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Chiang Mai!
Monday morning. I was tired from the weekend, but excited to see my other AFS friends. Every exchange student from the Central and Southern Regions came up to the AFS office. We had a NINE hour bus ride up to Chiang Mai, which included stops at gas stations for snacks and stuff. We watched a few movies on the way up: Hangover 2, which I found appropriate for the occasion because the story takes place in Bangkok; The Rise of the Planet of the Apes, James Franco made it just that much better J ; and The Fast Four, like its name, a fast paced movie that kept most of us from nodding off. The remainder of the bus ride I talked to my friends, including Luigi and Giovanni, who taught me some “useful” phrases in Italian. We got to the hotel late. I unpacked and met up with some friends before curfew.
Tuesday consisted of counseling sessions. All of us traded experiences, opinions, feelings, whatnot about our host families and communities. By now many of the exchange students have built comfortable relationships in their schools, some have had to change schools and families already, a few have changed multiple times. I am happy to have stayed with my original host family, but I think it would’ve been a good experience living with another family for a week exchange or something- either during the flood, or right after. Actually, many of the exchange students who lived in areas affected by the flood moved in with other exchange students in dry regions. I hate to say it, but I am a bit jealous. Although I built a very strong relationship with my host family over the month of November, there were times when I wished I could have met up with some other people. AFS had offered to help me with a week exchange, but I wasn’t sure when we would really be returning home, and I knew I wanted to be there for the clean-up process.
Now I know my mom is dying to know how the actual city of Chiang Mai looks! Wednesday and Thursday were considered adventure days. The staff took us out to the temple Doi Sutep,as well as an umbrella factory, and hot springs on Wednesday, followed by dinner at a classy joint with a traditional theme complete with various Thai dances. This was a bit of déjà vu, as I recognized some dances that just a week ago my friends and I performed at the 50th Anniversary Gala Dinner. Elephant show, river ride on bamboo rafts, as well as a ride in a Guongzhi cart pulled by oxen up a mountain, and an elephant ride back down consisted of the activities for Thursday.
I really liked the elephant ride, it was rather long, but we even crossed the river. I had rode an elephant once before in India; my family sat on the backs the same way one rides a horse. This was fun, but after a while the legs can get rather sore. This time I sat on a little seat resting on layer upon layer of pads and blankets, while the driver perched on the elephant’s head, resting his legs behind the ears. Gemma and I sat together. It was fun, and a little nerve racking at parts as our seat swayed from side to side, sometimes tilting in such a way I thought for sure one of us was bond to topple out. While crossing the river, we were joined by a mother elephant and her baby, to our surprise the elephants began making a deep grumbling. Pun Pun went the baby. Graaaa went its mother. Brummmmm went our elephant. Gemma and I asked what our elephant’s name was. The driver responded Ngong which means puzzled. An interesting choice of name… A fitting name I suppose, at one point our driver jumped off the river bank, my camera in hand, and began taking photos. This was going fine, until Ngong began walking away upstream! The driver had to call Ngong back, and we continued on our way. After dismounting our elephant, Gemma and I wanted to see some baby elephants, but we didn’t have enough time.
Thursday night we went to the night bazaar. This was actually our only experience inside the city of Chiang Mai. The market is very large, and is reasonably well-lit. My group spent a lot of time eating, but because one of our friends had to go back and fetch another friend who was accidentally left at the hotelL. Then after we all finished eating we walked around. I got some souveneirs for my friends at school. I attempted bartering, but I was losing my voice and the deal was already pretty good. The rule for bartering in Thailand: Look to see if there is a price-tag, if there isn’t that ask “lope rakka dai mai?” which means “can we reduce the price?”. I have discovered that many Thai’s hike up the price for “Farang” foreigners of Caucasian descent. However, speaking Thai can help bring the price down. Tyler is a lucky kid, because he looks like a “Luk krung”,half Thai/half Farang, if he mentions that he is a Luk Krung he gets unbelievable discounts! I am so jealous.
The overall camp was fun. There were highs and lows. Sadly, I began losing my voice during the camp, and for the bus ride home I couldn’t speak at allL. I wished I could’ve spoke though, because there was sooo much I felt like talking about! When I wasn’t sleeping that is. Most everyone slept a majority of the ride home.
Getting home… the bus dropped us off at the AFS office. I could’ve easily taken a taxi back, but instead I attempted to get back on my own by taking a bus from Victory Monument in Bangkok. A volunteer came with the group of us going there, but he had to help some of my friends get to Chonburi. I told him I could find my bus on my own. Usually it is really easy to find a public van going to Rangsit from Victory Monument, but that day I couldn’t find any! Exhausted and hot I wandered around searching. No results. I asked with the little voice I had, where the vans were. Some people pointed in one direction or another, but when I checked, there weren’t any! Nearly in tears I made my way to a bus stop and was going to sit for a bit before trying again, when a friendly university student asked where I was headed. She helped me find a bus, and it turned out she was going the same way as well! From Rangsit, I could find the bus home without a problem.
50th Anniversary. Community Service. Chiang Mai
The month of February was extremely busy. I was planning on focusing on building relationships with my class, especially as Valentine’s Day was just around the corner and I was looking forward to celebrating!
Around the last week of January I received an Email inviting me to the 50th anniversary of AFS in Thailand. I was thrilled for the invite, as I had been looking forward to this event all year. Unfortunately, not all the exchange students were invited to attend. They selected 12 students, mostly located in Bangkok and surrounding provinces.
We met in the morning on Saturday the 1st of February. I had only a 20 minute ride in a taxi, from my house to the AFS office. There was already Hannes from Germany passed out on the couch in the main lobby, he was staying in the North-East region of Thailand and had a very long bus ride last night. Some staff let me go to a room on the second floor where I could relax until the others came. I enjoyed chatting in Thai with an intern. Rey Carlo from the Philippines arrived an hour later. He is residing in north Bangkok.
The other exchange students actually met us at Central Plaza, and Central World. There were three exchange students who I had never met before, because they were from the first wave (April- March), Misato from Japan, Valentina from Chile, and Cinthia from Bolivia. Once we met up with the other exchange students we went to a dance studio in Central World. We had a very lose audition, composed of a teacher forming some basic dance poses and us copying. I was very thankful that I had recently resumed taking Thai dance at my school, even though what we went over was indeed very simple.
I was originally placed with Silvia, from Costa Rica, along with Jakob and Hannes both from Germany. We were going to do a dance from the Central Region, but I was switched to dance with Janine, from Ohio, and Johannes from Norway. Our dance comes from the South and the girls use fans.
The first wave students were together with a dance from the North. Their dance uses traditional umbrellas.
The final dance used only boys; Luigi from Italy, Jean Ephrem also from Italy but he’s half French, and Rey Carlo. This dance uses large “peidakon” masks and is from the Isaan (the north east).
We were given about 40 minutes to learn our dances which I felt was plenty of time, then we reviewed and went to our hotel. At first I thought we would stay in Bangkok, and thought possibly the Rama Gardens because I saw it mentioned in the invite. Actually we went back to Nontaburi, and got a hotel close to the AFS office. Over dinner we tried to figure out where to practice for the remaining week, because P’Nad our AFS volunteer discovered that we didn’t have the studio reserved for everyday. After a long discussion we decided that we would try to fit in the AFS office to practice. We held another group meeting inside the hotel. Unfortunately, there was a terrible echo, and some other guests were not so pleased.
The rest of the week we practiced and had group bonding time. Really, we only needed about an hour a day to practice, and we got to check in with the professionals on Wednesday and Friday. The performance itself was on Saturday and was held in the Rama Gardens Resort. Ambassadors and AFS Staff from all over the world attended.
The day after was really sad, because we said good-bye. This was the last time for us to see the first wave students, because they returned home within the next week.
Back to school
The week after, I was at Pathumwilai School. I was looking forward to seeing my friends again, and also Valentine’s Day that Tuesday. Sadly, ALL the boys in ม6 had Lor Dor Training, which is a soldier preparation camp that lasted until Wednesday. Also, all my friends were busy preparing for the O-NETS examinations which they took that weekend. I decided to take the opportunity to try out some new classes like Thai Dance, and Thai Art. This was ok, but I would’ve preferred taking classes as usual, but ม6 had special classes in the morning and my host sister said that everyone was very serious.
Going Pre-Med. ….Meditation!
