this is to be my travel journal...of sorts.
i hope that i can keep these entries focused on my work and the things that i see and do while being a peace corps volunteer in thailand.
i promise i'll try my best to keep my personal drama out of it!
welcome to the doings of jordan!
i thought the rainy season wasn't meant to start until june?
i'm just asking because there are two large buckets and three bowls in my kitchen collecting water that's sneaking in through the cracks in my roof.
the rain is awesome! and not just because it has been ungodly hot lately. i can't remember the last time i remember it raining so hard, on any continent. the water in my town has been out since monday (the water main broke a few kilometers away) and i haven't been able to do my dishes as often as i would like.
but i did my dishes outside today! it was so much fun. i put a bucket under the eaves of the roof, squirted in some dish soap, and threw in my dishes. to rinse them i just put another bucket under the same eave (water was literally pouring from it, just like an open faucet) and got all the soap off...it was very cool.
of course, when i went to get a glass of water from the fridge and slipped on a big puddle, the word that came out of my mouth was not "Cool!" (i'll give y'all one guess as to what it was...)
thailand-it's great. full of wonder and magic, amazing sights all around. in my house even. so lemme tell you what was waiting for me when i got home from school today...
i'm not feeling too great, i'm tired from teaching, and it's 80,000 degrees outside. i come home from school and immediately take off my sweaty clothes. while walking to the kitchen to get an iced green tea, i throw my clothes into my laundry hamper.
but then i notice something hanging from my hamper- dangling by a string over the side. i look closer and...
IT'S A HEADLESS COCKROACH. headless...and still at least 3 inches long. which means the thing that ate its head has to be an even bigger bug. i get rid of the dead cockroach, throwing it in the trash. then i pick up my laundry hamper because i need to do some laundry.
and i see the thing that ate the cockroach.
it's a HUGE spider. the size of my hand, easily. living under my victoria's secret satin robe. needless to say, i didn't do my laundry today.
like i said: thailand is full of amazing things...large and small.
put that in your pipe and smoke it...
i am a peace corps volunteer in Thailand. i arrived here for training on January 14, 2005. I went through an intensive 10 week training program that included language, cultural, technical, and medical skills about living and working in ruralt Thai villages.
i lived with a host family for 8 of those 10 weeks. and it was HARD. being a quest in anyones' home is stressful, but being a guest for 8 weeks when the deepest conversation you can have it "this food is delicious!" is even harder. but, in the end, my homestay family came to mean a lot to me. they helped me immensly when i needed it and were always there for me sto speak Thai with (they spoke no English).
I had 5 hours of language every morning for 6 days a week. Thai is a difficult language and i am still no where near fluent. but i can get by! we learned the building blocks of conversation so that, once at site, our conversational skills can grow as we speak with more people.
in the afternoons i practice taught at a small Thai school. 3rd grade English was my class, singing and dancing was my preferred method. the Thais love to sing and they love it even more when a best of a farang (thai word for foreigner) is the one singing.
training was, in a word, a bitch. but i miss is and i am looking forward to my inservice training that will happen in july. training was long, stressful, exhausting, fun, interesting, and silly at some point every day. but it is the kind of training necessary to be a volunteer in Thailand. not just because the peace corps says so but because we are faced with a variety of challenges every day and the training, even when we disaggreed and fought with it, has given us the skills that we need to start from.
being a peace corps volunteer in Thailand isn't about living out the 1960's hippies dream of working hard for people who have nothing. Thailand is a developed nation, and that development is quickly spreading to the rural villages where we volunteers are placed. we are here because the Thai government asked for help in the areas of education and community development.
i am an education volunteer. my project is to work with two Thai coteachers and help them to develop lesson plans that are more student centered and less rote learning. how i'm to do that i don't yet know. my training is not in education, i am an anthropologist by education and a librarian at heart...
i came here to help people. and that's what matters. the Thai school year starts in 4 days and i am scared/nervous beyond belief. but i am happy to be here and eager to work. the past 6 weeks, since i was sworn in as an official volunteer, i have been at site- meeting people, visiting my schools,
so that's the deal-e-o with me and my peace corps life in Thailand so far. i have some amazing volunteer friends, i've traveled the country a bit- it is a beautiful place and many of the people are exactly what you read about: kind and generous.
Thailand is a place of contradictions and wonderful expierences. it has lovely people and interesting food...and they want my help. and i can help them- now the key is figuring out how...