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My last day in my host community

Today is May 15, 2017 at 10 PM sharp, from the time I started writing this. Today has been the most difficult day of my life. I said goodbye to all of my friends today, the teachers and the school, my neighborhood and my host family. The entire day, as I went about my activities, was an endless barrage of flashbacks. Nearly everything I looked at carried some significance in my time here and made me remember even the most trivial of events. I know what it's like to be the one to watch the exchange student go, and that is never easy. Now that the table is flipped, I know what it's like to be the one leaving and it is so, so much harder. Some people would say that culture shock is the most difficult part of an exchange, but that is simply not true. At the same time I'm unfathomably excited to see everyone back home. Today is something I've been dreading since day one, but the day after tomorrow is one I have been anticipating since February.

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Reflections of my last full day in my host community

Today is May 14th 2017 and the post will be going up on May 31st. Today is my last full day in my host community. And while I should be with my host family, right now I’m alone at the park near my house and I’m going to be kind of meandering I guess because I’m using voice typing. Just yesterday it hit me that I only have a few days left in Thailand and I would just like to reflect on some things and let you see my thoughts. I recently realized that I’ve never really been so close with my host family. This is for multiple reasons they are almost always working and when they’re at home they just don’t talk to each other or really anyone for that matter they cook food they eat and then they go back to work or they go to sleep. So despite that I’ve had a good relationship with my host dad, but unfortunately for the vast majority of my exchange he’s been in chonburi working period he comes home either once a month or once every other month for about one or two weeks and then he goes back to chonburi. And to be quite honest and I like have a relationship with my host mother and I host brother comma though I do have someone of relationship with my host brother, I’m only really happy and when my host Dad is around. But there is a bit of a silver lining comma Ayden and Amelia comma my host sisters children comma have been like my true brother and sister throughout my Exchange but they only come for maybe one day a week. Recently I’ve been kind of beating myself up for not moving earlier when I was beginning to struggle with the absence of a family. But at the same time something was keeping the here and just the other day while I was at the old city with the teacher I was helping, I realized what that was. When I volunteered with that teacher I got to make a very positive impact on the local community around my host. While I was with her I asked her how the older kids did on their standardized test in the English part. She said that while nationally the kids don’t do very well generally speaking. The kids I taught universally got 100%. Needless to say I was very proud of this. Anchor that was my project while I was here it was what I did it was what I looked forward to. I amassed over 200 hours of volunteering at that primary school and my work evidently paid off. That’s something to be proud of. Of course I did have some other reasons for staying. One of them was my fear that if I were to change host families that would also mean changing provinces. And I really did not want to do that. Despite my friends really doing anything outside of school which is normal for Thai students they were still really good friends to me. It was one of the last things I wanted to do, to move, despite the false sense of failure I had created by the fact that I never bonded with my host family. I’ve noticed that have changed a lot through my experience. I am able to more fully understand myself and my strengths and weaknesses.

I got to do so many amazing things. I remember when I first got here, the hotel in Bangkok, getting to meet all the other exchange students, seeing my friend pool for the first time in over a year and a noodle shop. I remember arriving at my host Community after A 6 hour long bus ride. Getting to meet my host family for the first time, seeing my school for the first time, meeting my friends for the first time. Little did I know that the exchange was going to be one of the biggest struggles in my life, but one of the best times of my life. Still, looking back I wish that I had done a little bit more. There is so much I’ve yet to see, and so much of the culture I’ve yet to experience. One day I hope to come back. One day I want to fill those cracks of my knowledge of Thailand. I never got to visit the east nor the south. I’m really going to miss Thailand, but to be honest I’m ready to go home.

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That moment when it’s 78° out but your mind thinks it’s 68°. I’m missing the cool temperatures, 100+° on a daily basis is taxing.

