Short Stories: Gecko hostels, Things people say, Morbid interest in death, Students on meth, etc.

This is the kind of country where you can dare kids to eat hot peppers. And they eat more than you dare them to eat.

And they don’t react. 

I've been compiling stories for this post, but they're not coherent. Just observations about the things people say and do here, plus an entire section on Karen-isms. Karen-isms, birthed by the Chinese guru herself, are the bedrock of my time here and wonderful insights into East Asian culture by someone I can actually more or less communicate with. So, in no particular order, organized by sections so you can bounce around, I give you some short observations from the 'Dit:
 

Crime and ‘Dit Students

Two students are sitting around drinking out of disposable plastic cups. I ask, in Thai, “Why aren’t we using the normal cups anymore?” “The boys used them in the bathroom,” they reply. [It took a long time for me to understand that the boys were peeing in them.] “So now,” they continued, “Only the teachers are allowed to use them.” Yeah, right. Thailand language confusion: 0, Rachel’s curiosity: 1.

On Friday morning, several hongs (this means a group of 40-50 students in the same grade and level who study everything together…they travel as a group between classrooms and teachers…kids are strongly tracked) were selected for drug testing. It took Eugene – who had come to chill and teach with me for the day – and me a while to understand. The boys were lined up with cups at a table. Teachers surrounded them. The little boxes of medical tests or whatever had 'meth' written on them. A teacher told us, “Oh, students, and the heroin and the methamphetamine. Some students bad.” We quickly left before the boys tested themselves in front of us. It's unclear why many women were officiating this activity. Sometimes, I think the Thai are so modest; then I run into a situation where I think, "Why are they doing this in public!!!????" As in, why do the boy's urinals outside my house not have walls? Why do the kids do incredibly suggestive dances but absolutely faint if girls wears skirts that don't cover their knees?

Last week, I walked past an office where a police officer was interrogating two of my 10th grade students. It’s like the inner city, only without a ‘city’, or an ‘inner.’ Everyone kept telling me nothing was going on, but then gossiping excitedly and acting really stressed out. When the police officer left, they conversed amongst themselves in low voices before turning to me and asking (oho! now I will get some info!), "Do you think the police officer is handsome?" Thank goodness for a few young girls around who were too innocent to know that they're supposed to hide all bad things about Thailand from me.

Thailand enjoys a brilliant hitting culture. Bamboo rods, brooms, hands, anything. Teacher to student, student to student, almost anything goes. And I can get on board with that. Just ask the woman who raised me – this was fated since the start. But you can’t hit people with books. Oops.

Thai people have a really morbid sense of humor. It’s hard to get across how unsettling this is. But once you walk past 1500 kids googling dead bodies, laughing at death, playing youtube videos of fatal accidents, posting incredibly sad pictures on their facebooks and getting hundreds of ‘likes’, tell teachers about a nearby shooting and only get chuckles in response, and see the front page photos on Thai newspapers day after day, you get an odd sense that something is really messed up. It’s not just a culture difference. It’s a deep gorge between Thai and western culture that severs our sensibilities. I can’t pretend to understand it. The revelry at funerals I can now at some level recognize the sentiment behind – finding joy in a life well lived – but the morbid fascination with pain and injury and finding hilarity in loss of life I cannot understand at all.  

Karen-isms - on "why Asians are short," Thai men, and everything else.

Karen, my absolute bestie, heads back to China soon, leaving me kon-deow. When absolute bestie returns to China, I figure there’s no better time to visit that Eastern powerhouse, so I’m spending April there with her. We’ve got some sick adventure ideas, and furthermore, her hometown is Guilin, a popular destination due to its gorgeous landscape. It’ll be our last hurrah.

I will desperately miss all Karen's silliness [the following is slightly edited, though her English is on the whole quite impressive]:

Karen, on height: “The Asian people are the shortest because we forgot the milk. My mom told me to drink the milk but I forgot.”

Karen, on a boy: “I really liked his way, not his money. I saw him walking down the street. He’s like a lion. You know, he was like an eagle. I saw him every time.”

