Thai talk

I've never been much for small talk.  I'm not good at it, it's usually not interesting and I just find it full of silly, obvious statements that would be better left unsaid (I'm also just not good with words in general, but that's something for another time).  Of course I've always participated in it with everyone, because that's what you're supposed to do, and it'd be weird if I didn't.  The thing about small talk in Thailand is that there's always three or four questions I know I'm going to be asked by almost everyone I encounter during the day.

Bpai nai - or in Issan dialect: bpai sai or bpai iiyang (where are you going)?  Most of the time I get this question when I'm riding my bike somewhere, so I've perfected my short responses that usually indicate I'm going to a school, the market, home, or just riding for fun/exercise. Once I arrive somewhere it leads to the obvious following question...

Bpai nai maa (where are you coming from)? This can sometimes spur questions about what I did at this place I'm coming from, but instead is usually just followed with another one of the standard questions...

Gin laao ru yang (did you eat already)? Regardless of the answer, I'm usually offered fruit, kanomes, or full meals and everyone insists I eat more.  Or if I did eat already, they'll follow up with the other question...

Gin cow gap arai (what did you eat with your rice)?  It's not a meal unless it's rice, so if you've just eaten a meal then you've eaten something with rice and they want to know what that something was.  In the past month I've stopped eating rice for breakfast and have replaced it with yogurt and oatmeal, so my answer becomes much more confusing to most people and I'm pretty sure they're concerned that I'm not getting sufficient nutrients for my first meal of the day because I'm not eating rice.  

If I said I didn't get a little annoyed sometimes answering these questions over and over and over again every single day, I would be lying.  But instead I've realized that this is part of my life here - like talking about the weather in America - not something that's intellectually stimulating or something I necessarily enjoy, but something that can help cultivate growing relationships and can lead to discussions about things other than what I've already eaten each day.  So if I come back to America and ask you what you ate for breakfast/lunch/dinner, indulge me...then we can move on to the weather. 

Competition Week

In the past few months I've spent a lot of time at several schools in my community in an attempt to start developing some youth.  Although I haven’t really accomplished any ‘development’ yet, I've been able to meet and get to know a lot of the kids in my community.  They’re cute, fun, smart (contrary to what some of the teachers tell me), and on the particularly tough days they remind me why I want to be here.  They become more confident saying ‘good morning’ to me every time I see them and I’m quick to praise their efforts and return their smiles.  They laugh at me a lot and have picked up my frequent use of the word 'okay' and use it themselves, always laughing at the same time.  They laugh at my language mistakes and (at my request) now correct my grammar when I say things incorrectly.  I teach them English words they don’t learn in the classroom and they teach me the local ways to say some of the Thai words I already know.  In short, they're awesome. 

                                   

This week kicked off a three week span of competitions, tests and evaluations leading up to a three week break from school in October.  This week is competition week and includes contests in various areas like math, art, singing, aerobics, paper airplane throwing, and spelling.  I was unknowingly designated part of the ‘English committee’ and given the responsibility of administering the spelling contest.  Although happy to help, considering the fact that I was pronouncing words for them that they’d never heard me speak before and then had to write down correctly, I felt bad for them (they’re used to hearing it a specific way from their teachers, which often includes incorrect pronunciation).  This also unfortunately caused me to miss most of the paper airplane throwing competition, but I managed to catch the last few contestants (this contest explained why I had seen so many little boys making and throwing paper airplanes all day long in the past several weeks, all throughout the school day). 

Next week is test week, which I'm sure won't be nearly as exciting...but it's Thailand, so who knows.  

Some pictures from two days of competitions:

Treats and misunderstandings

In the interest of adding general updates and a few photos, this blog post is pretty random.  But first I must admit that this week I ate a sweetened condensed milk sandwich.  It was just what you might be imagining: two pieces of bread with sweetened condensed milk in the middle.  Only in Thailand, where bread is a treat that farangs eat for every meal and sweetened condensed milk is something that is poured in most beverages and over many foods, would I consider this to be a delicious treat.  Also, this was an option for a mid-morning snack at school.  Other options included meat on a stick (hot dog), meat on a stick (pork), and meat on a stick (fish balls).  I’m just glad they’ve already mastered so many healthy snack options for kids so I won’t have to worry about trying to helpfully suggest some possible alternatives.

