Transformation

I can feel this place changing me, and I love it.

I've learned to appreciate disorder (who knew disorder could be appreciated?), because here, out of the chaos has emerged a permeating sense of nonchalance. It's something by which the whole world could benefit. Horn-honking is to warn others that you're behind them, or about to pass them, not to show your frustration. Yelling is for communicating in large crowds, or to tell the kids to be careful. Everyone smiles. Everyone laughs. Everything is so chill.

That's not to say Thailand doesn't have issues--it has a lot of issues, but there is something to be learned from the way Thai people look at life.

I've been thinking a lot about communication, too, since basically all of my communication at home consists of one or two-word catch-phrases:
"Let's go"
"Dinner"
"You like?"

It's still amazing to me that they are having real-life conversations with each other that I can't understand. And Thai is only one language. There are hundreds of languages! But I'm catching on a little bit. I can count to ten now, I can say "Let's eat," "I don't speak Thai," and "Where are you going?"

For some reason, I keep hearing sip song everywhere I go, which means 12.

I've learned to let go of my germophobia.
How long have those eggs been sitting out? Probably forever. Who cares?
Did anybody wash their hands before digging into the bowl of rice that I am also digging into? Doubt it.
There are dead ants in this food. Protein!
I think I'm sitting in fish juice. Oh well, I'm washing these pants when I get home anyway.

Was I living at all before I lived here?

I'm an English teacher! I teach English! Ahoy!

Tonight I went back to the children's home to do some edumacating. There were about twenty kids this time, and I'd lost my little paper with all my game ideas, so once again I had to wing it.

I gave all the kids American names, which they were really excited about. There was just no way I was going to remember all their Thai names, so now we have Jason, Hannah, Annie, Sam, Jake, Cameron, Trevor, Helen, Maddy, Ben, Katie, Paul, Reed, Lexie, Ashley, Michael, and Caleb. Recognize any of those? Any relation to names in my own American life is purely coincidental.

I'm absolutely amazed at their dedication. They go to school for like, 24 hours a day already, and then they come home and have to listen to me attempting to teach English. But they're so focused and willing to learn, and they write down EVERYTHING that I write down, even if it's insignificant. After some failed attempts at explaining the concept of a noun, I tried teaching them the song, "Five little ducks went out to play...", but it didn't catch on very well. So then we worked on shapes and numbers, but I'm in need of some inspiration here. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Til next time... enjoy this pictures of my studious little students copying down the lyrics to Five Little Ducks:

PS- Shout out to my girl Ashley Ann(e?) Anderson who turns 20 today! Happy Birthday Ashley! I lost your email address and you don't have fb, so I hope you read my blog. 

Every day is its own story

It's impossible to convey what I really feel and experience every day via blog. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's impossible to convey it via anything. The only way to truly understand it is to be me, and unfortunately for you, only I can be me, but I'm doing my best. Just know that every day I'm in Thailand, there are a bajillion things that happen, most of which you'll never know about. Every day is its own story.

On Friday I had the day off work, so Noi and I rode our bikes to Bo Sang. It was only about four miles, but I swear the seat of my bike is made of concrete or something, so my butt was really feelin it. But holy cow--it's so gorgeous here. Every time we pass by the vast yellow rice paddies, Sting's song "Fields of Gold" plays through my head and I feel like I'm in heaven.

Fields of Gold--pictures don't do it justice

In Bo Sang we did some smoothie-sipping and some souvenir-shopping, and then we rode back home. It was incredibly hot so we stopped by Tesco Lotus Express for some a/c action. Seriously, I don't know what I would do without Tesco Lotus and 7/11. We didn't want to go back into the heat, so we stayed in there for at least half an hour, reveling in the blessedly cold air.

After we got home we showered and then went into the city and saw MIB III at the theater. I wasn't a fan at first, but by the end I'd warmed up to it a little. After the movie we caught a red truck to Gat Luang (the big market) and then a yellow truck to Doi Saket market, where we met up with the parentals, who took us the rest of the way home. It started POURING and by the time we got home we had to slosh through ankle deep water to get inside. But I loved it. The rain here rocks, because it's warm! Noi kept asking, "Are you tired?" and when I said "No" she would say, "You are a strong woman." It was so cute.

