Living Abroad

I think I have come to like eating tamarinds because of the seeds. The taste is lovely, sure, but I am oddly satisfied when I have cleaned the seed of its yummy pulp and have this smoothed pebble rolling around in my mouth. So today, when I felt like bursting in tears, I ate tamarinds instead, focusing on the seeds and putting them in my pockets, like Amélie and her skipping stones.

Plus, no tears since Saturday. I might not be the undefeated Saints, but damn it, I have a winning streak I'd like to maintain if I am to break even.

Wednesdays I have what has come to be my most frustrating class—a group of sixteen to eighteen year old boys studying electronics. To put it bluntly, they don't want to be there, which is probably why only 8 of the registered 40 showed up to class today. From what I gathered the others were either studying or playing football; they were a bit vague on this point. So I let them go an hour early. What can you teach 8 students that you won't have to reteach if the rest of them decide to show up next week? I even switched into Thai at the end of class to stress that the next week I wanted more students to come. I then moved to the hongpakruu, or the teachers waiting room to, well, wait for my next class. And eat tamarinds. I eavesdropped on James' very studious class that was being held in the awkward, boardless room. They were taking notes, asking questions, hanging out after class. As happy as I was for James, my frustration decided to hitch a ride with a little bit of jealousy as I sat preparing for my next class.

My second Wednesday class was actually the first class I had ever had. They trickled in slowly, their numbers moving from three to something in the twenties. Unfortunately, they kind of straddle lesson plans, as I had a half of a lesson with them once, which throws them into my guinea pig class territory, and while their level is one of the lower ones that I teach, their general enthusiasm more than makes up for it. Plus, I can pick on them. As we were reviewing numbers the first week in unison, one kid who was bored with the routine stood out with his proclamation of "ONE-ONE" instead of eleven. Taking my cues from the students' laughter, I made the bold move of singling this kid out as The One To Be Picked On. Therefore his name became Mr. One One. As his name is memorable and so far away from the impossibly long and utterly unpronounceable Thai names, he became my example for everything. "Mr. One One is taller than Lek. Mr. One One is more beautiful than Mary." It just makes for a more enjoyable teaching experience all around. Plus, it's kind of fun to go on a teacher power trip, line up all the boys, hand them a picture of a lady and have to girls arrange them from ugliest to most beautiful.

These pictures have all come from the many magazines I shipped in my diplomatic pouch with the overambitious hope that my students would be able to read the articles. Now, they are being cut up left and right to help with descriptions. Meaning that Judge Sotomayor receives such adjectives as "fat" "ugly" and "old" while James Dean is described as "young," "thin" (or slender by more ambitious students) and "young." Oh, the small pleasures of teaching.

High and Low. Everyday.

But I feel that I am starting to find my footing somewhere in a sense of routine. I eat lunch with the other teachers and have managed to ask about contributing to the general collection of food. I keep office hours. Every time I enter my bathroom I find where the ants are trying to establish themselves this time around and promptly spray them. There are a few holes in things, don't get me wrong. I still don't have a bike, I still end up looking blankly at people about 80% of the time, and still have not seen 2 of my classes. But students are calling out to me as I pass them. I consider their "Hello!" as an invitation to conversation and will go and try to illicit further sentences from them past the usual "I am fine, thank you."

On Monday, TUSEF sent a teacher to review my teaching. It was nice to have someone else share in the general concerns that occupy my life. My students were one hour late; sometimes my classrooms do not have boards; I can hardly communicate with my host teachers. It was also reassuring to here the critiques of my teaching, as they were generally good. Tuesday I was told to be at building 3 at 8:00 am. Maew called me at 9:20 to tell me my class is waiting for me and I tried to explain that I was to be welcoming a visitor and could not teach my class that morning. Because that's all I knew. At 9:30, we followed the Deputy Director's instructions, imitated what everyone else was doing, missed some class, watched a video and had our pictures taken. (really! I'm on the DTEC website now!) I have come to expect both the general disregard for time as well as the doing something without understanding in the slightest what is going on.

