I can to be "shocked" by them. So, maybe it's easier to describe things I'm used to now, after two weeks, that I wasn't used to at all 2 weeks ago - "lessons" I've learned. A lot of them involve bikes.

1. Pedaling on the left side of the road.... and making right turns from the left side of the road. And freeing one arm while pedaling to make signals for right turns from the left side of the road. That took me a while.

2. Being constantly observed - especially outside of school. This morning, following the unfortunate bike fail of last night, Prakop took Emily to get her bike fixed at the shop. Afterwards they went to grab breakfast (sticky rice and banana...yum) at the market. A woman stopped Prakop, waii-ed her, and spoke to her for a few minutes. Afterwards, Prakop explained that the woman had heard about Emily's bike trouble. Emily looked puzzled, since the bike had only broken a mere 12 hours before. "You are a teacher at Bandon Sriserm. Everybody knows." News travels fast in Nan - especially about white people.

3. Things going wrong, and having no choice but to be Thai about it.

I'll use one of my lovely roommates as an example. In a single 24-hour period, the following happened to her:

- Her bike broke mid-intersection on the way home from dinner

- Her room flooded... the ultimate irony since we are rarely able to get our water to work at all

- While trying to clean everything that was affected by the flood, the power converter to our washing machine went defunct mid-wash cycle

- A gecko somehow crawled into her hair while she was biking

Life here for us - at least so far - is all about trial-and-error, pausing and reevaluating, adjusting and making do. There's simply no other way to do things.

4. Asking, not telling.

Ajaan Prakop asked for about the fifth time today if we would like her to set up a laundry service for us, where a woman will wash and iron our clothes regularly for 500 baht a month. She also mentioned something about our clothes looking wrinkly. So apparently her question is less of a question and more of a demand... I realize now that that is how things are usually done here: don't be confrontational by giving an order. Just ask, and ask again, and ask a different way...

5. Gifting as a continuous act, not a one time exchange.

One of the teachers at school kindly bought us lights for our bikes last week. Another took us out to lunch, and then brought us sticky rice desserts from the market another day. For every gift, we must remember to give something in return... in this case, a bag of mangoes for each. In Thailand, gifting is a continuous thing: simple "thank yous" won't suffice.

Here's to a lot more learning ahead.

A Cheeseburger on Ingemar, Poolside in Nan, and a $7 Haircut? Donut Mind If I Do.

We had a mission for ourselves on Friday: find cheeseburgers.

The Nan Steakhouse is one of maybe two restaurants in the city that offers them (or any kind of western food), and as we were growing a bit tired of noodles and rice this week, we were determined to find it for a Friday night feast. A few hours after school let out, we met up with Markus (who was visiting again from Tha Wang Pha this weekend) and hit the road in search of burgers and beer. After getting only a little lost, we pulled up to the restaurant on our four beach cruisers and motorbike. Ingemar, the Swede who runs the Nan Steakhouse, enthusiastically greeted us at the entrance. We sat next to a British guy named Mark and his Thai wife - both teachers in Nan - as well as Jenny, another American our age teaching 9th grade English at a secondary school in Nan. As the night went on, we also met a handful of other Brits and Americans (all men in their 40s or 50s, all teachers as well). Apparently, we had found the unofficial watering hole of all "farang" in and around Nan. And apparently, though we had never met any of these folks, they knew who we were. "I've seen you girls!" one exclaimed. "We call you the ducks" (referencing the way we tend to ride around town in single-file line on bicycles). Yep, that would be us.

Before ordering , we each wrote our names next to a final game score (to the USA-Slovenia match) - with a promise from Ingemar that if we were correct, our meal was on him. I predicted 3-2 USA (actually it was less predicting and more writing-in-whatever-the-next-blank-was-'cause-I-wanted-food-quickly). Granted, the real final score was 2-2... but Ingemar agreed that last shot should have counted. It was the best free cheeseburger I've ever had, and he even gave me a shout out in the Nan Steakhouse email the next day.

Saturday was beautiful, and our team of 5 (some might say, the Mighty Ducks) headed out on a field trip. After coffee and lunch at a Japanese food stand, we visited the Nan Museum and Wat Phumin. At Wat Phumin, we were given an informal tour of the murals that lined each wall by a group of young girls who spoke pretty good English. When we arrived at the mural depicting fiery scenes of torture and death, one of the girls said (very matter-of-factly), "Welcome to Hell."

In the afternoon, we decided to try out the rooftop swimming pool at the Dheveraj Hotel. We donned our one-pieces (forewarned that we might run into our students there), paid 60 baht ($2) to enter, and spent the rest of the hot 95-degree afternoon in the water. It was blissful, but the trade-off was that we were the only ones in the pool above the age of 9, and we were being stared at the entire time - mostly by little boys who would dive under water with goggles on and swim in circles around us. We started to throw up peace signs under water to get a reaction.... but instead of laughs, the kids gave us even more frightened looks. I'm still not quite used to feeling like an alien all the time.

On Sunday we went back to the Dheveraj (it's their air conditioning... we can't resist!) for their brunch buffet we had heard about. Turns out the buffet doesn't happen on weekends, but our non-buffet (or Nan-buffet... ha!) lunch was perfectly delicious. Afterwards, Anna and I decided to try out the hair salon. I got a great cut at a nice salon for 200 baht (less than $7)... Now I'm actually glad I ran out of time to take care of that when I was still home, where it would have cost me at least $70.

Emily's bike is now officially out of commission: the chain came loose as we were biking home from dinner tonight, so we pitched it over the fence at school (which was much closer to us than home) to deal with tomorrow. In the meantime, we are doubling up with the extra seats that come on the back. As if we didn't call enough attention to ourselves already...

When You Give a Kindergartner a Sticker

You know when you're at the beach, and you momentarily feel sympathy for that seagull staring you in the eye as you bite into your sandwich, and you decide to throw him a measly piece of bread... only to horribly regret your decision as you spend the rest of the afternoon shooing the flock off your towel?

Or, remember that children's story, When You Give a Mouse a Cookie (or even its less well-known, but equally wonderful sequel, When You Give a Moose a Muffin)?

Well, as I learned this week, that's a lot like what happens When You Give a Kindergartner a Sticker.

Wednesday was my first day with the Kindergartners. Before class, I was sitting outside on the bench preparing some flash cards. A pint-size Kindergartner walked up to me and stared at me with her big brown eyes. She pointed to a sheet of stickers poking out from my folder. I smiled and said "Yes, stickers!" She kept staring at me. "What is your name?" I asked. More silence and staring. More cuteness. I couldn't resist. I peeled off a yellow smiley face and stuck it on her uniform shirt. She smiled and shouted something and her friend came over. I got the same treatment, and gave the friend a sticker. They both giggled and ran away.