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Pictures from Bangkok and the stuff I did around there

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Pictures from Bangkok and the stuff I did around there

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I’ve been very busy for the last three weeks. School’s out, which is good because I have been getting out of the house more now than ever. But there were two things that have stood out the most over these three weeks: my 10 day trip to Bangkok and the Songkran Festival. I went to Bangkok on the 26th of March to stay for 10 days with my friend Poom’s family. For the majority of the time I spent there, I was actually with one family member or another doing things in the city because Poom had to go to his classes at Thamasat University. The less notable things were going to malls, the gym and restaurants. However, there were three main things I did in Bangkok that were quite the experience. First, Poom’s university was having a charity event that he was pretty excited for. And it was quite impressive! The location of the event was by far the most picturesque place on the campus. When facing the stage, you had Chao Praya river to your right, a really cool building to your left and the school garden behind you. I got a really good picture of the river and the buildings on the other side that will be posted above. There was also a pretty famous singer there, a student at Thamasat that either won or came close to winning The Voice Thailand. Next, Poom’s aunt took me to the Amphawa Floating Market. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very busy day because there was supposed to be people selling food from canoe-like boats, but I could count the number of people doing that on my fingers. Luckily there were a lot of other shops on the raised bank of the canal. Before we left the market we decided to go to two more places, a famous temple and a mud flat. The temple was probably the most unique one I have ever seen because its shrine room was built inside of a tree! Not only that, but they had statues of a muay thai fight which were a little odd. Turns out that it was a sort of time-lapse of a fight, in statue form. Finally, the mud flatts which were a little boring at a glance. There was a low-laying docklike thing to walk out on, which was maybe fifty feet long. The mud was practically alive with the number of snails and small crabs that were hiding in the small puddles of water in the mud. It was cool to watch how the people working there harvested the ‘worm shell muscles’ they were after. Apparently they poured diluted lye onto the mud, which irritates the muscles and causes them to surface. It might not be very environmentally friendly, but apparently it’s quite harmless. Later, we stopped at one of Bangkok's most popular restaurants. I ate a fantastic pulled pork sandwich that had a toasted bun, pickled Jalepenos and coleslaw. Not exactly 'Thai' but it was on the menu and I had to see how good it was. Third, every Sunday they have a family day where they just have a huge dinner together, watch some tv, talk and play games. Poom had three little cousins who were really shy around me at first, but by the end of the day, they loved me. We went to the community pool which was devoid of people and swam a bit. All but one of his cousins couldn't swim so they had floaties and a round inflatable raft. Whenever they got on the raft, they would try to spray me with water guns, so I would swim under it, grab the side and spin it as fast as I could without making them fall off. Needless to say, they had a lot of fun. After swimming, it was time for dinner. Poom's grandmother and aunts made a smorgasbord of delicious food, that also included leftover crab curry from the seafood restaurant I went to the previous day. (It was just as good as fresh. Delicious.) Everything from laab moo to thai roast pork. If you didn't leave the table full, you should have been ashamed of yourself because the food was amazing and took all day to prepare. After dinner, I played Tekken with Poom and his dad. Around eight oclock we decided to go back to the house and get ready to do a video chat with my mom, who Poom hadn't spoken to in a while. That day was filled with mixed feelings because while I was having a fantastic time, it simultaneously reminded me a lot of the parties we have at my grandmother's house for all occasions, back in the US. I was pretty homesick all day, but I was alright by morning. Soon, it was time to go back to Sukhothai, and while it was bittersweet to leave Bangkok, I knew I had Songkran to look forward to. And it was truely something worth being excited over. On the first day of Songkran, my host dad arrived back home from work in the south with a bunch of his family members, his parents and his siblings. Everyone helped clean the house, as mom wanted to do some spring cleaning. It didn't take very long considering there were seven people or so helping. After we were done, we ate lunch and then went to Wat Krachong, the nearby temple, where the first interesting Songkran thing was happening. There were some singers on a stage that were just okay, but everyone was buying these gallon bags of what was apparently orange koolade or something, but nobody was drinking it. Aunt Thip gave me 20฿ (about 66 cents) to go buy one. It turned out that it was colored water. But what I didn't expect was when about 30-40 very elderly people were seated in a row and people started pouring the water onto them. And shortly after that, the monks came and we did it again. I later asked my host dad why we did that and he said that it's jusr a tradition to pour water on the eldest members of your community and the monks of the local temple in order to cool them down. No symbolism, no show of immense respect (except for also pouring it on a small Buddha statue). Just trying to cool them down. After the temple, I went to the market with mom and two of the cousins, where they had turned the center of town into one gigantic water fountain. We got there just in time for the end of the parade, and I had my big toe ran over trying to splash water on a Buddha statue, which I had seen several people do, but I was alright. Just hurt for a minute and it might as well have never happened. Before and after the parade, people were running around spraying eachother with water guns and smearing colored powder on people's faces. As a foreigner, I was a target for the powder and every time I set foot in the festival area, my face would soon be covered in the powder. The next day, we poured water on the eldest of my host family, my host mothers mom who is nearly one hundred years old, then I went to the festival with M, Ayden and Amelia, this time I had a water gun and was able to have a bit more fun. Instead of a parade, they had a band playing who obviously didn't know much English because they played Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day and Yellow by Coldplay, both of which are pretty sad songs and contrasted with the mood of the festival. They, however, were really good and did the original songs justice. Finally, on the third day, I went with my friend Mick. We both bought a small bucket and colored powder and enjoyed that part of the festival. I think that most people with the powder kinda pick and choose the most attractive people to smear it on, but I just went up to random people or did some walk-by powderings which weren't always exactly welcome, but everyone was in good spirit and getting some whether you like it or not is part of the fun. As expected, nobody got angry at me. After the festival, Mick decided to have me over for the night. We mostly played video games and watched youtube videos because we were exhausted from being in town for six hours, though we didn't go to bed until three A.M. These few weeks have been some of the best of my entire exchange. Certainly the best since New Year.