Thailand is about 80% Buddhist. Although I practice I separate religion I am intrigued by the Buddhist lifestyle. My host school is a public Buddhist school and the students take some Buddhism classes throughout the week. Unfortunately, last semester I was unable to attend religion class with my host sister because we had separate schedules. This semester I decided to officially join her class- a quick word about the Thai school system, which is structured similarly to elementary school in the States. The students are put in a permanent “room” or class depending on their interests and testing scores for “mau” 4(grade 10) through “mau” 6(grade 12). They are given a schedule which I think resembles a university schedule. There are 9 potential hours for class. However, not everyday is completely filled with classes. Take for example my class, which has and average of 6 hours a day. On Wednesday we only have four hours only in the morning, but on Thursday we have 8 hours, and Monday has a free hour after lunch. That said, we don’t have continuous classes over the week although for the more important classes we will study for more days. Sometimes, the teacher doesn’t show up and the students get free time; and vice-versa if none of the students go to class, the teacher will not teach that hour. Generally, the students will be punctual and only if there is a special event like exams for university or the day before, will they opt out of school. –
This semester so far has been very busy and slightly hectic. Due to the flood, we have school on Saturday to make up for the lost time. I actually don’t mind the extra day of school, because I get to see my friends! Also due to the flood the GAT/PAT exams for universities had been postponed to mid December *note this was two months since they were originally scheduled for* when exam week came it was like a ghost town because hardly anybody in mau 6 showed up as they were all studying. Recently, I had my first official Friday classes. My class is taking Buddhism third hour, which I find very exciting even though the teacher doesn’t speak English. But I have enjoyed attempting to meditate and do the special “wai” at the end of prayers. This week I was surprised when an art teacher invited me to go along to a meditation camp in the forest for three days! She said the monks would be very happy to see a foreigner participate. I think the foreigner is very happy to be invited to participate in such a inspirational and truly cultural event.
My current feelings about the camp: It is this weekend, so soon! I have to borrow some clothing and a tent from my friends. We can only wear all white or other solid, basic, colored clothing. I’m fine with this. Eating: we are given a small breakfast in the morning and maybe a carton of milk at night. This may be a challenge for me but I know it is do-able. We have to bring our own water but are limited to one bottle a day for drinking and cleansing. Which takes me to cleansing- which I figure will be mostly spiritual. As we will be in the forest there will be no running water, also I suspect there is some significance to not showering for the duration of the camp although, of what, I am not certain. We CAN bring soap- but no face wash, perfume, or lotion. I think during the bulk of the day we sit and meditate. The teacher mentioned that in the evening we will walk in the forest. She also mentioned ghosts. Thai people are strong believers in ghosts. Now, I do not believe in ghosts. I believe that sometimes people can get feelings like something of a different nature (either uplifting, or frightening) passes through them, but the Hollywood version of folklores ecto-plasmic spirits of the dead are not something I think I will ever see in real life. The teacher said that we shouldn’t freak out at night if our tent starts blowing fiercely in the wind-it is not a ghost. But sometimes when people meditate they see faces… eerie. Actually, that’s why my oldest host sister doesn’t want to go, she is afraid she will encounter a ghost. Don’t worry, if I have any supernatural encounters I will be sure to blog about it when I return. And if I don’t have any supernatural encounters, I’ll blog anyway!
Sawasdiika!
รัก น.ส. น้ำหวาน ริ้วดำรงค์ “Namwan” Heather Jackson
Pathumtani!
Yes friends, after over a month of being stuck in “The Room” at Kampengphet I am finally back in my original host city! WE arrived two days ago and had to walk through shin deep water- which by the way was a lot less fun than when the flood first hit our town. The water is… well nothering short of the definition of revolting. I can’t actually feel the road when I walk barefoot because it is covered in slime and mushy newspaper scraps. Ewww.
On a better note, things are geting cleaner! Yesterday I spent over four hours washing dishes that were all unfortunate enough to be stored on the floor. This is obviously not an ideal storage place, Meh discovered TWO KNIVES camoflaged under the black muck that filled our main floor. YIKES! Actually we were very lucky that nobody had an accident… After all the dished were scrubbed to absolute perfection my sponge had worn down into tiny pieces and my hands were paler than Edwards stomach. And prunier than a raisin! My host sisters had the time of their lives teasing me.
This morning Meh and Paw were able to get the rest of the water out of our house and they spent the rest of the day removing the grime.
