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.