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."