that time i went to thailand

THE END!!

2006-08-25T16:06:00.000-07:00

just a notice to all and sundry that i am home, safe and sound. i'm desperately trying to reacclimate myself to north america (the weather here is fabulous, though i'm not as sweat-proof as i hoped i'd be) and process my trip. how does one integrate the lessons of an adventure into the torpor of everyday life? on a related topic, does anyone know any good books along the lines of finding God in your achingly boring life?

i'm not sure how often i'll be blogging these days. i'd like to keep it up, but i'm frankly not planning on doing anything interesting. still, all my blogging friends manage to make their lives sound interesting, and my feelings won't really be hurt if everyone stops reading, because i won't know, right? so consider this the close to a chapter.

getting there...

2006-08-23T16:05:00.000-07:00

i said goodbye to the brians (falls and fotjasek) at 2:30, and in doing so, severed the last link to my thailand community. i was in bangkok with an entire afternoon ahead of myself, to do as i pleased, but i want nothing to do with a thailand that does not include my boys and p'ganniga. leaving was heart-wrenching, nearly to the point where i wish i hadn't come. homecoming will be sweet, but there have been too many hours in between.

aside from getting rip-roaringly drunk, i did the only other thing i knew would completely overwhelm my senses and help me pass the time: i went to mbk. the enormous mall did not disappoint, and for a few hours and a few hundred baht, i forgot how completely wretched i am. i was able to laugh at the 'berger king' and the 'grossery store.' now it is 2:30 in the am. i would dearly love to sleep on the plane, so i am awake now, trying to forget what i am leaving behind and focus on what i am coming home to. i am more than ready to come home, but nowhere near ready to leave.

my plane departs in less than six hours.

shadrach, meshach and...dao?

2006-08-20T16:02:00.000-07:00

every morning just before class starts, the students gather in front of the flag and line up in their classroom groups. they sing the national anthem together, and then recite prayers to buddha. those stalwart figures you see with their hands to their sides or behind their backs are our boys. they are exempt from praying to the buddha by virtue of their status as Christians, but i often wonder what their classmates think of this, and how they respond when questioned. this is yet another one of those things i'll never know, because i don't speak thai.

the national anthem, besides being sung before class, is also played over the loudspeaker at 8:00. this is not just a school function; everywhere in thailand, loudspeakers on trucks or posted on streets, radio stations and television, all play thailand's national anthem at precisely 8:00 am and 6:00 pm. wherever one happens to be at that moment, one is expected to drop everything and stand at attention. traffic will sometimes even come to a halt, as people pay homage to their country and king.

other things you might not know about thailand:

before a movie is played in the theaters, a special video honoring the king is run. once again, everyone stands at attention.

when you fold money, you fold it with the king's face on the outside. if you drop money, stepping on it is a jailable offence (you're putting your foot on the likeness of the king's head).

it is considered rude to pick your teeth in public. picking your nose is perfectly acceptable.

every road worth mentioning has a meridian, because there are no functioning crosswalks. one only has to dodge traffic coming from one direction at a time, resting on the meridian in the middle. you are permitted to cross if you probably won't get hit.

the reigning rule of the road is 'don't get hit.' slightly less prominant is 'try not to hit anyone else.

'people drive on the left-hand side.

many driver's licenses are purchased, not earned.

it shows.

people swim in the ocean fully-clothed, and usually only in the evening. when they sit on the beach, they do so under a host of umbrellas, and they sit facing inwards towards each other, not towards the sea.

you eat with a fork and spoon, using the fork to push the food onto your spoon. you can use your spoon to cut things, if strictly necessary. my house has one butterknife, which i use when no one is around. i call it 'going savage.'

eggs and milk can be left out on the counter, no problem. cereal, however...THAT goes in the fridge.

thai people were voted the 'best-smelling people group' in the world. they shower several times daily.

no one kisses in public. if you must show affection, you put your face close to someone else's face, and sniff them.

friends of the same gender group can and will walk down the street hand-in-hand.you never touch someone else's head.

that concludes our lesson in thai culture, 101. class dismissed.

5 days and counting

2006-08-20T16:01:00.000-07:00

don't have much to post these days...getting ready to leave.

yesterday, everyone took me to this waterpark on top of a massive mall in bang na...it was supposed to be a surprise until, i guess, the day before, but then no one ended up telling me, so when the fallses came to pick me up yesterday morning, there i was still in my jammies, drinking coffee.

today i ate a bowl of soup that tasted like human spit.

pony up!