Saturday morning I was awakened by the dog barking at 3:50 am. Turns out, the dog was barking because the rot dang was here to pick me up--he wasn't supposed to be here til 4:30! So I hurried and got dressed and packed my stuff for our day-trip down to Sukhothai. We met up with everyone at our facilitators' apartment in the city, and were on the road at about 6. It took 4 hours to get to Sukhothai, but we had a great time in the (air-conditioned) van talking and laughing. I was mesmerized by the scenery--blue mountains ringed in mist and thousands and thousands of tall green trees.

At Sukhothai we rented bikes and rode around the ruins. I can't really give you the history of the place--but it was fascinating, and so old. There were ancient statues of Buddha everywhere, and I felt like I was in another time period. There were butterflies everywhere, and I had a blast racing them down the road. Racing butterflies! It was so fun.

Sukhothai

After riding around for half the day, we stopped for lunch at a place called The Coffee Cup. It took awhile for everyone to order, receive, and eat their food, so afterward we just toured the museum and one more statue and then hauled our exhausted (and sore) selves back to the vans for our 4-hour ride home.

Right now it's Sunday night. This morning I caught a ride into the city with my family, and Amanda, Meredith, Britt and I got (another) Thai massage. Then I split for church, and when I got there, this white guy sat down across from me and said, "We followed you here." I said, "Uh, that's kind of creepy," but then he explained that he and his friend had been looking for the church and then they saw my BYU backpack and decided to follow me in hopes that I would lead them to the church building. And I did! I thought it was so great--right place, right time! Erin and I sat by them in sacrament meeting and then agreed to meet up later.

I went to the English Sunday school, where we had an awesome lesson by this lady from Denmark with an equally awesome accent. Then we had Relief Society and afterward Erin and I just chilled and waited for her friend to get out of his meeting. At 5:30ish we headed down to the Walking Street Market ( I LOVE that place) and met up with the guys we'd met earlier. It was cool to talk with them--they're doing a month-long trip through Southeast Asia, and I wish we would have had more time to hang out. It's so fun to meet people here.

I had to peace out early though because I was supposed to meet up with my family at 7:00. I got my own rot dang to Gat Luang just fine, but once there I realized that the green truck I was supposed to take wasn't going to leave for awhile, and it was already 6:45. My family was already at our meeting place, so Meredith called and tried to explain to them where I was, but there was no translator where a translator was definitely needed, so I just told them to meet me at Doi Saket market to save time. I hopped on the yellow truck that was about to leave, but I forgot to check the sign that said which truck I was on, so the whole time I was paranoid that I'd gotten on the wrong one, and I must have looked really freaked out, because after awhile the girl next to me touched my arm and said, "Excuse me mam, you worried?" I said, "Yes, this is going to Doi Saket market, right?" and she responded, "Yes, Doi Saket market. You don't need to worry."

It was so sweet I almost cried. She relieved a little bit of my fear, but by the time I finally met up with my family I was about to burst from the tension in my body. I said "I'm sorry" to my family in Thai, but they just laughed and said, "Mai pen lai," as always. They are so awesome. Then we came home and had dinner and now I'm here, writing my blog. But don't forget to keep in mind that this is probably only 22% of what's happened in the past three days. I wish there was a way to record everything.

Fortnight in Chiang Mai

On Wednesday night, after a relaxing day of doing...nothing, our new friend John, who runs a children's home a few miles away, picked Meredith and I up and took us to the home to (at least try to) teach the kids English. On the way there it was POURING rain, but it was gorgeous because the sun was still out so it was reflecting off all the puddles in the street, and said street was lined with tall, thin trees with big leafy branches. I wish I'd taken a picture.

We were basically dumped in the middle of a bunch of children, with no instruction and no idea about what we were supposed to do. I took the older group--I didn't ask their ages, but the youngest one looked like he was about 8, and the oldest was 15.
I was clueless as to their English skill-level, so I started writing letters on the board and asked them to tell me what they were. The kids were really good at that, so I figured we could move onward and upward to spelling. I called each one up and asked them to spell a word. With a little help, they all did pretty well.

Guys, let me just reiterate that I had NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING, so after spelling, we went around naming the colors of their shirts for like, 30 minutes. They probably think I'm an idiot--but hey, at least they're champions at colors now.
After colors, we sat in a circle and I asked them to draw a picture of their favorite fruit. I was surprised, we had some good artists in the group. Then we passed our papers, and the person to the left had to spell the name of the fruit on the paper they got. We did the same thing with animals, and then I asked them to draw a picture of themselves, and then they passed it and the person on the left wrote the name of the person who drew the picture. Apparently there was some mix-up, because at the end when I gathered all the papers up, the boys had drawn pictures of the other boys as girls, and the poor chubby girl in the group  was depicted in a less-than-flattering light. Oh well, they all thought it was really funny and they were laughing their heads off every time I held up a new picture.

