"Don't get too comfortable"

So tomorrow at 3:30pm, we find out where we will be living for the next two years --> yes, the place you will come visit, the place where I'll have my own "home sweet home" and the place where I will grow to Love :) To put it in perspective for you, we are currently in Central Thailand (about 3 hrs away from Bangkok), and the site placement for CBODers will be Central, East, Far East, West and Southern Thailand. If you get placed in far-east (ee-son) you would have to adopt the dialect there since there are some Lao influence in the language. And during my site matching interview last week, I sort of made it pretty clear that I really would not want to learn a dialect SO, there is a likelihood that I will be in either Central/East thailand which would be cool. ..but who knows! I'm so so so anxious to find out!

On top of all that anxiety, Weds we go to Bangkok for an overnight stay then we are 'sent off' to visit our site! ALONE... yeah, we learned how to say ticket, price, arrive, departure, bus, train all this week so that should come in handy ... thought, if you don't hear from me for a REALLY long time, that means I got stuck somehwere in some village and completely gave up trying to come back to Chainat; you might want to call hahahah (well, i should be ok ) I'll be staying/visiting my site for 5 days then I'm back next week on Weds :) WISH ME LUCK!!!!!

"Sometimes, you just gota GO FOR IT"
- Zari :)

“ Tomorrow, You Vacation...”

My host brother: “ so tomorrow, holiday holiday...”
Me: “ Ohhh Really? What holiday? What is the name?”
Brother: “ no, you holiday, off”
Whenever my family uses that term to point out my “off Sundays” I constantly catch myself thinking “wait there is a holiday coming up?” and then I realize what they are trying to say. Yes, I do have Sundays off which usually consists of me getting up at 7:30/8, eating breakfast, doing laundry (by hand) and going off to some planned Sunday event.

Last week, I spent all of Sunday going to two weddings then going to Josh's house for our usual Sunday relaxed gathering. I never thought I would catch myself getting up at 7:30 AM on my “ off” days but yeah that's what I do in Thailand on a Sunday. The wedding started at 8am, perhaps there was some information that got lost in translation because I followed my host Mom and rode my bike to this person's house for what I thought was a “leisure” bike ride. Mind you, I was still in a t-shirt, messy hair, still sleepy, still a bit confused wondering “ I thought we were just going on a ride...” well I was at the wedding. I looked around, everyone was either in jeans or a nice pink flowery shirt; I felt pretty embarrassed in my casual “Bucknell University” t-shirt after being introduced to everyone, I told my “mom” that I needed to go home and get my camera. After I sorted myself out, we came back to the wedding, we were at the first ceremony for an hour or so; listened to the live singers' performances, ate and gave money to the bride/groom. Apparently, sometime during the wedding, bride and groom walks around and pays their respect to the guests while collecting their “ wedding presents (money)” from the guests and trading that with a small gift from the bride/groom. I got a little coin purse out of the deal. The second wedding we went to was 10times more extravagant than the one in my own village. These people rented out a setting inside a nearby school. They decorated with pictures of the bride/groom, they looked much better put together and there were tons of people there already. There were also “ professional” dancers/singers that performed. The word is in quotations because they probably get hired to do these events; but half the singers were enjoying being completely skanky rather than the actual singing, and the other half didn't really know the steps for their routines. As Riap -Roiy as this country is, how does these dancers/singers get away with wearing nothing but see through pants and bikini tops during performances? Maybe as long as u r on a stage, you can be as “Mai Riap Roiy” as possible? Who knows.... So that's how half of the day went by; then, instead of going home our families (Josh and Mine) like to stay together and drink off the rest of the afternoon while Josh and I realize how we been up since 8am and all we want is a Sunday afternoon nap. I will say though, it was a pretty funny afternoon at the house of “Pi Mu”.
This Sunday though, has been nothing but AMAZING. Woke up around 7:30, 10 mins later my brother knocks on my door and reminds me that it's time to eat; of course, who doesn't want to have rice, fish, chicken at 7:30am! Finally I understood what my 'mother' was saying as she said “ Du Naa (see farm)”

Since I was at weddings last week, now I actually have the time to go see her farm, so after breakfast, we went on a bike/motorcycle ride to her farm. She is 60 years old and takes care of the biggest field of rice, vegetables...etc, I have ever seen. I respect her 10times more now, just by going on a 30 minute tour with her. She talks non-stop as though she thinks I have learned a lifetime of Thai, as I say “ mai kao jai, mai kao jai (I don't understand)” but even then, I love being around her :) After I got home from that amazing mini-trip, I finally decided to do my laundry. People here do laundry at least once a week, with their hands. I won't lie it's not the most fun activity and half the time I'm thinking “ all my clothes are just going to be half-clean for the next two years” and everytime I bring out my laundry my sister says “ That's all you have?” … Well, you cannot just wear a pair of pants once and expect to wash them every week! (well at least not in the States). Anyhow, as I fell asleep on the hammock, realizing how hungry I was getting, this friend of mine came over with her sisters and asked if I wanted to come to lunch with them at their friends' restaurant. Why not right? And plus, I didn't have to bike so of course :) Lunch was delicious, after, they took me to their house so I could use the internet :) I got some cool-hip Thai songs from the girls – that was the highlight of my day! :) Rest of the day was spent with me reading, hanging out with Josh and his family, and having amazing dinner with everyone :) Why can't all Sundays be like today???? … :)

