Long Time, No See!

It’s been a long time since my last blog post (sorry about that…) and a lot has happened! For those of you who haven’t heard, this is what my average day is like here in Thailand:

Wake up at 6:00 and eat a breakfast of what is usually some combination of leftovers from the night before, a salty rice soup with pork, toast (my host mom buys the bread especially for me – it’s really nice of her!), bananas, and hot ovaltine. After a shower and a 20 minute drive to school, I arrive at ISDSI around 7:30. Thai class starts at 8 and lasts for four hours until lunch. It’s the most incredible language class I’ve ever had. Even from the beginning our classes have been taught almost exclusively in Thai and new words are taught to us through the use of pictures and body language. We have to practice the words over and over again and are not allowed to take notes until a group of words has been taught to us completely. It’s amazing how much more people can remember than if we had two weeks of Thai class taught in a traditional way. Most of the words I know I have no clue how to spell correctly in English or in Thai, but it doesn’t matter – speaking is the most important skill.

The view of mount Doi Suthep on my ride to school

At 12:00 we eat lunch, which is  always two or three different Thai dishes with rice followed by fruit for dessert. There are so many different kinds of fruit here! They grow everywhere, so people eat them all the time. After lunch we have our afternoon seminar class from 1-4. Seminar is generally on some aspect of Thai culture, and we frequently have a guest speaker or field trip to get a more well-rounded perspective of Thailand. Today we went to a nearby Wat (Buddhist temple) and were taught the basic concepts of Buddhism by a monk. On Fridays we always have field trips all day and don’t have Thai class or seminar (woohoo!) So far we have been to Wat Doi Suthep, a famous ancient temple that is covered in gold and is near Chiang Mai. This past weekend we also went on a three-day retreat. Except for Thai class, ISDSI never feels like work. As the Thai say, it is sanook mak mak (very fun)!

After seminar ends, I have an hour of free time to sit around at ISDSI and hang out with people before my Paw (father) and Mae (mother) pick me up from school. Then it’s eat dinner and hang out with my host family until bed!

That’s all for now, but there’s more to come soon.

More fun facts and pictures:

-The Wat we went to today is called Wat Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya. No joke. Nope, don’t know what it means.

-The word for crazy in Thai is bababobo. Gotta keep that one handy.

-Everyone here takes at least two showers a day, one in the morning and one in the evening. It sounds ridiculous until you actually live here and realize how much you sweat! You smell pretty gross after only a few hours of not showering.

Wat Doi Suthep

Seeing elephants in Lamphang

Waterfall near the ISDSI student retreat

Cooking day at school with Ajaan Sidhorn

Sawadee ka!

I’m in Thailand writing from my new room! The past few days have been crazy but wonderful. I’m already in love with ISDSI, my host family, and the kids who live across the narrow street from me.

The adventure began at the Detroit airport where I met up with a few of my fellow ISDSI-ers from K College. (ISDSI stands for the International Sustainable Development Studies Institute, the school that I am studying at in Thailand.) Despite the fact that we travelled for 27 hours in total, everything went smoothly. The only uncomfortable security incident happened when four of us in a row realized that our water bottles were still half full and had to chug them as we were emptying our bags and pockets onto the trays!

When we reached the Chiang Mai airport, we were greeted with smiles and fragrant flower necklaces. Somehow, everyone was still awake. The students that were on the flight and our bags were loaded into three song tao (open-backed taxis). All of our suitcases were loaded into one taxi, with the ones that wouldn’t fit strapped to the top! We got our first views of Chiang Mai from the song tao. It’s so different from anywhere I’ve been before! There are trees with giant green leaves everywhere, writing that I can’t read a single character of, tons of motorbikes, and the occasional spirit house or elephant statue along the side of the road. It’s beautiful!

Some fellow ISDSI-ers in Thailand for the first time!

A song tao from the front

Wow, now that I’m actually trying to describe everything, I’m realizing how much has happened! I’m going to skip from the taxi ride to our first visit to ISDSI the next day (Friday).

In short: I’m already in love! ISDSI feels like a combination of LandSea, Thailand, and the friendliest, coolest people you will ever meet in your life. I’m a little worried about the Cross Fit training we’re going to be doing… but I guess what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? Right? Anyway, here are a couple pictures from ISDSI:

The lunch/hangout space

The yard outside the lecture room

Friday evening we were matched with our host families. My host family has been great! I met Mae Noy (mom) and Paw (dad) first, and have since met my three Pis (older brother/sister), the grandmother who lives next door (I can’t remember her name…?), and the family that lives across the street (I think they’re related? Who knows!).

There are three little kids who live across the street, Nawng (little brother/sister) Uin, Nawng Bpei Bpei, and a baby whose name I forget. Uin and Bpei Bpei are just the right age – old enough to teach things to, mess around with, and have fun with, but old enough to be entertained for hours by simple things that don’t need many words. Nawng Uin and I are quickly becoming best buds – she’s spent most of her afternoons and evenings here all weekend.

 

More to come soon! I can’t get all the details in, so here’s some fun facts!

Weirdest thing eaten so far: Avocadoes with sweetened condensed milk. It tastes exactly how you imagine it would. I’d rather have guacamole.

Something I’m still getting used to: Using a handheld bidet at the toilet. The septic systems in Thailand can’t take toilet paper, so all toilets are equipped with a sprayer that you use to clean yourself. If you can’t get totally clean with the sprayer, you use your left hand. (There’s a reason the left hand is considered dirty in Asia!) Some bathrooms do have toilet paper (to dry yourself rather than clean yourself), but if you use it you throw it in a trash can rather than flushing it.

They apparently like hot Ovaltine here in Thailand – I’ve been drinking it after breakfast every morning.

Proudest moment turned to embarrassing moment: The first time I took a shower I was so excited that I figured out how to turn the hot water on all by myself that I decided I would write about this victory later. (It was hard, there are like three knobs and a switch that have to be on!) Unfortunately, I promptly forgot how to turn the hot water on, because even though Mae Noy showed me I haven’t been able to get it to work since. Tonight, in the worst thing that has happened to me so far in Thailand, I was trying to figure out the water thing again and broke one of the plastic knobs. I was so embarrassed that I apologized profusely to my host family (in English, I don’t know how to say any apologies besides “excuse me” in Thai yet) and hung around the bathroom trying to help Paw fix the shower in vain. They all thought this was really funny, and eventually Mae Noy said “Megeeen! Go sleep!”, so I did.

Goodbyes

I always hated ’em. Worse, I avoided acknowledging that they exist for as long as I can remember. I’ve always kept my goodbyes brief, with sarcastic humor and the occasional allusion to “when I see you again…”, even if I knew the person lives halfway across the country. After taking multiple short trips abroad and spending some time at college (a whopping three miles away from home), I’m finally realizing that skipping goodbyes doesn’t work, at least not for me. If you don’t take the time to grieve for the people and the place you are leaving you never leave emotionally, and it is impossible to immerse yourself in your new environment. Goodbyes are part of the crazy transition from one stage of life to the next, and that rollercoaster doesn’t stop. You just gotta go with it.

At the beginning of the summer I hung out a lot with my friend Leeor Schwietzer, who had just returned from an extreme couchsurfing/friend-visiting adventure in South and Central America. I asked him at one point what he had learned from his trip, and one thing he said that really stuck with me was that he had learned to enjoy goodbyes. He explained that the more difficult the goodbye, the greater impact these people had on your life. It brings into reality the strong friendships you’ve forged and experiences you’ve been through together, and these connections stay for as long as they remain valuable to you.

Leaving home for six months makes for an especially difficult goodbye – you can’t express 20 years in one word.