Karen, on planning a trip to China, clearly disbelieving the fact that I don’t have friends everywhere: “Do you have friends in Beijing? [Me: I don’t think so.] Well it would be better if you do. So can you email them? We need to stay with them.”

Karen, on Thai men: “If you have no boyfriend, why don’t you just marry the Thai men? They all want you, so it’s very suitable. You can pick the rich ones with motorcycles or shirts.” Excellent; I always wanted a man who owned a shirt. I apparently did not adequately convey the meaning of the word ‘suitable’.

Karen, on the observation that I am always on the move: “Now that I know you, I know it’s true what the people say: Americans don’t need rest like the Asians. I need the rest.”

Karen, on snacks: “When I was little, we were very poor. Absolutely. So we had no snacks. And so! We ate the peppers. Like ‘pop, pop, pop!’”

Karen, on saving money: “If you were a boy, no girl would marry you. But you are a girl, and you look for the cheap things so I think you are the stingy girl [I taught her the word ‘stingy’ earlier]. But stingy is the best wife so your husband will be the very happy one.” Granted, this was the day we waited 90 minutes for a songteow or bus to take us home. The bus came before the songteow and it cost 30 baht instead of 15, so we stepped right back off and waited another hour. But she was equally complicit.

Karen, on adventure: “Before we hung out, I was in the fake life, and I did not live in this real life, but now we hang out everyday in the real life.”

Me: “So do you think Chinese people are a lot less shy than Thai people?”

Karen: “Thai people are shy? Wow! I came here and I think Thai people are so – what do you say? – extroverted. But all my friends are like me. So I’m not real Asian. You will meet the real Asian and think, ‘Wow!’ because the women are the jai yen yen ones but don’t even talk at all but don’t worry all my friends are like me. I founded them because I like the talking ones.”

Me: “If your back is hurting, I think you should stretch.”

Karen: “What is the ‘stretch’?”

Me: “Like when you try to touch your toes and stuff.”

Karen: “Oh right, the left toe up, right arm up, left up, right up, then shake shake shake? [She shakes violently.] Yes, ok, I’ll do this and you read. But why?”

While I’m making Karen stretch so she’ll stop interrupting my reading (doomed from the start), Karen slaps mosquitoes and suddenly bursts out, “YOU CAN’T FEEL MY FEELINGS!” (She was once very sweet and listened to my quasi-scientific reasoning as to why mosquitoes don’t bite me.)

I show Karen a hip stretch where you cross your feet and lean to one side with a hand on your hip. “Can you feel it?” I ask as she gets into form and puts her hand on her hip. “Wow yes! The fat! Lots of fat. But I’m surprised you feel it!” Karen replies, surprised, as she looks down and pinches her fat. “What do you call this again [pointing at her fat]? Fatory?” Karen’s combination of ‘fat’ and ‘factory’…priceless.

Karen, watching me put in my retainer: “WOW! Let me see that [and she literally reaches into my mouth to pull out my retainer as I slap her away]. In the TV, the people always put those in the mouth too and I always think ‘why?’! [I explain.] So it’s made only for the one person? Wow, that’s very good, and I will tell them at the hospital next time that I will need one. Wow! Very healthy. [One of 2 situations where I’ve realized that the retainer is very much a first world thing.]”

Karen, upon cooking anything, “Wow! Veeeeery healthy!”

Karen, anytime she is frustrated or surprised, “What a joke!”

Karen, whenever I ask her a yes/no question, “Of course!”

Karen bought me a handcrafted wooden alligator.

And Karen did me the biggest favor in the world when she taught me how to use the squat toilet. Well, I’ve employed a lot of teachers on that front, hoping for the moment when someone tells me that there’s a secret normal toilet in every squat toilet if I only look a little harder.

'Dit students say.

A student, in English, when I ask him why a girl two years his senior is deigning to date him: “I [pointing at himself with both thumbs] perfect.”

A student, in Thai, a girl: “Teacher, can I kiss your hand?”