2 minutes later, I gathered my stuff and started to head towards the K2.1 classroom... only to be suddenly barricaded by a swarm of Kindergarteners jumping on and hugging me and shouting words I didn't understand. I clutched the sticker sheet inside my folder against my chest and waded through the pack of small children to my classroom.

I have three different classes of Kindergartners, each with about 30 kids, who I see twice a week (Wednesday - Friday). These kids are ADORABLE, but they are also rambunctious, incredibly loud, and have the attention span of a goldfish. Even while sitting down in rows, keeping their focus on me is like trying to hold onto a fistful of sand for 25 minutes: it keeps slipping out from between your fingers and scattering across the floor, so you have to continuously recollect it and try again. To function, Kindergarten classes have to be filled with a lot of running around, gesturing, game playing, or focused activities like coloring. They shout a lot of Thai at me, while I look helplessly over at the co-teacher, who also doesn't understand any English (but who works miracles when it comes to discipline).

Putting all of that TEFL course knowledge to work, I worked on establishing a routine my K classes this week. We start every morning singing "Good Morning to You" (to the tune of Happy Birthday). Then I have them say my name, by pointing to my name tag and saying "Ajaan Caitlin." Then I walk around and tap a few of them on the shoulder, motion for them to stand, ask, "What is your name?" and point to their name tags. Most just stare and smile at me. A few can already say "My name is _________." We close every class by singing "Thank you class, thank you class. Goodbye to you! Good bye to you!" (to the tune of Frere Jacques). Never are you so aware of your poor singing talent, or of the little movements you make while teaching, as when you are standing in front of a class of 5 year olds and having every intonation of your voice and small unintentional gesture mimicked back at you. Seriously, Kindergartners are like human tape recorders. Every thing I say ("good job!" "okay..." "NO!") is said, in unison, right back to me. So in many ways, the Kindergartners have better pronunciation than even the sixth graders.... they may not know what they are saying, but they will produce any sound I make exactly as they hear it, unfettered by deep fluency in their own language. It's incredible.

Sixth grade was almost as much fun as Kindergarten this week. In the advanced class (6/1), we worked on reading stories and acting out plays. I spent long hours slaving away at the keyboard this week, writing out my own stirring renditions and scripts of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" and "Jack and the Beanstalk." When the kids acted out "Jack and the Beanstalk," I cast the two tiniest 6th graders in the role of Giant and Giant's Wife. I also accidently called too many students up to be actors, and not wanting to send one away, I gave one girl the role of "cow." They found it hilarious. I do what I can for laughs.

This week I gave my first test - a spelling quiz on descriptive adjectives. As a whole, the students did very well.... which hopefully means I'm doing an okay job (but probably has more to do with the fact that they are extremely bright and get extra practice with Aj. Prakop). I am, however, running into problems with homework. The students do pretty well on assignments, but it's clear that certain groups of students work together and turn in the same exact sentence answers. This is especially apparent when the answer is wrong. Example:

Q: How did the boy feel at the end of the story?

A: "Child rearing feel remarseful."

(???. First of all, makes no sense. Secondly, showed up on 7 different students' homework sheets).

I guess I haven't decided yet how I want to address topics like cheating and sharing work, and I don't yet have a feel for how those behaviors are treated in the Thai school system. I remember hearing at Orientation that in many Asian countries, unlike in the United States, students will often share work to help each other out and bring everyone to the same level - rather than shielding their work and fighting to be the best in the class. In any case, it made me realize that I haven't yet laid out explicit rules with the class.... So that's on the agenda for Monday.

Outside of class, my roommates and I have been trying out different restaurants on the river for dinner each night - mostly ones with televisions so we can watch the games. We tend to favor Terrace (the restaurant that our landlord runs), and we're slowly making our way through their extensive menu. But still, nothing beats street food. We've been going to the market a lot to try some new fruits. I bought some bananas a few days ago, which look miniature compared to ones at home. They are much sweeter, and less chalky tasting. I've also been spending a lot of time getting things organized in the apt and doing laundry (woohoo!). On average, the water from the sink will work long enough each day to allow me to hand wash about 5 articles of clothing. Project for the weekend: learn to work our washing machine (which currently lives in the corner of my bedroom).

Other projects for the weekend:

- Find the Nan Steakhouse (again, now with somewhat clearer directions. Thank you Jackie!)

- Nan Museum

- Wat Phumin (we haven't yet seen the murals inside, for which the temple is famous)

- Thai movie

- Venture the outskirts of Nan. Possibly on a tuk-tuk?

....Oh, and how could I forget? My favorite Kindergarten nicknames of the week:

Peen, Ninja, Taxi, Punch, Ice and Stang.

water supply.

Just a typical day in the life of our water supply. Yes, the lack of air-conditioned common spaces means we gchat each other from 5 feet away:

Emily: my water isnt working....

me: mine either.

also when it does work, my sink has been leaking like crazy
Emily: its like its turned off or something

really?

me: we need a plumber up in here.

Emily: nothing is working for me

fo sho

that is one thing i literally no nothing about

me: yeah same here

plus we don't have a lot of tools on hand

Emily: not much i can do with my bare hands

Sent at 9:44 PM on Monday

me: well we could collect some rain water

and boil it in a hot water heater

and shower in it

sound good?

Emily: bird bath

wait

i can hear something

me: me too

wowww

it's coming back

Emily: hmm its gurgling

not quite there yet

me: i think we should name our water supply

he's like a grumbly old man

who doesn't like being woken up

Emily: its like that fairy tale jack and the beanstalk

its that giant

the grumbling is him snoring

me: damnit giant!

wake up! i needa shower!

Sent at 9:47 PM on Monday

Emily: im sweaty from climbing the beanstalk

Sent at 9:49 PM on Monday

Just Like a Wavin' Flag

Monday, Monday.

Most importantly: happy birthday Jennifer! There's a present for you here, and it will make its way to California once I find Nan's post office.

Aj. Prakop came by my desk this morning with an assignment: she plopped a stack of English language newspapers and magazines on my desk (the Bangkok Post translated, Highlights magazine), and asked if I would help her make a World Cup display on the 6th grade bulletin board. I cut out pictures and headlines, the scores from the past weekend's matches, and selected some World Cup "vocab" words to write out on big cards and staple to the board ("striker," "South Africa," "coach," "midfielder," "trophy"...). Aj. Prakop rarely makes suggestions for my classes, but today she asked me to quiz my 6/1 class on teams in the World Cup, which country is hosting the World Cup, and which teams were their favorites. Evidently, AP has decided that the World Cup is the perfect opportunity to get kids speaking English. It worked well enough, although I learned that none of my kids are rooting for USA... they are partial to Brazil, Spain and Argentina.

