Saturday, January 30

At 5:30 am we left sirirat's house for our big day trip to Chiang Mai. I was relaly excited to see the city and had read about it in my guidebook. Wehn i first got to Thailand I had told sirirat that I really wanted to see the elephant reservation there if we could go and I was hoping we would get a chance to see it while we were there. We dropped her nephew Denoi off at his school for a field trip and Sudaporn ( her sister), Gam (her neice), and I drove the 4 hours to Chiang Mai. The drive was gorgeous, through a hilly beautiful countryside. We pulled over tot he side fo the road on the way there and sudaporn shouted across the street to a vendor selling what looked like sticks. She exhanged a few baht for a bag of them. It was sticky rice mixed with pumpkin and coconut milk, stuffed inside fo bamboo and burned. Delivious. When we got there we went directly to church. (seriously). By the time the 3 hours service was over, my nails we sparkling clean. sirirat's brother was there and he took us to eat lucnh at his house in the mountains. It was gorgeous and the view was stunning. After that, Sirirat told me it was time to go home. I was baffled. We came all the way to Chiang Mai to go to church? On the way back we stopped at a hotspring right off the highway that looked sort of like a slimey shallow pond with lots of locals selling keyshains with the name of the hotsprings on them. We also stopped at the white temple. It was closed so we coudln't go inside but I took a quick picture. Gam and Sudaporn waited in the car. the temple looked liek it was carved out of ice in a fairytale where the wicked ice queen ould have lived. I liked it. Then we stopped at the night baazar in Chiang Rai. The streets were filled with people selling food, trinkets, and clothes. Above the strets were strung green lanterns and the full moon lit everything. The smells alone were intoxicating. Every 10 feet was a new one. We bought a few different things to taste. One was a really thin tortilla filled with something that looked like dried grass shavings mixed with hemp rope. I was skeptical with sirirat promised me it was "yummy yummy!" It was. The grass was dried sugar cane shavings and it tasted sweet and melted when it touched my toungue.

Friday January 29

Since there was no school today ( atudy day for the students), Pen's daughter Nit had promised to take me to work with her. she worked as a muci teacher, teaching piano lessons. We were to leave at 10 she told me the night before. I woke up early to make breakfast with Pen. She was stoked on making pancakes with me and had gotten a mix special. We ate them drizzled with fresh honey her father had made from the bees he kept on his farm. A man from korea but now living in chiang mai came over to talk to pen. he was teaching a seminar on family values and christianity. The conversation quickly turned to only Thai so I brought my book outside. Nit came out around 11 to tell me she was sick and wasn't goign to work. sirirat came to pick me up shortly after that and brought me back to her house for lunch. Sirirat had to rest in the afternoon. She was exhuasted and had been sleeping at the hospital all week. Her neice Gam had been in the hospital with a stomach bug and was now fine. I found the internet cafe and caught up a bit on emails i hadn't been able to read all week. At 4 I went and met the kids from the orphanage as they got out fo school. They ran up to me and hugged me excitedly. I had missed them. They walked back to sirirat's with me and hung out for a bit. Sirirat gave me a bunch of projects to start working on. Designing a card for the orpahage, helping make some posters with the kids for presentations, etc. I was happy to have a job and got right to it. She showed me some articles on child sex trafficking she had written as part of her dissertation on her computer and I was fascinated. I didn't realize that Thailand was the sex traficking capital of the world. Some of the kids from the orphanage had been involved. I showed her my art website and she began introducing me to people as as famous artist. I laughed. At dinner I finally figured out who sirirat's dad reminds me of (it had been bothering me since I got to thailand.) He looked exactly liek the actor from the last king of scottland. Except his eyes were a little more slanty. And when he ate and his lips stuck out, he looked like sebastian from the little mermaid.

Thursday, January 28

I woke up early this morning with the mistaken assumption that we woudl leave for school at 7 like we had the day before. I took ashwoerd, got dressed, adn was ready to help make breakfast by 6:30. Despite the fact that Pen was already up and in the kitchen ( her husband leaves early to go work on the farms), she told me to go back to sleep, we didn't have to leave until 8 today. Breakfast at 7:30. I was wide awake so I just read until 7:15 to make sure Pen didn't cook without me. I didn't want her to feel like she had to serve me food. I was too late though anyway. " Breakfast ready!" she said enthusistically as I walked in. She had poured me a bowl of cereal, something that resembled cornflakes but didn't taste like them and some toast with the crust cut off . I cut up the banana she handed m and put it in my cereal trying to work up the will of eating the enormous amount of food in front of me. "American breakfast!" she said proudly. I nodded. Pen's daughter Nit (about 35 yo) came in to talk with me while I was eating breakfast to practice her english. She kept looking to her mom for help with words but her mother's enligsh was just as bad as hers.

