First of all, I would like to apologize for taking so long to get to this entry. Granted, it has been a crazy busy month in which I can count on one hand the number of days I've been at site, but that's no excuse for taking over 2 months to update you all. That being said, I'll admit I'm not really sure where to begin with this one considering all that's gone on recently... so I guess I'll just type freely until my fingers or brain give out.
Carly came to visit. It was beyond great having her here. In the time she was here, I'm not sure she could've gotten a better Thailand experience. Meeting both my host families in Surat and Chainat; lounging on a beautiful beach as we could see a rain storm coming towards us in Koh Samui; getting treated to genuine Thai hospitality when my Chainat host family, in response to a request for nail polish remover, took her to get a full manicure and pedicure; staying at a cheap hole in the wall guesthouse one night in Bangkok (run by a couple of the friendliest Thais around), and staying in one of the best hotels in the world the next night (The Oriental, thanks to the one and only Meema); experiencing some genuine Thai nightlife with a bunch of other volunteers at an all-Thai club until the sun came up; screaming at the hand-sized spider that found its way into our bathroom; partying with some new friends from Israel; and stuffing ourselves silly with the best breakfast buffet we will probably ever have. It was an amazing vacation, and couldn't have asked for a better first visitor.
Let's see... there was an English camp that I got to help out with last week at Zerina's site. They were easily the most tiring 3 days I've had as a volunteer, but I thought equally as fun. We had about 150 students each day, 4th through 6th grade. Plenty of singing, playing games, and of course being paraded around the school with hero status. The kids were great. The English part of the camp was kind of pointless, because they all seemed to know the vocabulary beforehand. Which was nice, because that meant more time for fun and games. The most memorable part was how awed the kids were at our presence. A few of them came up to us on the first day and asked for our autographs. When the other students caught wind, they all flocked to do the same. Before we knew it we had close to a hundred kids swarming us with their little English camp booklets and pens. It brought me back to the days I would wait with my dad after Phillies games for the players to come out and sign stuff. What a crazy experience to be on the other end of that. I've felt like a celebrity quite a bit in Thailand, but never to the extent that these kids made me feel like one... and I gotta admit, I loved it.
Of course, sometimes I actually do find the time to be home, hard as that is to believe. My typical day goes something like this: I get up at 6:30, ride my bike to a local shop to eat kao dtom (rice soup) and pau-dong-go (fried dough) with some of the village leaders (which generally means I sit quietly while they all talk in an impossible-to-understand Southern dialect). Then I go home, take a cold shower, and ride my bike to the office around 8am. The first hour or 2 I generally sit at my computer and check email, update myself on sports and other news, etc. Then the rest of my work day is really up to me. Most of the time, I try to find some excuse to get out of the office - today I rode my bike around to talk to people about the organic farming project explained in my last post (more on that in a sec). Some days I'll check out what's going on in the schools. And there are no doubt plenty of days where I will stare brainlessly at my computer screen until lunchtime rolls around - I call that "adapting to the general work environment in Thailand", which is just another form of cultural integration and hence me being a good Peace Corps volunteer. Ahem. Anyway, I then go to eat lunch at one of any number of little shops in the area. As you are probably well aware by now if you've been reading this blog, I love all the food here with very very few exceptions. But if I had to choose, my favorite lunchtime meal is a dish called "laap muu". It's basically minced pork meat with some liver and intestines thrown in if you're lucky, and my host sister Pii Lek makes it better than anyone else in Thailand. So more often than not, I find myself at her shop. Of course, you have to eat it with kao niao (sticky rice) which you ball up in your hands and dip in the juice before eating. Yum. After sufficiently gorging myself, most afternoons I'm scheduled to teach at one of the schools here. But, much of the time when I get there the teachers tell me that they aren't learning today because they have to practice for the Mother's Day show next week, or the sports day in two weeks, or they are learning muay thai (Thai boxing) today. Oh the wonders of education in Thailand. After teaching or not teaching is completed, it's really just more of the same - either sitting in air conditioning on my computer, going around the village on my bike, or sitting at my host sister's shop to chat with my favorite group of local Thai women (the Thai desperate housewives, which may not be too far from the truth). Most nights I like to go eat dinner at my host mom's house, not only because she's hilarious to be around but also because she makes the best food in town (your mom's cooking always tastes the best, right?). Get home just before dark, cold shower, and spend the rest of the night reading a book or watching a freshly-downloaded movie. That pretty much covers 95% of my life here, so consider that retribution for taking so long to post this blog.
