Thai Culture

Yeah, this is two back to back posts. Sorry.
I thought I'd give you a quick glimpse into what it might be like living here among the Thai people. I love the culture and the people are great, but there definitely is a different mentality towards life than there is back in America. It's a very "no worries" attitude out here, where there is no fear of the cold weather and food is cheap. Thai people have a lot of patience, and live in the moment that they are presently in, rather than looking ahead to what they will be doing next, as we tend to do.

You know that spacey person that never seems to know what's going on, but is never bothered by it. The kind that forgets about meetings and never seems to pay attention to the time. Yeah yeah, I realise that some of you are thinking that I just described myself. Well, working among the Thais seems like being in a country that is full of those people. Living in a country like that might sould great if that's your attitude towards life, but it's not as easy as you might think when everyone else is thinking the same way. For instance, you go to a restaurant and order some food. It's not that uncommon for them to forget your food, or make the wrong thing. The reason...they never seem to write anything down when you order. When you ask to collect the money, they come over, look at your plates and start doing the math in there head. And there's a lot of times when they are wrong, not intentionally, but come on, they can't be expected to remember everything your ordered and correctly do the math for everyone that's coming to eat some dinner that night. They got a buisness to run.

Thai people always seem to be late, but if you show up late you're usually the only one that came late. Meeting times change on a whim and noone ever seem to understand what is going on, but that's not so bad when you don't feel a need to know what's going on. I used to think that my problems was the language barrier, but it doesn't matter what language you speak to some people, they probably won't remember too much of what it is you were trying to tell them and ask again later...or just do something they think you probably wanted. Asking Thai people for directions is like a form of gambling. You're always going to get an answer, you just have to go and find out if it was the right one or not.

Friday we had a staff meeting where the director told us that it wasn't going to take long, not like the last one that lasted 3 hours. Since the meeting is in Thai and doesn't pertain to the volunteers we said if it was going to be long we would just leave after the introduction. He said it would probably only be an hour. 4 Hours later (after everyone in the room had fallen asleep several times) the meeting had finally ended.

What made me think of this tonight? We were visiting our friend who lives on an island by our house tonight. She invited three of us over for dinner since the two belgium people are leaving back home thursday morning. We showed up and she asked why everyone else didn't want to come eat too. I thought it would've been rude to show up with 8 people when she invited 3 (who know's how much food they had prepared) but I guess it was rude not to invite everyone. Then they waited till 10 o'clock to let us know that the boats stopped running at 9:30. I don't think they had stopped to think about that till then. They asked if we were willing to wait half hour for her aunt because she was coming to the island on a boat and we could ride it back. No sweat, but if you know anything about the culture, a half hour never means half hour. Hour and a half later we were on our way back to shore.

I got laughed at the other day by two girls who were wearing bags on their heads.

Work again!

Back to work as usual here. Last week was really nice because it was the first whole week we’ve worked since the 25th of March or something like that. Our schedule has been riddled with retreats and public holidays. Not only did I get to work Monday thru Friday, we also took a group of kids to an international school in Bangkok Saturday for a fun fair they had for kids around the city. The fun fair lasted all day, including magicians, old guys trying to rock, and free food. I ate a cheese dog…not a big fan.
The six days of work seemed to be a nice change to the several weeks in a row with days off for the many public holidays that Thailand recognizes.

Last week we took some of the kids to a nearby mall for the day. You’d think there would be a plan for having them there, but there wasn’t. We just walked around all day and looked at things. Towards the end of the day we had a session in the karaoke rooms on the third floor. The kids really loved the trip, despite how it seems it might have been boring for them. I though we would give them money and teach them shopping or something like that. Realistically though, the kids never get to go out and experience these things so they really enjoyed being there among the sights and sounds. I think we had like nine or ten kids in wheelchairs there. I think the only disappointed person on the day would have to be the very bored looking wheelchair saleswoman at a booth in the center of the mall. She must have seen our large pack of wheelchairs coming and thought the gods had been smiling down on her. I don’t think I wanna know what was going through her head when we stopped at the art booth right next to her, then passed her by as we walked/rolled off to the rest of the stores. Oh well.
It’s been storming a lot here the last week. Some kind of nearby cyclone I hear. Last wed. there was a good sized storm to come through. Knocked off part of the roof to the movie theater by our place. It was disappointing seeing as how the power was out at our house so we walked through the rain to go see a movie instead of sitting in the dark. Apparently they don’t show movies when there is water pouring into the theater through a hole in the roof.