I headed over to school with Pen who headed right up to her office. I went in search of someone who could tell me what was going on and what i could do to be useful. There wasn't anything. The teachers were all just hanging out, talking on their cell phones, and plucking white hairs from each other's heads while the students took down the tents and cleaned up from the night before. I tried to help the students disassemble tents.. something I was at least familiar with. When that was all finsihed there ws sa large closing ceremony where they sang, recited, and took down the flags. On looked at me. "finish" she said. "You can go home now." It was only noon. I clarified that nothing else was going on in the afternoon and I shoudln't come back. "fre time, you." she told me. I waved goodbye and started to walk back. A car with dark tinted windows pulled up next to me. I coudln't tell who was inside but I didn't recognize the car and took a few steps back in case it was the creeper it seemed to be. The window was stuck so he opened the passenger side door to talk to me. The man inside was American. I had to take a step closer to see through the door. "I'm Christopher," he said. " I run the dormitories at the school, Pon Pen told me about you." I sighed. relieved. She had told me about him too. "What are you doing now?" He asked. He wanted me to come back to his house with him to meet his wife, ester. It was so wonderful to hear english! I told him twice as I got in the car. He filled me in on his frustrations with the education system here and told me he and ester had come to live her 15 years about as christian missionaries. Ester was from Holland and very friendsly . They had two kids who wern't home. We chatted for a few minutes. they didn't invite me in but told me to drop by anytime. It was getting close to lunch and Pen had said she woudl meet me back at the house for lunch so I said goodbye and walked back, promising to visit.

When I got back to the house, the doors were locked so I went over to Singyam's house next door and hung out for a little while. Singyam was tutoring someone in Thai. Another American! Billy was about 65 and he and his wife had moved here in July to (shocker) spread some christianity in Thailand. He looked like Mr Feeny on Boy Meets World. I couldn't believe I hadn't seen a single foreigner in a week and had just met two in the last hour. Billy told me to come by his house anytime and we coudl pray together. excellent. We talked for a few more minutes until Pen drove up in her car.

We made bok choy and rice and fried eggs and some soup she had bought in a little plastic baggie that had cucumbers, onions and broth in it. " You like veg-e-table, no meat! ve-ge-ta-ble!" She said pointing to the bok choy like she did with every meal as if it were the first time she was realizing this fact. I nodded enthusistically to re-enforce this and rubbed my tummy with a thumbs up "Ah Roy!" (delicious!) She was pleased.

Pen had to go to school for the afternoon even though there were no students and she instructed me to rest with a sleeping chracde. I said "OK!" even though I wasn't tired at all. As soon as she was gone I did my laundry quickly and hung it up in the sun to dry. The sunshine felt good on my face and I was eager to explore so I took the bike for a long ride. I headed down the main road I had gone down a few times already and decided to turn off on a small dirt roads to check it out. It seemed fairly safe and I was curious. The road led back behind the school adn through rice fields as far as you could see. It was beautiful. I loved it. I decided this woudl be my getaway spot. I would share it with the three cows that seemed to roam freely on the path there. One was a baby. Imagined the other two were its mom and dad. I made up a love story for them in my head. I went closer tot he baby to take a photo and the mom splayed her ears, growled and grunted at me as if saying " back off bitch." I did. The cow was big and seemd pretty pissed off. I snapped a few photos as I backed away slowly. She relaxed. the dad ignored me the entire time but was standing in the middle of the path completley blocking it. I walked the bike around him to avoid making him angry. He didn't care. A huge tree next to the irrigation ditch showeered orange flowers. I stopped to pick one up as it fell to the ground and put it in my bike basket for Pen. I decided I should probably get home before someone started to worry about me since I had already been gone for a couple of hours.

When I got back, no one was there so I took my book outside and got lost in the English language. when Pen returned she expressed her concern that my skin was getting too dark and that it might turn black. she wasn't worried about me getting burned, she was worried about me getting tan. No one here liked dark skin., I tried to assure her that I liked the sun and skeptical, she brought me out a wide brimmed hat to at least save my face. I put in on to appease her and took it off when she went back inside. The warm glow on my face felt fantastic. We ate leftovers for dinner which were still on the table under and upsidedown basket to protect them from flies. who needs a refrigerator? We talked for a while until the school director came to pick us up in his truck. I had no idea we were goign anywhere let alone where we were going. We drove for about half an hour and turned up a dirt road. The older kids from school were doing their camp our here and had prepared a show for the teachers. They started it off by passing candles out to everyone. The director lit his and then lit all the teachers. We then lit the students candles and they helped light each other's. when all the candles were lit some words were soken that I coudln't understand, probably a prayer- i bowed my head just in case- and the director stepped forward to the middle of the circle where a huge pile of sticks an logs had been set up. He lit the bonfire with his candle and then indicted for th eteachers to do the same. All the students followed and soon the fire was ablaze. It reminded me of the candle light ceremony at shady brook. Even without words the message was very beautiful. Someone got a microphone and started the show. They began with a little parade aroudn the fire. A;l the students dances and the boys carried 6 of the prettiest girls in the parage on seats they had built out of folding charis, bamboo poles, and a bunch of leaes and flowers. They pulled me into the parage to dance with them. Thre was much dancing and singing alternated with skits the students had clearly created on their own. I had no idea what was going on most of the time but it was pretty funny. I didn't bring my camera but many of th teachers were taking photos and I asked them to send me some. I think they understood.

Wednesday, January 26th

Today there was no school. Instead all the kids some for "campign day." something like a field day with games and then the kids eet up tents and spend the night at the school. We got to school early to help set up. Pen had to leave before the festivities began since her sister was having some sort of minor surgery (indicated by cutting motions from chin to belly button, and the words "hospital" and "small"- hopefully smaller than her charade.)On took me on as her charage again. Sweet. We painted all the kids' faces with a smelly concotion of babypowder and red food coloring that had been mixed in a bowl with some leftover mushroom paste in it. The combination made it smell like death. Since we used out fingers to do the painting, our hands also smelled like death and were stained a bright red possibly eternally. We also made up some awful smelling (and from the kids faces, tasting) bread. On thought it would be funny to make the kids eat it and laughed when she made them chew and swallow the bread coved with mushroom paste, lods fo black papper, and butter smeared on top. I thought making kids practically gag was cruel so when she turned her back, I gave them silent permission to spit it out. Most of them dutifully chewed and swallowed the whole thing with horrified looks on their faces and no complaints.
The station I was sent to run for the day ( I couldn't figure out what the others were but ours looked liek loads more fun) was a tunnel of low branches over a trench of mus and water. It came out at the end ina wooden painted cutout of a tiger and the kids exited through his mouth after they had army crawled through the whole thing. We used a hose to spray through the tunnel walls and them and they shrieked when they got doused with baby powder at the end. It stuck nicely since they were already wet and completly the mess. A bunch of the kids wanted to go twice. A few of them raced to the hose and sprayed off, hating the dirt and eager to wash up. I planned on incorporating something similar at summer camp this year for messy olymipics. American kids ALL loved getting muddy.

Pen and I cooked noodle soup togetehr for dinner and then she dropped me off at a campout at the schoo. I didn't realize she wasn't staying. The campfire hadn't started yet so I sat down at a table with a bunch of teachers that were finishing dinner. They all tried to feed me but I had learned my defnese! The thai word for full- im. They were impressed though I had to keep repeating it every couple of minutes as someone new offered me food. Thai people are on par with italians for how much their lives revolve around food. I wished I had a bigger stomach.

We painted up a few kids for a fire dance. On alternated black elctrical tape and white masking tape on their stomachs while I used the same terrible pink concoction that had turned my hands pink earlier to cover their faces. I'm fairly certain they woudl have used somethign similar traditionally. The kids danced aroudn the would be fire with sticks alight, then lit the fire with them. They sang a bunch of songs and did some skits the kids all laughed through but I coudln't understand a word. It seemed something like closign campfire at shady brook.

Tuesday, January 26th

When I woke up in the morning, Pen had already made me breakfast and was waiting for me. We ate together and then drove (across the street) to school. I hung out in her office for a little while in the morning while she made some phone calls and collected papers. She handed me off to the primary English teacher named On to go to the student's morning gathering.