2006-08-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

i'm coming home with a hundred bracelets. be prepared to buy them. all proceeds go to the orphanage.this is my taxi. there's no cushion on that bit that i sit on, and going over bumps at high speeds makes me want to cry. luckily, having so much weight on the back slows the driver down, so we rarely go anywhere at high speeds...

this is apilak in his happy place (note my severely mosquito-bitten legs...i look like i have the pox)...if i carry him around until he's fake-sleeping, and then sit down and put him in his leg-cradle, he'll open one eye and look around, decide this is an acceptable resting place and that he is still being a burden (he lives to encumber), and then go to sleep for real. this leaves my hands free to read a book or something.

yesterday, karen took me out for dinner-and-debrief to this little mexican food (mmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmm) place in pattaya...pattaya is one of the prostitution capitals of thailand, and i had never been there, particularly not at night...i'm still trying to process it all, but it's one thing to read about it in books, and another thing entirely to see teenaged girls lingering, scantily clad, in front of bars, or walking through the streets hand-in-hand with a farang twice their age...

slasher!

2006-08-15T15:54:00.000-07:00

someone slashed the outer pocket of my rockawesome satchel (read: mom-bag) while i was at the market yesterday, in the hopes that my wallet would fall out. luckily, my wallet is man-sized, and stayed put. still, that would have been a rotten way to end my trip. at least this decides for me the question of whether or not the mom-bag makes the return trip to canada.

-------------

the woman who inexplicably shows up on sunday afternoons to iron the boys' school clothes has a little dog named ninja, who is pretty much the cutest thing since kirby (you all know who i'm talking about...that video game where the pillow would eat things and spit them out at other things)...only in thailand can you bring your dog (or infant child, or husband) to work with you.

--------------------

the older kids at wat samet, particularly the ones in my classes, are pretty used to having a farang on the premises now, although they all still stop whatever they're doing and stare when brian's big green truck drives into the school. the younger ones, however, just can't get over it. every so often, they'll congregate in little clumps outside my doorway, and dare each other to go in and say 'hello.' sometimes, one of them will come in willingly, bravely, hand held out to be shaken. other times, they'll spend ten minutes trying to shove each other inside...----------------------

the boys had made a batch of beaded bracelets to sell to the Full Sail team, and the team leader, geoff, has requisitioned a whole batch more, promising to sell them when he gets back to california. a sight more profitable and less wearying (which we all condone, since they're all still sickish) than selling popcorn in the market, the boys have taken to bracelet-making like they were born to it... i may be coming home with a batch myself, if bracelet fever holds. they make excellent gifts for your nieces!!!!

mother's day photos

2006-08-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

p'ganniga and her boys (i'm still gunning for that one perfect photo where all five of them look alive, alert, awake, and enthusiastic...this is not that photo)and then, because they're also kind of mine...it's getting close to the end, and i'm dying to be home. this has become my life. it seems like i've known the fallses forever; it's perfectly natural that tassanee sanchez would hug me every time she sees me; rice actually is a proper breakfast food. these are my comfortable, familiar surroundings. still, something is missing, and whether that's solitude, or it's rest, or it's joel or family or people who i've actually known forever, it's time for me to go home. i've said a million times and i'll say again that if i could take the boys, i'd come home in a second. that being said, thoughts of leaving are both pleasant and unsettling. could you leave this face...?

or this one...?
there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace...
ecclesiastes 3:1-8

i feel that my time is coming to tear and to uproot, and i'm not entirely ready...

pizza babies!

2006-08-12T15:49:00.000-07:00

if i EVER have quintuplets (or, like, have twins and then triplets back to back) and then, twelve years later, i want to have another one, so that at some point in time i will have five children bordering on thirteen, and one tiny, fussy, infant child, just be like, hey, remember that time with the pizza? and i promise you i wont.

the long story short is that i had to order pizza over the phone, because the boys were hungry, and i am not cooking for five boys whilst holding a baby who won't sleep. so i'm ordering, half in thai, and i don't know my phone number off by heart, and the woman doesn't understand 'wait a second' and so she hangs up on me, so i have to phone her back and do the whole thing over with apilak screeching all the while (he promptly shut up as soon as i was off the phone), and then when i sent bun and dao with a thousand baht to pick up the 700B pizza, the guy at the place told them that it was 1700 baht, and bun came back to fetch me and my purse, and so i wrapped the baby (who was screeching again) and left golf and max and june to watch the house, and booked it the six or so blocks to the pizza place, hauling this baby who is suddenly quite heavy, only to find that it was, in fact, 700B, and the guy was retarded (not literally, but...well...you know), and that it wasn't even ready.

in other news, it was thai mother's day, and so the lot of us took ganniga out for lunch, only she thought we were going out for june's birthday (which kind of we were, but not really), and she was all pleased and cried a little bit and apparently, in her twenty-eight years (or so) of motherhood, no one has ever honored her on mother's day, which is kind of tragic.

so, for all you mothers out there who are still in yesterday (that is, everyone in north america), happy mother's day!!!!!!!!!

i got my latte

2006-08-11T15:47:00.000-07:00

it's friday, and my day off, so i took a bus into bangkok to do some shopping. the bus (read: eight passenger van) was packed with university students heading home for the weekend. those who had had classes this morning were still in their prim, short-sleeved white button-down shirt, neat black skirt and shoes uniformery, and the rest sported variations on the knee-length-shorts/t-shirt combination that is the thai woman's wardrobe. gung, our local shopping expert, directed me towards siam square, which includes the siam paragon, the siam center, and the siam discovery (all of these are shopping malls). i could not have been more delighted. everything was in english. i didn't have to ask people where everything was, because i could read the signs and figure it out myself, like a grown-up. the first thing i found on my own was a latte.

it was everything i dreamed it would be, and more. this is me in the siam paragon (rocking my own knee-length-shorts/t-shirt combo), a spacious, air-conditioned dream of a mall, five stories high. the siam center was similar, and i can only assume the same of the siam discovery, because after i'd hit up these two, i headed to the mbk (which MUST stand for Mall of Bangkok, or something)...the mbk is easily as big as metrotown (both parts) as far as square footage per floor, but it's eight stories high, and the stores are all packed cheek by jowl. it's like our own little bang saen market, only a brazillion times bigger, and with air con. i almost screamed a little bit when i walked in. each storey is designated to a particular form of merchandise, so finding roughly what you want is easy. finding exactly what you want is near impossible, since the stores are four across (picture an ordinary shopping mall, and you're walking down the center floor bit, which usually has gaps surrounded by glass walls that children press their faces against and sometimes there are escalators, and on either side of you there is a store...now take away that center floor bit with its gaps and its escalators, and put in two more rows of stores...now add a million thai people and a handful of overwhelmed farang. that's mbk). it's the only time in my life i haven't combed a strange mall from top to bottom, end to end. i'm just grateful to have gotten out of there alive.

in addition to my latte, i had a double-cheese and jalepeno bagel with cream cheese (making it, i suppose, triple-cheese), and then later i stumbled upon the cream and fudge factory, which is not quite what it sounds. it's an ice-cream joint, where you walk up to the nice girl with the pad of paper and say, for example, that you would like chocolate ice cream with tiny chocolate chips, banana bits, and roasted macadamia nuts in it (which is, in fact, what i wanted) and then you will watch while they throw a largish scoop of ice cream on a frozen counter and mix in your chosen goodies. then they call you madam, as though you were the duchess of york, or something. do we have cream and fudge factories in north america? i know we have cold stone (in the states), which i think amounts to much the same thing...

and also, i saw a lady in a burkha.which i think amounts to much the same thing...and also, i saw a lady in a burkha.

pictures!! PICTURES!! I'm drunk on my own power.

2006-08-10T15:40:00.000-07:00

this was a rockawesome game we played with our youth, where they had to put a basketball between their knees, a book on their head, and a baht on their eye, and then walk...

and here's dao, 'cause i just love him....
and as a side note, our youth group has been running for maybe a month and a half now, and we've had 19 kids come to Christ, which i think is kinda alright ;)
and then here are two of my star pupils
and here is the calender which used to say when i was leaving...one night max sat down beside me, cut out a square of paper, slathered it in glue (all the while, replying 'i don't know' to my 'what are you doing?'s), and then pranced over to cover the 'rachel leaves.' then he turned and asked impishly, 'you go when?'. the boys proceeded to point out, with ineffable thai logic, that the bird in the picture above the month is not flying, neither therefore can my airplane fly, so i can't go...
and then here's dao again, fast asleep on the floor...
which leads me to today's adventures. it was universally decided that the boys, in their debilatated state, should stay home from school today (let me side note: brian's car is again in the crapper [aka 'the shop'], which meant that we would be songthaewing to school this morning, and if there's one thing that my pleasant little boys positively balk at, it's songthaewing to school, so they were DOUBLY pumped to have a holiday). yesterday, they all looked like death warmed over (until it was time for bed, at which point they roused themselves enough to play a round of 'stick canada stickers on rachel without her noticing,' which is a really difficult game, because i'm a ninja at noticing stuff) but today, after sleeping in til 6:55 and laying around for a while, they'd perked up a bit.

dr. aree, the boys' fabulous, benevolent (free) doctor phoned to say that she could see them today, so karen and i hauled the lot of them in (apilak included, if only to get him out of p'ganniga's hands so she'd HAVE to rest). they seemed fine, and most of them deny illness of any sort, so we felt a little foolish, but now they're all on antibiotics, and dr. aree is concerned about max, so we were justified (though we'd rather look foolish). she says max has fluid in his lungs, and that it may develop into pneumonia (most dreaded of words) and so to keep an eye on him. what does that mean? i keep an eye on all of them, all the time! they cough!!! are they coughing more than usual? i don't know, they mostly cough at night when i can't tell who it is. my poor little fellows, i just want them well. i want them well, and i want my ganniga well, because she keeps trying to pretend that she IS well, and i want apilak (who was given a clean bill of health, thank God) to remain well, and i want a latte. hopefully i get all the other things before i get my latte. so, the boys are all on antibiotics (or they will be, once karen visits dr. aree at her clinic tonight and picks up their [free sample] meds) and they should be fine. it really just blows my mind to see how people open up their hearts to these boys. dr. aree roped a couple of the specialists into checking things out like june's ears, and they all agreed willingly, and for free. these two salesmen who didn't have any 'samples' of the meds dr. aree needed just up and gave her a thousand baht to buy them outright from someone else. so many people have been willing to help these boys, from the zillions of teams that have come through to the girl who runs the stall next to their popcorn stand, and who lends them a hand setting it up. it kind of renews your faith in humanity.

ONE picture uploaded

2006-08-10T15:38:00.000-07:00

finalement!!! success!!! alright, folks, here's the pic you've all been waiting for...well worth the wait, i think. for heaven's sake, people, DON'T feed the coconut. the illustration denotes what will happen if you do. based upon the success of this photo upload, i think i'll start a new blog and post some more (i don't DARE try and put more on this post, in case i lose this one precious photo).

indestructable?

2006-08-08T15:35:00.000-07:00

uploading photos is still beyond blogger's ability just now, you'll all have to make due with a boring post-of-text. there's a 'scheduled outage' advertised for later today, i hope they'll make use of that outage and fix some stuff.

in orphanage news, p'ganniga's been sick. i think i mentioned this a few posts ago, but i'm not sure i communicated how completely earth-shattering that is. it'd be like if he-man came down with the flu, or something. thai people are invincible. i saw three motercycles crash into each other at top speed two nights ago, each carrying at least two people. no one was wearing a helmet, everyone went flying, and no one was hurt. you could shoot a thai at close range with a longbow, and he'd, like, maybe stagger back a bit.

so p'ganniga's got a cough and a sore throat, and she sounds like death, but she's still going a million miles a minute, even though i tell her at every turn to take a nap, or eat something. apilak's been shifted from home to home in an effort to keep him healthy, and he's found semi-permanent residence with the fallses (who also have supakit, and who run the risk of going stir-baby-crazy, because i've had both babies for a few HOURS, and nearly lost my mind. they're going on a couple of DAYS now, bless their hearts).

the boys, while still durable, are a little more 'vincible' than their countrymen, and one by one, they have caught 'the cough.' max went down first, and so we quarantined him to my old room, but yesterday dao came home from school, curled up on the floor, and promptly went to sleep (which i'd post a picture of, but for aforementioned difficulties). he slept for three hours, despite noise and clamour and being tripped over several times. last night, june was hacking pretty severely, and it was a lacklustre bunch that picked over their chicken and rice this morning. apilak can't come home until all are well (relatively). the boys have some sort of exams this month (i think), but they're all so bleary and unenthusiastic that i can't see them studying hard just now.

also, martin and hannah, our charming english duo, are leaving us today. they have been a joy and a delight to my life, and have taught me all sorts of useful things about england (like how the queen owns all the swans, and england owns the northern bit of scotland, and some shopping malls are banning hoodies because there's a certain brand of person who wears hoodies, and no one likes them, and also that a 'sidewalk' is actually called a 'pavement' and that your 'pants' are what you wear under your trousers, and that we pronounce 'buddha' and 'muslim' wrong) and i will miss them and our impromptu 'english lessons,' and their general willingness to help out anywhere at any time. and have i mentioned that hannah loves pirates as much as i do? she had a pirate-themed stagette (except they call it a 'hen party') and she bought a shirt the other day that says 'pirates are way cooler than ninjas' and has a picture of a pirate giving a ninja the finger, except that she scraped off the finger, so now he's just shaking his fist.

that's really all for now. life has hit something of a rut. one time, my paramedic friend robyn (who's out there SAVING LIVES!!!) posted about her 'mundane life,' and i was like, ROBYN, YOU'RE OUT THERE SAVING LIVES!!! plus i believe the post contained something about stripping firemen down...but now i'm IN THAILAND working at an orphanage, and my life has become comfortable and boring. i guess you get used to anything in time. even firemen.

enter the gong show

2006-08-06T15:33:00.000-07:00

so, generally speaking, the internet's been down...and then when it's not down, i've got the baby, and now it's up, and blogger won't let me upload any photos. so you'll all have to make due without the really funny sign i saw at monkey mountain until another date.

we have a team here from the states (several of them [states, not team members]), called 'full sail.' they're a singing group...mostly they tour around our area and sing worship songs...anyway, they let me come to monkey mountain with them on friday for dinner. monkey mountain is so called because of its profusion of monkeys. for reals, there's zillions of'em. we rented a songthaew to take us up there, and the whole road up was strewn with monkeys...couldn't take photos because we were on a moving songthaew, and then when we got to the 'top,' the world was suddenly void of monkeys. i induced two of the full sailers to walk back down with me a ways to get some sweet monkey shots, but our venture was cut short. an attempt to snap a pic of the grandaddy monkey led to a savage attack by aforementioned grandaddy, and the three of us fled in terror. monkeys is unreasonable beasts.

then it rained. then we had dinner under a tarp, and we all got wet anyways. then the profusion of small children combined with the excitement of the rain and the general messyness of small children in rain made me profoundly aware that i do not want children for some time yet (late nights with babies may have contributed to this effect). then we took a songthaew home in the wet.

my day off (friday) consisted of an early morning full sail concert at the boys' school (which i couldn't NOT attend), and then a trip to sri richa to buy myself 30 more fine-free days, and then another full sail concert at yet another school, and then a trip to monkey mountain in the evening, so i was not so much rested as mildly worn down that night when karen emailed to ask if i could take supakit the following day, it being sheri and brian's 16th anniversary and all. so i showed up saturday morning to find a sheri and brian all set to go in their workout gear, cradling a sweating, feverish supakit. after much deliberation, they reluctantly set off to work out while i took the cranky, sick baby for a few hours. when they returned, they took him to the hospital, 'just in case.' suddenly they're phoning, and supakit is getting his lungs suctioned, and now he's on five different medications, three times a day (not as in 'five throughout the day,' but as in 'five in the morning, three at lunch, and five in the evening), and p'ganniga's sick, and max is sick, and apilak is staying with brian and tiffany (did i mention that tiff's pregnant, and has 4 of her own under the age of eight?) so that he doesn't get sick, and the full sail team left one of their girls behind to teach some classes or something, and i'm supposed to hang out with her, because how lonely is it to be stuck in thailand!! but i have to go pick up joy in ten minutes, and i only have sixteen days left here, and i do and don't want to come home!!!!!

and that's all. there's your teeny update, mum. love you.

no-ambodia

2006-08-04T15:32:00.000-07:00

i would like to announce that i am the proud owner of a new 30-day visa...ergo...i don't have to go to cambodia. huzzah!

and also, THESE pretz are LARB flavor.

bebes

2006-08-03T15:31:00.000-07:00

walking a baby to sleep is stupendously boring.

cambodia or bust

2006-08-02T15:30:00.000-07:00

i may or may not have to go to cambodia.

i may be able to buy a 30 day visa extension from sri richa for 1800 baht. we'll find out tomorrow.

also, this may be outside of anyone's interest range, but here in thailand (and most particularly in my house) it's not so much a matter of the boys not putting the toilet seat back down, it's a matter of them not putting it up in the first place.

i want a bagel.

huzzah! generic blog titles are so difficult to come by these days!

2006-08-01T15:25:00.000-07:00

tuesdays are usually a long day (teach at wat samet in the morning, have joy in the afternoon, teach an adult english class at tlc in the evening) and so when i returned home late last night, i was unceremoniously ordered to sleep in this morning, and not accompany the boys on their drive to school, but ordered in such a way that i felt like i had made the decision. thai people do this to you.

in other news, it appears that apilak has moved into our home (quasi)permanently. this being everyone's first orphanage, we are unsure as to how to proceed. do we set up a separate townhouse and nanny for the two babies? do we keep one of them with the boys (who, quite frankly, did not sign up to be parents, and who i feel should have no obligation to tend to the overgrown foetusi) and keep the other one with one of the families? what is to be done? be in prayer.

a new team has arrived from california, they're supposed to be a 'band' of some sort, but there's at least fifteen of them, plus several small children, so we have taken to calling them 'the orchestra.' one of the women from the previous california team back in june sent me the biggest box of 'now and laters' via this team (to the canadian amongst you, 'now and laters' are a candy akin to a starburst, only tangier, and they are hard 'now' when you start chewing them, and soft 'later') and so i am currently consuming far more sugar than is good for me. rudy, you are a peach.

title of a blog entry!!

2006-07-30T15:24:00.000-07:00

ganniga and i have been taking turns with apilak today (please note: his name mysteriously acquired a 'k'). i'm new to babies, so am i right in assuming that new motherhood is invariably accompanied by sweat and dishevellment? apilak will be held, unless in the deepest of sleeps, and he prefers that you hold him while standing (HOW do they know that you've changed elevation?) and it would behoove you to walk around the room if you presume to pick him up, but look at what a tiny helpless orphan parcel he is...

and so it's really quite alright.

vacation pictures

2006-07-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

ok, here's my deserted beach (that's my house up in that tree)here's my house (that's my balcony you can't quite see through the trees)
here's the view from my balcony (or maybe from my window...that may be a curtain on the left-hand side...it's the same view, either way)
and here's foxy sleeping under my breakfast table (note her undisgustability)

i need a vacation!!!

