Settling in at Site

It's now almost three weeks into my assignment at site and all's going well. Initially my biggest concern, shockingly, was the language. It's a different dialect down here. Instead of five tones, there are eight (and even the original five tones are spoken slightly differently). People also tend to speak really fast. It's frustrating at times but slowly getting better.

Overall, the people here are as welcoming as I've come to get used to in Thailand. My host mom constantly shoves food in my face. People invite me to monk ordination parties (ngaan buat) whenever they're happening (three so far) and compliment my unfortunate attempts at Thai dancing. As awful as I am at soccer compared to everyone here - and I really am terrible, pretty much turn the ball over whenever I touch it - they want me to come play everyday.

Last week was the Sonkran festival, which is the celebration of the Thai new year. People celebrate by throwing water on each other, and generally take the whole week off from work to do so. The first day we went to the temple to participate in a "rot naam" (literally, water car). The elderly sat down together in a long line, while everyone went up to each one individually to pour water into their hands. In turn they wish you happiness and good luck, and many times splash the water back in your face. It was all pretty low-key until someone snuck up behind me and drenched me with a bucket of ice water. Might've been annoyed if it didn't feel so good.

The next day was the start of the official celebration. I joined a group of people in the street, and after dumping water all over each other we soaked everyone that passed by on motorcycle, foot, or in the back of a truck (most of the time these people had their own water to dish out). We also had face paint to pretty up the drivers. At around noon, the Nayok came by unannounced to take me to another temple for another rot naam. He even put me on the spot to introduce myself in front of the gathering... all the more fun considering I was drenched head to toe and had all kinds of colorful paint on my face.

When we went back to the street, it got crazier. Some people had made their way into the middle of the street, stopping all the passing cars so as not to leave out anyone. They offered swigs of beer to the drivers and passengers. At one point, a wild pack of transgender folks (commonly called ladyboys in Thailand) joined us. Every time a car went by, they would scream, dump water, and sometimes grab men in inappropriate places. It got even more nuts when a drunk, older woman was brought to tears yelling at the ladyboys for doing these things around children. Thais are typically very low key, but people seemed to let loose a bit on the biggest holiday of the year.

There have been too many other experiences in the last three weeks to fully recount. The first weekend here I took a bike ride to explore a cave and waterfall that are part of a nearby national park. Really beautiful... some pics are below. During Sonkran, I played in a game of soccer with the women. I didn't score, but I managed to literally kick the ball into my own face while trying to do a bicycle kick. Most nights here I play soccer with some local neighborhood children, much more appropriate to my skill level. I've done karaoke at the Puyaiban's house (village head), danced more than I should be allowed to, and have quickly become acclimated to using a squat toilet and bucket shower... both really not so bad once you're used to it.

Most days so far, I've been spending my time in the SAO office getting to know the staff here and learning to read Thai with some books the Peace Corps gave us. No projects to be involved with yet. Right now the schools are on break, but once they re-open I'm planning to do some teaching and other activities there. The youth here always seem really excited when I'm around, so I'm thinking of starting a community youth group. Most projects will have to wait until I have a better command of the language. But overall it's fun being here. I enjoy the people and the fact that they yell out "Mr. Joel!" whenever they see me on my bike. And I have enough internet access to stay up to date on the Phillies and South Park episodes... all of the essentials in life.

Recap of Last Days at Training

Today is my third day as an official Peace Corps Volunteer. I'm writing from my site in Surat Thani, having arrived on April 1st after a full day of traveling. It's been a week full of excitement and all kinds of emotional swings. As always, there's way too much to say and not enough time to say it, so I'll try to hit the high points:

Without exaggeration, I think I can say that the last few days of training were near-perfect. On Saturday night, my tambon hosted a goodbye party for the 12 volunteers residing with families there. There was music, dancing, and great food. The volunteers put on several skits and performances, and undoubtedly the highlight was supplied by the four males of our group. We decked ourselves out in women's clothes, grabbed our pom-poms, and did a surprisingly well choreographed dance to the popular Thai pop song "Rawn Jing Jing", which basically translates to "really really hot". And we were. Check out the pics below to prove it.

We left our host families the next day, as we all stayed in the hotel for the last three nights of training. That was initally sad, but it turns out it was far from goodbye... a few families came back to the hotel that night to kidnap (or Thai-nap, as we call it) their volunteers to take them to dinner. My family was one of them. We had dinner again the next night, when I decided to call them because I had nothing better to do. The next night was the same, except that this time they invited my Thai counterparts from Surat Thani, who were in town for a Peace Corps conference along with the counterparts of all the other volunteers. That was a cool experience - my old family meeting my new family. Finally, the next day they were at the hotel to drop me off at the bus station... more on that in a second.

On Monday we had the official Swearing In Ceremony. Here, we took the swearing in oath administered by a US Embassy representative and in doing so officially transitioned from trainees to volunteers. What I haven't mentioned up until now is that the Peace Corps staff had asked me a few weeks ago to make a speech, in Thai, at this ceremony on behalf of my CBOD group. Another volunteer, Emily, spoke on behalf of TCCO. We wrote our speeches in English, the staff helped translate them into Thai, then we struggled through practicing. We didn't have to memorize our parts, thankfully, but nevertheless it was a huge challenge to get the pronounciation and tones right. It was about 15 minutes worth of speaking between the two of us, which meant a lot of words to mess up. On the day of Swearing In, I still didn't feel fully prepared. But we did it, and I think we pulled it off pretty well. Afterwards we got to represent our group during lunch with the government big wigs, including the Governor of Chainat Province, the Embassy person, some Royal Thai Government people, and the Peace Corps Thailand Country Director. Cool experience, undoubtedly a bit awkward, but the food was great.

Our last day in Chainat was Wednesday. The previous night was a lot of fun with all the volunteers, but that also meant virtually no sleep leading into our day of departure. Somehow we made it through the agonizing morning sessions, after which we went to finish up our last bit of packing. My family came to the hotel at noon. Given that I had to make a 1:00 bus, this unfortunately didn't leave us much time to chat. 12:30 rolled around, and we were still hanging at the hotel. My family assured me it was only a two minute drive, we'd be fine. At 12:45, after my counterparts called wondering where I was, my family finally decided it was time to leave. At 12:55, a funny thing happened - we were sitting in traffic and saw a bus driving the opposite way down the street. After my family frantically urged me to get out of the car, I realized that was probably the bus I was supposed to be on. Next thing I know I'm running down the street chasing the bus, with all my luggage in tow. My host mom sped ahead on her motorcycle and caught it before it was too late. I had just enough time to hug her goodbye before getting whisked onto the bus by my laughing counterparts. Once on the bus, my family pulled up alongside it. We saw each other and waved goodbye one last time. My host mom started to cry. It was quite an end to quite an emotional few days.

Since I've already written quite a bit, I'm not going to go into my first few days at site just yet. Suffice it to say, everyone is generally nice, but it will take a good period of adjustment to feel totally comfortable. I'll try to update within the next week.

Oh, and of course the highly anticipated pictures: