Of Mothers and Milk

So I can get used to this whole Thai work schedule. The coming weekend is yet another 4-day vacation, in honor of the Queen's birthday, which is also by default National Mother's Day. And how do Thais celebrate Mother's Day, you might ask? To give you an idea, I've excerpted the following conversation (from Emily's blog), which took place between Emily and one of our Thai co-teachers last week:

Aj. Ann: "They will be saying thank you to their mothers. For... how do you say...? The milk." (motioning to her breast).
Emily: "Oh... heh. heh. Yes, the.. um... the milk."
Aj. Ann: "What do you call this milk?"
Emily: "Um. Well, we call that 'breast' milk."
Aj. Ann: "Best?"
Emily: "No. Um, BREAST. Like.. uh.. B. R. E. A. S. T. Breast. Breast milk."
Aj. Ann: "Oh (give it a second). OOOOOH. BREAST milk. And what do you call the ...value of the breast milk?"
Emily: "Umm.... the value of the breast milk."
Aj. Ann: "You do not have a word for it? We celebrate the milk as the best milk. The most valuable milk from the mother."
Emily: "That is... very good."

To give you an even better picture, here's a collection of Mother's Day sentiments from my 6/1 students:



So, the value of breast milk, giving thanks for mashed bananas, and the Queen's 78th birthday bash will align on Thursday, culminating in another long weekend for the ajaans.

On a more serious note about Thai mothers, one of our school's teachers and "lunch lady," Aj. Bouy, lost her 21-year-old son to a fatal motorbike accident last week. On Friday, we asked Aj. Prakop if there was something we could do, and she said yes, that she would take us to see Aj. Bouy first thing after school. I felt strange about visiting Aj, Bouy in person at her home, just days after her son passed away, since we only really knew her in passing. We had been thinking more along the lines of flowers or a card. But Aj. Prakop insisted, and we trusted her. Aj. Bouy, like many of our coworkers, lives very near our apartment. She was dressed head-to-toe in black when we arrived, and looked as though she hadn't slept in a week, but she smiled at us and squeezed each of our arms in gratitude as we came through the door. We followed Prakop to an altar in the living room, and following her lead, dropped to our knees, held our hands to our foreheads for a moment in silence, and placed a white paper flower in front of a large school photograph of Aj. Bouy's son. Afterwards, we sat with Aj. Bouy for a while in the rows of fold-up chairs that were set up in her living room, listening to Aj. Prakop talking to her in Thai, stroking her shoulder or placing a gentle hand on her knee. Prakop never flinched or stuttered - she seemed to know exactly what to say and do in this situation.

Saturday morning we had a parent-teacher conference at school. The assembly room was packed full of parents, who listened to the school directors give lengthy speeches about something long and boring sounding, while their kids milled in and out of the room asking for baht to buy ice cream with. The four "foreign teachers" sat behind the Director, and midway through the assembly we were asked to introduce ourselves to the room. I'm not sure if anyone understood my attempt at "Hello, my name is Caitlin, I'm from America, I teach Kindergarten and 6th," but we got some friendly smiles from the audience nonetheless. Afterwards, one of my Kindergarten students, Fasai, came and found me and plopped herself in my lap, calling me "Aj. Jackieee!," as some Kindergartners still do. It's understandably confusing that their American teacher from last year is not actually the same one as this year, even though we're both white. Jackie Thomas, know you are not forgotten at Bandon Sriserm.