2006-07-29T15:17:00.000-07:00

it all started a few weeks ago, when i was trying to decide what to do with my break, and karen says to me...oh, there's this one place with treehouse bungalows! problem was, we didn't know what the name of the beach was, or of the resort (resort is a very loose term here in thailand), or whereabouts on the island it was...we knew which island it was on, and who might know the other info, but that was the full extent.

so wednesday morning, after many fruitless attempts to pin down this information, i set off with instructions to get myself to ko samet (the island), and high hopes of achieving my treehouse dream. i got to the 'bus station,' and a woman motioned for me to get on the bus currently in residence. 'going to rayong?' i asked? she nodded, yes, without appearing to listen, and i got on with no small bit of apprehension.

after a half hour or so, she called out 'rayong' and motioned me up to the front of the bus. 'that was quick,' i thought. turns out that we were nowhere near rayong. rather, we were on the highway, and the actual bus to rayong was three vehicles in front of us. our driver was attempting to hail their driver so that they would pull over and let me on. i've been victim of this passenger-swap before, albiet on a lower, more songthaeowian level, but in the middle of morning traffic, on the highway...?

at any rate, after several failed attempts, the other bus was signalled, and i changed hands like some sort of contreband. the money-collector on the second bus asked, in the usual, friendly thai manner, where i was going. he then (also in the usual, friendly thai manner) assumed the role of 'helpless-farang protector.' he not only carried my bag for me off the bus, but took it (and me) to the songthaeow that would then take me to the ferry, informing everyone along the way that i was going to ko samet (in case i should get lost after i left his care. this turned out to be fortunate). he put me on a blue songthaeow, which then swapped me for another blue songthaeow (mercifully before either of them had set out on the road). once the vehicle was filled to a profitable capacity, we left for the ferry. since my bus-friend had alerted all and sundry to my destination, at least three people turned to me and said 'ko samet!' when we arrived at the ferry, which was indistinguishable from the rest of rayong since the water was completely hidden from view.

using the information i had, i'd surmised which beach i figured the treehouses to be on. to get there from the mainland, i had the option of either a speedboat (which would take me directly to the beach of my choice for $60) or a ferry (which would take me one beach over from where i figured i'd start my search, for $6). since i'm fabulously wealthy, i chose the ferry, and sat down to wait. before long, i was placed on a little motercycle sidecart to be taken down to the docks, only to be swapped en route for another motercycle sidecart, this one already containing two people. i sat sidesaddle with my rear on the motercycle and my feet in the cart.

the other farang in the cart and i were commanded by the third occupant, a stern thai woman, to get on the big boat. we clambered aboard, he with a touch of protest since he had paid the 2000 baht for the speedboat. not to worry, she said. the ferry was merely a stepping stone to the speedboat, which soon pulled up along side it, and which, for some inexplicable reason, could not pull up to the dock and be boarded directly. being the only passenger on the ferry, i was soon upgraded and ordered into the speedboat along with my sidecart companion, as well as a german fellow, his thai wife, and their beautiful thai-german daughter.

rather than drop us off at the main beach (which my dignified farang friend had paid for), the boat driver dropped us off at some unidentified locale, claiming that he had someone to pick up from there. this beach being rather closer to my intended destination than the main beach, i could do no more than murmur insincere sympathies to my disgruntled friend before taking my leave. since there was no dock, we were all forced to take our chances with the surf. thus ended my guided transportation, and i set out on foot.

a man at a booth marked 'information' gave me directions (read: pointed in a direction) to ao thien, my beach of choice. i clambered over rocks for a space of probably twenty minutes, but did so around a bend in the island, and ended up at the self-same beach where i had started. not willing to ask the same man for different directions, i did an about-face and headed the opposite way. another twenty minutes of clambering brought me to a sign that said 'songtien beach --->' and since thai things written in english that sound the same usually are the same (frinstance, chonburi is correct, as is chon buri, chonbury, chon buli, and i've even seen tonburi), i figured this might be it. i straggled through a forest path and down a narrow flight of stairs before arriving on songtien beach.

the woman in the information booth of the first clump of bungalows knew enough english to ask me (repeatedly) if i wanted a room, and my attempts to act out 'treehouse' brought only stares, and a gesture for her friends to come check out the crazy farang. i carried on down the beach, asking after treehouses, until someone replied with an 'ah! apache!' and pointed still further down. still further i went, this time asking after the 'apache.' each clump of bungalows had its own distinct style, and they were, for the most part, slap bang up against each other. not so the apache. every bungalow was different, and placed erratically around the site. every table could seat more or fewer amounts of people, in greater or lesser degrees of ease. and there she stood: my little treehouse. i had planned to play it cool, but when one of the three perpetually-on-duty-never-actually-present staff opened the door to my balcony, i cried 'i'll take it!!'