I am constantly amused by AP and her free-spirited outlook on teaching English, especially as I am learning to conduct myself properly in a very traditional and modest culture. Although I've never really seen Prakop teaching in her own classes, and in mine she keeps to herself at the back desk or next door in the office, it's clear from our conversations that she wants English class to be the best part of these kids' days at school - that it should be 90 percent fun, 10 percent other stuff. She is always emphasizing playing games or just getting into conversations with my students. She has never asked me to stick to a strict lesson plan, doesn't seem concerned with the constraints of each Unit's curriculum, and never takes anything in the classroom too seriously. That said, she is truly dedicated to and passionate about this program; I can tell she spends every waking moment of her day thinking about the next day or next week's classes.

Anna had a rough day at school today. Her Thai co-teacher Anne (who comes in close second place for most awesome teacher at Bandon Sriserm) was absent, so Anna was in charge of 2nd grade classroom management all on her own - and it fell to pieces quickly. Listening to her day, I realize I haven't yet had one of those "Holy-crap-get-me-out-of-here" teaching moments, and that I've probably been taking my calm well-mannered 6th graders for granted. I know that a day of hell will arrive soon enough (especially since my first day of teaching Kindergarden is Wednesday), and I suppose it's good to remind myself that this job won't be all adorable-kid-moments and Prakop-inspired-teaching.

I had my first experience with Thai healthcare today. After school Aj. Prakop took us to the doctor's clinic in town to get checked out for our work permit applications... Had a brief convo with a Thai doctor, showed my passport, had my heart listened to with a stethoscope, and 30 baht ($1) later, we were outta there. Easy enough.

Another awesome part of my day: after the World Cup "quiz," all of my kids were singing the K'naan Waving Flag song to themselves. Brings me right back.

Ah, RAIN! It visits about once a day, and literally: when it rains, it pours. I can hear thunder, the window shutters banging against the panes outside, and heavy sheets of rain hitting the roof right now....

...It will put me right to sleep.

Weekend Update

Friday came just when it needed to: it was a successful first week of teaching, but by 3:30 p.m. I desperately needed to unwind and let my mind wander somewhere outside of lesson planning. Our first full weekend in Nan together was spent 1) exploring (mostly by getting lost), 2) learning that 7-Eleven doesn't sell beer before 5 p.m., and that there's a high likelihood of running into the Asst Director there just as you're reaching into the fridge, 3) getting Thai massages, 4) finding the night market, 5) meeting other whities (!!), 6) trading language lessons with the locals, and 7) watching World Cup matches in odd locations. Here's a recap:

June 12, 2010

Saturday was, I think, the hottest day since we've been in Nan. So naturally, an authentic Thai massage inside an air-coditioned spa was in order.

After coffee and a delicious lunch of pad see ew (flat noodles, pork, and broccoli), we headed to the Dhevaraj Hotel, one of the bigger hotels in Nan, and located very near to school. We were directed to a small parlor to the side of the lobby. Inside the "spa" rooms, instead of a massage table, there was a mattress pad and pillow set up on the floor. I was given loose cotton pants and a button-front shirt to wear - essentially, purple jammies. The place smelled like a spa (pungent lavender) but the music was less soothing: Thai radio - always a random assortment of dance pop, re-recorded American hits, and whiny love ballads, and always played loudly. I dressed in the purple jammies, laid on my back, and the masseuse began to work her magic.

I quickly learned that Thai massages are about 80 percent yoga workout and 20 percent deep-tissue-pressure-point massage. Over the course of two hours, every inch of my body was stretched and pulled in ways I did not think it could go. At one point, the masseuse had me sit up with my legs stretched out in front of me and my hands behind my head, and essentially put me in a headlock while flinging me side to side. Other parts, like the head scratch that later turned my hair into an afro, were so relaxing that I drifted to sleep. The whole production, including post-massage tea, cost a whopping $12 - and by the end (to quote Emily), we felt like a million baht.

After the massage, we made an errand run to Tesco Lotus, which we had only been to once before by car. It was a substantial distance to ride by bike, but we were happy to have found it on our own. Plus, I now have a nice suntan going (mostly concentrated on my forehead, tops of my thighs, tops of my feet....)

We came home to a note on our front porch, addressed to "New Nan Girls" and signed "Markus, Dave and Matt, the Thaiuangpha Boys" with a phone number. The note said they were in Nan city for the night to watch the USA-England match and to give them a call if we were around. We had no idea who Markus, Dave and Matt were, or how they knew where we lived and that we keep our porch door unlocked... but since we've grown used to feeling generally clueless and flying by the seat of our pants, we called the number back.

Markus, Dave and Matt are Americans living in the neighboring town, teaching English through another foreign service program similar to PiA. Apparently they had met the former Nan girls a few months ago while visiting, became friends with them, and had learned from one of them that we just arrived. We made plans to meet later at the vaguely-described "Nan steakhouse" near the military hospital.... However, plans got muddled by a) our lack of knowledge about just where the military hospital was, b) our lack of knowledge about where the "steakhouse" was once we found the hospital and c) becoming tired and frustrated after biking around lost in the dark for too long. There are technically street signs in Nan, but directions are never (ever) given so concretely. Every place is described as "around the corner from," "to the right and then the left of," or "near the temple" - which can be frustrating when we're looking for something in particular, but always seems to lead us on an adventure and expands our knowledge of Nan's general layout pretty quickly.

As we were wrapping up dinner (we had given up on the steakhouse and stopped somewhere on our own), Markus and Matt pulled up on motorbike and met us. We all decided to head over to the riverfront near our apt. to meet Dave, have some drinks and kill time before the match started.... at 1:30 a.m. Thai time. After a few hours of trading stories about being a farang teacher in Thailand, and all the mishaps and who-knows that come with it, we made our way to an eclectic outdoor restaurant-bar called Riverside. They had live music (even at 2am! in Nan!), Changa beer, a hilarious drunk Thai man dancing at the table next to us, and television. Perfect. By halftime, though, it was clear that the place was emptying out and we were officially holding up the wait staff. Thais are never direct in telling you that you've over stayed your welcome... instead of bringing the bill and expressing that it was closing time, the waitress instead slowly turned out the lights...then the fans... then began cleaning tables with a flashlight... all without ever coming by our table. The boys were upset that we wouldn't be able to find another place with a TV to watch the end of the game, but we finally convinced them that we were being absurdly rude, and since we were apparently the only Americans actually living in Nan, we didn't want to get a bad rap around town.