Change

With the Thai new years giving everyone Monday through Wednesday off of work, we started back up yesterday for a two day work week. Not too much to write about the two days at work. Heather, the girl that came out here with me is leaving on Tuesday morning back to America. That means I’m over half my stay here. The two people from Belgium that are living here are leaving on the first of May, which is coming up pretty quick too. In the last two weeks the house went from having 6 people in it to having 12 people in it. After the first of May we’ll be back to 7, but a new group. Things here tend to change really quick with people moving in and out all the time. After being here for about a month I was feeling like things were settling down into a rhythm, but after about a month of calm, things started changing again and will probably continue to do so until I leave. I think I enjoy the changes…

Happy New Years!

Songran is officially here. We’re celebrating the Thai new years right now, which is every year from the 13th through the 15th of April. It’s one of the hottest times of the year for Thailand and pretty much everyone across the country gets really excited for the holiday. It’s been in the upper nineties with the “feels like” temp up in the hundreds for the last couple weeks. I believe it’s been cooler here in Thailand this year so I’m thankful for that. This is the most anticipated holiday in Thailand and most of the people go home to see their families if they can get away from working.

The new years is pretty much celebrated with a nation wide water fight that lasts three days…only it’s more like 4 days this years because the holiday officially started on Sunday, but Saturday was really stinkin hot. Not only do you have people splashing you with water everywhere you go, but you also have a muddy mix of talcum powder and water that people spread across your face. It’s quite messy around here. Also, everyone wears Hawaiian shirts…I’m not sure why, but it is a nice touch.

Sunday we ran into one of our Thai friends while we were on our way to Bangkok to celebrate, and Beer (the name of our friend who is the staff coordinator for CCD) said that here family had a pickup truck and asked if we wanted to go around town in the back of it. Of course we do. We had about 12 people in the back of this truck (basically it’s a ford ranger super cab) along with a trash can full of water, some buckets and super soakers. We would drive up the roads and people would stop the truck by dancing in front of it while we would engage their friends in a water fight. Then we would drive along to the next roadside party. Because of the traffic jams we didn’t get home till around 10 that night.
Last night we went into the city to Silom Center. I had stayed in a Christian guesthouse in the area a couple times before when I was here. The area looked like times square on new years with the addition of water and white mud everywhere. We walked up and down the street for a couple hours smearing the mud on people’s faces and getting soaked. There wasn’t too many white people around which made me enjoy it more. Getting a cab back at 12:30 at night was difficult since we were very messy and had to go to the outskirts of the city, but the 2 Thai friends we were with helped us out with that. One more day of water fights to go until everything should return to normal for a while. Sorry I didn’t get any pictures of this holiday, but it’s hard enough just trying to keep my money dry when I go outside.

Staff Retreat

Yeah, I know it’s been over a week since I’ve posted anything. Apologies once again. After the last post, we spent 3 days at work (two of which I was painting the building in the village) and then the volunteers all took of for a bit of rest. The rest was really nice seeing as we went to a small island near Bangkok. I think it was good timing for the rest, but it possibly came at a hectic time. It marks the halfway point in my stay here, and two of the volunteers are in their last days. Personally it was nice to be able to spend some time away from Bangkok reflecting on the previous couple months and preparing for the second half. It was also a nice getting to know the other volunteers away from work and a crowded house, and say goodbye to the others. The trip to the island was however jammed right between the retreat we took the kids on (previous post) and the staff retreat that we left for on Tuesday morning.

Tuesday we were up before 5 am for CCD’s annual staff retreat. It was a 12 hour bus ride up to the northern part of Thailand near the Myanmar border. The area around the border between Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand is known as the opium triangle. There are also several villages in the Thailand side composed of people from different ethnicities tucked away in the mountains. Wednesday we took a trip to the Myanmar border where the staff crossed over for shopping at the markets there. I only have a single entry visa so I stayed back with some other volunteers to see the sights on the Thai side. Thursday we took a three hour hike through the jungle and ended up at a small waterfall where we were able to swim if we wanted. I’ve been on a trip through the jungle up there before and didn’t like it because it was a rather touristy trip that left me feeling like I just experienced a commercialized part of the Thai jungle. This was nothing like that. We hiked for an hour and a half up the mountain/hill through the jungle till we arrived at a small waterfall that seemed hidden from everyone. After swimming for a bit we hiked our way back down. I did manage to step through the trunk of a dead tree, effectively placing my entire foot into a next of fire ants. All I can say about that is it hurt. I’m glad it was right next to the waterfall.
The evenings were filled with worship among the staff, preaching from some guy at the bible college we were staying at, staff games, and new staff initiation. As far as the initiation goes, I won’t show any pictures of what happened seeing as how the volunteers count as new staff too. I will say though that the eels I stepped on while I was blindfolded made a tasty dinner the following night. Friday we took the bus all the way back to Bangkok where we have a three day weekend (some kind of Buddhist holiday on Monday) which gives me some peace and quiet to catch up on my work here. It’s good to be home again. Don’t forget to check the pictures link on the side where I’ll be adding some new pics!