Nut, the boy who offered to get me pregnant (helpful dude), “Come back I [/to me]. I love you. I love you [and] you walk [away from me]." [He explains in Thai that he’s leaving to work in a different province.] [Mimes putting ring on his finger as his friends kneel down before me; he moves them aside and lowers himself in front of me as I’m sitting on the basketball hoop foundation; proposes; much ado/slapping in Thai between him and his friends; tells me he’s drunk but only so he can tell me he loves me.] [Rolls up his boxers inexplicably. Cries.]

A student, in Thai, when my friend Eugene came to chill out and teach with me, “Now we have two Americans and no Thai teachers in here??!! What’s happening around here?”

I taught 12 little ones aged 4-13 in a nearby village on Saturday. The neighborhood moms all sent their kiddies and pitched in to buy a whiteboard. Then all the kids and moms watched me in awe, mainly due to my finger puppets. (Thanks grandma.) They were my best students ever as their moms probably threatened them that I wouldn’t come back. Now I wish my students’ moms came to my classes at school. 

Gecko Homeless Shelter

To the gecko population in my room:

Let’s be clear: I do not run a gecko hostel. I do not enjoy cleaning droppings off of every surface. I allow your presence because we engage in a give-and-take symbiotic relationship. I do not enjoy when you mate over my head. I do not enjoy when you sleep in my clothes. I enjoy when you eat the ants. And judging by the ant population, you are doing a very poor job. Work harder.

 A great gift. A great compliment. A great gift.

If you tell people you like bananas, they will give you bananas. Up to 50-70 per week. You will have to eat 9 bananas a day in various forms. In Thailand, there are many forms of banana snacks – dried, fried, deep fried, roasted, smoothies, made into chips, made into sweet gelatin kanom, every possible variation. Furthermore, the variation in species is marvelous. But it’s hard to give bananas away because everyone already has them. You will have research plots all around your kitchen area because you are testing how long bananas last in the fridge, freezer, or table. With peel, without peel, etc. Your sample size will be very big. You can write a journal article on the decomposition of bananas.

I received a truly great compliment the other day: “You good English.”

Granted, the giver spoke hardly any English whatsoever. But how flattering!

I score up to three goals before any boy will even consider passing me the ball. Each time. Granted, I’m sometimes too chillaxed on the field, chasing babies off and befriending my peeps. But still, I don't play too badly.

My church gave me an orange jersey on Sunday. Why? I’m not sure. But I think I'll be totes in the gang now.

Combating stereotypes, one kilo at a time.

Nobody believes that Americans are fat anymore. It used to be the favorite go-to comment about Americans, and now peeps in the ‘Dit are just confused. I slowly get skinnier. I showed my kids a powerpoint on American food. [In Thai, of course:] "Teacher, why do you say Americans are fat? Americans get really skinny."

Adventures in the fields and forests

Karen and I are the village bike girls. The Lance Armstrongs of Phajuk, as Bask (the music teacher who 'Dit rock bands on the side) dubbed us. Fields and forests, moors and mountains. Karen, my bestest Chinese teacher friend, ensured that we rode every day this week because it was my birthday แฮปปี้เบิร์ธเดย์ week, and there's no better way to spend one's birthday than deciding which rice field is the best for fishing, or the lushest, or filled with the happiest children.

 I'm joking - we inspect durian and mango and sugar fields too.

 

 Chilling by the river. Teen hangout spot.

 Karen's dream house.

 The rice field down the nearest little winding road.

 Harvest.

 Mighty papaya trees.

 

Down by the banks. We found a little footpath to this hidden portion of the river on my birthday. Don't we live in nature paradise?

  The Kaiser and his slaves.

 

Gift, the little student who lives with me, and I rode the scary ferris wheel at the local Buddhist festival. (And I say "scary" because I'm afraid to know how many rides this rickety wheel's got in it, not because of fear of heights.) They found a Buddha footprint in the 'Dit back in the day and have been celebrating 10-day annual style for many moons. Festivals essentially consist of a massive market around a temple. And pilgrimages of villagers flocking to the temple in the back of pick-ups, including ourselves.

Thank you Grandma for sending me peanut M&Ms and sour patch (and Eloise!, English games, and a book about a cult distopia where children fight each other as sacrifices, recommended by Stephanie Meyers). I love you.

On birthday night, Karen, Gift, and I grabbed our blankets to stargaze and dance in the school's field.