The television dilemma was solved when we biked past the "police station" (sort of a guard hut along the river). Markus spotted the glare of a television screen through the window, hopped off his bike, and asked through the open door if they wouldn't mind letting us watch ("It's our team!"). The three police officers - dressed in white undershirts and lounging on cots inside the station - graciously let us inside and pulled out chairs for us. So, there we were: 3 a.m. in Nan, a bunch of 20-something Americans sitting around a shoddy television inside a guard hut, cheering "U-S-A! U-S-A!" while making broken-Thai conversation and hamming it up in pictures with three underdressed policemen ....I sort of felt my age for the first time all week.


June 13, 2010

Sunday was pretty low-key. We slept in, got lunch in town, and stopped at a cafe on the way home (mostly because it had really cool decor and we were curious). Inside, we met Nok and Ed - two young-ish Thai guys who run the cafe and speak pretty good English - at least compared to most locals we've met here. Both were wearing camouflage cargo shorts, cotton tees, flip flops and had what I imagine to be the equivalent of Thai "surfer dude" hair. After ordering Thai coffee and lychee flavored smoothies, we struck up a conversation with Nok. He told us he'd only been in Nan for one month, having come from Pai (just north of Chiang Mai). He told us about a few interesting things to do and see in Nan, and offered to help us with our Thai if we'd help him with his English. We traded "vintage" and "antique" (he wanted to know how to describe the items his cafe was decorated with: old-fashioned Coca-Cola cans and 50s style television sets, lamps, and brightly-colored vases) for "Khun bai nai maa?" (Where are you from?) and "Chan pen khun khru" (I am a teacher). He invited us to come with him and his friends up to Pua (just north of Nan) next weekend, but we explained that we didn't own a motorbike and that might make the trip difficult. We did, however, promise to come back to the cafe for more lessons.

"I not have a chubby."

June 10, 2010

I only had one afternoon class today (another weird schedule), so I spent about 90 percent of my day making worksheets on the computer. I feel the need to make a "Directions" box for this post. And border it with stars. And then make 35 copies on a machine that works at the pace of a snail.

Anyways, today was "Wai Khru Day" - a day when students show respect to teachers (according to Prakop's translation). Kind of like Teacher Appreciation Day in the States... but a little more intense. Instead of a few kids bringing their teacher an apple, the entire student body presents gifts to every member of the teaching staff during a 2 hour morning assembly, which was rehearsed the day before.

We arrived at school (dressed in orange - 'cause it's orange day!) and made our way to the assembly area. Every student's parents sent their child to school today with a small bouquet of flowers, wrapped in palm leaf, newspaper, or regular lined paper. The students lined up with their home room classes in the morning, removed their shoes, and filed into the open-air room - Kindergardners in front, 6th graders in back. Each student sat with their bouquets (and about 4 students from each grade carried larger, more elaborate bouquets in vases or bowls) and faced the stage, where the school Director sat with about 12 other teachers. It appeared to be the oldest/most respected teachers on stage, including Prakop - the younger teachers stood on the sides near their students. The Director started the ceremony by lighting incense at a Buddha shrine on stage, then at the large picture of the King** that was propped up on an easel. He then knealt before both images and waii-ed - hands together and at his forehead, forehead to the floor, 3 times. (Waii-ing becomes more elaborate as you move up the social ladder - monks, the King, and Buddha obviously get a seat at the top).

**Tangent: have I talked about the King yet??? Thailand has an elected government, but its head of state is King Bhumibol Adulyadej "the Great." And his likeness is seen EVERYWHERE : on billboards, on city streets, inside classrooms, restaurants and restaurant menus, clothing stores, supermarkets.... He is beloved by all, and no Thai person ever speaks ill of the King or the Royal Family, no matter one's politics, religion, or social class. Each morning at our school, the kids sing the national anthem, a Buddhist prayer, and a song for the King - it's pretty much a package deal everywhere in the country.

Back to this morning:

Next, the big bouquets were brought to the stage by a couple of students from each grade. After that, chairs for every teacher were lined up in front of the stage. The Director asked us to sit next to him. Grade by grade, row by row, every single student in the school brought up their little bouquet to one of the teachers. They would kneel in front of us, hand us the bouquet, and bow with their foreheads to the ground. Then (at the direction of the Director), we were to pat their heads, have them sit up, and send them away. This process took about 45 minutes to complete. How's that for teacher appreciation?

The rest of the school day was somewhat uneventful (other than worksheet making of course). After school, the four of us grabbed early dinner. We biked over to the mall for Hot Pot, and it was just as delicious as the first time. On the way home, we bought 7-11 out of yogurts.... We go through them fast.

Now I'm sitting here lesson planning and grading papers... These worksheets are like individual artworks. Thai kids have the neatest handwriting, and they don't tolerate scribbles or mess-ups. Pencils and dirty eraser marks? ohhh no. Every single student writes in ink pen and has his desk stocked with about a year's supply of White-Out. Plus they love to embellesh a boring old white page with colored pencils. Today when I asked my 6/1 class to pass up their homework at the beginning of class, I noticed Flook frantically scribbling on his paper. I thought to myself, "Okay, Flook forgot about the assignment last night - guess I better talk to him." When I approached his desk, however, I saw that his sentences were perfect and he was feverishly coloring in the shapes on the worksheet's border. He looked up at me with a guilty expression, and asked, "Is it okay?", to which I replied, "Yes, Flook. It wasn't mandatory to decorate the homework."

I'll post a few colorful and entertaining examples of sentence errors on Facebook.

....Tomorrow night, my fellow ajarns and I are going to hit up Terrace (a riverfront restaurant-bar that our landlord owns) to unwind, drink some Thai brewskies, and watch the World Cup. Soccer seems to be a pretty big deal here. Will the Thais root for Mexico or S. Africa? We shall find out!

Hah, hok, jet, bhaet.... Here we go now!

Slept without the AC last night! Granted, I accidently passed out at 8:30pm and woke up at about 5am... probably an indicator that I am still jetlagged and could have slept on rocks last night after our 300-stair hike - but I think my body and my sweat glands are also finally adjusting to the heat. Or I'm just learning to "be Thai" about it.

Since the kids were practicing for a Thai-Equivalent-of-Teacher's-Appreciation-Day assembly this afternoon, I only had to teach one class (6/1) all day. For the "describe yourself" unit, we learned some new descriptive adjectives vocab: thin, tall, short, blond, etc. I had the kids play a game where they had to match the word to a picture of its definition, then use the word in a sentence to describe a person (themselves or a classmate). I started to be more careful about which words I called out after a few rounds of "Tay is chubby," "Tay is wide," and "Tay is large." But Tay took it like a champ.