A while back I went with a few of my co-workers and a group of students from one of the local schools to a local national park.  It was an all day event held on a Saturday, and when I was told about it I understood that it was a training for the kids about local tourism and a brief training about being junior tour guides (with which they have, or will have, some experience since they live in the village in my community that has a large cave in a mountain – a tourist attraction for Thais traveling on the local main highway).  Knowing this, I dressed in appropriate ‘work attire’ – a below the knee length skirt and a collared button down shirt.  This was in fact a training, and I even helped by teaching/practicing a few brief English phrases with them (because that is why I am here!).  What I was not told, or was told but did not understand, is that after lunch we’d all be going on an excursion through the forest/mountain (sometimes I think they like to intentionally leave things out, or not try to explain them to me in order to laugh at me later).  They all had a laugh and asked if I could participate in my attire.  I assured them I could and off we went.  It started out easy, with a wide paved trail, but eventually I found myself crawling on my knees and basically climbing through trees – in my skirt.  I worried most about the appropriateness of it, but my skirt was long enough that I didn’t have any real risks of indecent exposure.  We stopped to take some pictures along the way and they were impressed with my skills and strength (seriously, they told me).  Then we played in a waterfall before heading home. Here's a few pictures from that day...

I’d like to think my Thai is improving every day.  If not what I say, then at least what I’m able to understand when other people are talking.  This is not the case with Issan, the local dialect where I live.  I’ve learned a few things and am starting to pick up a little more, but when someone speaks to me strictly in Issan dialect there’s a good chance I won’t understand most of what they’re saying.  (Also, just like in America everyone here speaks a little bit differently – faster, slower, quieter, etc. – and sometimes a person will speak Issan so quickly and with such little enunciation that it literally sounds like jibberish and I find myself just trying to pick out a real word or two that I know).  A lot of people are really helpful and make an effort to speak central Thai with me.  If I’m in a group of people, they’re most often speaking Issan dialect unless they’re speaking directly to me.  A few people, depending on where I am in my community, that speak to me strictly in Issan.  I recently went to a wat (temple) with a couple kids from school during a tour they gave me of their village.  One of the monks came out to chat with us, and within about 10 minutes the kids abandoned me and I was left struggling through an hour of the most difficult conversation of my life.  I was told this monk spoke English well.  This was not only not true, but he also only spoke to me in Issan, even after I politely explained that I can speak and understand central Thai, but I haven’t learned as much of the local dialect and have a harder time understanding a lot of things.  He was amused by the conversation; I had to try extremely hard to not let my ever-increasing frustration show on my face.  We had something that resembled a conversation and he told me to come back next week to talk to him again.  

I played a game with a group of students a couple weeks ago that was basically ‘Monkey in the Middle’, and the idea was to make connections between the game and the idea of being excluded from activities or excluding other people from participating.  They enjoyed the game and had a lot of laughs.  In our brief discussion after the activity I asked what it felt like to be the person in the middle of the circle.  Their response was that it was fun.  They liked being the person in the middle as much (if not more) than being part of the outer circle.  That pretty much ruined any further discussion I hoped of having about being excluded, but brought to light another interesting perspective from youth in Thailand.

I made brownies recently for my host family.  I used a box of American brownie mix I got from the large supermarket about 45km away from my house, and cooked them in a rice cooker – which my family thought was hilarious.  It didn’t work as well as I thought – the brownies cooked unevenly and I had to stir them a couple times so all of the batter would get at least a little bit cooked.  They weren’t pretty, but they were so delicious (it’s a rare thing to get really excited about food, especially any food that’s not Thai, and have it be as delicious as you want it to be).  My host family loved them and my host mom wanted to take them to the market and sell them.  I took a few to some teachers the next day, and they promptly asked me if they eat them with rice.  I said no – if you eat them with rice they will not be delicious.  They saved them for lunch, and sure enough one of the teachers broke her brownie into little pieces and mixed it in with her rice and vegetables.  She enjoyed it anyway. 

Speaking of food (because we always are in Thailand), I get called both fat and slim at least once a week – usually more.  I was coming back from a run the other day and stopped to chat with a couple neighbors who were sitting outside.  One of the women said I was really slim now – when I first came here I was big, but now not so much. The next day a woman at one of the local health stations tried to convince me to do a 4 day detox with her because I need to slim down (incidentally she just calls me fat all the time, so I’m getting used to it/starting to ignore her).  One of these times I’m going to explain to them that in America if you comment on someone’s physical size, especially if it’s the first thing you say to them when you see them, it’s inconsiderate and just rude.  After all, most of what I’m supposed to be accomplishing here is cultural exchange and working on mutual understanding, so why not?  Then maybe she won’t call me fat every time she sees me. 