The first thing On told me on the way over (after she asked my name and how old I was of course): "I have many foreign boyfriend so I know English good! I no like Thai men. Black skin. I no like black skin, like white skin. Foreign men very sexy, white skin. Do you like black skin or white skin?"
I was still processessing. "Yeah. I like all skin colors," I told her.
She responded laughing at me like I was insane, "Not me! white is much better!"
I caught myself immediatley judging her and tried to keep an open mind. She obviously liked talking about men. "Do you have a boyfriend now?" I asked in a feeble attempt to bond.
"Sort of, not really boyfriend. He likes me alot thought and will come to see me soon I think."
I asked where he was from.
"He live in England. We talk on internet almost every day. He thinks Thai girls sexy!"

I breathed a sigh of relief when we got to the field. All the students stood in lines based on their grade and at attention like they were in the military. They sang the school song and made some announcements in Thai that I couldn't understand, then someone cam eover to me, pulled me over to the microphone, and handed it to me "introduce yourself." I went though the same routine I had already gone through 15 million times making sure to say my age. I'm pretty sure at least 90% of the students had no idea what I was talking about.

On the way to On's classroom where she tuaght first and second grade we passed the playground which looked like it was straight out of a get-your-tetnus-shot commercial. "what do you like to do when you are not teaching?" I asked her trying to avoid contractions. Her English was good but not that good. She kept asking me to repeat things.
"I like to read magazines like Cosmo and watch fashion on Tv and go shopping!" She had just made a list of everything I hated to do. I braced myself and waited for her to ask the same question, the proper reponse. She did.
"umm, well," I tried to pick activities I thought she would know the words for, "I like hiking," She gave me a confused face (bad choice). "walking up mountains." I charaded until she acted like she understood. "Climbing, swimming, reading, writing, and teaching." She looked perplxed when I said teaching as if I had misunderstood the questions. I couldn't possibly ENJOY that could I?

When we got to her classroom, she opened a workbook up and pointed to a page. "Can you teach this page to.... (she flipped forward a few pages).. this page?" Sure. That seemd easy enough. Some direction was greatly appreciated instead of just heading "ok, teach" The page was talking about the days of the week. The lesson was very boring and the students wern't very interested. On stayed in the room the whole time and kept interrupting. She translated a few of the directions. The first graders didn't know any English yet. She was keen on sticking to the worksbook and kept pointing to the page and saying, "you read...." Maybe I liked having no direction better. At least the students were engaged then.

Her second grade class was about the same. This one was one sports with more workbook pages to fill out. They would forget it the next day. I tried to have them stand up and act out the sports but they didn't understand what to do and On said it was better for them to stay seated. I checked their workbook pages to mak sure they were all correct. one little boy had barley done anything. I offered to stay and help him for a little while since we had a break. "Oh don't worry about him," On told me, "he is lazy." I was pretty sure he had Downs syndrome but chose to ignore the comment instead of getting into an argument.

We went back to the teacher's loungue for a short brek where I met up with the secondary English teacher I had worked with the day before. Pinky (yes that's relaly her name) had me administer an exam on numbers to a 9th grade class. The students could spell out numbers over a billion but couldn't converse with me in basic english. Next she had me teach her other 9th grade English class again. This seemed to be the remedial english class. Pinky had given me the workbooks the students were using and this class was supposedly on the 3rd one. I had picked some vocabulary from the first one to review and play a game with. The vocab was on shapes and directions including under, over, next to etc. The teacher had told me the students like art so I tried to incorporate it. After I reviewed all the vocab with them, I had each student draw a simple picture with shapes and a few lines (she would only give each of them 1/2 a piece of paper) and then they had to sit back to back with a partner and describe their picture so their partner could draw it without looking. Though in theory this was supposed to be a review, they had no clue what was going on and the entire activity was a huge failure. I abandoned it quickly with the thought to move onto something simpler. The teacher had stayed this time. and told me " they are not very smart, they don't remember anything." I suggested the simpler directions game I had played successfully with the third graders the day before. "You should teach them some art in english." She said. "They like art."
"ok... what do you mean?" I asked, trying to get an idea of what she was thinking. I thought she was talking about art history or something along those line which would have been hopeless. She clarified. "You will draw a picture on the chalkboard and they will copy it." Okeydokey. No enlighs. no originality. "anything in particular you want me to draw?" I asked. She said, "some cartoons, maybe the tazmanian devil." Instead, I drew, a dragon, a turtle, a pig, and a dinosaur (by request) all of them with speech bubbles saying something in english. Then I had one of the kids come up. A boy that was rather flamboyant, liked to dress as a girl, and I had discovered was very popular with the whole class and loved to be in the spotlight. I had her/him pose for me and drew her portrait. She loved it. The kids were totally into it and copied my cartoons exactly onto their papers. They were very talented but nothing was embellished, alteres or original on any of their drawings.