For lunch, Ajarn Wandee (another English instructor) wanted to take us up the street for "the best pad Thai in Nan." It was actually the only pad Thai we'd had in Nan so far... but it's a definite possibility that it is the best. After lunch, Wandee took us through the street market, insisting that she buy us some fruit to take home. We sampled about 3 or 4 different fruits that I had neither heard of nor seen before in my life. All were delicious. Weird looking, but delicious. With one exception: durian. Apparently durian is native to southeast Asia and hugely popular in most countries here... but no joke, it smells like the thing that crawled under your kitchen sink and died there last week. According to Wikipedia, "[durian's] odor has led to the fruit's banishment from certain hotels and public transportation in southeast Asia]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian. ...I'll stick to mangoes, kop kun kha!

Like Prakop, Wandee learned English at the University from a Thai teacher, and she says she wants to practice speaking with us as much as possible to improve her pronunciation. In return, she has promised to help us with our Thai. It's kind of a strange and synergestic experience we are having here: at the exact same time that we are teaching Thai students the complex mechanisms of our own native language (and helping Prakop and Wandee to practice their English), we ourselves are surrounded in Thai, and are finding that it's necessary to learn the language in order to communicate with 95% of the population in Nan. I can't wait for the day when I understand what the old woman at the noodle stand is trying to tell me, or even better, when I can communicate an idea back to her. That said, [the anthropologist in me] finds it fascinating what can be communicated between two people without using any formal language at all - the kinds of gestures or expressions that seem to be universally understood among the human species. In Thailand, I'm finding that a smile goes a long way. Run out of things to talk about with the Assistant Director who speaks no English? Smile. Trying to make that kid in the back row feel more comfortable when he messes up the future tense? Smile. Want to try that strange looking pink fruit with tentacles coming out of it? Point, and smile.

More than a few times at the street market, Aj. Wandee would stop to talk to the vendor, then turn to one of us and say something like, "This is the mother of Gam, one of your 4th graders." Many of our students' parents work blue-collar jobs in Nan... I think it's why learning English is so valuable for these kids, and why Aj. Prakop and others have devoted so much energy to the English Program at Bandon Sriserm: learning English gives students a better chance of attending the best universities in Thailand, and at becoming professionals. And so many of these students are amazing at English. On top of that, they are truly enthusiastic about learning it (for the most part). 10 times a day, a student won't just say "Hello!" as she passes me in the hallway, but will actually stop and try to have a whole conversation in English - even if she's not one of my students. I for one never had the guts to do that with a Spanish teacher in middle school... and Spanish at least uses the same alphabet as English.

Prakop told us we could leave early today (since afternoon classes were cancelled), so Anna, Nicole, Emily and decided to explore town a bit and do some shopping. I bought more fruit (ripe mangoes for breakfast - yummm) and a few little trinkets from a textile shop. There is a large population of hill tribes in the outskirts of Nan, who specialize in really interesting textiles: clothes, coin purses, scarves... Get excited, closest friends of mine - I'm already stocking up on gift souveniers to bring home! We also stopped by an outdoor coffee-bar-type-place called Goodday (their motto: "Everyday is Goodday!")... We had some Americanos and a coffee drink that was translated as "Go Pee" on the menu. ?.

And for the best part of my day.....

Alongside the Nan River, there are a few large outdoor (everything is outdoors, really) tennis and basketball courts. Everyday around 6pm, there is a free aerobics class given there. An instructor and her four "background dancers" stand up on a stage with microphones and, with the help of Thai power mixes blaring over the loud speakers, lead a class of roughly 150 Thais in a very confusing and very quick-paced aerobics routine. Most people taking the class are Thai women aged 40 and up (although I did see one man), and for some reason everyone wears some shade of lime green to workout. Some also wear jean shorts and converses. Emily, Nicole and I jumped into the session about 20 minutes late - again, the ONLY white people on the scene. I'm not sure if any of you have seen me do aerobics in America before, but I'm less-than-coordinated even when I understand what the instructor is yelling. Imagine my skills when the class is in Thai.

After the class - drenched in sweat x1000 - we biked to the street market to grab some dinner. Stands were closing early, and the only thing left to order was pad Thai; we got it to go and ate back at the apartment.

Two meals of pad Thai in one day? Ohhhh yeah. Life is good.

It's the Climb.

June 8, 2010

I finally got an official printed (nick)name roster for my 6th graders. Here are some more highlights:

"Few 1" and "Few 2" (who look very similar and sit right next to eachother)

"Yacht"

"Best" (who tries hard, but is ironically the worst)

"Cherry"

"If" (who is about as big as her nickname is)

"Poo" (not to be confused with "Pooh")

"Boss"

"Teeth"

"Job"

"Party"

"Dump"

"Cable"

"Cake"

"Film"

"Tug"

"Name"

"Oat"

"Mind"

"Sack"

"Bow Bow"

"New"

"Spy"

"Bee"

"Dream"

"Ball"

"Earn"

"Bank," "Bank 1," "Bank 2," "Bank 3"...

We were asked by the Director to be on "morning duty" today, meaning we stood outside the entrance to school and greeted the students as they walked in. Most of them were confused as to whether they were supposed to waii us (the traditional show of respect to teachers or superiors) or wave and high-five us. A few other Thai teachers stood outside with us and scolded the children who did not properly waii us. ...Little do they know I'm 21 years old, just graduated college a week ago, and spent all of 3 days getting teacher certified. Ha!

Upon arriving at school, we noticed that everyone, from the school Director to the canteen workers, was wearing pink. Outside the school gates, everyone else in town was also wearing pink: parents dropping off their kids, street vendors, average Joes driving there motorbikes through town. We quickly pieced together that Tuesdays are pink days. From Aj. Prakop, we now know that every week, Wednesdays are blue days, Thursdays are orange days, and Fridays are "traditional" wear days. Might need to go shopping....

Since today was my first official day as teacher (I was responsible for each class's lesson all on my own - Prakop mostly sits and grades papers in the back of the room all period), I was immediately struck by how very little my 6/4 class knows, and how advanced my 6/1 class is. For example, in the 6/1 class, the students absorbed the material (future tense - to be "going to" to do/be something) so fast that I pretty much ran through my entire lesson plan within the first 10 minutes. After a few moments of awkwardness, I improvised a new activity: I asked each student to plan an exotic vacation, and to write down in their English notebooks a To-Do list of what they were "going to" do before and during the trip. After a few minutes, a few hands shot up with questions... I came by their desks, but instead of questions about the future tense, I was asked (in perfect English), "Ajarn Caitlin, I am going to go to Canada; how do I spell 'Niagara Falls'?" and "Ajarn Caitlin, is this how you write 'Brussels'?"