Going home

For the last 3 weeks I’ve been away from my site and spending time in central Thailand for trainings and a little vacation time.  We had a 10 day Reconnect training where they brought all the volunteers together again to share experiences, reflect on the first few months on our own and think about the rest of our service.  All in all it was a weird couple weeks (and maybe that’s just me).  It was great to see friends again and hear about what other volunteers are doing at their sites, and to realize that a lot of us are facing similar challenges, frustrations, joys, and accomplishments.  We've been told many times that PC service has a lot of ups and downs, and getting everyone back together for 10 days after 3 months apart can be overwhelming in a lot of ways.  We’re able to see our own feelings about our sites and work thus far reflected back from our fellow volunteers, and it can be a challenge to take everyone’s experiences and stories and compare them to our own (of course you can’t really compare one volunteer’s service to another, but it's hard not to compare sometimes).  It can also be validating, knowing that we’re doing well and moving forward, despite our limited language skills and other obstacles.  Despite all the commonalities, we all live at different sites with different people we’re all at different points with regard to accomplishments and goals.  Some have thrived and are already working on some amazing projects with people in the community; some are struggling to find where they belong; some have no idea what they’ll really be doing for the next 2 years.  Some people feel great and optimistic about the next 2 years while others aren’t sure whether or not they’ll still be here in six months.  I’m somewhere in the middle of all of these, and depending on the day you ask, my answer might be entirely different.  One day I think I’m on the way to doing something amazing and the next day I contemplate going home (sometimes this all happens multiple times in one day).  I don’t actually want to go home yet and I’m determined to succeed here, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t crossed my mind once or twice (especially when my pizza/burger/cheese/American food cravings are particularly incessant).  It’s a weird dynamic when you put all these people together in one hotel for over a week, and as happy as we were to see each other, I think we were just as happy to move on and get back to site.  

After wrapping up the training I went to visit my first host family that I stayed with during PST and my first 10 weeks in Thailand.  It was strange how much it felt like going home and how comfortable and nostalgic it was to be back where it all started.  My host mom made my favorite Thai foods and I quickly realized that I’ve come to compare everything I eat here to her cooking (I also realize how spoiled I was with good food in the beginning).  It was nice to be able to understand so much more than I ever could during training, and to be able to share my experiences and photos from the last few months at site.  They even spoiled me and set up a bed for me in the only room in the house with a/c (by bed I mean a wooden bench with a thin mat on it). 

I spent some time in Bangkok before and after our training, and while it was great to be back in a city with all of the things, it’s amazing how quickly my monthly volunteer allowance can be spent on so many of them.  I was also able to spend a couple days in Kaeng Krachan National Park, the largest national park in Thailand in the Petchaburi province a few hours southwest of Bangkok.  I swam in a waterfall (for the first time ever) and saw a wild elephant, two things I've wanted to do since I got here.  It was beautiful and I always love exploring new places.  Now I’m finally back at site, trying to readjust and get started on the list of goals I created during the past few weeks.  It’s always an adjustment coming back to site after being gone, because usually when you’re gone it means you’re speaking English with other Americans and blowing off steam in ways that you can’t/don’t do at site.  After 3 weeks away it takes a little time to get used to being alone again and speaking more Thai than English and hearing the local dialect instead of the recognizable central Thai that I actually felt comfortable hearing for the last 3 weeks.  It’s weird to think that our group of volunteers won’t be together again until a year into our service (8-9 months from now).  It’s also weird to think about the fact that I’ve been in Thailand for 6 months now, considering I’ve never lived out of the country and the longest I’ve been abroad before now is about 2 weeks.  Life is just weird in general, but it’s become the new normal.  The first thing my host mom said to me when I got home was that I had gotten pretty fat while I was gone and obviously I had not been exercising.  Then she told me that she missed me and asked what I wanted to eat, and then told me twice more how fat I am now.  It’s good to be home.

A few pictures from our trip to Kaeng Krachan National Park...

English is (not) fun!