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Top: Me, Teacher Nida and the 6th Graders Bottom: Me and Teacher Nida Pictures taken by students on the last day.

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Yesterday was my last day as a teacher at the primary school near my house. I’ve been teaching there as a volunteer since mid-July and I have taught for just over two hundred hours. In that time, my students massively improved in their English ability, going from virtually no knowledge to being able to carry out a simple conversation. I’m very proud to know I was the catalyst in their learning. Every Thursday would go relatively the same: Wake up at 7 am, get breakfast, eat at the school, play soccer with the students until their assembly, get the computer ready so I can use the smart board and projector, teach the 6th graders until 10:30, teach the 5th graders until 11:30, help serve the students lunch, go off campus with the teacher I was helping to get lunch, return and have around a half hour of down-time, teach the 6th graders until one, and finally, draw pictures with the first graders that are labeled, such as a fire truck or an ice cream cone. Between December and late February, I wasn’t the only volunteer teacher though. There was an American exchange student with Rotary living down the road from me and I invited her to teach with me because I was sure the school and students would appreciate it, and she had said she needed some volunteer time. This was a good thing because we were able to divide and conquer most days and teach some to more students. Unfortunately, she was having some trouble with her host family so she moved to the Lampang Provence in mid-February. Teaching at the primary school was an amazing experience for me. I have such a better perspective on what being a teacher is like, and while I enjoy doing it as a volunteer, teaching isn’t something I could do as a career. Regardless, I am glad I was able to put my work in. It feels good to know you’ve made a lasting positive influence on somebody’s life. I’m going to miss it, though I do plan on visiting the school once more in a couple months, before I return to the US.

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Today is my last day of school, or at least the last one that mattered for education alone. But for the current school year in Thailand, it's my last day. The school doesn't do anything special for it, no unusual assembly, no classroom celebrations, just a normal exam day that you happen to have a two month break after. But this week has hit me in a bit of a soft spot. It's made me finally realized that I'm in the final quarter of my exchange. I only have a few months left, much of which, I won't be able to see my friends. Believe me, I will try to do something with them as often as humanly possible without being annoying. I've already had to say my goodbyes to one Thai person, a student teacher at my school, Jay, who I would often joke is my "slightly annoying older brother." I'll also be done teaching at the primary school soon. After doing the math, I've figured out that I have volunteered there for nearly two hundred hours, tomorrow will have my two hundreth for sure. I plan on making a vlog about that, but I'm not exactly sure how to do that with what I have at my disposal. I think I have some tough times ahead of me...