For the 6/4 class, I only got through about a fourth of what I wanted to cover, which was especially frustrating since I only see these kids once per week. They are much more timid speaking English, and less well-behaved. On top of that, there is a greater range of ability within the class: some students seemed to more-or-less understand new material as I taught it, whereas others still struggle to say "My name is..." and don't seem as though they understand much of what I say. The 6/2 and 6/3 classes fall along the spectrum of 6/1 to 6/4 (although their curriculum guide is the same as 6/4's).

After school, at 17:30 (see how good I'm getting at using 24-hour time?), Aj. Prakop and her husband Aj. Hanou picked us up at the apartment. Anna, Emily, Nicole and I hopped into the truck bed (road safety? pshh) and off we went. Four Ajarn Farangs cruising through Nan... the gawks and rubbernecking ensued. Prakop and Hanou drove us just outside the city to visit some of Nan's most famous temples (or "wats"). At the first one, Aj. Hanou dropped us off at the bottom of a big hill. With Prakop, we climbed 303 steps to the very top, where a gorgeous temple and ginormous gold Buddha statue stood. From there we could see for miles and miles... swatches of rice paddies, golden temple tops peeking up from the green hills in the distance, the winding path of the Nan River and the Reservoir, clusters of city buildings... Every day I think to myself WOW - can't believe I actually get to live here for a year.

We went to visit a few more temples, grabbed dinner at a street cart, then headed back home... where I promptly fell asleep in the middle of lesson planning.

Things to note:

1. Stickers are my magic weapon in the classroom. Thai kids love them. I mean LOOOVE them. Even the shiest kid will perk up in class and volunteer for a pink smiley face sticker the size of my fingernail.

2. School director = perhaps a little creepy. Nicole is pretty sure that at lunch he asked her, "Did you sleep alone last night?" ...We hope that was just a mistranslation.

Ajarn Cait-Lin

Never has the need for extra-strength deodorant been greater. It is sweltering hot, humid, and muggy all day long. I could shower 4 times a day and it would still not be enough.

Needless to say, I was not looking my finest on the first day of school. Emily, Anna, Nicole and I biked over to Bandon Sriserm around 7:30am, our nice new teacher clothes drenched in sweat already. We passed through the front gates in a single file line on matching bicycles, waving hello to students, wearing sunglasses and brightly colored skirts and tops... a sharp contrast to the other teachers, who on Mondays wear outfits that look similar to service khaki uniforms in the Navy. We met Aj. Prakop in the office upstairs, and she showed us to some instant coffee and toast with butter, which evidently was bought just for us....most Thais don't eat "breakfast foods" in the morning. She then handed us some folders and told us what grade levels we will be teaching.

[Rewind to a few hours earlier: As I was getting ready for work this morning, I Skyped home to talk with Spaige, Mom and Dad. When I told them I was about to find out what grade levels I was going to teach, they agreed that "6th or Kindergarden would be the toughest...."]

....I am teaching 16 classes of 6th graders and Kindergardeners! And I am actually thrilled. Shout out to Jackie Thomas, whose shoes I am literally filling this year (she taught K and 6 at Bandon Sriserm last year, and had only wonderful things to say about the kids.... I think I am also living in her former room... the one with the washing machine in it, yes?). I met two of the 6th grade classes today, and these kids are extremely respectful, enthusiastic, and so darn cute. Many Thai kids have English nicknames, which are sometimes just English words. For example, in my 6/1 class, I have "Job," "Bamboo," "Jame" (he forgot the "s"), and "Donut." (Another shout out, to the Live Week Crew: if we ever need to nickname someone again, I will have a reservoir of amusing ones to choose from by the end of the semester).

The new staff of the English Dept. at Bandon Sriserm

It is actually Week 4 of the semester for the students, so we are jumping into this a little late. Each of us has a Thai co-teacher, who sort of mills in and out of the room throughout the class period, helping to give instructions and keep the class managed... (I lucked out: mine is Aj. Prakop!) Anna is teaching 2nd grade; Emily is teaching 1st and 3rd; and Nicole has 4th and 5th. Some classes we see for 5-6 hours a week (every day), and others we see only once a week (it depends on how much tuition the student's family pays).... so even though all of my 6th graders are the same age, they are at vastly different proficiencies in English. 6/1 (the advanced class) speaks English VERY well... I spent an entire hour with them just asking questions (What is your favorite fruit? What do you do in your free time?) and then letting them ask me questions about myself and America (Where do you come from? Do you like spicy food?). The classes know to say "Hello" "Good Morning" "Nice to meet you" and "Thank You Ajarn Caitlin" in unison. In contrast to American classrooms, the students wait for the teacher to leave the room at the end of class before they get up and go. I haven't met the Kindergarden classes yet, but will probably start with them next week.

Before we started in the classrooms this morning, we were asked to introduce ourselves at the school's outdoor assembly. Over a microphone to the entire school (of roughly 1,000 students), we each stood up and said our names, our home states, and which classes we'd be teaching. When a grade was called out, the kids cheered loudly and waved up to the stage.

Morning assemblage

Next, we met with the school's director, Mr. Sukda (Thais go by their first name instead of surname... which is why I am "Ajarn Caitlin"). We took off our shoes outside his office, Y-ed him, and sat down at the table where we were each given trays of coffee, water, and cut-up jelly donuts. The director is a somewhat formal man, and speaks very little English... I noticed he had written out a script in front of him. He explained the history of his school and the English program, and asked a little about ourselves. When we got on the topic of food (it's everywhere!), he said that we would surely all become chubbier by the end of the year. While explaining this, he pointed to Emily and said "You... are very slender," then to me, "You.. not so much." (Things to note: Thais tell it like it is when it comes to appearance!).

We are given free lunch every day in the canteen at school. All of the teachers eat together, and today we were given seats at a table with Mr. Sudka - a sign of respect, it seemed.

In the afternoon after school, Prakop came by the apartment (this has sort of become routine... we don't always know where she's taking us, just that we should be sitting out on the patio at a certain time). The excursion today was the best yet.... we biked about 8 km total (roughly 5 miles) around the Nan River and over into the neighboring district, both of which were even more gorgeous than anything we'd seen so far. We visited the most famous temple in Nan, where we observed "novice" monks (young boys in training) reciting chants and meditations. Along the roadside, there were miniature chickens, roosters, oxen, and endless fields of green. On the way back home, we stopped at a gift shop and picked up some goodies... then to a nice waterfront dinner at a place called "Terrace." Prakop, once again, ordered for us. Where would we be without this wonderful woman?