 Wavin' Flag under the wavin' Thai flag.

Valentine's Day Update - Do you want me to get you pregnant?

My team in the village football gang sat around during our (/their - I come maybe 2-3 times/wk out of 7) daily tournaments and watched me give stickers to a little toddler. Nut, age 20, instigated the daily games when he found out that I existed and that I spend excessive time wandering post-classes, including wandering into random sports. He told me "I love you" within 3 minutes of meeting me and insisted that I come to his house. I refused due to impending darkness, so he stole my bike and forced me into letting him pedal me home while I rode on the back. Nut's been very curious about whether anyone will give me flowers on Valentine's Day. Today he decided to try his luck even further.

He asked me if I wanted to get pregnant. Via himself.

I didn't understand at first, so about five 20-year-old guys and their younger brothers started miming pregnancy. When they sensed that I got the main idea, Nut asked again if I'd allow him to help get me pregnant so I could have a cute Thai baby since I seem to love them so much.

Nut never cracked a smile and waited patiently for my answer.

Today was also our school's birthday/foundation day celebration. Older elementary kids came from around the local villages to check out high school life. They rotated in and out of activities. Between waiting for my babies to come play with me, I kicked up my feet (veeeeerry impolite in Thailand because the feet are considered the lowest part of the body) and was literally waited on hand and foot by kids and teachers wandering by. First came candy, then water, then a full meal, then an entire cut-up watermelon, then a bag of 15 oranges, then another water, then chocolate. I mean, I was just sitting in a classroom. I love Thailand.

Thai-style Valentine's Day consists of wandering around and putting stickers on people's shirts. Peeps only had hearts, so I spiced it up with my pirate, dinosaur, and sports stickers. I gave the music teacher the gun stickers.

Near the end of the day, I was sabai-ing it up (chillaxing) with the teachers and students from my village's elementary school. I mentioned that my birthday was this week when they asked my age, and twenty 9-year old kids broke out singing "Happy Birthday." They blessed me so much, I cried. My tears highly amused them, and their teachers explained that I have deep feelings of the heart while I laughed and fought back sobbing.

Then I taught them the Hokey Pokey.

What is Love, according to my students; Miss English Camp; Sleeping with Thai people; Drunk driving

Pet, my little boy at church, made me tell him the word for every single picture in my English-Thai dictionary. He was adamant that we couldn't do anything else.

After making some plays today, including a goal where I managed to clear the field and shoot on the goalie, the village football players think I’m worthy. "Beautiful and gang mok [very good]," exclaimed a boy who is most definitely a couple years younger than me as he literally looks me up and down for the hundredth time, "Wow, oh my god wow." 

 

I turn my air con to 84 degrees fahrenheit and it's a tad too chilly. But I'm happy to be back in my own room again (well, take that with a huge grain of mold - see below) after being kidnapped for a few days. When Princess Chulaporn School in Phitsanalouk sent a letter to my director requesting that I skip teaching for a couple days and come help lead their English Camp last week, I tried to bow out. I'm loathe to leave the 'Dit because I'll be gone for all of summer break (update on March/April plans soon!). But Princess Chulaporn is arguably the best school in the region – a magnet boarding school – so “no” wasn’t gonna fly with the ‘Dittos when Princess Chulaporn deigned to invite one of their teachers. And I’m glad I got down there, because it’s definitely a different story than my school; many of the students are conversational in English and several studied abroad in the US. 

Long story short, Superhero-themed English Camp was a MACHINE, due to the veteran Filipino English teachers at Princess Chulaporn, who have this thing down to a science. Me + Mattayom 1 kiddies (7^th grade) + Filipino English camp experts + 2 other Fulbrights spent two days (English-ing was a ‘round the clock deal since the kids don’t go home in the evenings) dancing, playing games, sponsoring a Miss/Mr. English camp competition, and watching the Incredibles. The dancing was a hit, if only because I only dance in front of masses of teenagers these days due to the ‘Dit being a conservative spot, and I had far too much stage time with the Filipino teacher yelling at me to demonstrate “the sexy dance”. English camp essentially turned into dance camp. The Incredibles showing wasn't quite so enthralling: half the students slept because they didn’t understand a word, and I bowed out to hang with older students who were pumped to chat up a foreign girl. 