After lunch there were no more english classes for the rest of the afternoon. There was some sort of boy scout camp going on the next day and the teachers had to prepare for it. On asked me to go shopping with her for supplies for the camp so she could practice her english. Since I didn't have anythign else to do adn no one else coudl talk to me, I agreed to go with her. We went to a huge supercenter- something liek a super walmart, then down the street to the street market vendors. She stopped again on the way back to school and told me to wait in the car. She was gone for about 25 minutes and I tried not to imagine her performing sexual favors for an old foreign man in exchange for drugs or money or makeup. I redirected my scandelous thoughts to daydreaming about nicer things.

We went back to school and as I started to walk home, Pen called out my name. She was heading back too and wanted to go together. Her pleasant prescence was a relief after spending the day with On. i told Pen it seemed that even after many years of learning enlighs, the children didn't know any. She explained to me over about an hour of attempts that the children learned english and chinese in school. Most of them were from hill tribes and had to learn thai as well since the hill tribes spoke an entirely different language. Learning 3 complex and very different languages at he same time woudl stump me too! She said that most of the students were very poor and came here from the hill tribes because they got a scholarship for free schoo. They stayed in the dormitories next to the school because their homes were too far away. She said that the students being poor was the first big problem adn the seocnd was that the school also did not have much money. She said the next time I talked to my mom and dad to ask them to pray for the school adn the students (I think she assumed that I already was). I told her I would try to raise some money when I got back to send tot he school and she told me praying was better. I thought maybe both would be nice. It only takes about $230 to sponsor a student for one year- school fees, books, uniforms, food, dormitory costs, everything. any takers?

Pen and I sat at the table in her kitchen and snaked on oranges and fried sweet potatoes (i think) She went to run errands and I asked if I coudl take a bike for a ride. I had seen a few behind the house. I rode in steadily increasing rain exploring for about an hour. Enjoying the cool drops on my face. I passed many houses and small farms before I decided to go back. Pen and I cooked dinner together Stir fry veggies, soup, and rice. She tuaght me a few Thai words and phrases and quizzed me on them repeatedly, pointing at different foods on the table and body parts. When her husband got home from work, we sat with him while he ate. Pen wen tto go take a shower before she left for evening worship at the church (she didn't think i choudl go since I wouldn't understand... thank god) and left me with he husband who barley spoke any english. I tried to keep a very simple conversation going but gave up after about 15 minutes when he turned on the news and it became clear that he was much more interested in that than talking to me.