Mamie mai bpen kruu (Mamie is not a teacher). I’ve said this so many times it’s almost become part of my standard PCV introduction.  Everyone wants me to teach English and everyone thinks I’m here to do just that.  It doesn’t help that every other farang in the area is here to teach English, including another male PCV that lives close to me (I’m convinced most people are somewhat disappointed that they got me instead of him; not only is he a white male, he’s actually a teacher and here to help teach English).  Once a week I teach English at the SAO (subdistrict administration organization – the government building that’s kind of responsible for me here).  It’s an hour lesson every Wednesday and the class includes a various mix of teachers, SAO officers and a few other people.  They often seem as excited to be in the class as I am to be teaching it (which is to say there is no excitement).  I do my best to psych myself up every week and prepare a fun, engaging, informative class, but sometimes it’s hard to teach English to a class of 30 people all by myself in a way that’s fun and engaging and informative all at once (also did I mention I’m not a teacher?). 

Kids learn English when they start school here.  Every time I go to a school I get the standard greeting, ‘Good morning teacher! How are you today? I am fine’.  I’m fairly certain they don’t know what any of this means, as they often run through the whole thing without pausing for a response: “good morning teacher!  How are you today? I am fine thank you and you?” or some variation of that.  It’s cute, but a little disheartening that they learn this so young, repeating it every day and yet many of them don’t know what they’re saying or when to say it (even adults sometimes will say ‘good morning’ to me at 6pm, or as I’m riding my bike I’ll hear a group of kids screaming ‘goodbye!’ at me as I approach them).  In these visits to the local schools I’ve made sure to explain my role as a Youth in Development volunteer while also repeating that I’m not a teacher.  I had a lovely conversation with a teacher at one school about this, and just after I thought she had an understanding of what I’m trying to do here, she goes in front of all of the students who had assembled together at the end of the day and tells them about me.  ‘We have a teacher here from America and she’s going to teach you English!’ Facepalm.

After PST I knew that teaching English would likely be part of everything I do, and I’m more than happy to incorporate it into the activities I’m involved in.  I quickly realized that it’ll be a struggle to get any projects started that are more than just teaching English – at least for a while.  I’ve gone past the point of frustration sometimes when I have the ‘Mamie is not a teacher’ conversation.  I tell them this and they laugh at me and call me a teacher.  I tell them about what I’ve done in America and what I can do here and they look at me like I’m an idiot (and then ask when I’m available to teach English).  They put me in front of a class of students, leave the room and insist that I’m not teaching, I’m just talking with the students – in English. 

I appreciate their desire to learn English.  I realize that ASEAN (Association of South Eastern Asian Nations) is important.  I understand that everyone is preparing for the launch of the AEC (ASEAN Economic Community) in 2015 and learning English will be helpful for so many reasons.  But that’s not what I’m here for, and my community was (supposed to be) well aware of my role before I showed up.  If I wanted to teach English I wouldn’t have joined the Peace Corps.  I would have taken a job that paid me to teach English instead of choosing to volunteer for 27 months.  I’ve readjusted my expectations about my service several times over the past 5 months.  There’s a difference between the wild, infinite ambitions I dreamt of prior to coming here and the reality of my service now that I’m here.  This isn’t to say that I’m not still ambitious – it’s just that now I have more realistic ambitions based on the realities of my situation, community, and resources.  My thus-far short career in social work has taught me the importance of meeting people where they are.  Look at the situation as it exists, not as you think it should be.  You can’t charge in with your ideas of what you think is important without talking to the people involved and finding out what’s important to them first – you’ll never accomplish anything if you do.  I’ve done this before and learned a lot from it every time.  I did this during my field placements in grad school on an individual and community level and throughout the 3 years after grad school that I spent working in initially unfamiliar neighborhoods on the southside of Chicago.  The process of doing this in a new community, in a foreign country and a foreign language will take many months to accomplish, I have no doubt.  In the past couple months I’ve been saying yes to every opportunity and having conversations with everyone that I can.  I’m teaching English because so many people want to learn and I have the time to do so right now.  I also incorporate my own agenda, teaching about American culture or giving them words other than ‘fine’ to explain how they’re feeling today.  I’m also building relationships with these people that I hope will turn into other possibilities down the road.  There’s a reason I’m here for 2 years.  I can’t expect to start an amazing, life-changing project a few months in (although I can’t help but secretly hope that my small Tuesday youth group will turn into a spectacularly successful 2 year project).  So for now, I teach a little English sometimes and remind everyone ‘Mamie mai bpen kruu’.  

