the heavenly city

We finally got our site placements!  I found out I am moving just a couple hours north of our training site to a province named Nakhonsawan.  The bad news is that it is crazy hot, prone to floods, and has the largest swamp in Thailand (hello mosquitos!)  Good news is that I’m only an hour bus ride away from my Peace Corps BFF, people speak Central Thai so I don’t have to learn a dialect, and it will be super easy for me to bpai tiao (travel) all over the country!

On Friday morning we headed to Bangkok for a quick trip.  We toured the Peace Corps Office and ate Mcdonalds.  A lot of Mcdonalds.  Then I was on a bus headed for Nakhonsawan. 

I had a great welcoming committee at the bus station.  My co-teachers, Omsin and Nang came to meet me with the principal and assistant principal from one of my schools.  We went out to eat downtown at a cute little restaurant with amazing food.  They told me I would be staying with my assistant principal, Sasi.  Her house was a “traditional thai style” home.  This meant it was up on stilts and was open to the outdoors.  Minimal walls/doors and a lot of mosquitos.  A lot.  I spent the weekend with Sasi and her family and we bpai tiao to a million places.

Monday I got to go check out my community.  When I move to site, I will live with a host family for the first month so they can help me learn my way around town and introduce me to people.  I met two potential host families, toured their homes, and picked the one I am going to live with.  My future Thai mom #2 seems so nice and really excited that I am coming.  The two schools I will be working in are right near my host family’s house.  I got to walk around and meet the teachers.  The office has air conditioning and high speed internet!  At noon there was a welcome lunch for me.  Town leaders, policemen, and government officials came out to meet me.  I had to give an impromptu speech and spent a lot of time smiling and having no idea what was going on.

After school on Monday I went house hunting!  My school doesn’t have too much going on around it so I chose a house about 7k away in town.  It has a western toilet and a 7-11 a minute’s walk away.  The icing on the cake is that a couple blocks away, there is a river.  The area has sports fields and a path where people jog and ride bikes.  There is even an aerobics class in the evening for women.  I am super excited that I’ll have a place to exercise and hopefully i will become best friends with all the old ladies who do aerobics.

There are only 18 days left of training.  Time is seriously flying by.  As excited as I am to go off on my own, I am equally nervous and scared.  Being the only foreigner in a town for 4 days was a struggle.  The next few months are probably going to be crazy and I am anticipating some obstacles along the way.  Thank you to everyone who has been supporting me throughout this process.  It’s the little things that keep me smiling – getting a letter or email can turn my day around like you wouldn’t believe.  So keep ‘em coming!

im lovin it

peace corps office in bangkok

principal, co-teacher (nang), me, asst. principal (sasi), and co-teacher (omsin)

top of a mountain

this room was so cold and i loved it

one of my schools

future house!

river!

Bieber Fever!

Where has the time gone?  It is already the end of week 6.  The days seem to last forever, but they are flying by.

Valentine’s Day was this past week.  A group of us got to celebrate for a couple hours at our favorite place, The Bieber Bar.  It got this nickname because the mother and daughter team who run it play Justin Bieber non-stop.  It was a dual celebration of Valentine’s Day and a birthday party for a 4 year old boy who lives at the Bieber bar.  He was going crazy eating his cake and wiping his dirty hands on all of us.

This week, Group 124 also taught an English and Life Skills camp for 200 kids from local schools in our areas.  My group taught about Healthy and Unhealthy Lifestyles.  We put on a skit for the kids, taught some vocabulary, and got to play a bunch of games with them.  The kids LOVED it and had so much fun.  The only downside was that it was probably the hottest day yet – a nice sweltering 95F.

Saturday we went around town with our language groups on a field trip.  We visited the old provincial hall, a temple, and a historic pottery/kiln site.  My favorite part of the day was getting to visit the meditation garden at the temple.  It was gorgeous – full of flowers, statues, and monks.  I sat and tried to meditate, but I only lasted long enough to snap a photo.

