Mae Chaem home stay

I just came back from the village in Mae Chaem and am now showered and clean. Yesterday was Ginny's birthday so were going out to eat tonight. 

It was good to have our "Thai buddies" there for the first half of the trip to help us get acquainted with our host families but when they left I had no idea if I just didn't know the vocab when my host parents would speak to me, or it was a mix of that AND they were speaking northern Thai. My host father seemed to get a kick out of saying a sentence to Ginny and I and than laughing hysterically when we gave him unsure smiles. Our host mother too, only she would sometimes use hand gestures. 

They raised roosters who were obnoxiously loud at four am, but officially they are retired. They also have two sons who moved off but they seemed very proud of, and our parents were among the oldest in the family. Our mother and two others were some of the only woman who wore a pha sin (tube wrap skirt). Their house reminded me of my Yai's in Lopburi except theirs had an extra story, but other than than it was pretty close with bucket for bathing and squatting to pee. 

The village just finished a crematorium. We were told that Thai people rarely get buried, and immediately I thought of the trip my mom sister and I made when we I was nine. We came to Thailand because my mom's friend had just passed away, but hte only memory I have from the funeral was her coffin. Her body was in this gorgeous, elaborate coffin that was white with gold accents of some sort of Thai design, and I remember thinking how beautiful it was and watching it get pushed into the flames and there were doors of some sort that closed and no one could actually see the coffin being burnt. Anyway, we tried to help finish work on the crematorium, but I feel like we mostly just got in their way. There was a ceremony the day after we tried to help: monks chanting, a talk none of us learning Thai could understand. We later we taken to see work that the Thai studies group before us had done. (Bringing  running water to a village that was near by the one we were staying in) 

We took a tour of Mae Chaem via song tao and saw some of the local art. This included food, cotton woven goods and a man who made traditional Thai hair pins by hand. Apparently he is one of the few who still knows how to and does make them.

Although Mae Chaem is much more rural, we still found ways to do touristy things such as get Thai massages, and go to a center were we got to learn how to cook Thai desserts. But I'm still exhausted, and I have to get ready for Ginny's birthday celebration, so that is all for now. 

Assignment one: ICU: Expectations & Goals

Three expectations and two goals. 

1. Through the home stays in two considerably rural villages and the trip to Bangkok I feel as though it is reasonable for me to know about the cultural conflicts that lie within the country

2. Spicy food

3. I only know my mother's experience of Thai life and culture. She left Thailand at the age of 22, so while I feel I can draw expectations from her stories, I would like to and expect to find the difference of her life here and my own experience studying abroad here. (This includes generational differences as well.)

1. I would like to be able to navigate my way around Chiang Mai efficiently enough so that I don't look like a lost tourist all the time 

2. When I go home, I hope to be able to speak Thai well enough to hold a conversation with my brother if not mother ( One who speaks Thai at an intermediate level the next fluently, respectively)

While I realize the expectation piece of this seems  rather light, that is because I'm not sure quite what to expect and I prefer it that way. This is to say, I expect to learn and I expect o have a good time but that is as far as I would like to go with it. If too many expectations are made, than the experience will be changed and I'd like to look back on my semester abroad as clearly as possible.

First post

So Ginny an I got to Thailand about 6 days ago. Tomorrow is our last day of orientation, and so far we've walked around Payap University and its local town gone to the Sunday Night market in the old city and I've realized after my south east asian pre-test today that I know little to none about most things I should know about, especially for being half Thai. On monday we are going to our week long homestay in Mae Chaem, and while I know that even if I spoke Thai fluently It wouldnt help me too much up there I wish we had just a little bit more time just to build confidence. 

Speaking of confidence building, Ginny, Ashley and Kelly tried to teach Misa and I how to ride bikes today. I'm not sure how it went for Misa but I feel silly trying to learn to ride a bike at the age of 20 so Ive been psyching myself out. 

Hm... what else? Oh yes. We got back yesterday from an overnight meditation retreat. I'm still kind of digesting that day and all so more on that later I suppose. I also learned that a friend of mine went into the hospital on the day that I left for the meditation retreat. The car she was a passenger in flipped over, and while the driver and the driver of the other car were and are okay Paige just now got out of the ICU and is in the special care unit. She suffered from a broken cheek and collar bone, two skull fractures, and seven crushed vertebrae. Feeding tubes, breathing, surgery are all necessarily in her recovery. But from what I hear it sounds like she's been making as speedy a recovery as anyone could expect.  So well wishes to her and it sounds like she has had a lot of support. 

 

It feels like I have been here a lot longer than 6 days. Not necessarily in a bad way, in fact I don't know in what way I mean it. It feels like I have done a lot more than I probably have. So until I post the assignment, and until something that I remember comes up that is all for now.