Other things of note:
1. instead of self-tanning creams, many Thais use whitening lotions and body washes. Important to remember when shopping for facial cleanser.
2. There appears to be no age cut-off for operating a motorbike in Thailand (and motorbikes far outnumber cars here). I'm pretty sure I saw an 8-year-old driving one today.

Breakfast Fail and Tesco Lotus

June 6, 2010

Emily and I explored Nan on our own for the first time, without Aj. Prakop as our local tour guide/translator/cultural ambassador. On our way to the "mall" to buy go-phones, we stopped at a noodle stand for breakfast... only to realize that we had no idea what Thai people eat for breakfast, how to say any food words in Thai, and that since the vendors had not put any dishes out yet, we couldn't even point to things. After a solid 2 minutes of "Uhhh.. Um.. Uh.. Noodles?" a Thai man came up and asked in broken English if we wanted "something-something-something-chicken-something." We nodded and smiled (our go-to reply) and a few minutes later we were brought some kind of broth mixture with thick slippery noodles and a chicken drumstick plopped in the middle. Emily immediately started pushing the dark-brown tofu-looking blocks to the side of her bowl, saying she thought she knew what they were and didn't want to eat them.... I said "What are they?!" and feeling adventurous, took a big bite.

...Definitely NOT tofu. Definitely the food-like substance Emily saw on the Travel Channel. I've asked her to never describe it in detail.

After buying our phones and sim cards, we biked over to 7-11 to buy minutes. We spent about 20 minutes embracing our status as "farang," snapping pictures of Smirnoff Ice (BROS ICING BROS in Thai!), and funny looking Red Bull bottles. Next we explored a street market, but amidst the weird looking fruits and pungent smell of fish we didn't make any purchases.

We returned to the apartment to find that BOTH of us had managed to lock ourselves out of our air-conditioned bedrooms (this happened twice more that day... these doors are trickier than they appear). We sweltered in the heat for about an hour entertaining ourselves by reading "Culture Shock! Thailand" and the "Romance" section of Useful Thai Phrases... Prakop eventually stopped by to check on us and, in typical-Prakop fashion, came to our rescue. A little later we were out to lunch with her... we had delicious "chaa minnow" (something like sweet-chai iced tea), rice and noodles for about 80 cents. Seriously, foooooood is cheeeeeeap.

A few hours later, Anna and Nicole arrived! We helped them get settled before Prakop and her husband picked us up for dinner. Prakop's husband is a very sweet man of few words, and it's clear that Prakop wears the pants in the relationship. I still wonder if Prakop has kids of her own (if she does, she doesn't talk about them... but since she's in her 50s it's possible that they are grown and moved out...). We all went out to another hot pot style dinner, followed by a trip to Tesco Lotus (the European-Asian version of Costco, and my new best friend). We loaded up on floor mats, water bottles, yogurts, shower shoes...

hey! It's kinda like college all over again.

Sha-na-na-NAN

Finally… NAN! It is every bit as beautiful as we imagined: rolling hills, greenery everywhere, small city streets, delicious noodle stands, and hardly a word of English written anywhere. We boarded an 8am flight this morning from Chiang Mai to Nan, feeling a bit like the ugly Americans with all of our overweight luggage, but excited nonetheless, especially once we saw our Nok (“bird”) Air plane: painted like a yellow cartoon bird, it sat about 14 people…including the pilots. The views from the flight were amazing, and enough to quell some initial fears of crashing.

We were greeted in Nan by Aj. Prakop – our new boss, director of the English Program at the Bandon Sriserm School, and probably the most adorable woman I’ve ever met. She is tiny, about 5’2” with short black hair, speaks very good English and has so much energy that she generally seems to bounce when she walks. She had a van and driver waiting for us outside the airport (which is really just a two-roomed building with a small wooden platform off to one side reading “Baggage Claim”), and as we drove through Nan she excitedly pointed out gold-plated temples (“they are like Buddhist churches!”) and the school where we are going to be teaching come Monday.

Once we reached our apartment, she showed us the four rooms we’d be staying in and let us pick ours. Each room comes with a dresser, a desk, and its own bathroom (or toilet-shower room…they are almost one and the same in Thailand!). Oh, and a sink next to the bed…I will never have an excuse to not brush my teeth before falling asleep. The teachers from last year left a lot of stuff for us, including a fridge, pillows, blankets, cookery, books, shelves, and some pirated DVDs. Sweet! Emily and I picked rooms 3 and 4 (saam and sii) and started to unpack, slash figure out the air conditioner, how the toilet flushes, and where we might find toilet paper. Our apartment is located near what seems to be the "downtown" center of Nan, but it is still pretty quiet... out on the terrace/patio/walkway that connects each of our rooms, we hear roosters instead of street traffic.

A few minutes later, Prakop wanted to take us to lunch. She had our bikes delivered (the same ones that belonged to the Nan PiA-ers last year), and we rode them into town (Prakop on a bicycle = best thing ever). Emily and I quickly found that we are the new celebrities in Nan: people either stare, giggle, or smile big smiles and wave everywhere we go. Until Anna and Nicole arrive tomorrow, we are the ONLY white people in town.

After lunch, we visited Bandon, where a couple of Saturday school classes were being taught. Prakop showed us our office (we each will have our own desk in the office at school) and the English Resources Center… both rooms have TV sets, English books, movies, and other useful teaching materials. Some of the rooms even have air conditioning. For being located in a fairly small and remote town, this school is stocked. Next we went downstairs and stopped to say hello to a first-grade class. These kids are adorable, and were ECSTATIC once they saw us walk in. They waved and shouted “Hello! Hello!” in unison once Prakop introduced us, and every one wanted to shake our hand or give us a high five. We met a few of the other Thai English teachers, all of whom were very kind and welcoming.

Prakop dropped us back off at our apartment. Nan is very small, but our inability to read any of the street signs will surely mean that it will be a while before we can get around town on our own. We finished unpacking, and decided to take a nap before Prakop came back for us at 5.00 for dinner. The “nap” turned into a 4 hour slumber, followed by a somewhat embarrassing incident when Prakop knocked on our door and found us bleary-eyed and still wearing tiny pajama shorts…. not exactly how we wanted our boss to see us on the first day. We scrambled to put on clothes and were off again, this time to the “mall” for dinner.