Monday January 25

Sirirat told me we would leave her house at 6:30 am sharp for her to take me to the school I would be teaching at for the rest of the week, so i got up extra early to help prepare and eat breakfast. Needless to say, we didn't leave until after 7. Siriat always seems to be rushing and is somehow still always late. A very busy woman! she dropped me off directly to the school so I left my backpack in somone's office and was herded into a teacher's meeting. Sirirat said something in Thai to the teachers and I heard my name. "Good," she said to me, " see you." I waved and said thank you praying that someone in the room spoke english. I attentivley listened to Thaiu for about half an hour befor the school director pointed to the english teacher and told me in ratehr rough english to go with her. Phew! She breifly introduced herself as Pinky on the way to the teacher's lounge type room. Her English wasnt very good considering that she taught it and her accent made it really difficult to understand her. "sit" she told me, pointing to a chair. "You want coffee?" I told her no thanks. "Wait here. You can read books." she thurst workbooks 1,2, and 3 for english into my hands and left. She came back about 10 minutes later, "come." I followed her into a classroom. There wern't enough desks for everyone so some students shared. The walls were bare. One kid said in a well rehearsed voice, "stand up!" all the kids stood and in a practiced chorus said,
good morning teacher, how are you?" She responded, "fine thank you. sit down." The children sat and immediatley bagan talking. Classroom magagment was lacking. "Introuce yourslef." I told them my name, where I was from, a little bit about myself, and my age (everyone wanted to know that in Thailand). They repeasted my name and oohed when I said I was from America. The teachr nodded to me and said, "ok you teach now." I nodded and she left. ooookkk! nothing like diving right in. I had no idea what they were studying but since they couldn't seem to answer any of my questions, I went ahead and started at the beginning. Greetings, they were good at those. I went on to the animal lesson I had done with the kids at the orhpanage the day before. The teacher had popped her head in a couple times and when the bell rang, came back in. " You are very good teacher. children like your lesson very much. They like learning when you teach! Not when I teach! Come, you teach more." She led me to a different room. This was another 7th grade. "same same. good." She left. This class seemd smarter than the one I had just taught adn they picked up on the concepts faster. The teacher came back in halfway through with a couple fo other teachers and the school director. He took out his camera and staretd to film me teaching. I ignored him and kept going. The kids got really into the race to write animal names on the board and were all jumping up and down cheering and shouting out animal names. With 15 minutes to spare, I asked the teaqcher what they had been working on in class. She said "writing numbers from 1 to a million." I clarifired by asking the numerals or spelling them out? "both" she answered. We started goign through numbers. The kids' pronounciation was terrible but they coudl indeed write out every numbr i put on the board.I skepticlaly started writing higher and higher numbers. No problem. They couldn't spell cat (cot) or dog (doy) correctly bu knew how to write 99,652= ninteynine thousand six hundred fifty two correctly. Great. On our ten minute break, I was given some chips made of fried fish parts that had the texture of strofoam "fish french fries good!" she said smiling. I ate one despite the fast that the smell was enough to make me not want to eat them. "mmm" I said choking it down, "doog." "Eat more!" she told me. I said thanks but didn't. After the break I taught a lacadasical 9th grade that was shocked when I insisted that they pay attention and was then passes off to the primary english teacher (who spoke terrrrrrible english) whre I taught her 3rd graders the same lesson I had done with 7th and 9th grade. The 3rd graders were smarter, more attentive and picked it up faster so i spent the second half of the class doing directions with them. There were too many kids adn the room was too small though so we did it one pair at a time. when it wasn't their turn, the other kids cheered them on and made corrections to the directions-giver. Over 4 hours had already gone by. The teacher picked out a student, told her something in Thai and gestured for me to follow her to the manager's office. The manager was lovely although only spoke very basic broken english. It turned out that I ws staying at her house. She drove me there even though it was across the stret, and we ate lunch together making convrsation about the weather and when our birthdays were. Hers is February 14th and she is 59 years old, although she looks younger. She showed me the room I'd be staying in. The pepto bismol colored walled and ceiling matched the bed covers marvelously and the 70's era curtains. The clock on the wall didn't work and had Colgate toothpaste on its face. She told me she had to go back to school but that I should stay here. "no more english classes today" she said and left. I found a spot to wash my clothes and hung them up in the sun to dry. I went for a walk down the street by the house to explore a bit and came back about an hour later still to an empty house. I read until Pen (my new host mom) came home. She calls me her second daughter, speaks very little english and is very very very glad AND happy that I have come to thailand and am staying with her. When I professed my desire to learn Thai cooking she promised to teach me if I helped her with her english. Deal. "Are you hungry?" she asked me. " little" I admitted. It was only about 5:00. "ok!" she got out a wok and some eggs. realizing what she was doing I tried to tell her that I coudl wait and eat with her and her family later but she didn't understand. I submitted as she showed me how to make Thai fried eggs, bok choy with onions adn garlic, and scooped a heapign plate of rice for me. "we have pork if you want but sirirat tell me you no like meat." thank you sirirat! "yes, I am a vegetarian" I told her apologetically. She gave me ketchup for the eggs, calling it potato sauce. Everything was delicious and I told her about 15 times to ensure a repeat vegetarian friendly experience. She told me about her husband who was a farmer that grew rice and that he would come home around 7. We washed dishes together and moved into the living room to avoid the vicious misquitos that were biting me through my shirt.I showed her my photo book with pictures of colorado and my family. Stuck in the front was a little buddah card that said "peace" on it. She noiced it right away and I knew as soon as I saw her face that it was a terrible idea to put it there. There was a quote on the back that I especially liked and I tried to explain that to her while she interrogated me about my religion. " Yes my parents are both Christian" I lied. "No I don't want to go to a temple to worship, I'm not Buddhist." I told her I was tired and wanted to go to bed. She insisted on helping me close the blinds and asked me if the 3 blankets there would be enough to keep me wqarm. "I'll be very warm," I assured her. It was about 90 degrees outside.