Saturday afternoon, a group of friends and I went to Tesco Lotus and splurged on some pizza and garlic bread.  It was amazing. 

Saturday night I went out with my family and neighbors to a town called Lop Buri.  Lop Buri is known for being the town with all the monkeys, so I was excited to check it out.  When we got to the town center, there were literally hundreds of monkeys by the side of the road and lining fences.  It was crazy!  We went to a festival where everyone was dressed in traditional Thai clothing.  My family made me take a million pictures.  Anytime we passed a flower, someone dressed up, or a random stranger – we had to stop so they could take of picture of me. 

Tomorrow I find out where I will be living for the rest of my time in Thailand!!  Stay tuned…

being romantic on valentines day

making a wish

one lady who works at the bieber bar

english and life skills camp

our language class with Kitcha - our teacher

finding inner peace

the pizza was so good we forgot to take a picture

my neighbor/bff

peace!

a lot of kilos

Sunday was, once again, the greatest day of the week.  My family took Jessica and I to Ayutthaya, a city about 1.5 hours away from our home.  We already had all these expectations about how much fun it would be – riding an elephant, shopping, the floating market.  I have to say that our day was way better than I expected.

We started out meeting a couple elephants.  We got to feed them a basket of cucumbers which was so cool.  Then we took a 20 minute ride on a 30 year old female, Pepsi.  It was really sad when our guide hit Pepsi during our ride.  Our guide was also sure to let us know that we weighed “a lot of kilos.”  But it was awesome to be on such an amazing and wild animal.  I was slightly freaking out during the ride imagining us getting thrown off and stomped to death, but we made it out alive.

Next, we got to meet a tiger.  We got to sit down right next to him and pet him.  Jessica proved to be the brave one of the day and got right up next to him.  I was playing it safe and just rubbed his back.  It was another awesome experience that I am sure no zoo in America would ever let us do.

To end our animal adventures, we found ourselves at “Happy Feet.”  We paid to stick our legs into a tank with hundreds of little fish that eat the dead skin off your feet.  Jess and I made a huge spectacle of ourselves – screaming and freaking out.  Many people were taking pictures and videotaping our entire experience.  But, my feet are officially happy.  And I have crossed a couple things off my bucket list.

half way there!

The end of this week marks the halfway point through pre-service training.  Five weeks under my belt and only five more until I am officially a PCV.

After this week, I am feeling very accomplished.  I finished my second week of practicum.  Although it was a lot of fun, I am glad it’s over.  I also had my Mock Language Proficiency Interview (LPI.)  The LPI is a language test we need to pass at the end of training.  We got to practice this week during a one-on-one conversation with Peace Corps staff.  Naturally, I was really nervous but feel sooo much better about the test now.  I was able to hold a conversation for a solid 20 minutes and not freak out. Yay!

I also had my mid-point assessment/interview.  The purpose of this is to check in with Peace Corps staff to ensure that we are on track and will qualify for service.  And that is exactly where I am : )

On Saturday I got to act like an American 20 something year old and it felt so good.  My friends and I stocked up on junk food and watched a movie together.  It was so refreshing to have an afternoon to veg out with friends and eat American food (or Thailand’s version of American food.)

I have officially realized that I am horrible at taking pictures.  My resolution for the next 5 weeks is to take way more pictures so I will actually have something to post on here.

Miss you all!

this little piggy went to the market

This week was week #1 of our practicum.  I was so stoked to get placed in a 3^rd and 4^th grade class.  The kids are so cute and so well behaved.  But, there were a lot of struggles too.

My Thai co-teacher does not speak English.  She is the English teacher at her school, too.  Whenever I needed to speak with her about lesson planning, a translator was needed.  It was really frustrating not being able to communicate with her so very little co-teaching actually took place.  But she is one of the nicest people ever.  She was more than willing to help us get materials ready and even wanted to spend her lunch break crafting with us. 