But I can understand a bit more of the old woman who sells me my daily iced coffee every time. As she speaks like every other person who is abundant in years and slightly lacking in teeth, rambling and mumbling in the same breath, the is a huge accomplishment. She put her hand in the air riding past me on her motorbike the other evening, in a gesture reminiscent of Kundera's Immortality (which I am still working on finishing…). I will probably never fully understand her, but we both understand that, so it's okay.

I stayed up late to try to see the meteor shower last night. Not too much in the way of meteors, but what a killer night sky I have here.

Ways that Thailand is slowly working its way into my heart:

1) I hardly ever where shoes.

I take off my shoes outside of my house and both academic buildings. I slide them on briefly to go eat or cross the road. Other than that, I am teaching barefoot… and it is delightful. I realized in Bangkok that I had not brought a pair of brown shoes, slightly problematic considering the formal attire that I tend to wear. But now? Mai bpen rai, I just don't wear shoes. Cool.

2) All of the coffee is café au lait.

I never liked strong black coffee. I blame my grandmother for giving us coffee milk all the time. Here, you order a coffee and most times it is served on ice with milk and sugar added. Yum!

3) Toothpicks are everywhere.

Toothpicks are considered an acceptable form of cleaning your teeth after meals and tend to be provided on every table, even in food courts and fancy restaurants. It is pretty exciting for the girl who has told the dentist "I don't floss, but I toothpick, does that count?" for the past 4 years.

4) Bicycles are meant for two.

Most bikes have a built in pad where the rack over the back wheel is. They also have these nice little pegs that flip out to give your feet somewhere to go when riding. Comparing this to my experiences with Matthias uncomfortable and precarious port baggage, this is a welcome change. Plus, most bikes have baskets and bells already there. I am generally expected to ride side saddle on the back of motorbikes or bikes, which I am torn between viewing as cute and quaint and annoying as crap. But I also haven't really worn pants in two weeks, so I guess practical is another word.

5) Food is cheap.

Not only does this allow for people to treat others to meals (I have bought maybe two meals in the past week and a half. Honestly.), but it means that the deliciousness that is a random afternoon snack or a cool drink will cost you 10 baht—maybe 30 cents.

5.5) There is practically no perception of time.

This one fluctuates between love and hate. There is no real concern with how long something takes or when someone will show up. In fact, there are words to express "sometime in the evening" that are considered to be referring to a specific time. The flexibility and lack of preoccupation with schedules are quite the change from American life. Sometimes it's exhilerating. Sometimes it is beyond frustrating. It is, however, always spontaneous.

Ways in which Thailand is being a bit more troublesome:

1) There are bugs everywhere.

In massive quantities and sometimes of quite large size, the insect community is well-established in Thailand. Yesterday I stepped on a grasshopper in my office. A fellow ETA said she recently killed a spider that was apparently a pregnant spider and like a bad video game, the spawn spread out from the original killing.

2) At least one layer of dirt seems to be everywhere.

Although I have made a solid attempt to thoroughly clean my room, I have come to the conclusion that there really is just a full layer of ick over most things in Thailand. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the people themselves are dirty. In fact, personal hygiene is huge here, making these cold showers vastly popular. Rather, the country seems to have resigned itself to the fact that physical objects will always be at least a little dirty. I am slowly adjusting to this, but am annoyed that I can't even seem to keep my fingernails clean.

3) The Hierarchy is ever present and just asking for you to make a mistake.

This morning I walked past a group of the important people sitting at a table and didn't realize who they were until it was too late to wai them. While this will hopefully be overlooked as a farang mistake, I have committed a blunder that, were I Thai, would leave me in a terribly awkward situation the next time I had to meet any of those people. At dinner, certain people sit down first, are served first, let you know when you can leave. The teacher serving the drinks to the director the other night would make a visible effort to keep her head below his even as she poured his drink.

4) The separation of the genders is evident in so many respects.

I am not just speaking to the often times physical barrier between the sexes, but the social barrier as well. I am expected to be friends with the female teachers here, just as the boys are expected to befriend the male teachers. We clump together, talk about certain subjects amongst ourselves, avoid certain subjects with our male counterparts, and whisper and giggle where it is deemed necessary. I don't know if my general distaste for this comes from the fact that my potential friends were dictated to me or that I am just not used to having all female friends. I do know that this seems to lead to a certain immaturity when dealing with any topic remotely related to anything sexual. Thirty year olds will giggle and blush as if they were twelve. I will, however, concede this: It does lead to a feeling of solidarity that is more than welcome.