Sunday January 24

I havn't had internet all week but have been writing in my journal, so I'll try to update going back a few days here...

I went over to Siriats house early to help with breakfast and get things prepared for hurch. She insisted on driving us over even though it was only about a ten minute walk (right next to where I live). On the way to church she and I stopped to visit two elderly ladies. "They are too weak and ill to come to church" Sirirat told me, "so i visit them and pray with them before church." One lady was in a wheel chair and looked like she hated her life. She had two identical white cats. different only because one had green eyes and one had yellow eyes. They refused to leave her alone even those she made angry hissing noises at them, repeatedly.

Church was a combination of singing in Thai and talking in Thai (Im fairly confident the talking parts were out of the bible). The only thing sirirat translated for me was when she brought me up in front of the whole congregation, introduced me, then had everyone pray for me. "We thank God for bringing up this missionary who loves God and loves children." I didn't realize I was a missionary. I thought I was just here volunteering. Doesn't "missionary" have a religious connotation. The irony made me laugh inside. Especially since I was the only one that understood her.

After church was a quick lunch before going back to the church where I woudl teach the orphans a collection of a bunch of other local kids English. Sirirat had told me not to worry about preparing lessons, "just bring some English games" so when she told me I had 3 hours to teach a room full of zero English speakers I felt somewhat unprepared. Good thing I was well versed in our subject matter, English!

I had a white board so I drew some pictures of a bunch of animals and then went through each one with the kids putting its name next to the picture and having the kids repeat it with me a few times. Then I watched their eyebrows raise as I erased all the names, leaving the pictures up, and handed the marker to a kid. I motioned for her to write the name for one and then give it to another kid. They remembered most of them. Then I split the class up into boys and girls, two lines and had them speed write the names of as many animals as they could think of up on the board. The girls won by a landslide and they stood up and cheered when I put a star next to their team name on the board.

Next we did directions. I drew pictures and words on the board for go straight, turn right, turn left, and stop. Then I had the kids pair up and one kids closed their eyes while we hid somthing in the room. The other kid had to direct them verbally to where the object was. They loved it and by the time we were done, they had listening to and giving simple directions down pretty well.

We went on to do colors, school supplies, and food and when i started running out of spontaneous ideas, I was glad our time was up. I reiterated an American greeting. for the 10th time with call and response and told them goodbye and good job with a big thumbs up. Phew! Though it was challenging and I was exhuasted, I felt like the students had been really engaged and learned alot already.

I cooked fried rice with the kids (their favorite). Apparently fish oil is the key ingredient, "makes everything taste so yummy yummy!" Sirirat educated me. Dinner. TV (a korean drama I coudl tell was terrible without understanding any of the words). bible study. I hung out with the kids after sirirat went to bed. A few of them were still watching tv, and 3 sisters about 7, 8, 10, were interested in me. We spent about 2 hours making faces at each other, charading, and somparing diffrences. They held an arm up to mine and commented something in Thai... I'll be tanner in a few weeks I thought to myself. They decided I was the same color as their palms. Next they held their hair up next to mine... "oooh!" They laughed. It turned into a game of gentle tickling. We all belly laughed hard. I crossed my eyes and puffed out my cheeks and squashed them so air blew out. The kids copied me and then we took turns doing it to each other. They thought this was hilarious and fell into a heap on my lap giggling. I told them I had to go home and get some sleep, charading sleep with my eyes clsoed and my head resting on my hands. They stood up to follow me back. We all held hands and skipped back singing the only American song they know, "we wish you a merry christmas." I made a mental note to teach them some better songs in english. Before I knew it we were back. As we parted ways they waved and said "goodbye, see you tomorrow!" As we had practiced in class. I smiled "goodnight!" and blew them kisses.