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Paratrooper gear, better picture of me steering the raft, and Chiang Mai Hard Rock Café, which I did not eat at.

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Third Orientation

  Well, it’s February and I’m seven months into my exchange, that means it was time for another Orientation. This time, with all of the students in Thailand, not just the Northern group like last time.

   On Tuesday, I left Sukhothai at 9:30 AM to the six hour bus ride to Chiang Mai. For the greater part of the ride, I was just listening to music or playing games on my phone. For the other part, I was eating the junk food I bought: Cheap Pringle-style chips and a jar of Nutella. I ate all of both of them, and later proceeded to joke about how ‘healthy’ I am, but hey, it’s not like I’m eating that every day.

   I arrived in Chiang Mai at around three thirty, and waited to be met by my chaperone, who would take me to the hotel. I was the first non-Chiang Mai area student to get there, it would be another two or so hours before anyone else would show up, which was okay because that provided plenty of time to use the pool. Those of us, about eight people, who were there by 6:30 were able to go to a food market to get dinner. Everyone else had to get McDonalds delivered, I think. I managed got some spicy broth in my eye, but thankfully the pain went away quickly. After that, everyone else arrived and we just hung out in the hotel rooms.

   Wednesday, after going to bed around one am because there were constantly people in my room until then, we were instructed to meet at the “Geneva” ballroom for meetings at 8:30. The first full day of orientation is what I call the “blah” day because we don’t do very many interesting things. Just talk about stuff, play language games and have five coffee breaks.

   Thursday was much more interesting. The leaders told us that we were to divide into groups based on the means of transportation we used to get to the camp. Bus riders get to go on a bus, and everyone else went in two vans. Luckily, the bus just so happened to be a karaoke bus, so we sang songs all the way to the elephant sanctuary. The first thing at the sanctuary we did was go on a four kilometer (2.5 mile) traditional bamboo raft ride. About half way through the ride, we were in a calmer area of water and the guy steering the raft in the front offered his pike to us students. Everyone was afraid they’d hit something or fall off the boat, but there weren’t many obstacles in sight and I knew the raft was very sturdy, so I took the offer. Like I guessed, there were’t many obstacles, I only had to maneuver around one thing. It was pretty easy. Next, we watched the elephant show, where there was one annoyed elephant that kept on growling, then we rode elephants and went to lunch.

   The next thing we did was go to a military base in to do a mysterious “tower jumping” activity. This was something everyone, including me, was anxious about because of the ambiguity about what it really was. It was zip lining, but not the typical kind. For this, they had to put you in paratrooper gear and teach us the proper jumping technique; it was a parachuting simulator that you drop about twenty feet before the line catches you and carries you about one hundred yards before you land in a sand pit. The instructor told us that the tower was built to conquer fear, because it was designed to be the height that causes the most fear response in most people, thirty four feet. “Any higher or any lower, it’s not scary,” he told us. He also said that the girls had to go first because it is more difficult to properly put the gear on a guy, for reasons, so we had to go to the sand pit to help return the zip line cord to the tower. When it was finally my turn, I did it with “very good form” and didn’t hesitate when I was told to jump, which most people did. I did end up getting hurt a bit for the mentioned reason why the guys had to go second, which prompted me to not do it again, which I would have done, but I stuck the landing really well and did not loose my balance at all.

   Finally, for dinner we went to the night bazaar, which is different from the night market. They had a burger king there, and I foolishly decided to eat there, but it was my first burger in four months, so I don’t really care. I only bought a Sukhothai FC jersey, but I got the chance to do my first night market price negotiation, which I didn’t prompt, but I ended up getting the price down from 500 to 320 baht.

   After that, I found out we were allowed to go back to the Geneva room from the previous day to do whatever we wanted. We ended up playing games. I stuck around until about ten thirty, when I got tired. (Ten o’clock, but nobody cared) Unfortunately, Hamish, my roommate was nowhere to be found and it took me an hour to find him. In that time I found out I had cut my knee pretty badly somehow, but did not feel it, and so it was covered in dried blood. So I was walking around the halls looking for Hamish for an hour with a bloody knee. He turned out to be in a room across the hall, but was using the toilet when I checked...