Finally, an update on the organic farming project. Things are looking good at this point. A month or two back, I had a surprise meeting with someone from a fruit exporting company who was in town to check out the organic farm mentioned in the previous blog entry. Turns out this guy is interested in how we're trying to promote organic, and he has committed his company to buying and exporting our fruit as soon as we get a new farm up and running. Pii Peera, who has his existing organic farm, is confident that we can do this within 1 year as long as we have the land. So this Friday at my office, we are having a meeting between everyone who may be willing to help out with this project, and also 11 people who are potentially willing to convert their farms to organic. My SAO has already committed to funding around 30,000 baht, so it all looks pretty promising at the moment. Hopefully it will stay that way...
Until next time (and I promise next time will not be another 2 months).
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Something to do for 2 years?
I know it's not good to get your hopes up in the very early stages of an idea, and that holds particularly true when dealing with project ideas in Peace Corps Thailand, but nevertheless I am excited about a potential project just uncovered at site.
The project is promoting organic fruit farming and exporting in my area. The idea came about because of a villager named Peera. Peera's brother met me at a village meeting a few weeks ago and requested help exporting fruit. I visited his house, met Peera, and a few days later got a long tour of his model organic farm. It's a really cool place. Some highlights are:
-He makes organic fertilizer out of manure and material from palm trees.
-The farm feeds a lot of frogs. At night, the frogs are let loose in an enclosed space in the field to eat bugs, which are attracted to the area by purple lights. This helps control the bugs without chemicals. He also breeds the frogs and sells them when they are big enough.
-To also help control the bug situation without chemicals, he has a tree that grows a certain type of fruit that birds like, and the birds eat the bugs too.
-He plants a lot of bamboo on the farm, for multiple uses. He plants it around the perimeter to block chemicals from neighboring farms, because it grows very tall very quickly. He plants it in areas of unwanted grass/weeds so that it will grow and block the sunlight, killing the grass without chemicals. He also sells the bamboo once fully grown.
-He plants a lot of "ya-fek" grass, which helps draw minerals and water into the soil. The grass is distributed for free at every province because of its good environmental impact.
-He has a bee house that feeds a small, non-stinging type of bee which pollinates the flowers on the fruit trees.
Peera claims that this farm is unique to the entire province of Surat Thani. He has a background education in organic farming, and is passionate about promoting it in the community. Besides the environmental benefits, growing fruit organically means you can potentially export it at more than double the local prices. Peera already exports, but he is looking to expand.
This is a potentially big project because Peera already has a successful organic farm of his own, and he is willing to share his knowledge with the community. He claims that the SAO is not willing to help him, that it is more interested in building roads than helping farmers - but when I presented this to the top people in the office, they were on board from the start. They are willing to use budget money to support it, and have set up a meeting to tour the farm with a local professor who has a background in agriculture. Now I'm just hoping to get outside support from an NGO, and also connect with some other contacts the Peace Corps gave me who have experience in organic farming and exporting. We'll see where it goes from here...
Speaking of fruit, another equally important project in the community was helping to decorate a car with fruit to be entered into a competition. We came in 5th out of 30... pretty decent showing for sure. Maybe a waste of fruit, but well worth it for the sake of the art and fine craftsmanship that went into it.
The following is the car that won...
The project is promoting organic fruit farming and exporting in my area. The idea came about because of a villager named Peera. Peera's brother met me at a village meeting a few weeks ago and requested help exporting fruit. I visited his house, met Peera, and a few days later got a long tour of his model organic farm. It's a really cool place. Some highlights are:
-He makes organic fertilizer out of manure and material from palm trees.
-The farm feeds a lot of frogs. At night, the frogs are let loose in an enclosed space in the field to eat bugs, which are attracted to the area by purple lights. This helps control the bugs without chemicals. He also breeds the frogs and sells them when they are big enough.
-To also help control the bug situation without chemicals, he has a tree that grows a certain type of fruit that birds like, and the birds eat the bugs too.
-He plants a lot of bamboo on the farm, for multiple uses. He plants it around the perimeter to block chemicals from neighboring farms, because it grows very tall very quickly. He plants it in areas of unwanted grass/weeds so that it will grow and block the sunlight, killing the grass without chemicals. He also sells the bamboo once fully grown.
-He plants a lot of "ya-fek" grass, which helps draw minerals and water into the soil. The grass is distributed for free at every province because of its good environmental impact.
-He has a bee house that feeds a small, non-stinging type of bee which pollinates the flowers on the fruit trees.
Peera claims that this farm is unique to the entire province of Surat Thani. He has a background education in organic farming, and is passionate about promoting it in the community. Besides the environmental benefits, growing fruit organically means you can potentially export it at more than double the local prices. Peera already exports, but he is looking to expand.
This is a potentially big project because Peera already has a successful organic farm of his own, and he is willing to share his knowledge with the community. He claims that the SAO is not willing to help him, that it is more interested in building roads than helping farmers - but when I presented this to the top people in the office, they were on board from the start. They are willing to use budget money to support it, and have set up a meeting to tour the farm with a local professor who has a background in agriculture. Now I'm just hoping to get outside support from an NGO, and also connect with some other contacts the Peace Corps gave me who have experience in organic farming and exporting. We'll see where it goes from here...
Speaking of fruit, another equally important project in the community was helping to decorate a car with fruit to be entered into a competition. We came in 5th out of 30... pretty decent showing for sure. Maybe a waste of fruit, but well worth it for the sake of the art and fine craftsmanship that went into it.
The following is the car that won...
Friday, June 4, 2010
(Re)-Settling in at Site
I guess when you look at the time in between when I wrote the last entry and now, a lot has happened - but it's hard to reconcile that with how little seems to be happening on a day-to-day basis. Most of my days have been spent sitting in an air conditioned office with internet access. Hard to believe I'm in the Peace Corps sometimes. Then again, other times it's pretty easy. Just ask the several dozen pet lizards who are running (and defecating) throughout my house at this moment.
Since my last entry I have moved out of my host family's place and into my own house. Unwanted pets aside, the house is great. It's perfectly small, everything I need and nothing I don't, and it came just about fully furnished. Even have my own washing machine - not nearly like the ones in the states, but infinitely better than washing clothes by hand. And the best part is, of course, the sit down toilet and overhead shower which will relieve me (so to speak) from squatting and bucket showering.
My water source is a small water tower outside my house. Since I can't go within 50 feet of it without being eaten alive by mosquitoes that apparently love American blood much more than Thai blood, it's fortunate that I don't have to refill it myself. The first time I ran out of water, it was at night right before I was going to take a shower. I called my landlord to tell him, and he said the tower would be refilled the next morning and invited me over to his place to shower. I thought that was odd that his house had water, because it's right next to mine and gets water from the same tower, but didn't bother asking to clarify before going over there. What followed was another one of those moments that helped convince me I'm actually in the Peace Corps - bucket showering outside, completely in the open, with water he had stored in a big outdoor container. Was actually kinda fun, notwithstanding the fact that I think his creepy older brother was watching me the whole time.
As for my daily activities, things actually are starting to pick up a bit. School has been in session for a couple weeks now. I went to visit the principals at each of the four schools here, and set up a schedule where I'm teaching two hours per week at each school. I was originally thrilled to actually be getting out and doing something - and then I was completely overwhelmed when I actually did it. Most of my students are elementary-middle school age, and sometimes they can make the kids in Lord of the Flies look docile. But there has already been a marked improvement since I started, probably resulting from a combination of me being more comfortable in a classroom and them being more comfortable with me (and me being more selective about giving out the conch shell). By far the most useful item from the states, besides the conch shell, has been a bingo game that my mom bought for me to play with the kids here. It keeps them entertained, in their seats, and (theoretically) learning numbers in English. Thanks a million, Mom.
The other day after teaching, I stopped at a place to buy some fruit (which is excellent here by the way). The nine year old daughter of the woman who runs this fruit stand is named Noon, and she always lights up when she sees me. So this day, I decided to spend some time there, play some games, etc. Noon is a wonderful kid. Besides being very smart and grown up for her age, she is really enthusiastic about learning English. I told her I'd teach during the weekend, and the next day she had a group of 15 kids lined up to come as well. Definitely a worthwhile visit to the fruit stand, and all the free fruit they supplied while I was there didn't hurt either.
The Peace Corps has taken the stance that community development volunteers, which I am one of, should try to avoid teaching English in the schools. My view is obviously a bit different. Teaching English is helping me meet teachers, who in turn can help me with other youth development activities. Not to mention that it's the easiest way to get face to face with the youth themselves. For these reasons and others, teaching is a very useful community entry tool. It's true that everyone here automatically assumes I'm just here to teach English, even after explaining that I'm here for "community development", but ultimately I think teaching English is as much a part of community development as anything else - so why fight it?
The following story may illustrate the general attitude here as it relates to that. There was a meeting one day at the SAO with all the council representatives from each village (in Thai, their title is Samachik Au Bau Tau). These are the people who, in theory, should be very in touch with the villagers and the needs of the community. I asked my Nayok for a spot in the meeting to introduce myself, explain why I'm here, and get input from the Samachik. After explaining that I am here for two years to do community development and use my resources to help address needs of the community, I handed out a worksheet in Thai (that office staff helped me type) asking for their suggestions on problems or issues I can help with. Everyone filled it out and returned it to me, and I was thrilled to have received all these potential leads on projects I could do. Then I went to the office staff to help me translate what they wrote. All of the sheets except one said something like, "Teach English in the schools for several hours each week". And the one that didn't say that said, "Help with community development". Turns out this whole thing might not be so easy afterall...
Since my last entry I have moved out of my host family's place and into my own house. Unwanted pets aside, the house is great. It's perfectly small, everything I need and nothing I don't, and it came just about fully furnished. Even have my own washing machine - not nearly like the ones in the states, but infinitely better than washing clothes by hand. And the best part is, of course, the sit down toilet and overhead shower which will relieve me (so to speak) from squatting and bucket showering.
My water source is a small water tower outside my house. Since I can't go within 50 feet of it without being eaten alive by mosquitoes that apparently love American blood much more than Thai blood, it's fortunate that I don't have to refill it myself. The first time I ran out of water, it was at night right before I was going to take a shower. I called my landlord to tell him, and he said the tower would be refilled the next morning and invited me over to his place to shower. I thought that was odd that his house had water, because it's right next to mine and gets water from the same tower, but didn't bother asking to clarify before going over there. What followed was another one of those moments that helped convince me I'm actually in the Peace Corps - bucket showering outside, completely in the open, with water he had stored in a big outdoor container. Was actually kinda fun, notwithstanding the fact that I think his creepy older brother was watching me the whole time.
As for my daily activities, things actually are starting to pick up a bit. School has been in session for a couple weeks now. I went to visit the principals at each of the four schools here, and set up a schedule where I'm teaching two hours per week at each school. I was originally thrilled to actually be getting out and doing something - and then I was completely overwhelmed when I actually did it. Most of my students are elementary-middle school age, and sometimes they can make the kids in Lord of the Flies look docile. But there has already been a marked improvement since I started, probably resulting from a combination of me being more comfortable in a classroom and them being more comfortable with me (and me being more selective about giving out the conch shell). By far the most useful item from the states, besides the conch shell, has been a bingo game that my mom bought for me to play with the kids here. It keeps them entertained, in their seats, and (theoretically) learning numbers in English. Thanks a million, Mom.