Last night, despite all odds, I somehow ended up in the middle of a Christian bible thumping church mass/sing-along in siriat's living room with about 50 Thai people (just in case you were wondering Thailand is 95% Buddhist, 4% Muslim, and less than 1% Christian.) They started out the night singing "Jesus Loves Me" in Thai. I felt rather out of place as a somewhat not-very-religious-person and the only non Thai speaker there. Siriat stepped in to translate the bible verses for me. "Very important," she said, "Jesus loves you too." "Thank you." I replied. When all the people from the Bagkok church group were leaving this morning they held my hands and said, "God Bless You." and "see you tomorrow" (they wouldn't). At least they had their religious phrase down...

This morning after breakfast, Siriat looked at me and said,
"come, we go."
"where are we going?"
"You come to funeral with me."
I thought I miss heard her. She sounded very cavalier about it. But just in case, I asked if what I was wearing was ok for a funeral. She said, "yes, yes, come, we go."
It was indeed a funeral. A buddhist one. It seemed more like a party but when I asked Siriat if funerals in Thailand were for celebration of a life or mourning of a death, she told me they were for mourning. Monks chanted and family members spoke for a few hours. Everything was covered in hundreds of flowers. Then we ate quite a feast. The man who died was a doctor and wanted to donate his body to the hospital for research so at the end of the funeral the ambulance came to take away his casket. The ambulance was about an hour late. Siriat told me that she overheard the phone conversation saying they had stopped to eat lunch and would be there after. Everyone that came got a pen and a plan white canvas bag, "souvineers" Siriat told me.

After the funeral Siriat gave a very old woman a ride home. Her son had left without her. She told me to walk her to the door of her house but when I said goodbye, she followed me back to the car. I kept trying to insist that she shouldn't since she could barely walk to begin with but she had no idea what I was saying. I love really old people. Nearby the lady's house was some sort of factory for various crafts. Siriat stopped there before we went back to her house. She said it was run by the king's wife (I think). We saw how they mde coffee spreading beans out on mats in the sun to dry, wove fabric on looms, made ceramic pots, made caprets and made paper by hand. When I asked how much the women get paid to do this she told me only about five dollars a day. "But better than no job," she added nodding. Deperessing. Their handiwork was beautiful and it was clear how much time and effort went into doing it.

"I would take you to Burma today," she told me, "But I need to rest. You do too."

Initial Impressions

So it turns out that I am actually staying in Chiang Rai. In a little room down behind the church down the street from Siriat's home. It seemed strange at first that I wouldn't stay with my host family but I think it will be nice to be able to get away now and then since her house is so busy. This weekend siriat is hosting 30 people from a church group in Bangkok at her house so things have been crazy preparing everthing. The kids from her orphanage had the day off school today and I spent all day with them helping to prepare the foods we needed to cook dinner. I sat on the floor with the kids from 6 in the morning until about 11, peeling and cutting garlic, onions, and ginger. No one speaks any English excpt for Siriat but everyone is incredibly friendly. I really enjoyed getting to hang out with the kids and they seemed really excited to be able to interact with a foriegner. After we were done preparing food, I went and got my Thai-English phrase book so the kids and I could at least have some form of communication. Even if it was just pointing to words. They couldn't read English letters for the most part since Thai is all characters completley different than ours. Luckily my book also had the Thai lettering. A few of the kids went and grabbed their English workbooks from school so they could show me what they were learning. I was suprised by how advanced the books seemed from the maximum of 3 words the kids could actually say in English. We traded words and phrases for a few hours. Pointing at things and saying the words for them or drawing pictures and reiterating their meaning in both languages. It seemed like the kids were picking up some words and I was starting to get down a few phrases in Thai. It will be a dificult language to learn. Siriat said that on sunday she has a group of about 40 kids she would like for me to teach after bible study. She is very religious and does everything in the name of God. It doesn't matter to me whose name she's doing it in, she seems to be involved in everything and the amount of good deeeds she does daily is incredible. She is running 3 orphanages on the board for several schools, running a women's group for vocational skills like emrboiderysewing and computers, and helping them fund the materials they need to work as well as helping them sell their wares. She already told me I have to come to church with her family. I didn't object. She said it was very important. Every night after dinner she lets the kids from the orphanage come over the her house and watch TV. The trade off is that after they watch TV, they have to worship and do bible study with her. She's smart like that. I am very excited to work with her on as many projects as I can. I think that there are alot of great learnin opportunities here and i intend to take advantage of that. Siriat seems more than willing to let me as well. Her hospitality and kindness are unmatched.