Rabies Roadtrip

I’ve had a hard time adjusting to the fact that dogs are treated much differently here than they are in America.  My natural reaction with dogs is to pet them and play with them.  The natural reaction here is to shoo them away, ignore them, or hit/kick them.  It’s sad and I don’t think I’ll ever really get used to it.  I’ve had to check my instincts several times as I’ve come close to having my hand bitten off when trying to pet some of the dogs here (this is on the rare occasion they don’t instantly run away from me instead).  A lot of people have dogs as pets, but I’ve found they’re often treated no differently than the soi dogs, or street dogs that you see wandering around everywhere – besides maybe the fact that they’re given food on a regular basis.  It hasn’t ceased to amaze me how unfriendly these dogs can be, and I don’t blame them given the way I’ve seen them treated.  I have run into a few friendly dogs and have really enjoyed the dogs that have lived at both of my host family’s homes.  The dog at my first homestay was afraid of me for several weeks and would always run away from me, but eventually I made friends with him and I’d like to think he was sad to see me leave (I was the only one that really paid attention to him and snuck him treats and showed him affection).  The dogs at my new homestay are friendly and always entertaining and warmed up to me in no time, which I love. 

One of the dogs at my host family's house

One of the things we were taught in PST is how to avoid dog bites.  I’ve realized over and over again why we covered this in our first week of training, because every time I ride my bike I’m chased by at least one dog (usually it’s 3 or 4 at a time though).  The water bottle attached to my bike has become the designated dog water bottle as I use it to squirt the dogs that don’t give up on chasing me and come dangerously close to taking a bite out of my leg (it also turned moldy on the inside from being neglected and left in the sun, and I refuse to try to clean it since I always have another bottle of water with me). 

To my delight I recently found what looked like a golden retriever puppy, and given how much I love golden retriever puppies I couldn’t help but want to steal him and make him mine.  I’m used to these puppies being overly friendly and licking my face to death.  When I tried to play with this puppy he ignored me and walked away.  When I tried to feed him pieces of my ‘chicken’, he grabbed it so harshly from me that he bit into my finger.  I was crushed that this cute little thing could do something like this to me, however I think it was less out of intent to harm and more due to overexcitement about whatever was in my hand.  The next day I reluctantly informed the PC medical staff, and as I suspected they told me to go to the hospital for a rabies shot (we were given 3 initial rabies immunizations during training).  Although it had been more painful than I would have imagined, the bite was small and I wasn’t really concerned about it at all, but there was still a small, miniscule chance that I could die from rabies, so I knew I should probably get the shots.  Everything was halted for the day as my supervisor, his driver, my counterpart and I all piled into my supervisor’s vehicle for the hour and a half trip to the nearest Peace Corps friendly hospital.  Why we needed 4 people for this I’m not sure, but we went, I got the first of 2 required shots, and then we went for steak and coffee before heading home.  I opted not to eat ‘steak’ as I knew it would only be a disappointment (as I’ve found out the hard way about many things I get excited about here….like ‘cheese’ or treats that look like cakes but also have a surprise filling of tuna, corn or beans).  I had to go back 3 days later for the second rabies shot.  Needless to say I’m even more careful around dogs I don’t know now.  As much fun as the rabies roadtrips were (I got a box of doughnuts out of the second rabies roadtrip – a gift from my supervisor’s wife, along with two meals – neither one of them ‘steak’ – and an assortment of fruit and other treats), I’d rather not do it all over again.

Dogs on a school bench during PST 

The one about weird stuff

One of the biggest concerns I had when arriving in Thailand was being able to fit in with the culture in terms of rules and norms and all that stuff.  I wanted to learn all the nuances of Thai culture so I could ‘fit in’ and not be just another offensive American.  I’ve learned a lot and would like to think I can successfully navigate my way through daily life in Thailand while respecting these cultural norms.  In addition to all this, I’ve noticed a lot of things that are so different from what I’m used to that they make me laugh, terrify me, and/or just confuse me.