Teaching has never been a serious interest of mine--but I LOVED this. I had so much fun and the kids are so cute and so smart. Most of them have been orphaned by AIDS, but they're all just as happy as can be and so eager to learn, even from a clueless pharang. I can't wait to go back.
I didn't get any pictures of the kids, but please enjoy this shot of two stray dogs instead:

Yesterday Meredith was sick, so I went to the center by myself. It was so hot that beads of sweat were dripping down my legs (my legs!!) while I was sitting down. But I guess I'm used to it now, because I never think, "Oh my gosh, it's so hot. I need air conditioning!!" It's just whatevs.

Only Umpaa, Olay, Joe, and Nute were there and none of them can speak English, but we had fun anyway. Joe showed me how to tie-off the bracelets I was making. You have to use a lighter to burn the ends. Can I make a confession? As of yesterday, I had never used a lighter before. Joe just laughed every time I tried and failed to flick the fire on, and then he took it and just did it for me. (When I tried again later, I burnt my finger.) Then he went to bring back lunch and we all gathered around to eat.
Let me give you a little step-by-step of eating Thai-style:
1. Arrange yourselves in a circle, cross-legged on the floor
2. Place food in the middle
3. Tear a chunk of rice off the rice plate, roll into ball.
4. Dip ball into any of the various sauces, or use it to grab any of the other dishes, in this case, fried egg  and crunchy-pig-stuff (nobody could tell me what it really was because duh, none of them speak English)
5. Eat
6. Repeat

It was fun. I think they're finally starting to warm up to me.

The view from the other side of the world

It's absolutely gorgeous here, and I'm just now really beginning to appreciate it. This is a panoramic (yeah...my camera does that. Nbd.) shot of the area where I work....it's like a little oasis. It was cloudy today so it wasn't satanically hot like it is usually. I'm getting used to always being damp and sticky, because the heat here is eternal.

After work today my mom and I went teo. Teo is a word that has no translation in English, but it basically means go out for fun. We walked down the street to the house where Gao lives. She lives there with her two sisters (at least I think they were her sisters) and probably a whole host of other family members. They are the most precious little old women I have ever met. Check out this picture Gao asked me to take of them. I can't get over it.

After Gao's we stopped by another house and just chilled and ate sunflower seeds with a couple neighbor women for awhile. Then we headed across the street to the pastor's house and talked with his wife and little girl. It was fun...everyone here is so nice and smiley all the time. I don't think I've ever seen an angry Thai person.


Outside the pastor's house there were these circles of boiled mango drying in the sun (like fruit leather).

The little black dots are bees and flies, and there is no cover over the mangoes. The first thought I had when I saw them was "Welp, I'm never eating one of those again." But of course, when we left the house they shooed the insects away and peeled one off for me. It had three dead ants inside. Yum.

When we got home I showered and then we ate dinner. During dinner we started doing some Thai-English-Thai translation, and then we took it to the couch and that's what we've been doing for the past couple of hours. It was so fun. In her attempts to pronounce the sentence "How are you doing?" Maani kept saying, "How are do you-ing?" It cracked me up. There was a lot of repeating, but a lot of laughing too. It was some good family bonding time.

Oh, not like I'm keeping track or anything, but the dog-eating story was retold twice today. It's how they introduce me...but hey, I'm glad to be the topic of conversation.

The latest and greatest

For breakfast this morning I had a fried egg over a big plate of rice, two pieces of toast, a glass of ovaltine, and a chicken/potato dish. I think it's safe to say that I was set for the day.

At 10:30 I went to church with Naan because I didn't have the money/energy to catch a truck all the way into the city for my church. When we walked in, everyone turned to stare, inevitably. A couple of guys were up front playing the drums and electric guitar while three girls sang karaoke-style into microphones. Then there was some praying and some singing and some more praying and singing and then listening to a sermon in Thai (during which I read the Book of Mormon) and then one last song and one last prayer to end the meeting.

When we got home I expected the parentals to be there, but they weren't. I was pretty sure Naan had said that mom and dad had gone to church at 8:00 and that it only lasted for an hour, but apparently something (or everything) got lost in translation. So we chilled at home by ourselves. I started experimenting with designs for sa-paper cards and listening to my blessed Grooveshark playlist.

This is (part of) what I get to do for work! How cool is that?