… Earlier on, Jayson, the youngest Filipino teacher, who danced like nobody’s business, crowned himself temporary Mr. English camp and me Miss English camp. Of course, with our English skills, we presumed that we’d be crowned the permanent English camp duo, but since there were kids around and all, we guessed that we should proobablllly pick one of them instead. I hate losing …

I wandered around during breaks (and when I got bored, let's be real) to spread the American girl joy. A half dozen girls showed me the music room where the teacher gifted me a Kui Lip, or a Thai wooden recorder-type instrument, on the condition that I show him my bird call and play drumset to Bruno Mars. The Mattayom 6 (12^th grade) boys chilling outside were hilarious, particularly because the Miss English camp tiara inspired them to try out some pick-up lines – ex. “I don’t need to ask your name because I already know you’re a princess.” I later jokingly asked if they wanted stickers, and they eagerly entered the personal bubble and murmured, “Yes, of course, but only if you put it on me,” indicating their shirt collars.  The 20/30-something year old guys who run the boys’ dorms were no less enthusiastic; “We no have beautiful girl. Come be beautiful girl here. Koon kui gang mok [you chat in Thai very well].” The latter was mainly true because they talked for 10 minutes about my alleged beauty and how I should move to their school so they could see me everyday. I don’t know how I can ever leave Thailand, particularly after a girl was scandalized when her friend compared me to Angelina Jolie. “No! Teacher most beautiful!” 

But I’m making a short story long. I checked out the girls’ dorms and ascertained that these poor children live in prisons, saw that their cafeteria only serves one option each meal (my school has about 15 mini restaurant stalls), and laughed at the nerdiness of the kids compared to the chillness/laziness of my students (I realize I’d be in group A, but there’s something rewarding in loving on the group B kids), and decided that I’m okay teaching in the ‘Dit. 

Then I got kidnapped by the mother of Cha Cha, the real Miss English Camp, who lives in the ‘Dit. She graciously offered to drive me home, but in Thailand, friendliness gets you friends, whether you want them or not. She’s visited the US a few times because her brothers live there. “I got three tickets in one hour of driving,” she told me. Not surprising, as I nearly got killed multiple times in her car. She forced me to stay at her house, ignoring all my pleas. I went out with her and her pack of 40/50-something friends. They got drunk on whiskey, karaoked, and sat for 4 hours. I was so in take-me-home mode that I just couldn’t muster the energy to be anything more than cordial and I sat there like a man on death row. I later got in a car with a drunk driver (who, as mentioned above, sucked at driving to begin with) because I had absolutely no clue where I was. 

Thank you Jesus.

In typical Thai style, the family sleeps together in one bed. Throwing me in the mix would be even too awkward for Thai peeps, so the parents slept in the main room and I passed out next to their children. Who kicked me all night long.

Got home the next day to read about Jeremy Lin for hours. Finally got my act together to clean my entire wooden bed frame, which is inundated with mold. I smell it whenever I walk in the room, and obviously pass out with spores drifting into my system, but I’ve been so scared to move the mattress and see the damage beneath. And that fear was justified, as clouds of mold flew up while I cleaned. I moved some pieces outside and just bleached stuff. Desperation. I am dying from mold poisoning. So many spores clogging my lungs it’s unreal. Black mold, green mold, white mold, and the Thai peeps just laugh. It’s just life in the jungle, ain’t no thing.

 

Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, so today featured a parental matchmaking activity where I gave students descriptions of their fictional children and they found husbands/wives for their kids. This is legit because parental involvement in love matching is not so taboo in Thailand. This is not so legit because kids spent the whole time reading their short descriptions. My kids also learned intellectually stimulating phrases such as “love triangle,” “true love [you can bet I have a mission with this one],” “to hit on someone,” and “to play hard to get.” 

I asked one class, “What is Love?” and “What kind of boy/girl do you like?” Let’s be real – I asked them solely for my own amusement. 