Pictures: 1. Mosque in town 2. "moms" farm. 3. Sports day with my team 4. Carnival/ bird fair 5. Chillin on Sunday 6. Wedding 7. WEdding 2 8. Food at Wedding :)

The "almost" one month blog post ::)

So today marks the “almost” one month(Jan 17- Feb 15) anniversary of my time here in Thailand. To say the truth, it feels as though I have been here for a year already – minus the poor language skills. I sure hope after an ACTUAL one year, I will stop talking like a baby and will be able to have full conversations with people without wanting to speak English,Uyghur, French or even Spanish (yeah, don't ask). Seriously though sometimes when I just cannot think of how to say a particular word or question, I just want to use any language that I ever came across to see MAYBE they will get it. Of course most people here only speak “ English Nit Noy (a little)” so my attempt fails 99.9% of the time.
Besides all that, I really do not have anything else to complain about; or maybe it's more so the fact that I have not had any moment beyond couple minutes to really think about what I am missing. The frustrations that I have usually stem from “ gosh am I seriously eating rice, chicken, vegetables, egg for breakfast?” , “ Can I not bike today when it's like 35C outside?”, “If I hear Riap Rioy (proper behavior) one more time, I might just go nuts” and of course, “Shi*t almost two months later I gota tough it through all this relying completely on myself”. Anxiety about all that comes and goes, but at the end of the day, I look around and realize, 1). why I have chosen the P.C. 2) I only want to complain because I know how life in the States “could be better”. And the people here, they are completely content and maybe happier than so many people in the States who have lives 10 times better than the average rice farmer here in Thailand. It's truly amazing to see how much people can live without and still be the happiest, most kind, selfless people on earth → and that reality is what I have learned/lived through the past month.
All in all, a month later, we have 60 volunteers remaining (out of the 63), ages ranging from 60+ to 20+, females, males, teachers, community development volunteers all making up an AMAZING/DIVERSE group of people. We all had (continue to have) our share of too much rice/too much food, mosquito/bug bites, tummy aches, SWEAT, muscle pain (from biking), exhaustion, lack of privacy, squat toilets, Thai bf/gf proposals, bucket showers, geckos, language mishaps, awkward interviews, and continued hub/village/tech meetings that all of us can just do without at least for one day but taking a deep breathe, taking it one day at a time, and realizing that no one said this would be easy will probably get us all pretty far in our journey :)

It's 90 something here, and we haven't yet hit the 'Hot Season'

I hope all of you are staying warm and safe during the stormy couple days that have taken over the Northeast. As to me, on the other side of the World, it is getting hotter and hotter everyday and it does not really help much that we bike all across the city from 8am to 6pm. You can only imagine how tan I am getting and it has only been 1 month :)
My daily schedule has not changed much although we have been incorporating more "field work" to our everyday training; which involves, interviewing people throughout our village - in Thai . It can be both fun and frustrating to say the truth. Most of the time, we write down all the questions with want to ask IN THAI with our language teacher; so we go into people's business, houses and sometimes different NGOs and think we are just " SO READY" to start. As soon as we open our mouth beyond the intial " my name is ...." anything else we say, the Thai look at us like we are speaking another language. Then we just all start laughing because we know how much we are messing up the tones. You would think for someone who speaks Mandarin, this won't be that hard.... well it is. So far, we have interviewed village heads, some middle school students, staff at the village clinic and visited an NGO that works with local farmers to promote organic farming.

On to more non-work related issues, my weirdest experience was, one day I saw my host Dad take out the intestine of bunch of rat sorta like cleaning an animal before you cook them. Well as much as I hate rats, I thought i should watch him, then he told me " these rats are from the rice fields, they eat the rice....no good. So we are eating them for dinner". I just looked at him and said um..... I like chicken. Thai people mince, and/or grill rats ... and it is supposedly pretty delicious. I decided to stick to Pad Thai and Pad See U which are all so so so delicious for only like 20 baht a plate (less than 1 dollar).

Alrity, I am sitting at the Hotel it's about 5:22 right now, I need to bike home before 6:30pm.

Keep updating me with life in the States and do call if you can I would love to hear from you. 0878499773 :)
Take Care, sending my warm thoughts to you all during this cold season

Above are pictures of 1. provincial hall/town 2. Big Buddha with my awesome language group (we call oursevles "team sweet dessert" 3. my nephew and I 4. Really pretty Temple 5. Family/Friends 6. My bed 7. The river where I take the Faerie everyday 8. My teachers

"DA WAN means Perfect Eyes"

First sorry, that my thoughts throughout this post is all over the place ... it is 3 am right now And second, Sorry everyone for not posting for a while now, I do not have internet at my host family's house although that might change on weds but I am not too sure. There is a computer downstairs with a modem but apparently the modem has not worked for a while. A friend told me, through translating with my sister, that on Weds someone was going to come by to fix the modem so that I could get on the computer. So sweet, but let's just keep our fingers crossed.

