Gratong Day

Nov. 17

Yesterday we celebrated some festival here in Thailand called Gratong day….or something like that. It was pretty cool to see. Basically they take these little rafts, or graton’s made of styrofoam, or something floaty, and place candles and maybe gifts on them and float it down the river. It’s a Buddhist tradition so we didn’t take part, but just went to see it. It was amazingly crowded but really fun to experience. They float the Gratong down the river as a prayer offering I think. I keep hearing different things about why they do it. I hear it is an offering to the god of the river for any sins they may have committed against the river, such as littering in it, etc. Without any disrespect to the festival, I couldn’t help but notice the irony of asking forgiveness for littering in the river by having an entire city float styrofoam down it.
In other news, I think that living here is starting to wear on me a bit. The people and the culture is great, but going every day for the last 2 months not being able to understand when people talk or what is going on is getting a little annoying. For instance, yesterday morning one of the ladies came into work and said “so you’re going with Pueng tonight to the festival right?” This was the first I had heard of these plans so I said “huh?” To which she replied “Pueng told me you were going with her tonight.” To which I replied “oh…I guess I am. What time are we going?” She told me at 5. OK, Then after work I stopped by to see Pueng and ask her where we were meeting and TakTan had me drive her to the place that Sarah works to see her and the other people there. Apparently Sarah was entered into a beauty pageant and had just found out that afternoon. 30 seconds before she went on stage the lady that entered her told her that she had to do some Thai dance while there (of which she had no idea how to do), and the press was there also filming. That’s funny. After some more confusion we end up going to the festival at around 7 o’clock and coming back at half past 1 am.
It seems pretty common to hear about meetings and things while talking to staff by hearing them casually drop the information into the conversations. Today while talking to Sam he quickly said, “Anyways, I’m going to see you tomorrow after you get off work because you’re coming to the office for a meeting.” I need a vacation from all this confusion. Most things that should be very simple become so difficult without the understanding of the culture and the language. In other news, I saw the new Harry Potter tonight. It was good. I also found out today that I’m going to Phukket in a couple weeks to help with the children affected by the Tsunami. This will be a blessing I think because the Tsunami relief all came at once but now has died off a lot. I’m really glad for the opportunity. It was set up by the Friendship foundation people that we had the meeting with last weekend. I’m starting to understand I think what those meetings with them has been about.