it was the only one of its kind: the interior was nearly all bed, the mosquito netting was pink and filmy and made me feel as though i slept in a cotton candy tent, and from the balcony i could spit into the ocean. two shabby but servicable lounge chairs and one dirty plastic table furnished my little balcony, and there i would sit for hours, hidden from the world by the trees but visible to the ocean and the sun. the entire area below my house i claimed as MY beach, not that any of the resorts other five or so inhabitants ever challenged my claim. i could see the sunrise from my window, and awoke early, but rested, every moning. i walked out to the edge of the rocks and sat and stared in the water. i tried to catch crabs (the sideways-walking kind, not the other kind). i read four books, two of which were excellent, one was alright, and one was altogether crap, and then the propriotess gave me a battered copy of jane eyre to take home. the last quarter of the pages have come detatched, so i'm reading it to make sure it's all there before i pass it along to kyla, who is my bang saen library. in the evenings i would play cards with two girls from the uk. on friday i took a boat tour around the island, where i met four other farang. we stopped and snorkled twice, had a picnic on the boat, visited a fish farm, and generally lounged and sunburnt ourselves to a crispy glory. i met a dog who lacked the usual mange and dangly teets, and named her foxy. she followed me everywhere, and i suspect her of having slept on the landing to my house.

it was fabulously good to come home. i feel quite relaxed and bored with myself, ready to take on my handful of responsibilities again. i missed the boys terribly. it's good to be home.

i'm coming home canada-wise in twenty-six days.

funskies

2006-07-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

friday night the boys go to someone else's house because it's p'ganniga's night off (and mine too, i guess), but it's been a busy week and i missed them, so i went with, and the family we were staying with has four young children of the rowdy (read: pinchy stompy bitey screamy runny-away) variety, and bless the boys, they're all like tiny dads, and you know when an old mama dog has pups bouncing all over her and nipping at her tail and whatall and she just carries on with what she's doing and occasionally picks one up and deposits it out of her way...that's what this reminded me of. add to that the fact that we had the baby, and we went bowling on friday and swimming on saturday...it was a valiant but weary bunch that i brought home saturday night.

apila eats and sleeps all the time. we're feeding him twice as much as they said to (shhhhh), and he scarfs it down...we're hoping he'll put on some flesh. pray that both the babies (apila and supakit) work the HIV out of their system, and that either their moms claim them again, or relinquish their rights so that they can be adopted out (if the moms don't relinquish their rights, but don't want them themselves, then they just languish in government orphanages until their bitter and resigned coming-of-age, and this happens WAY more often than it should). and keep praying for our five boys to be healed. and that i finish strong...a month from now i'll be heading into bangkok, and flying out the next day...i don't want to spend my last month here with my soul in canada.

it's real! dried ginger!

2006-07-20T15:13:00.000-07:00

...is what a packet at the supermarker assures me. contrary to all reports, dried ginger is, in fact, real. also real are our two babies! remember how i mentioned a few weeks ago that we might be getting babies, and then never touched the subject again because i feared that doing so would lessen the likelihood of the arrival of said babies? well, they came in last night...this happy fatso is four-month-old supakit (a.k.a. 'superkid)...

and this spindly character is apila, nearly a month old...
and this is the gecko that got into the pastries...
doesn't HE look territorial! anyway, we have babies now, and sheri and nat and i had a rousing sleep over with them last night...supakit only takes meds once a day, and they're fairly hopeful that he'll work the HIV out of his system (which, apparently, babies can do), but apila is a fitful, mewly thing, and he requires meds at six and noon and six and midnight...so i'm tired and i'm going to sleep, if that's ok.

literary thievery

2006-07-19T15:12:00.000-07:00

i wish i could take credit for this paragraph but i can't. i stole it out of a book on thai culture...but it's just so APT. read, and know that it's all true.

'Powered by technology, the habits of slower times turned lethal...in the past, the limits of human strength prevented a boat or rickshaw from speeding, and the watery highway meant collisions harmlessly clanced, with no lanes determining their course. Taxis behave as if nothing's changed. They tailgate and overtake at high speed with inches to spare; they blitely straddle white lines without indicating, or cut across three lanes and screech to a halt at the merest hint of a hand politely beckoning palm down. With driving lessons an affront to face and licenses easily bought, many Thais intuitively steer their cars as if on water.'

thanks, philip cornwel-smith.

drink your pasturized, fortefied, nutrient-rich milk, kiddies

2006-07-19T15:08:00.000-07:00

it was noted by my younger, taller, infinitely wiser than i was at twenty-one-year-old sister that ‘we’ have so much, and ‘they’ have so little, and how on earth (she queried) are we to go about solving this problem without thoroughly westernizing the world? i concur, having fallen completely and hopelessly in love with thai culture just the way it is (without losing my fondness for home and hearth, God and country, and the like. i mean, i love chocolate ice cream and i love rainbow sherbet, and i would never want my rainbow sherbet to become a little more chocolatey, just because i love chocolate more).