   Finally, Friday, we went to Wat Prahathat Doi Suthep in the mountains, and then to the Umbrella Village after lunch. Not going to go into much detail as I’ve done both of these things before, but I got a dragon painted onto the back of my Kindle.

   The interesting thing we did do on Friday was go to dinner at a traditional northern restaurant where you sit on the ground. Other than the sitting on the ground part, the food was mostly typical. We didn’t know, however, that it was dinner and a show, so about half way through the meal, they started playing various traditional Thai musics from Northern, Essan and Central and had dances to them. They also did a dance from a famous book, which I forget the context, but they had four women in a traditional fish costume, and one guy in the monkey costume and they did an interesting dance, which had a story, but I was too confused to understand it. It was very interesting though. The last thing they did was a the one dance I know how to do, which is from Central. They invited everyone to join them, but it ended up being a disorganized cluster of people not knowing what they were doing, walking in a circle.

   At the end of the day, everyone was partying, but I didn’t join because I didn’t find a room that you couldn’t walk in, so I just watched a movie in somebody else’s hotel room, who said I could. Kinda sold myself short, but I don’t particularly like big crowds. 

    Saturday I went home on the bus, and got home around 4:30.

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8GB SD card is not working when I plug it into my computer. Had to painstakingly copy the pictures to my camera and onto another SD, only managed to get the three most important ones before I decided not to break my camera’s SD slot. Anyway.  Top: Bamboo rafting Middle: Wat Prahathat Doi Suthep Bottom: Me maneuvering the bamboo raft, only student on the raft who was able to do so, everyone else was afraid they’d crash it or fall off. 

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What am I going to come home to?

To be honest, the news doesn’t make me depressed anymore, rather, it terrifies me.

Because I am away from home, I have to watch things happening back home as an outsider, and following President Trump’s inauguration, I have seen nothing but absolutely terrible things from both sides of the political spectrum. 

Here are some of the things I have found alarming:

#1. The left now advocates for violence against those whom they disagree with. While the person in question was allegedly a neo-nazi, assaulting somebody is never okay, however, now the left seems to think it is.

#2. DAPL Go ahead. Trump has given the go-ahead on the dapl, thus jeopardizing the lives of tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands.

#3: EPA defunding. You know what happens when there are no environmental restrictions? A mass lung cancer epidemic. That’s what.

#4: The Greenpeace “Resist” Banner. I just watched a live-stream of this on facebook. Not the right message to be sending to all of the violent leftists we have now. The banner should have said “protest peacefully” to be justifiable.

#5: Abortion Issue Resurgence. Just read the book series “Unwind” to find out why I would find that alarming, given the current political climate.

I want everyone who reads this to try to empathize with me for a moment. You’re in a country who only knows about yours, what they see on the news. You are constantly asked what you think about what is going on, and who you supported during the election. You feel conflicted because you want to say positive things about your home, but at the same time, you don’t want to lie to somebody’s face about your thoughts. You’re terrified as you watch what appears to be your country tearing itself apart from the inside.

Imagine how I feel. That is what I deal with on a daily basis at the moment.

America, I have one question for you: Will you allow me to return to a warm, safe home? 

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This is gonna be a bit of a small post. In Thailand they have a few seemingly random, unique holidays, and this weekend has a couple of them. The only ones I am sure about are Children’s day and Teacher’s day. On children’s day, it is custom to give young children fruit to eat as a gift. And Teacher’s day is a day off for the teachers, and thus from school. Children’s day was today, the 14th and teacher’s day is on this Monday.

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It's going to be very strange to people when I instinctively wai as a greeting when I return.