Traffic laws:  I’d love to know what they are here (or if they exist).  Every time I get in the car to go somewhere I get scared for my life at least once – and this is coming from someone who spent the last 6 years driving in downtown Chicago.  Sure the main highways have lines on them, but they don’t mean anything.  Want to pass someone while oncoming traffic is present? No problem – just make sure you honk at them and/or flash your headlights so they know there’s potential for a head-on collision.  What if you happen to be the oncoming traffic and someone passing is heading straight for you?  Just make sure you swerve off the road giving them enough space to continue passing other cars – oh and don’t worry about the fact that motorbikes use the shoulder and often carry at least 4-5 people and sometimes have a driver that looks about 12 and have their own ways of breaking the non-existent traffic laws.  I would absolutely love to know the requirements for obtaining a license to drive in Thailand.

Naptime:  You know how so many adults complain that they’d love to have naptime implemented in the workplace for adults?  Well Thais love naps.  Naps are the solution for so many things.  Tired at work?  No problem – just lean back in your chair and rest your eyes for a bit.  It’s too hot?  Take a nap!  Just woke up and ate breakfast?  Sounds like it’s naptime!  There’s always time for a nap.  Thais also love hammocks, which are perfect for napping.

Public displays of hygiene:  Thai people will cover their mouth when they’re using a toothpick to get food out of their teeth but then pick their nose in front of a group of people with absolutely no shame.  Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy picking my nose as much as the next Thai person, I just don’t understand the discrepancies between covering a toothpick in your mouth and not covering a finger up your nose.

Farangs (foreigners):  My villages have a fair number of older white males living in them who are married to Thai women.  Whenever people see one of them while we’re at the market the following exchange tends to happen:

Thai person:  Mamie – farang!  Do you know him?

Me:  Nope – I don’t know him (I never look because I never know them)

Thai person:  But you are same same (referring to the fact that we’re both white)

I then try to segue into a discussion about how not all people who look the same are the same, and how people who look different can be similar.  They never seem very interested in this part – probably because my Thai version of this discussion doesn’t make much sense (and sometimes they’re just convinced we’re the same anyway).  Sometimes the person I’m with will go up to this other farang and ask him where he’s from (Norway, Australia, Italy, Germany – everywhere but America).  I guess this happens in America on a more subtle level (thinking all Asians are the same, for example, instead of distinguishing between Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.), but this is the first time I’ve been on this side of things.

Literal meanings:  English has so many different ways of describing the same things.  Americans are too wordy.  Granted my knowledge of Thai language is still somewhat limited, but there are so many words that, literally translated, just make so much sense and make me think that Thai people are in fact very witty and clever.  A few examples:

Bathroom – hong naam (room water)

Bedroom – hong nawn (room sleep)

Ice – naam kaeng (water hard/strong)

Airplane – krueng bin (machine fly – this might be my favorite so far)

I’m convinced that these are the prime examples of why people say the Thai language is easy to learn (I also don’t believe those people).  Some of the most enjoyment I get here is reading the English on clothes.  My personal favorite was a t-shirt that was on a guy who was accompanying all the beauty contestants for the Songkran beauty pageant which said ‘sleep with me free breakfast’ in big bold letters on the front. 

On being subtle:  Thai people will be the first to tell you if something's amiss with your personal appearance.  Although there’s a lot that I still can’t understand, Thais seem to tell it like it is.  Gaining a little weight?  They’ll be the first to point it out.  Getting too tan?  You’re looking like a Thai, and that’s not really a compliment because Thai people look at pale white skin as being more beautiful (go down the beauty aisle in a store and almost everything you see will be advertised as ‘whitening’).  Mosquito bite on your arm?  They’ll tell you about it and touch it and ask if it hurts and tell you how red it is.   My host mom one day told me that in the mornings I look beautiful because my face and skin are white, but in the afternoons I don’t look beautiful because my face is red (usually after a good sweaty bike ride).  Sometimes it’s funny, but if you’re having a rough day and someone comes up to you and says you look fat today, it’s not so funny (well it still kind of is).  They’re also not shy about admitting to their most recent bout of diarrhea….or the foods that give them diarrhea….or asking if you have diarrhea.

Stereotypes:  You know how in America people sometimes assume that Black people are good at basketball and Asian people are really smart? Well Thai people assume I’m here to teach English (among other assumptions about being white).  While I have started teaching English at my office and plan to incorporate it a little into all my activities, I explain that I’m not actually here to teach English and plan to do youth development activities with teens – going into as much detail as my Thai allows.  They usually look a little confused, and then ask me when I can teach their children English.

I think this comprises a good list of things that I love/hate on any given day here.  Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s frustrating, sometimes it’s confusing…but it’s my life now, and it’s a little crazy.