As for me, I went to school! We had a Big Cleaning Day! I met up with some friends and sweeped the remaining nastyness into piles that were then thrown away in garbage bags. Afterwards we had a meeting and recieved a bag of supplies and a new matress. Both very heavy. Both of which got carried along with me to the internet cafe where I currently am. And ohhh boy am I dreading the walk back home…
A Soggy Tale
First let me express my sincere apologizes for not posting sooner. Many of you may be aware of the current flood crisis in Thailand. As it turns out the province I was hosted in, Pathumtani, was one of the worst cases. My host parents sell clothing at the market as well as own a few farms. We moved out to the province of Kampangphet. There I was confined to a small apartment off of a highway for two weeks. Then we moved out to their rubber plantation in the mountains of Phitsanulok. Meh and Paw informed me that there wouldn’t be any electricity and it would be very rural. They weren’t exaggerating. Imagine my surprise when we pulled off of the bumpy road into a field of high grass in front of a little shed made out of corrugated tin. Luckily we had a distant relative who lived less than a kilometer away in a very traditional Thai farmhouse. Made nearly completely of wood with an exception of the roof, which was metal. The only power availably came from a small solar panel positioned outside of the house. We were originally supposed to stay there for only five days. However due to the unexpected delay in progress of clearing up some weeds, five days became ten days and sometimes I wonder if we would’ve stayed there longer if it weren’t for the upcoming holiday of Loy Katong. A Budhist festival that I had been dreaming about since I found out I was going to Thailand. Loy Katong is also known as the festival of lights. Not much different from the floating lights from Tangled . My family built our own katong boats which were made out of purely organic materials, mostly coming from the banana tree. But there were some people selling Katongs made out of snacks such as icecream cones and waffles!
September Update
I am happy to report that this month has had many fun activities for me to participate in! Recently I have been helping out with many English camps. The students at my school are on vacation which means I would have a lot of free time, however the teachers from the English department invited me to help out at the camps, which keeps me busy enough. On the weekends Greta “Fa”, the other exchange student, goes running with me at the park. I’ve been getting along great with both of my host sisters. We sometimes stay up late at night chatting. I’m always looking for more opportunities to practice my Thai speaking abilities. Looking back from when I first went home with my host family, and could hardly say “Sawasdiika” and now I can carry on conversations and even read Thai signs.
Some fun stories from this month involve missing shoes, and my adventure going to the AFS camp.
The AFS camp was held at the beginning of September. I remember waking up at around 4:30am so I could get ready and be on time to meet a bus that would take Fa and I to bangkok. I finished my breakfast, and grabbed my bag, and followed “Bpoo” (grandpa) out the door. The first thing he did was unlock the gate, and prepare the bicycle. I got on and he began slowly peddling along. At first I thought he would stop at the end of the neighborhood and I would walk the short distance to the school. But no, much to my surprise, he kept going all the way to the edge of the road. As he edged closer and closer to the endless line of morning traffic, I thought about AFS recieving a notification that I would be unable to attend the camp, because I was being hospitalised and recovering from a nearly fatal accident from being hit by a car while trying to go to school. Lovely thought. There was a small gap through the rushing cars and motercycles and thats when Bpoo decided to go for it! I immediately braced for impact… arms pulled in as tight as I could, tucking my legs in. “Think small, Think fast…”. Miraculously we made it across-to the median… which meant we would have to cross AGAIN!! :O And so once again he began to pedal… not very fast either mind you, but we dodged the reckless motorcyclists and made it across alive! We arrived at the school at a record time of 5:30. So, perhaps a little less than a half hour commute, not so bad I suppose. However, I wasn’t needed at the school until 6:30….Luckily there was a 7/11 just outside the school, and I compared the different varieties of Mama noodles to each other. Then deciding I didn’t really want to eat noodles, and thought it better to buy some coffee instead. I waited for Fa in the school canteen, watching the sunrise around the school. It was actually quite pretty! When she arrived we took a private van to a bus station in Bangkok. However there was a miscommunication, and we found out later, that we should’ve gone to the AFS office. And we spent about 2 hours at the bus station wondering where the other exchange students were. But no worries, because there were plenty of 7/11s inside the station, where we could spend some time looking through magazines until we met up with a staff member who took us to a taxi, taht would meet up with the bus. In the end we made it to our destination ok, and I still had some energy left despite the early wake up call. 🙂
The Missing shoes.