The other day after teaching, I stopped at a place to buy some fruit (which is excellent here by the way). The nine year old daughter of the woman who runs this fruit stand is named Noon, and she always lights up when she sees me. So this day, I decided to spend some time there, play some games, etc. Noon is a wonderful kid. Besides being very smart and grown up for her age, she is really enthusiastic about learning English. I told her I'd teach during the weekend, and the next day she had a group of 15 kids lined up to come as well. Definitely a worthwhile visit to the fruit stand, and all the free fruit they supplied while I was there didn't hurt either.
The Peace Corps has taken the stance that community development volunteers, which I am one of, should try to avoid teaching English in the schools. My view is obviously a bit different. Teaching English is helping me meet teachers, who in turn can help me with other youth development activities. Not to mention that it's the easiest way to get face to face with the youth themselves. For these reasons and others, teaching is a very useful community entry tool. It's true that everyone here automatically assumes I'm just here to teach English, even after explaining that I'm here for "community development", but ultimately I think teaching English is as much a part of community development as anything else - so why fight it?
The following story may illustrate the general attitude here as it relates to that. There was a meeting one day at the SAO with all the council representatives from each village (in Thai, their title is Samachik Au Bau Tau). These are the people who, in theory, should be very in touch with the villagers and the needs of the community. I asked my Nayok for a spot in the meeting to introduce myself, explain why I'm here, and get input from the Samachik. After explaining that I am here for two years to do community development and use my resources to help address needs of the community, I handed out a worksheet in Thai (that office staff helped me type) asking for their suggestions on problems or issues I can help with. Everyone filled it out and returned it to me, and I was thrilled to have received all these potential leads on projects I could do. Then I went to the office staff to help me translate what they wrote. All of the sheets except one said something like, "Teach English in the schools for several hours each week". And the one that didn't say that said, "Help with community development". Turns out this whole thing might not be so easy afterall...
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
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:
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:
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Rao ja pop gan iik...
...means we will meet again. In just over a week, we're leaving our host families in Chainat to go to our sites. There's no doubt I'll be back to visit. Here are some of the more memorable stories from Chainat that I haven't yet written about...
A few weeks ago, Brooke and I decided we wanted to cook a meal for our host family. We went with spaghetti. We bought ground pork, mushrooms, and onions to cook before adding a couple cans of tomato sauce. We boiled the spaghetti, and when it was all said and done I thought it tasted pretty decent. Then we took it to the family... and even though they said it was good, it wasn't hard to read their non-verbal cues. And those cues said "How can they possibly expect us to eat this." But my dad insisted on taking more, and made a point to show us how much he "liked" it. Even so, we had a lot of leftovers for the dogs, who never turn down any extra food. Until they ate absolutely none of the spaghetti.
There have been a few funny language mix-ups. One day my host sister had a test at school. The Thai word for test is "sawp". I asked her how the test was, but instead of saying "Wan-nii sawp bpen yang rai?", I said "Wan-nii sop bpen yang rai?". I didn't understand why she was laughing, until I later found out I had asked her "How was the dead body today?"
Yesterday during my final language interview, I thought everything went really well. Then my interviewer gave me feedback and I found out that multiple times during the interview, instead of saying the word "Kui" (which is the verb for "to chat") I said "Kuai" (which is a very, very vulgar word for a certain male body part).
Early on in training, our medical officer gave us the ever popular Peace Corps sex talk. He gave everyone a condom, then gave everyone a banana. You can probably figure out where it went from there. It was an awkwardly fun time. But, with a total of 60 volunteers, we had a lot of condom-clad bananas to dispose of. Everyone piled them in the middle of the floor to be thrown away. Fast forward three weeks. Our country director was there to talk to us about our upcoming site visits. He moved a table at the front of the room, and made a most unexpected discovery - a totally black banana wrapped in latex, which he proceeded to show all of us while facetiously reiterating the importance of safe sex.