one of my endeavors (fully supported by my fellow health-conscious farang) has been to increase the numbers of fruits and veggies entering ALH from ‘zero’ to ‘some.’ is the never-ending quest to get a carrot into these boys just an example of western hubris? after all, the thai have been defying the Canada Food Guide for centuries (their food pyramid doesn’t even have a section for dairy), and they seem to be doing fine. sure, they’re a tiny people, but do we all need to be tall and fleshy? i really should research general thai health a bit more, because i’m sure that things like rickets abound, but based on casual observation, they really seem to be doing fine. my ancient friend who lives down the street is proof positive that some of them, at least, do grow old. is a good FoodSafe course what thailand really needs? i mean, i eat from street vendors, i eat food that i know has spent hours in the ‘danger zone,’ and my fragile farang system is fine. how much of what we think we need back home is just propaganda? sure, every one of the children at wat samet is in the lower growth percentile, but that’s because they’re poor, not because they’re thai. how do we help them in a way that’s thai? is it the best we can to do contribute money and Operation Christmas Child boxes? it just might be. i mean, we’re not all called to overseas compassion work, and helping the foreign poor doesn’t have the same soup-kitchen convenience as helping our local down-and-outers (i don’t say this to slam soup kitchens and the like at ALL, because i think these things are intensely necessary and that those who help out are examples of the good and shining in our country. i’m just pointing out that we can’t concretely, hands-on-ly help overseas in the same way of a saturday night).

sometimes i wonder what i’m doing here, because i’m just one person and not a very good one at that (and i’m not saying this so that the ‘every little bit helps’ and ‘i can’t do great things but i can do little things with great love’ comments will pour in, because i know all that…i really do feel useless much of the time). but then, a handful of the kids that i teach at wat samet have been coming to our wednesday kids club, and then to the youth group, and last sunday we had seven kids accept Christ, and whatever my cynical belief may be about the beliefs of children, these kids are all twelvish, and whatever my cynical beliefs may be about my presence here, they were all kids that i teach at the boys’ school. karen said to me ‘you’re only here [at wat samet] for two hours a week, and yet you’re such an incarnational presence…’ does that mean that i’m being Christ to these kids? that God is rewarding my faithfulness even if that faithfulness is liberally seasoned with envy and greed and sloth and…what were the other four? those too. does this mean that He really does use imperfect vessels to do His work, and that all my flaws actually can’t throw Him off? that His power really is made perfect in my weakness? is that why i feel so unworthy all the time, so completely and utterly failed as a Christian, just so that i will note the power of God held in this jar of clay? if i had been praying and reading my Bible faithfully and all the other good Christian disciplines since i’d decided i was coming to thailand, and then all these kids came to Christ, wouldn’t i pat myself on the back? wouldn’t i just think that i was the awesomest Christian alive, and thank goodness that God has a one such as me to bring light and salvation to the gentiles? but i didn’t, and i haven’t been, and i’m not likely to start now to any account. and yet…i have been used. i have been an instrument of God, not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit. thank God.

raych's quadratic formula for classroom hilarity

2006-07-16T18:27:00.000-07:00

1 faulty whiteboard eraser + 1 hand used in lieu of whiteboard eraser + 1 classroom with zero ventilation = 1 sweaty blue palm + 1 itchy, sweaty face = a classroom full of students who aren't sure if they should laugh (this is my monday morning, well-behaved class, remember. tuesday would have been in stitches without permission).

'do i have blue on my face?' a few of them nodded.

i laughed.

tension broken, they all giggled like schoolchildren.

------------

so, since the fallses missed bun's birthday celebration, and the boyses missed abraham's birthday celebration, we had a teeny little shindig for the two of them on friday...bun manfully pretended to eat his cake (he doesn't like sweets) until i came and sat by him. i may or may not have eaten his piece on the sly...
and then max gave me sass about something and so i tickled him until he nearly peed (disclaimer: WAY too much guy-thigh below).
and now i have to tell you this story, which would be WAY funnier if you knew the kid, but max is the neatly-tucked, clean-fingernails, bed made so tight you could bounce a quarter off the sheets, tidy handwriting (in english AND thai), homework done by friday evening kid. and then sometimes he goes crazy.

so wednesday night, p'ganniga is at her cell group and i have the boys, and it's going on nine and everyone is showered and in their jammies except max. 'max, buddy, you gotta go shower,' i say. casting an impish glance my way, max states, 'i no shower.' 'max, go shower.' giggling now, 'i no shower!' 'that's it'. i get up and snag him, sticking my fingers into his all-too-prominent ribs until he's laughing so hard he can barely breathe.

'there,' i say, 'now go shower.' he darts halfway up the stairs before squatting down and peering at me through the slats...'i no shower!!!' i hear more giggles and the door to the boys' room slam. i haul myself upstairs and crouch outside. hearing no noise, and being unable to endure the uncertainty, max cracks the door, at which point he is set upon by his hefty farang, who is intent on tickling him until she renders him to that state where you're laughing but no noise is coming out. 'ok, ok, i shower, i shower!!!' 'no way, man. you had your chance.' 'i shower! i shower!!!!' 'no dice. you tickle now.' finally, i let him go, and he trails giggles like drops of water all the way to the bathroom.

this is the closest thing i have to a discipline problem.