Naan went out and bought some cookies (I ate the whole bag in like, 5 minutes. Are you surprised?) and yogurt and then this cute old woman walked in the door and sat down to watch me work. She was deaf and mute, but I understood what she was saying probably better than if she would have been speaking. Naan said her name was Gao--apparently she is Nan's grandfather's sister. Who knows though? All I know is she's flippin adorable.

When my parents finally came home, they fed me a salad and this pie-looking thing:

Don't be fooled. Naan tried to tell me it was pumpkin, but I'm pretty sure it was fermented custard in squash, and that is not even a joke. There was no way it wasn't going to make me sick, but I just can't say no to these people, so I ate as much as I could (which wasn't much). Then mom brought out some pineapple and spiky fruit (it has a real name in English, but I don't know it), which I only nibbled on, because that custard-squash had already started to make my stomach ache.
Next thing I know I'm being called in for dinner. I honestly felt like I was going to throw-up, but my mom just said, "Eat nit noi" and so I dragged myself into the kitchen and sat down to a nice big dinner of fried chicken, rice, hard-boiled eggs in soy-sauce, and this weird german-pancake-tortilla-quesadilla thing.

There was no way of politely telling them that I really wasn't hungry, as all hope of translation had gone out the door with Naan, who'll be gone for a week. So I ate, all the while wishing that I could just speak Thai for thirty seconds to tell them my stomach was in danger of imploding.

With Naan gone til Sunday and Noi gone til Thursday, I'm in for an interesting week.

Charades, anyone?

*This post made possible by Pepto-bismol

Today

You better believe that's me riding a water-buffalo. Like a boss.

This morning we all rode a rot dang to a little farm to experience first-hand what it's like to plant and harvest rice. It was...character-building to say the least. It's amazing that people do that kind of work every day to make a living. I was burnt-out after doing it for 30 seconds. 

Once we were all farmed-out, we drove up to a waterfall to play around. But a little while after we got there the water started going crazy and a couple of girls who were playing in the water got swept down the river. Don't worry--they lived. 

Because dying wasn't in our plans for the day, we left and the rot dang took us back into town. We ended up at a mall called Airport Plaza, with a movie theater inside. The rest of the group stayed and saw The Avengers, but Erin and I had already seen it, so we peaced out and went to get a Thai massage instead. Oh man, those things are so great.

Then we got a truck to the big market Warorot and walked around for a bit, but it was closing, so we went up on a foot-bridge and looked out over the Ping river. It was really dirty, but still pretty.

Ping River

I took public transportation home all by myself for the first time. Remember how there are three yellow trucks and I'm only supposed to take one of them? Well at the truck-stop I saw the one that I was supposed to take, but the driver in the next one over was pointing and yelling, "Same-same!" So I was basically forced on to this rot luang with the wrong name! 

Let me tell you, it was so nerve-wracking. For awhile I didn't recognize where we were, and I was thinking, "I'm going to die." (So I'm a little dramatic. What of it?)

After an eternity of waiting and watching, I finally got off at a 7/11 that I recognized and called my dad. He gave the phone to my sister, Naan.

Sometimes in my head I like to think that Naan speaks better English than she does in real life. 

"Hi Naan. This is Jenna. I'm here at the 7/11 by the pharmacy."

"What?"

"At the 7/11 by the pharmacy."

"7/11?"

"Yes. Seven. Eleven."

There was a bunch more Thai-speak on their side and a bunch more "seven-eleven-ing" on my side, and so finally when I realized we were getting nowhere I turned around and asked this random girl,

"Hey, do you speak English?"

"Yes." (Thank the Heavens)

"Could you tell these people that I'm at the 7/11 by the pharmacy?"

"What?"

I'm sure at this point you're thinking what I was thinking, so we'll just skip to the part when Naan pulls up and I breathe a deep sigh of relief.

Back at home, safe and sound, I decided to do some laundry, since my mom has expressed concern about my lack of functional wardrobe lately. I dumped all my laundry in and mom showed me which buttons to push and presto!--I was well on my way to improved personal hygiene. 

45 minutes later I took my laundry back to my room to hang, and for some reason, a shirt that I could have sworn was white was now pink. 

You guessed it. I put my brand-new maroon Thai-pants into that washing machine with everything else and now I've got a bunch of pink "Thai-dye" (pun intended) shirts. 

My mom just shook her head and chuckled every time I pulled a new one out of the basket.

Mai ben lai. That's the Thai way of saying "No big deal."

And I find myself saying it to myself more and more often these days.