One day, we went to a school to do a "life skills" activity. Basically we played a few games with them, and had a lot of fun. But when it was over we didn't know what to do next. We asked them to teach us something. Together they decided to teach us some Thai songs. They put on quite a performance. They had a perfectly choreographed dance, and one little boy did a solo that had us comparing him to Michael Jackson. Then they asked us to teach them an American song. We all proceeded to do a legendarily awful rendition of YMCA. When we were done, the kids didn't really know how to react... but they gave us some light applause, for which we were both grateful and undeserving.
Last Thursday our ajaan (teacher) treated our four person language class to dinner. Afterwards, she took out two gifts from Chiang Mai. I don't remember what they're called in Thai, but basically they were two mini hot air balloons. The pictures below will explain it better than I could. The idea was to light the fire underneath the balloon, and let it fly away once enough hot air accumulated. Sounds easy enough. But after we lit the fire, the wind started blowing. We almost set the restaurant on fire. At one point, my ajaan put her head inside the balloon. It was crazy. Then when we all let go because our hands were about to be burned off, somehow the thing flew away. And it was awesome. The first picture below is during the near-disaster I just described, while the second is during our much better controlled second balloon launching.
A few weeks ago, Brooke and I decided we wanted to cook a meal for our host family. We went with spaghetti. We bought ground pork, mushrooms, and onions to cook before adding a couple cans of tomato sauce. We boiled the spaghetti, and when it was all said and done I thought it tasted pretty decent. Then we took it to the family... and even though they said it was good, it wasn't hard to read their non-verbal cues. And those cues said "How can they possibly expect us to eat this." But my dad insisted on taking more, and made a point to show us how much he "liked" it. Even so, we had a lot of leftovers for the dogs, who never turn down any extra food. Until they ate absolutely none of the spaghetti.
There have been a few funny language mix-ups. One day my host sister had a test at school. The Thai word for test is "sawp". I asked her how the test was, but instead of saying "Wan-nii sawp bpen yang rai?", I said "Wan-nii sop bpen yang rai?". I didn't understand why she was laughing, until I later found out I had asked her "How was the dead body today?"
Yesterday during my final language interview, I thought everything went really well. Then my interviewer gave me feedback and I found out that multiple times during the interview, instead of saying the word "Kui" (which is the verb for "to chat") I said "Kuai" (which is a very, very vulgar word for a certain male body part).
Early on in training, our medical officer gave us the ever popular Peace Corps sex talk. He gave everyone a condom, then gave everyone a banana. You can probably figure out where it went from there. It was an awkwardly fun time. But, with a total of 60 volunteers, we had a lot of condom-clad bananas to dispose of. Everyone piled them in the middle of the floor to be thrown away. Fast forward three weeks. Our country director was there to talk to us about our upcoming site visits. He moved a table at the front of the room, and made a most unexpected discovery - a totally black banana wrapped in latex, which he proceeded to show all of us while facetiously reiterating the importance of safe sex.
One day, we went to a school to do a "life skills" activity. Basically we played a few games with them, and had a lot of fun. But when it was over we didn't know what to do next. We asked them to teach us something. Together they decided to teach us some Thai songs. They put on quite a performance. They had a perfectly choreographed dance, and one little boy did a solo that had us comparing him to Michael Jackson. Then they asked us to teach them an American song. We all proceeded to do a legendarily awful rendition of YMCA. When we were done, the kids didn't really know how to react... but they gave us some light applause, for which we were both grateful and undeserving.
Last Thursday our ajaan (teacher) treated our four person language class to dinner. Afterwards, she took out two gifts from Chiang Mai. I don't remember what they're called in Thai, but basically they were two mini hot air balloons. The pictures below will explain it better than I could. The idea was to light the fire underneath the balloon, and let it fly away once enough hot air accumulated. Sounds easy enough. But after we lit the fire, the wind started blowing. We almost set the restaurant on fire. At one point, my ajaan put her head inside the balloon. It was crazy. Then when we all let go because our hands were about to be burned off, somehow the thing flew away. And it was awesome. The first picture below is during the near-disaster I just described, while the second is during our much better controlled second balloon launching.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Birthday, Site Visit
When I posted the birthday picture below, I realized I didn't make any mention of that day yet on this blog. The quick highlights are: That day, we had a field trip scheduled to a huge rice farm / snack-making / soap-making place in a neighboring province. On the bus ride over, everyone started singing happy birthday and my language ajaan (teacher) brought me the watermelon cake you can see in the previous post. Really awesome. Then, the highlight of the rice farm was getting the chance to plant rice by hand. We took off our shoes, rolled up our pants, grabbed a handful of rice sprout-lings, and walked into the warm, muddy field to do the dirty work. It was great because of how great it felt. The mud gave us all a foot treatment that most people would have to pay for. When we finished planting all the rice, we were reluctant to leave the field.