5) Thai is hard and English is uncommon.

I am working on (and struggling with) my acquisition of Thai. Some nights, I feel like I can understand enough to get by with nods and smiles in a conversation. Monday night was one of those. I caught pieces of some stories, every now and then, the teachers would lapse into Thai for long jokes or the like, but I didn't feel left out or that I needed to be following. Tuesday, at the director's birthday, was a completely different story. I had fancy schmancy people telling me things that I didn't know how to respond to. They didn't understand me; I didn’t understand them. And the dinner lasted 4 hours. At the end of it, nearing 10:30, I was tired of my forays into a dictionary and just very frustrated. Two of the teachers came back to my room and chatted for a bit, and the next minute I was in tears. As soon as the Thai entry for the word "frustrated" came up on Maew's electronic dictionary, they understood and told me not to worry, that they'd take care of me. Then Amanda called and I spent the next three minutes trying to explain to Maew and P'Boh that I needed them to leave so I could talk on the phone. Later that night, Maew sent me a text reading "to night I hope that sweet dream and not to be discourage I to say with you I love you because I care am not you cry." But even poor grammar can't disguise a good sentiment.

Saturday afternoon, and I am worried on the lesson planning front. Whatever happened to my procrastinator instincts? The worries are fueled by the fact that I have no real idea as to my responsibilities (Examinations? Grading? When does the semester end?) and still a hard time grasping where my students' levels are. I am teaching nine classes a week and my students aren't classified with the Matayom levels, but rather according to their area of study. I have three computer classes, two accounting classes, one auto-mechanic class, one marketing, one electronics, and one information technologies class. Quite the spread of classes and levels, I'm told. I sat in on Maew's English class the other day. She spent most of it going over the written exercises of the numbers. One through fifty. She had asked me to come in and be a pronunciation person. I was to give the students a number in Thai and they would tell me in English. Most of them could not do this. A few in the class would supply the answers to the others. I was silently astounded. I remember being shocked that Maew was an English teacher as I have trouble even holding a conversation with her sometimes, but now that I see the English level that she is teaching, I understand a bit better. The level is abysmally low, and makes me worried how I will address this in my classes.

Sitting in on Maew's class (and trying told one of my own afterwards) also gave me the opportunity to observe first hand the contradictory levels of respect a teacher is given. I can try to carry a package across campus (my diplomatic pouch arrived!) and at least three students will run up and try to carry it for me. Other teachers make similar attempts. Have a dirty classroom? Just tell one of the students to sweep it out. I have a pink sheet that needs to have names written in them—I'm still not sure what else I am supposed to do with it—and I just ask a student to do it. When I pass the students, I am wai-ed by them (the hands in a prayer position and the head bowing) and sometimes greeted with "Hello teacher!" I generally try to get them to respond to "How are you?" which has been met with varying degrees of success. My presence is noticed everywhere, but in a very respectful, if behind the back giggly, sort of way.

Step into a classroom, however, and things change. Students show up late, if at all, then ask to leave early. They hardly pay attention, are chatting back and forth, sometimes they are even on the phone. Classroom management scares me a bit. I find this so confusing when compared to how I am treated outside of the classroom and am trying to figure out how to reconcile these two. If I can just get kids to come to class and semi-pay attention, I guess I'll be doing well.

Until then, I am doing general housekeeping things. The silence and solitude is a nice change and, for the moment, I am perfectly content for my weekend to be filled with music, writing, and lesson planning. Simple things like sweeping my room and washing my dishes make me feel accomplished. I am slowly accepting that everyday will be an odd mix of triumph and failure, all moments that I feel like crying for reasons that are on the opposite end of the spectrum. I rid my bathroom of creatures excepting geckoes but then had to try and beat a roach out of my door with a broom. I had students finally come to class, but they were 45 minutes late and wanted to leave early. It was a three hour class, so secretly, I was okay with it. They are an average age of 19 and don't really want to learn anything, especially not at 1:30 on a Friday afternoon. Feeling only mildly defeated, I came home, cleaned up the carnage of the ant battle that ended with the borrowed bug spray. Then, I cautiously took the first shower that made me actually feel clean. I think I've figured out how to best this cold shower—I just have to think of it as swimming. I do find it hard to trust my bathroom, though, and I am a bit skittish when the curtains rustle. Feeling generally pleased with myself, I worked up the courage to cross the street and go eat all by my lonesome. Turns out the two restaurant places were closed. I think. But there are worse things than eating some weird potato chip fries and bananas for supper.