I taught my class Tuesday-Friday.  I started out teaching basic vocabulary about families.  Then we tried to make simple sentences.  Crash and burn.  The topics I tried to teach on Wednesday and Thursday were just too difficult for these kids to understand.  However, I was able to do a review on Friday where the kids rotated through 4 different centers and it worked out wonderfully.  Next week we will be doing centers again, and although there are a lot of communication problems I hope that my co-teacher will at least try using some of my ideas in her class after I’m gone.

Saturday was sports day!  We were split into teams and had to play some Thai sports and even do a somewhat inappropriate relay race.  It was a lot of fun – even though my team did not win.  I got to end the day having a delicious dinner with friends : )

Sunday is funday every week.  My friend Jessica and I are taking turns spending the day with each other’s families.  This week I went with her.  We traveled to a gorgeous flower garden and aquarium.  We walked around taking pictures of flowers then decided to go and see the crocodile show.  I love watching animal shows back in America; when I was just at Busch Gardens I saw the alligator show and was entertained just listening to a zookeeper talk about them.  The crocodile show was NOT like that.  Two men came out dressed in costume and literally jumped into a pool filled with hugeeee crocs.  These guys were splashing and tugging them around.  They repeatedly stuck their entire arms into the mouth of numerous crocs.  The finale was a man sticking his head in the mouth of a crocodile.  Let me repeat this:  A man stuck his head into the open mouth of a crocodile.  It was awesome.

We finished the day just like any other day – eating rice.

poor pig!

dinner

christmas came early. i got a desk!

my partner kelly and some co-teachers

just teaching some kids.

inappropriate relay race games

Kitcha - my language teacher!

feeding a teacher a banana blindfolded

fried bananas! so good!

P-U-R-P-L-E

star fruit

go gators!

these guys were crazy!!

I'm turning Thai

My life here in Thailand is pretty different from my life back in America.  I thought I would share and highlight some of the differences….

I change clothes at least 4 times a day.  I am lucky enough to live really close to my language class.  It is just a couple houses away from my home so I usually get dressed riap roy (long skirt and collared shirt) and walk my bike over.  After language class, I change into my biking clothes and bike to my technical class.  When I get there, I change into my riap roy clothes.  After class, I change back into my biking clothes to go home where I change into my hang out around the house clothes. 

I shower at least twice a day, every day.  My mom makes me.  I shower before bed.  Sleep.  Wake up and shower again.  One time my mom made me shower before and after dinner.  This is the cleanest I have ever been in my life.

People really want to take me to the hospital.  I sneeze.  “Do you need to go to the hospital?”  I cough.  “Do you need to go to the hospital?”  One day family and neighbors told me that I just didn’t look good and that was reason enough to try to take me.

Most of the time I have no idea what people are talking about.  My family speaks only Thai.  When I look confused they speak louder.  I just smile, nod, and say “OK.”  I never really know what I am agreeing to.

I smile.  A lot.  I had a review with one of my teachers a couple weeks ago.  She said I was doing great in language class and on track.  Only problem was, I do not smile enough.  I have made it my personal mission to smile all the time.  It doesn’t matter where I am, what I’m talking about…every 20 seconds or so I flash a big smile.

I eat way more than I should.  My diet is 100% carbs and I hate it.  My family feeds me so much and I’m trying my hardest to be culturally sensitive and eat it all.  I found out today (with the help of a translator) that my Thai grandma is worried about me because I am not eating enough.  I guess I need to step it up.

My favorite thing is that my family here knows that I love puppies.  And they think I am weird because of it.  But they are always having friends stop by with their animals for me to play with.

With all of these adjustments, I can already tell that I am turning part-Thai.  I used to hate spicy food, but now I add spices to my meal at lunch and dinner.  I am barefoot all of the time – even when I don’t have to be.  When it cools down at night (maybe the high 70s) I wake up freezing, turn off my fan, and put on an extra blanket.