That night, I went out to dinner with everyone in my host family and extended family - 15 people in all. The restaurant was spectacular. We had a couple whole fish, some curry, a delicious pork dish called lap muu, and soup called dom yam. The funniest part was my host mom, who had assured everyone throughout the last two days that "Joel ya liang tu-kon" (Joel will treat everyone). I knew she was kidding - and then the waitress brought the check directly to me after dinner. After the family noticed a momentary nervousness on my part, they all burst out laughing and my mom grabbed the 1,700 baht check. And the Peace Corps told us Thais were not accustomed to sarcasm...
Earlier this week we got back from our visit to Bangkok and our future sites. Some highlights of that are: Bangkok was crazy. After being couped up with our host families for the previous few weeks, everyone was understandably ready for a night on the town. We went to Ko Sahn road, which was probably the wildest scene I've ever witnessed. People, mostly foreigners, packed the entire street. Each step we were approached by someone trying to sell something, including a lot of suit salesmen, which I found funny that anyone would consider buying a suit on that road in the middle of the night. We ate pizza for dinner, hopped around between bars, danced a little, then took cabs back to the hotel - which, I should mention, is an experience in and of itself, especially if you catch one in mid-day traffic. New York cabbies are light years behind Bangkok cabbies. But anyway, Bangkok was fun on the whole, but not a place I will need to perpetually revisit.
The next day, I took an overnight, 10 hour bus-ride from Bangkok to Surat Thani. Before going to our sites, everyone spent two nights with a host Peace Corps volunteer who had already been serving for at least a year. It was fun to see how a Peace Corps volunteer generally lives, and mine was very hospitable. The area is much more rural than our training site in Chainat, which is good and bad. Bad because it won't always be easy to get food and supplies, but good because you can actually see a sky full of stars at night. That was the first thing I noticed after getting off the bus at 3AM, and it was a refreshing site at that hour.
A couple days later I got picked up by some future co-workers to go to my site. I'm in a unique situation at site; there was actually a Peace Corps volunteer from the previous group who had been serving in that exact place. She started her service about a year ago, and just left for America this past January. This means people in the area are generally familiar with seeing a white person around town. It also means that there's less initial work on my part - I already have my housing situation figured out, because I'll just move into her old house. It's a nice looking place, and the best part is it happens to be the only place I saw in all of Surat Thani with a sit-down toilet instead of a squat toilet.
The one night I spent at site was with a host family. I stayed with a 30-something year old man who serves as the Samachik Moo - the person who finds out what the villagers want/need and reports to the SAO (Sub-district Administrative Office, the local administrative building where I will be working out of) - and his mother. Squat toilet and bucket shower, but overall comfortable place and very friendly host. I will be staying with him for my first month at site before moving into my own place.
The situation at the SAO is not overwhelmingly good or bad. People are generally pretty nice, but somewhat shy. It's characteristic of the South for people to leave you alone a little bit and not constantly be chatting away. This is kind of nice, but in all honesty I missed my overly personable host family (who called me twice while at site to check on me) and the people of Chainat. Right now I don't think there's much of an opportunity for me to get work done at the SAO. I have a lot of language learning to do before that will be possible. And I have a feeling I'll tend towards spending time at the area schools, which is how the previous volunteer spent much of her time. During the visit, I got to know a few people in the area who were either village leaders or involved in community agricultural groups (including a group that produces and promotes the use of organic fertilizer, which was interesting to see). I'm excited to get to know more people once at site and see how I can best help.