Generally I’ve had a hassle free stay here. My class mates are really friendly, and I get along with most people in the school quite well. One day I needed to print out some papers, so I went to the computer lab where my sister’s class was and waited to use a computer. Unfortunately, the printers were broken, and the computers were all busy anyway. So, I decided to go back to the office where I could hang out for a bit and maybe borrow the computer there. Much to my surprise as I stepped outside of the room and looked at the hodgepodge of shoes, mine were nowhere to be found! Well, that’s odd… I asked my friends to help me look for them, but still no sign of my shoes. 😦 We decided that maybe a classmate mistakenly took them for their own, and I could switch with them later. So I “borrowed” somebodies shoes and went to the office to print my forms. I had completed one task, but I was still worried about my shoes, so I went back to the computer room to see if they were there. Nope. And as my classmates went to math, I realized that the owner of the shoes I had borrowed had taken their shoes back. So, here I was stranded and shoeless in the computer room. The teachers asked why I was still there, and I explained to them that I couldn’t find my shoes. They searched and searched, still nothing. I met up with my sister before she went in the math room, and I borrowed her shoes to go to the office, where I talked with the teachers there about my predicament. They came to the conclusion that somebody had infact stolen my shoes, because they were still new. I was to buy a new pair and keep them safe. A teacher let me borrow a spare pair of her shoes so I could walk to the nearby Tesco Lotus and get a new pair. I wasn’t to thrilled about the whole ordeal at first, but now looking back on it, it is kind of funny. Fa still teases me about it. But hey, “Mai pen rai”.
Now to answer some of your comments from last month:
I share a room with my sisters, it is the only room with airconditioning. But I don’t mind because we like to talk a lot before going to bed 🙂
We eat our meals around a short table on the floor at home. When our parents our home my sisters and I eat with everybody. But sometimes we get to eat first. Bpoo likes to eat last and then he will clean the dishes.
I haven’t traveled very much yet, especially because transportation is limited due to the recent floodings. I have been to Bangkok often, and I have been to Ayuttaya(before the flood), and Petchuburi, and Chonburi. I would like to go to Phuket (pronounced Pu-Ket) and Chiang Mai.
I’m currently learning Mandirin Chinese, Thai, and French. Despite the fact that I have already studied French for 3 years in high school, I’ve managed to forget most of it. Also the teacher likes to give Fa and I “review” worksheets, however most of it involves grammar, and even some vocab that I’ve never encountered, which is why French is the hardest of the languages I’m learning.
My august update
I went with my host sisters to Bangkok recently for shopping. We saw some “Falang” aka foreigners. I thought they all looked very tall, I’m so used to seeing the same people in my school and town.
It has been raining A LOT and I have to be careful when I take my camera to school, because I would be devastated if it got wet or ruined at all. The rain happens daily. It stays about 30 Celsius here, all year round, which is 86 Fahrenheit. Last month we were actually reading in the news about the heat spell in Michigan recently, where it was 45 Celsius (113 Fahrenheit). Funny that Thailand would be cooler.
Here is a simple recipe for a popular Thai beverage. It is really sweet and I drink it at school for 10baht almost everyday 🙂
Take a small slice of watermelon and put it in the blender with some ice(or vanilla ice cream if you want) and I think 1-1/2 cup of milk, and a little honey and sugar. Don’t worry about the seeds. I assure you a watermelon will not grow in your stomach 😛 (watermelon seeds are actually sold at the 7/11 here as snack food!)
Thai language is difficult. I’m not gonna lie. Especially because it is a tonal language, so the pitch matters. People say I am doing well speaking, but my conversations are limited by my small vocabulary. Fortunately, it is phonetic to read and write (mostly) and the grammar is actually really logical. So Thai is easy in some ways, but tricky other times.
School is fun, I go to class with my sister(also 17) in class 6/4.
I’m also taking French and Mandarin Chinese here (1 hour each a week) and about 5 hours of Thai, and 6 hours of Thai dance.
There are a lot of dogs, and some are being sent to Vietnam to be eaten! There are dogs everywhere here! Even in school! A few weeks ago, a dog walked into my class, which was on the second floor mind you, and my friends played with it! It was a clean dog 🙂 I miss my dog back home (Ruru).
And now I want to here from you! My mom recently proposed an idea to answer questions on my blog.
So if you have any questions you would like me to answer about my stay in Thailand, please feel free to post below!
Ex.Q. Do you have to do any chores at home?
A. Not really. My house is much smaller, than my home in America. My host mom prefers to do the cleaning when she is home. But I will Iron my shirt and skirt before going to school. And sometimes I will wash the dishes.
Bye ❤ nahmwan นัำหวๅน !!
hjax
heatherandtheworld 