So, what has been going on?

Two weeks ago, I moved in with my host family. There are six members in the Family "KroopKrua" Pso Thong. Mom, Dad (my host Dad n Mom obviously), Dad's Son (so my brother), the Wife to the son (daughter in law ie. my Sister ) and two boys (ages 7 and 10). For the past two weeks they have been nothing but amazing to me. I wake up in the morning around 6:30, shower and by the time I come downstairs Food (breakfast) is ready. Breakfast here equals Rice, Eggs, Chicken and some other dish. That is like a dinner back in the States right? although its SO SO delicious, I have learned to say " nit Noy Khao" which means a little rice. Gin Khao is the term for Eat Rice BUT it's used during everyday language as " Eat/food time". Well after trying to eat as little as I can without offending them, I ride my bike to my Language training site which is about 15 minutes. Our Ajan (teacher) is so so amazing, I can tell now already that I will miss her so much once PST is over and that I have to move to my Site. Yes, we are with her from 8-12, we usually eat lunch together. I try to go for noodles, Pad Thai, pad See-U, or nething noodle ish. Although I have realized thatI would have LOVED to have that variety home cooked meal for lunch instead because after lunch at 1 we bike another 30 mins to get to our Technical Training site at the Sub-district Administrative Office in Ta Chai. Therefore between, biking, sitting through tech til 5 pm and biking back by 6:00pm , a bowl of noodles does not get me through those hours. And plus, its HOT here. I mean it feels like it's 90 degrees n more. Even though, it's only the " cool" season. OHHHH yes, biking, changing into " appropriate skirt/blouse "Rap Roi" attire,and biking home at 5pm... baby powder becomes ur bestfriend.

That is our usual PST schedule (language and Tech skills training). I get home around 6/6:15pm. funny story, One day, I got home at 6:30 because after training we were being idle and wanted to take an adventure bike ride to find the location for our language training. Well, I get home at 6:30ish, my family was so so worried. My Brother told me he called twice and my Sister was out already looking for me . I felt horrible, unfortunately that was before I knew how to say "sorry" in Thai, so I just kept trying to explain to them that I was just trying to find somewhere. On top of all that, 2 mins after I got home, the police pulls into the drive way and I"m like " crap, they called the police?".... n then my brother said " go upstairs..wash up" YUP at 22, in Thailand as a PCV I got sent to my room. Yes, of course, Lesson Learned.

Overall though, I think my family thinks i'm just hilarious and goofy because anything that I think I know in Thai I say it. and I try to act it out in front of them when we are just chillin on the porch. They look at me, smile and tell me that they don't understand what I just said... haha even though I'm saying it in THAI... well that will only tell you how horrible I am right?

The little boy is so adorable, i think he genuinely got my back. He makes sure I get my coffee, my water, my snacks anywhere we go. He just brings anything he is eating to me , with a smile (no matter I wanted or not) ... so cute :)

So Why am I up right now?

Well, Today is Feb 1st and it is our first overnight stay at the hotel since our departure to our host families. Therefore, after an amaaaazing night of " Thai Culture" which included eating amazing food on the floor, dancing the Thai dances, performing couple of our own American culture (I sang" Don't Stop Believing" with couple ppl ) and receiving a good luck 'charm" from our Thai staff we all felt "reconnected" again. It's amazing to look around and realize that, Although you have a pool of people back home that has your back and support everything that u are doing here in Thailand, these 59 ppl are the ones that TRUELY understands and gets you. You are not just some girl with a pathetic dream of helping others......(yes you get the point) So, after all the festivities ended, no one wanted to go to bed, so we been hanging out with "the "P.C crew" until now.. and it's 3am, and I gota be up at 7am .... goood morning!

So all in all, I've been spending my days training, learning thai, speaking/communicating in broken thai/english (can it be Thainglish), riding my bike ( ALOT), spending time with my host family and BEING extremely HOT, DEhydrated and tired. ... No one said it would b easy huh? Gosh I guess because of all those reasons, I LOVE Sundays ... it's my ONLY day off. So I usually spend it with doing laundry (with my hand), going to different Temples, and sometimes even, going to funeral. Though, nothing seemed sad about this one funeral that I attended on Sunday, people were drinking, eating and talking. I will say, three monks did come and read through their funeral rituals n other than that I watched everyone drink and eat. I think out of all those nights that I am out with my family, that was one night when I really really just wanted to go home/sleep/read.....

I do miss everyone, and I really hope that you all are doing GREAT. please do email/update me about your life> it might take me a little time to get back to u but that doesn't mean you can't just throw in an message :)

OH also, DA WAN means "perfect Eyes" and that's the nick name that my host family gave me :)