I woke up this morning decently early and ready to conquer this trip to the store on a borrowed bike. Hopping on to a too-tall bicycle, I took off, excited about purchases like yogurt and bugspray. Then, after a while, I realized I didn't know which little side dirt road was the shortcut to the Tesco, meaning I would be going along the main drag…and attempting to deal with a pretty large intersection on a bike that doesn't allow my feet to touch the pedals when they are all the way down. The fact that I am still not too comfortable with this whole driving on the left side thing pushed me over the edge—I was not going to fight that intersection. Instead, I headed on over to the other side of the road, hopped off the bike and decided walking the rest of the way would be the safer option. The second I dismounted, two very mean looking German shepherds came at me, yelling for me to get off of their territory, which I assume encompasses part of the street. Terrified, I wavered between running and playing dead, making for a very awkward attempt at escape. Some kind soul called them off and I walked on, trying to remember to breathe.

The store was further than I thought. And it was hot. And I was trying to walk a bike along a sidewalk that is hardly close to level. All the while, people are staring at me. A monk said something to me in passing, but I couldn't quite hear him and didn't dare lean in closer lest I accidentally touch him. In trying to beat the heat (fail), I ended up getting to the store before it opened (double fail). Like those old people who get to Walmart well in advance of the doors opening to beat the crowds, I found myself a bench on which to wait out the 20 minutes. I watched as most of those around stole looks in my direction. School children peeked from behind their friends, giggling. Little kids were a bit more direct, actually stopping what they were doing to just stare. The idea of being a spectacle was made more apparent by the fact that the benches on either side of me were overflowing…yet no move was made to sit down next to me.

Tesco opened it's air-conditioned premises and we all piled in. I bought my necessities, made mental notes to budget some of the larger purchases, as well as those that should not be attempted to be balanced on a bike. A desk. Mattress pad. A crap ton of water. A bike of my own. After wandering around the entire store for an hour, I treated myself to a cha yen and repacked my bags to where every purchase was strapped to me in some form or fashion. The ride home was brutal. I haven't been riding in over a month, let alone in eleven o'clock heat on a bike that didn't fit me with groceries on my back. I felt it. Getting back into shape starts now.

I arrived home to find that Ajarn Bpranee had left some food tied to my door. I had managed to mention in conversation that I liked eggs, so this particular dish was all egg based. (TUSEF warned us against mentioning foods we liked—we'd never be able to get a dish without them! Why oh why didn't I say something like vegetables). Cold shower. Eating on my bed. Then a GLORIOUS nap. And here I am, musing a bit, lesson planning a bit. I have found that the sunset is beautiful from the top of the soccer field bleachers… so I will probably head that direction. A good weekend to all.

These are all photos of my current living situation. I haven't been able to upload the bathroom ones yet, but they are worth checking back for, I promise.

As you can see, the pink heart covered bed spread is definitely in. What this picture doesn't tell you is that it covers what I suspect is a concrete slab. More on the status of said "mattress" later.

bed

To the left of my bed

room

The door pictured here is not my door, but the door that connects me to my neighbor's room. The whole set up is very motel like. The fridge is useful as there are no ants who can make it into that impenetrable fortress. The shelf holds practically all of my possessions at the moment. The TV doesn't work at the moment. The fan is my airconditioner. The two windows are my ventilation system and the door is on the far left side of that wall.

room

and on the opposite side, the bathroom with its now working plumbing! How exciting! The wall in the right of this photo needs no picture as it is still completely blank, though I am trying to find a way to display both my flags (Acadie du nord et Acadie du sud) and my Saints jersey.

and this is what a floaty krathong looks like:

krathong

I've found where the internet hides... so, coming soon, photos of the bathroom, classrooms, and campus!