So what is love? Quoted directly, spelling and all, from my students:

Love is Heart to Heart [something whited-out] mix become Life in Love. It 
    very Happy. I love you.

Love is when some people come in [“to” crossed out] piceses of my heart.

love [uncapitalized] is Liverpool [capitalized].

Love is man city united.

Love is flower becuse lovely and beautiful.

Love is when 2 people give hart.

Love is some people I love.

Love is I see my love very happy.

Love is fri and to 3/1. [3/1 is this particular class’ designation.]

And what kind of boys/girls are my students crushing on this Valentine’s Day?

He is cave me He is take is esy. [take it easy]

I like long Hair gril.

I like boy type Funny give Hart give happy Care I.

I like boy kind and reliable.

boy is love me everytime. boy is miss me everytime.

Lovely boy and take care me everytime. Love me and miss me everybreath.

I like boy honest. I like boy concentrate.

The boy is friendly and tall. The boy is clever and handsome.


 

The Valentine's skit at church covered a lot of territory - cowboys, outlaws, sheriffs, and girls showcasing choreographed dances from India, China, and Europe (presumably because everyone in the world is a tourist to "Love Love Land"?).

• Rats run across my feet in the bathroom. Not much I can do about that but pretend they're pet gerbils.

• Next week: Jeremy Lin lesson in my classes with the sit-in-the-back-and-try-to-get-Rachel-to-yell-at-their-friends sports lovers.

 

Jackfruit smoothie. Unique, but comes in behind the banana coconut peanut smoothie.

พระเจ้าอวยพร, On Blessings, Engagements to chubby Thai boys, and Encountering amassadorship

I love the Thai phrase “jing jing” จริงๆ. My translation is “for reals” (if said disbelievingly, “Really?”). But I learned a word on Saturday that takes the cake – “snook-AAAYYY”. It means “pool”; think Clue billiards room. Praywa taught me.

Praywa is one of my 14-year-old students. She motorcycled me around to meet family friends on Saturday, who in typical Thai fashion all piled on loads of food (which until this moment, I had forgotten about. Lunch tomorrow solved.). We dropped by the local market where her parents sell meat, and her mom insisted on buying me tons o’ food. Praywa and I chilled back at the house for a couple hours, mainly playing cards, which are banned at school and I am probably a bad teacher for promoting. This is when she asked if I play pool; yes, Thai people profile me as the gambling, drinking, card-playing, pool-playing type. I'm 'MERICAN.

Praywa’s older brother, Tang, who is my age, came in from town to meet me. This was a much anticipated event in the family, as Praywa’s mom gushed at the market about me marrying him, and Praywa assured me that she had been telling her brother all about me for months. Being unwittingly engaged to people’s sons is probably what I’m best at in Thailand.

Tang felt the pressure, so he peeked in on us and then took a nap.

Later on, when Praywa and I biked over to house #2 (in the rice fields) for a late dinner with her mom, they revealed to me that they hadn’t told me that Tang is fat in case I changed my mind. Because of course I had already made up my mind, and known that there was mind-making-up to do.

Praywa’s mommy was pretty upset with Tang for napping when he was supposed to be meeting his future bride, so she woke him up and forced him to play cards with us. But before doing so, she tried every trick in the book to induce me to wear Praywa’s pretty dress that Tang had bought for her. This was too far for even me.

Praywa & mom then basically ordered me to spend the night. Tang is moving to Bangkok soon so this is like our last chance to seal the deal. I had to lay on every argument I could think of – had to be at church at 7 am, didn’t have clothes, toothbrush, etc. – and they found ways to get around all of them. Even in the states, I far prefer when friends stay the night with me over me staying the night with them. But the thought of literally sleeping with their grandma and being paraded in front of Tang is a line I had no desire to cross. In rural Thailand, people share beds and often sleep on mats on the floor under mosquito nets in one room. Actually, my only real ‘culture shock’ experiences have been when I walk into Thai homes. The living standard is extraordinarily different, even with those who have money.