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6 Months

Well everyone, I have officially been gone for a half of a year! It does not feel like it has been so long. Ever since I arrived, my perception of time has been speed up in such a way that months feel like weeks. I can't explain it, but it doesn't feel like I've been here all that long. In the beginning of my exchange, the only Thai I knew was Sa wa dee, Pom hue, mai pen rai and ka phom kap, and while those might not be accurate romantinizations of the respective phrases, they mean hello, I'm hungry, don't worry about it and thank you. Currently, my ability in the language is comparable to that of a three year old, which is better than I hoped for. I am able to recognise the sound of about 90% of the consonants, however the wall I run into is vowels. Word and sentence structure is almost incomperable to English, so the point I'm at now is extremely good for my ammount of time here, according to some foreign teachers who have been here for years and are still clueless when it comes to reading. As for my relationship with my host family, I am close to all of them, except mom. She, of course, is very kind, but her demenor makes me feel like she is perpetually angry with me. When I say things to her, she often says nothing, and if she does reply, it's a short and simple reply. M and Dad say that's just the way she is, and I understand that, but I constantly feel like I've done something wrong, regardless. It's okay though, I just need to remember to remind myself that there is nothing wrong. At school, I'm thriving. I have plenty of friends, and I do have a bit of an inner circle that I spend most of my time with. I'm taking math, physics, thai, Muay Thai, Thai dancing and soon I will be learning to play a traditional Thai instrument. I am still teaching at the primary school, only now I have an extra pair of hands because there's a Rotary student that lives closer to the school than I do. I went to a luncheon with Rotary in October becausea teacher at my school invited me and Emma, the Itallian student who was also at school, and I met the Rotary student there. We didn't see eachother again until late November when she visited my school, and a teacher mentioned that I taught at the primary school, which prompted me to invite Julia to join me. She's only gone twice though, which is not a big deal. In these six months I have learned an incomprehensible number of lessons, but there are six that stand out to me the most. 1. Things just work out. Don't get too worried or stressed put about something because chances are it will not be as bad as you think. 2. You can't make things happen simply by asking once. This especially applies to when I want to do stuff with my friends. You must have a plan. You want to go to the mall? What will you do there? What movie will you watch? What will you eat? Who will pay? If you suggest to do something, have a plan about how to do it. 3. Don't second guess yourself. If you have the opporotunity to do something, just do it. 4. Guava Juice is the miracle cure for stomach illess. If you feel like you're gettong traveler's sickness, get a one liter bottle of guava juice, not from concentrate, and drink it over the course of three days. 5. When talking to elders, don't agree with them by saying 'uh-huh' in Thai culture, that is impolite. 6. The tangible is more reliable than speculation. If somebody tells you something about a culture, you need to see it first hand. Until you witness it, it can be assumed to be incorrect, whether or not it is a good thing. If you are unable to experience something yourself, seek someone who has.

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Merry late Christmas everyone! I'm five days late, but I wanted to wait for my christmas lesson at the primary school I teach at on thursdays. I did celebrate Christmas, dispite what most people would think. My host aunt, Thip used to have an American husband, and he, not wanting to forsake the tradition, would hold a party with an open invitation to all the foreigners living on the street, as well as any others they invite or who just want to come. Luckily, in spite of their recent divorce, Aunt Thip still likes the excuse to have people over to her house and eat a lot of food. And that is what we did. David from South Africa bought a leg of lamb and roasted it to absolute perfection, but we were forced to use a convection oven because the acual oven turned out to be broken. However, that effected absolutely nothing. We ate around 3 o'clock. Half way through the meal, my host mom arrives with thai-style hot dogs. We had lamb, mashed potatoes, grean beans and carrots, gravy, rice and hot dogs. After that, we played cards for a bit, then it was time for the gift exchange. I didn't know we were doing that, so I didn't get anything, but since Ash insisted on filming it, like he did with almost everything else, while narrating it in such a way that he could say 'action' an inhuman number of times, so I took his place. I was seventh to go. Not wanting to be the one who didn't ring a present but took the biggest gift, I chose the poorly wrapped floppy gift. It was a women's t-shirt that was two sizes too small. But since we all got a chance to swap gifts once weather the person you swap gifts with wants to do it or not, I swapped it with Dino, the Filipino teacher for a tin of waffle shaped cookies. I went home to skype with the fam shortly afterword. Yesterday was the Christmas lesson at the primary school I teach at. Since most traditions are very similar to Thanksgiving, i just told them the differneces and showed them Merry Christmas Charlie Brown, this concluding the Charlie Brown lessons.