And oh yeah - the people in the South speak a different dialect of Thai, and talk incredibly fast. Woo-hoo.
Always more to say, but I'll cut it off for now. One thing to note is the tense political situation in Thailand right now - I'm sure there are news stories about it if you look. But it seems like an interesting time to be here.
That night, I went out to dinner with everyone in my host family and extended family - 15 people in all. The restaurant was spectacular. We had a couple whole fish, some curry, a delicious pork dish called lap muu, and soup called dom yam. The funniest part was my host mom, who had assured everyone throughout the last two days that "Joel ya liang tu-kon" (Joel will treat everyone). I knew she was kidding - and then the waitress brought the check directly to me after dinner. After the family noticed a momentary nervousness on my part, they all burst out laughing and my mom grabbed the 1,700 baht check. And the Peace Corps told us Thais were not accustomed to sarcasm...
Earlier this week we got back from our visit to Bangkok and our future sites. Some highlights of that are: Bangkok was crazy. After being couped up with our host families for the previous few weeks, everyone was understandably ready for a night on the town. We went to Ko Sahn road, which was probably the wildest scene I've ever witnessed. People, mostly foreigners, packed the entire street. Each step we were approached by someone trying to sell something, including a lot of suit salesmen, which I found funny that anyone would consider buying a suit on that road in the middle of the night. We ate pizza for dinner, hopped around between bars, danced a little, then took cabs back to the hotel - which, I should mention, is an experience in and of itself, especially if you catch one in mid-day traffic. New York cabbies are light years behind Bangkok cabbies. But anyway, Bangkok was fun on the whole, but not a place I will need to perpetually revisit.
The next day, I took an overnight, 10 hour bus-ride from Bangkok to Surat Thani. Before going to our sites, everyone spent two nights with a host Peace Corps volunteer who had already been serving for at least a year. It was fun to see how a Peace Corps volunteer generally lives, and mine was very hospitable. The area is much more rural than our training site in Chainat, which is good and bad. Bad because it won't always be easy to get food and supplies, but good because you can actually see a sky full of stars at night. That was the first thing I noticed after getting off the bus at 3AM, and it was a refreshing site at that hour.
A couple days later I got picked up by some future co-workers to go to my site. I'm in a unique situation at site; there was actually a Peace Corps volunteer from the previous group who had been serving in that exact place. She started her service about a year ago, and just left for America this past January. This means people in the area are generally familiar with seeing a white person around town. It also means that there's less initial work on my part - I already have my housing situation figured out, because I'll just move into her old house. It's a nice looking place, and the best part is it happens to be the only place I saw in all of Surat Thani with a sit-down toilet instead of a squat toilet.
The one night I spent at site was with a host family. I stayed with a 30-something year old man who serves as the Samachik Moo - the person who finds out what the villagers want/need and reports to the SAO (Sub-district Administrative Office, the local administrative building where I will be working out of) - and his mother. Squat toilet and bucket shower, but overall comfortable place and very friendly host. I will be staying with him for my first month at site before moving into my own place.
The situation at the SAO is not overwhelmingly good or bad. People are generally pretty nice, but somewhat shy. It's characteristic of the South for people to leave you alone a little bit and not constantly be chatting away. This is kind of nice, but in all honesty I missed my overly personable host family (who called me twice while at site to check on me) and the people of Chainat. Right now I don't think there's much of an opportunity for me to get work done at the SAO. I have a lot of language learning to do before that will be possible. And I have a feeling I'll tend towards spending time at the area schools, which is how the previous volunteer spent much of her time. During the visit, I got to know a few people in the area who were either village leaders or involved in community agricultural groups (including a group that produces and promotes the use of organic fertilizer, which was interesting to see). I'm excited to get to know more people once at site and see how I can best help.
And oh yeah - the people in the South speak a different dialect of Thai, and talk incredibly fast. Woo-hoo.
Always more to say, but I'll cut it off for now. One thing to note is the tense political situation in Thailand right now - I'm sure there are news stories about it if you look. But it seems like an interesting time to be here.
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