Really needing to be at church quite early the next morning, and watching grandma snore away, I straight up lied and said I wasn’t allowed to leave Gift (the student I live with) alone at home because she is very scared when the other housemates go home on the weekends. Praywa’s mom then attempted to convince me that we should go pick up Gift so she could sleepover as well. I only got out of all this by promising that I’d sleep over some other time with Gift (poor sacrificed Gift).

No worries, Tang would drive me home. But it wasn’t until 11:30 pm that we hit the road followed by Praywa and a neighborhood dude who had wandered in and out to play cards, stare at me, and devise ways to touch my leg. He was 18 and kinda cute, so you know, in the scheme of things – a pretty long list of sexual advances made at me in Thailand – he wasn’t so bad.

The school gate was locked. I jumped the wall. Praywa, Tang, and neighborhood boy think I’m the bomb.

At Romklao Uttaradit Church the next morning, the first thing I saw was a red-headed, green-necked, black-bodied snake slithering up the front steps of the main building. How’s that for symbolizing spiritual warfare? 

 

Upper left - Karen and I have two churches in the 'Dit we like to be a part of, but the pentecostal Romklao Uttaradit Church is definitely the Dit's largest congregation and church property.

 

Lower left - This is the church's sleeping building. I have thoroughly investigated this, and discovered that it is in fact, meant for sleeping.

Church is a daylong affair (pre-service, service, and post-service activities and Saturday activities), and essentially a spot to hang out and love on kids and teenagers and women. And an opportunity for those same women to push me onto every single man in the church, and for every single man in the church to feed me mango and hover around me like bees. I honestly wish I could have one space where I’m not the target of match-making. I know my Thai friends - and strangers - do so because they love me and they want me to be part of this community forever, but oh my goodness, sometimes I need a break. I have worn literally zero makeup since coming here, do my hair – as always – terribly, and have the smallest collection of clothes and jewelry at my disposal than ever before…but these ‘Dit-tos, they are persistent. I filled out a card of personal information/hobbies/etc. for a Valentine's Day party, and 6 guys pulled their chairs up to help me write it in Thai and essentially fawn over me. And feed me. And try to learn my signature birdcall. Hmm, I guess it's not that bad . . .

But I’ve fallen in love without help. One of my all-time favorite kids is like the pet crocodile I’ve always wanted. He is 7 and follows me around, sits on my lap, lets me tickle him, likes dinosaurs, feeds me, fetches things, carries my bag, wants me to teach him Jesus songs + motions/dance, repeats my English and genuinely loves learning English completely of his own accord, and is thus, I suppose, even more versatile than a pet crocodile would be. It’s more his endearing affection than my maternal instincts that make me want to steal him away forever. 

 

<-- So much love for him. He wears this outfit everyday. Such a boy.

I usually hop out mid-service and teach Sunday School so as not to kill myself listening to Thai for 3 hours (and impart Jesus songs and Bible stories on the babes, of course) (yep 3 hours; yep Pentecostal), but yesterday, I stayed for the sermon because a girl visiting from Bangkok with pretty good English got a kick out of translating the service (and by “translating,” I mean that she’d occasionally lean over and whisper that she had no idea how to translate what the pastor said).

[One of Praywa’s family friends told me that he knew my pastor through his work. Praywa later pointed out the whiskey plant that said family friend works at. Question mark. Love it.]

Karen and I hit up the stage last month at our church's New Year's gathering. We sang Chinese and English songs! They have some great equipment so it's super fun.

 

 But I did catch a few things. He looked at me at one point, and said in Thai, “You are called to be here, Rachel,” pronouncing my name in the Thai way – Raaashell. “You are called to be here, Rachel.” 

I didn’t know why I came to Thailand, or rather, I didn’t even have a reason to come when it came down to it. I loved being in Thailand in summer 2010 and thought, when the taxi driver brought me to the airport to leave forever, that I didn’t want that forever to be forever. It was the first time tears fell for a place, for fruit and dirty sidewalks and bad smells and a hidden, beating sun and open, beating rain and kids who run around in puddles only half-dressed.

But a year later, when I was set to return, I didn’t remember why I was doing it. I came just because I could, because it fell into my lap and was less stressful than thinking about what I wanted my future to look like in the US.