Prakop took us to a Korean-style restaurant inside the mall, where we each picked out raw vegetables, seafood, and meats from a buffet and then cooked them in a hot-oil pot at the center of the table. Once cooked, we used a big spoon or chopsticks to remove the food and put in a bowl with noodles and sauce. I have no idea what half of the stuff I ate was, but it was mmm mmm good. After dinner, Prakop told us to do some shopping in the huge convenience-store-supermarket-department-store that were in. We bought a few necessities like toilet paper and and shampoo (and tissues that came in an awesome triangular box designed to look like an orange slice), paid the cashier, and were off to bike the streets of Nan again. On the way home, Prakop bought us "Indian pancakes" (basically fried dough with sugary syrup poured inside), but warned that we shouldn't eat them everyday because we'd get fat. After eating one, I'm certain that truer words were never spoken.

Back at the apartment, figuring our the internet was our next big adventure… after about an hour of trial-and-error, and a visit from the non-English speaking cleaning lady/landlord (?) who gave us a password but couldn’t show us which network we were supposed to use, Emily figured it out and…. Voila! I can finally put up these posts. We are all unpacked and settled in for our first night in Nan, and have made peace with the various geckos and spiders who co-inhabit the apartment with us. Time for sleep, and new adventures in Nan tomorrow.

PS – Pictures coming soon on Facebook!

PSS – I’m still wrapping my head around the time difference between the US and Nan, but I think it’s…

+ 11 hours from the east coast
+ 14 hours from California

love,
CP

Cankles, Monks, and "Dump the Eyebrows"

June 4

30+ hours of travel was surprisingly not too painful…. except for the fact that my feet and legs were huge and swollen to about twice their normal size for several hours after we got off the last airplane. I had also never been so desperate for a shower in my whole life; travel sized face wash and toothpaste can only go so far after so long. So when I set foot in the lush humid air of Thailand for the very first time today (outside the airport in Chiang Mai), it was with joy, relief, and cankles.

We arrived in Chiang Mai without much difficulty, but with a lot of luck. Literally 24 hours after my graduation, Mom, Dad and I packed up my room at Princeton and headed straight to Newark - making only one stop at Marshall’s for a suitcase replacement, after an unfortunate zipper incident just before we got in the car. I had a last supper of airport-style pasta and salad, made last phone calls to relatives and friends, and said goodbye to the US of A. Mom and I were both a little teary-eyed, but even while crying she reminded me to apply sunscreen BEFORE bug spray, lest both become ineffective. Thanks, Mom.

Emily (one of my roommates) met me at the gate, along with Collette, another PiA-er who was traveling with us through Bangkok. We took a 14-hour flight to Delhi (left at 8:30 pm, arrived at 8:30 pm…basically chasing the sun across the globe)… and then had a somewhat bizarre 5-hour layover, during which we were told to stand or sit in various parts of the airport without explanation, had our passports scrutinized over and over even though we were just making a connection, and discovered how the separation of “Ladies” and “Gentlemen” metal detectors makes security lines even more complicated than they are in the US.

From Delhi we took a 5-hour plane ride to Bangkok. A Buddhist monk, dressed in a traditional orange robe, was assigned to the middle seat next to me, but the moment he sat down he immediately stood up again, asked me to move out of the way, grumbled something to the flight attendant (who could not understand him), and went to find a new seat. I looked over at Emily, confused and slightly offended. Later, I found out that while the middle seat is rarely preferred by ordinary passengers, it is particularly unappealing to monks, who can’t make any physical contact with others.

Bangkok was by far our best airport experience. The Suvarnabhumi airport (yeah, I can’t pronounce it either) is brand-new and SO COOL… It has amazing architecture with really high glass ceilings and zen gardens everywhere. It was also the first place we found internet (woo!) We explored a little, enjoyed some “coffee” (read: extra sugary pre-sweetened milky stuff) and “bagel” (sort of like a fluffy croissant in a bagel shape) before parting ways with Collette and boarding our next flight to Chiang Mai. On the Thai Airways plane (which was the prettiest plane I’ve ever been on - orange, purple and pink seats and really sweet flight attendant uniforms), we sat next to a nice young guy from Chicago named Patrick. He’s been out of the army for 5 years, and said that it was “difficult adjusting” back home so he’s been traveling and living around Asia (mostly Thailand) ever since. He speaks pretty fluent Thai, and he couldn’t stop gushing about the people, the country, and the food we were about to experience. He also went on and on about how well-respected teachers (who bear the title ajarn, pronounced like “aj-aan”) are in Thailand, and that even though we are teaching English, we should make every effort to learn Thai while there. He had converted to Buddhism a few years ago and was on his way to Chiang Mai for 10 days to meet a friend and become a monk (temporarily). In doing so, he explained, he would have to shave all his hair, eyebrows included. We asked why that was, and he used an “empty cup” metaphor: Buddhists believe that in order to reach enlightenment and to learn anything new, we have to first “empty our cups” and dump everything that we though we knew out. So in becoming a monk, you have to “dump” the eyebrows, create a blank page, and start anew.

Patrick turned out to be not only a good conversationalist, but also a life saver once in Chiang Mai. He helped us with our baggage outside (in a huge thunderstorm… hello, rainy season) and got a taxi for us. He showed us to the Chiang Mai Inn in the Old City where he’d stayed before. ($6 a night and free wi-fi? Ill take it!) Emily and I had planned on just winging it and using the two Thai phrases we memorized (“thank you” [khap koon kah] and “toilet” [horng naam]) to find a place to stay, but this worked out muuuuuuch better. The taxi driver LOVED that Patrick spoke Thai, dedicated a 90s Mariah Carey love ballad on the radio to Emily, and only needed to look at the road about 75% of the time while driving in the rain. The only snafu of the day occurred later when I blew the fuse to our entire hotel room using a blow dryer… guess I better learn “I’m sorry” in Thai too.

After a shower and quick nap, we were ready to explore. We quickly discovered how many Westerners (farang) are in Chiang Mai – there were white people all over the place! We also discovered how friendly Thai people are to complete strangers… one guy, who spoke very good English, stopped and talked to us for about 20 minutes about how much he loved Chiang Mai and where we could find the best silk suits, even circling places on our map for us. We wandered aimlessly for a bit, grabbed a delicious dinner of tom yum soup, red curry, Singha beer and too-spicy-for-me papaya salad (all of which came to a grand total of $5... I can get used to this), and then went to meet up with 4 other PiA-ers who are living in Chiang Mai. After getting a little lost with our pretty inaccurate street map, we found Kelsey, Riley, Patrick (another one) and Denali sitting outside their hostel, and went with them to a street food/night market. It was great to see familiar faces, and to see how they were adjusting after their first week of Thai life – loving it, as expected. After a few hours, Emily and I were having a hard time staying awake, so after waiting out another downpour of rain, we made our way back to the hostel for a much needed full-night’s-sleep.

Next stop: Nan!