Not Busy, Just Thai'd Up

Ard.  I am back from having fun in the village in the Phrao District!  I am overwhelmed by how much there is to say- in short: it was such a great experience filled with way too much good food, and hard work, some boredom, and communication difficulties galore.  If you are not interested in the details, stop reading here; if you want rambled details…read on ya hambanger!

So, on Wednesday, all 34 people in our group crammed into this large truck with three benches.  Each bench was about 3 inches wide, so the ratio of bum size to bench width was off for everyone whether our pants size is 0 or 10.  Egalité! Woo!  Then, it was an interesting 1.5 hour drive to the village.  We unpacked ourselves, awkwardly congregating near the village moms.  P’Neung and Ajarn Gai (our leaders) paired two students with one family each; Nikki and I were dragged home by Mama Peauw (I have no idea how to spell anyone’s name- you say it “pee-ow”).

Our house was basically a cement rectangle with aluminum roofing, and six rooms: the main room where we ate on the floor, our parents’ room, another secret room for Goo and her husband, a tiny kitchen, a bathroom, and Gee’s room where Nikki, Gee and I slept.  The architecture was interesting because none of the walls went all the way up to the ceiling which really helped because light from the kitchen flooded into the bathroom over the walls- peeing in the dark is not fun.

Our parents don’t speak English- and I don’t even know the name of my dad because I thought he hated us the first couple of days. He was super cute because he was a crooked old man with tattoos and a Playboy belt buckle.  I’m sad because we didn’t get a picture of him, but he disappeared before we could say goodbye on the last day.  Gee and Goo are our fifteen-year old fraternal twin sisters with knowledge of a tiny bit of English (most of us were able to communicate to our parents through the children if we were COMPLETELY CONFUZZLED about what they were trying to tell us).  Yes, Gee is married- to a twenty-year old- I think it was pre-arranged, but they are cute and seem happy.  Goo is unmarried and the typical teen- the entire time she was glued to her phone, and she liked all of the guys in our group way more than she liked us.  Typical. 

Our mom is a sweetheart.  Most of our conversations with her were about food:
Mom: *point at a food* “kin mai? (do you eat?” or “chawb mai? (do you like?)”
Us: *nod* “kin.” Or “chawb”
Mom: *positive grunt*…then she’d grab it or make it the next day as an addition to anything we had just eaten.  Dude- our stomachs are dying, and we have food babies and don’t want to eat for the next five days.  Everything she made us was SO GOOD. For some reason, they have the best mango I have ever tasted.  Let me give you examples of meals she made us to give you an idea about how much food we had in a day

Let’s see.  Things we did- a lot of visiting other houses.  It was interesting to see how differently everyone lives in terms of decoration and quality of things.  I won’t go too much into detail here.  We also helped pick longans (a fruit similar to lychee) amongst the gossipy moms who liked to discuss (in Thai of course) what meals they cooked for us and whether or not we liked it.  The village is run by the moms- it’s super cool.  The chief will make announcements on this loud speaker to gather the moms, and then they’ll just yell out at each other to make sure everyone is around.  One night, after dinner and a bath, everyone was dragged out to this little town meeting where the moms were discussing who knows what.

We went on a field trip to the Buatong Waterfall (Sticky Waterfall)! Which is this waterfall that you can walk up without slipping because the calcium deposits are so thick. It’s so awesome.  We also went to a temple (Wat  Prathat Doi Wiang Chai Mongkol)- and it was SO BEAUTIFUL! I need to know more about Theravada Buddhism.

One day, we helped the village build a chick dam.  We formed an assembly line to pass buckets of sand and pebbles through the jungle so that they could build the dam.  If they don’t build the dam, then the water runs throughout the village and it’s bad.  It felt really awesome to do something good and helpful (the moms would barely ever let us help which was really sweet), even though our bodies were a little sore the next day.

On the last night, we celebrated what I think was the kathina ceremony where the village offers a money tree, a new robe, and other practical items to the monk.  Earlier in the day, we got to help make decorations out of plants, and put money on the money tree.  Later, everyone got dressed in their Saturday’s best, then gathered outside of one of the stores.  We started dancing, then it started raining! So we gathered inside the store, and continued dancing! They had a drum, gong, and cymbals playing the music- it was basically the same song over and over with few variations, but we loved it.

Procession through the rain (they stuck us in a covered truck) to the beautiful temple.  Prayers and chants, welcoming, history on why this is done (if anyone is interested I will tell), then all the parents tied white strings on our wrists to help call our spirits back into our bodies.  We offered all the goodies to the monk, then went outside where the  moms did a special dance for us (super cute).  Then, each family got to send a paper lantern set with fireworks into the sky.  It was funny because ours almost didn’t make it into the sky.  It was so cute, and it made me the teeniest bit homesick because it reminded me of my last night in Maryland. And to end the night…MORE DANCING! My mom laughed at my dance moves.  Apparently, the lawn-mower, my infamous hand and shoulder dances, the monkey, and that silly knee dance do not exist in Thailand.

Next morning was goodbyes.  Twas a beautiful and sad thing. Some moms cried, ours did not.  But she still seemed a little down.  Gee was taking pictures of all the boys, but Goo will miss us fer sure.  Thank goodness for Facebook.  As promised, this post is longer than the last, but it is time to end.

I will end by saying that my village experience was one of the greatest- it was a great push into becoming confident about learning Thai, and it was nice to be around very resourceful and unspoiled people.  I loved it so much.  Also, when we got back to Chiang Mai and went to market, I bought three pairs of pants.  I love pants.