But being here is nothing less than a worshipful moment. It is good in the purest sense, joyful, full of love, more than I imagined. It is a year to refresh others and be refreshed, to encounter God’s purpose for me instead of my own purposes. To wash away ambition and bask in the core of life – to love and be loved, to give joy and be given joy, to give life and be given life. To rejoice always, to pray continually by worshiping the God who lives, to give thanks in all circumstances. What I thought was purposeless was only purposeless in that it wasn’t my own purpose, wasn’t my own ambition, after four years of Harvard and 22 years of me.

To separate myself from all that I am this year beside the very inmost of my being. To learn how to love without condition because God loves and these people are his people, these women are his women, these children are his children.

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else.

And so I in fact have perhaps the most purposeful year I’ve ever had. I am a servant of the ministry of reconciliation, a reconciliation that garners real peace and a restful soul.

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. – 2 Corinthians 5

A year as Christ’s ambassador as preparation for the ambassadorship of the rest of my life. It took an ambassadorial pledge to the US State Department to understand what being a lifelong ambassador must mean for me. At the end of it all, what I have is what I’ve believed, what I’ve chased in my heart, who and what I’ve loved. 

The Carriage of Low Voices

Remember lying snug on the couch in the late evening hours while your mom discussed mundane but familiar subjects with a friend in the next room? How you heard without listening and the droning words served as a pre-sleep comfort to your drowsing eyes? How your mind shut-off and you drifted into dreamworld via the carriage of low voices? Maybe you were too young to fully grasp the meaning of the conversation, but that made your drowsing all the more cozy.

I felt that yesterday. Two women carried on in Thai about banana trees and gardening. A quiet just-below-the surface understanding, a peacefulness from the tones and voices. No urgency to take part, complete mental slumber. Their words floated over me, a mere child of the Thai language ภาษาไทย.

Yesterday wed to joy. A long ride brought me to an even-more-remote-I-now-know-all-things-are-possible 'Dit district near Laos to play and teach at a school without native English speakers. The director contacted my director, who asked me to organize a language "activity day." A handful of foreign teachers in the region came together - Chinese teachers taught Tai Chi (can't spell this); I led games. And theoretically basic English. But really games.

700 children plus the primary school kids who insisted on running over to play with me stared and stared. Pictures with teachers, pictures with staff, pictures with children. Silence when I spoke, such a rarity now at my school. Teenagers in awe, full of respect. A visiting princess.

In fact, we actually saw a visiting princess - or her caravan - when driving home. She'd visited the impoverished villages around the border.

Goodness, I am never leaving here.

A teacher - the first Thai person I've met who is vegan/vegetarian - drove home to bring me the "jay" กินเจ food she cooks. Another teacher kidnapped me under the pretense of insisting that I must use the bathroom in her house. An inch of water covered the bathroom floor, and Thai bathrooms are, to be honest, still quite frightening to me. This one took the cake. I couldn't even go in and pretend to use it. I had to take an American moment...I won't tell the internet world how I got out of it.

(My own school installed a toilet in my house for me the day before I arrived.)

The school gifted me a couple kilos of tamarind, a tea set, and a certificate in Thai. I can actually read Thai script now, so the 'Dittos are rawther impressed. Read: they aren't impressed at all. (But they should be! There are around 70 squiggly letters with over 20 vowels that combine all the squigglies in various formations. I found it far more difficult to learn than Japanese hiragana and katakana.)

On the way back, we stopped at the "Biggest Teak Tree of the World". This was my second visit to this illustrious 'Dit tourist spot. At the park, there were a grand total of...only us. In total sincerity, my Thai teacher friend Pin raved, "Rachel, this tree is almost 50 years old!" I horribly confused her when I couldn't stop laughing. But I made up for my irreverence with my photo op with the sole park ranger, who remembered me from last time and dragged me over to look at pictures of her recent beach vacation.

I'm wheedling my way in. Laying on the charm. Someday, they're gonna let me touch the tree.



I stared up at the tree. The park ranger and Pin carried on about banana trees and gardening.

P.S. Contrary to 'Dit mythological belief, the tree is much older than 50 years old. But she just thinks 50 years is so awesome, I hate to tell her she's a bit off.