The First Week

I have been with my host family for one whole week. It is crazy to think about how different my thoughts are since last week. I was so anxious last week about so much, like when to take a shower, how to eat, what is rip roy (appropriate) and what is not. And right now, I can honestly say that I am comfortable. I am comfortable using eastern-style toilets, I am comfortable eating with a spoon, I am completely comfortable with my new home and parents, and I am loving the city. Seriously, I am so blessed to be placed in this host family. My Mae is hilarious and loves to make jokes and my Paw laughs all the time, so even though I don’t understand what they are saying to each other, I thoroughly enjoy listening to them converse and giggle. I also know a lot more Thai, which helps for meal conversations to not be so long and quiet.

A typical school day is as follows:

5:30 am – wake up and shower (last time I woke up at this time was to open the pool for crazy lap swimmers)

5:50 am – breakfast (varies every morning: sweet rice, clear soup with shrimp, garlic bread haha, or bread with honey…always different and usually always good)

6:15 am – leave for bus stop

6:25 am – catch yellow bus to Arcade (bus terminal) with Jonathan

6:50 am – buy an ice coffee (gaffee yen) for 15 baht which is about $.40 from the little elderly lady

7:00 am – catch white bus to ISDSI

7:20 am – arrive at ISDSI and use the free wi-fi

8:00 am – Intensive thai class starts

12:00 pm – break for lunch (Monday’s eat at school, other days eat somewhere in town)

1:30 pm – Foundations course (starting Monday 2/16)

4-5ish pm – School ends, catch Rot Dang (Red bus that is a converted pick up truck) to Gad Luang (touristy market that is also the yellow bus terminal)

………….. – Take Yellow bus home to Doi Saket

When I get off the bus, I have to call my Paw and he comes and picks me up on his motorcycle/scooter. As soon as I get home, my Mae tells me to take a shower, which I am more than willing to do because of the long hot day at school and the hour of traveling home. After I shower dinner is usually ready and so far, I have not had the same thing twice. She even let me cook two dishes… both with the wok and both a spinach-like dish. They turned out to be delicious, even though I have never seen them before. Usually my parents will continue to put food on my plate until I say “em lao ka” which means “full already.” But then a kanom (dessert) is placed in front of me. The food here is so good and I hope to learn more cooking from my Mae, otherwise I want to sign up to take a Thai cooking class later on in the semester. That would be awesome!! The rest of the night, I do my homework at the kitchen table with my Paw. He is learning English, so helping me study is also practice for him to learn English. My parents are so helpful with my Thai.

From what I have gathered, this month will consist of Monday thru Thursday Thai class in the morning and foundations class in the afternoon. Friday is an adventure day… at least I think it is. This past week was more unique because it was still orientation. Wednesday we had orientation of Chiang Mai. We were sent on a scavenger hunt into the huge market in the middle of the city to use our little bit of Thai to find and buy certain things. Most things we had to buy, we also had to taste. It was crazy having no idea what you were asking for and then the next thing you know the market lady hands you a bag of mealworms!! Then we had to eat them! They were crunchy and ridiculously salty. I ate both a cricket and a huge grasshopper, too! I don’t think I will ever do that again… it was a really strange texture. There are some pictures of us eating them, and I will let you know what blog has them posted. Thursday we had GEAR CHECK DAY. So what that means is that I had to lug my huge suitcase of outdoor gear back to school (on both buses) and have our instructors check off that we had the items. Luckily, I have everything on the list, so I don’t have to worry about going around the city finding various things. After we were checked off in the afternoon, we went to the hospital and received our J-Vac shots. It was probably a crazy sight seeing a bunch of farangs (foreigners) in student uniforms (white shirt and black bottoms) in a waiting room. I am really glad I waited until I got to Thailand to get my shot because it was super inexpensive (like $25) and it was also a cool experience being in their hospital.

Friday was a very exciting day. We did not have any thai classes and we didn’t have to wear our school uniform! Instead, we went rock climbing as a whole group. It was part of our orientation because it helped us to step out of our comfort zone and push ourselves. I am a little scared of heights and when I rock climb my legs sometimes shake, haha… but I climbed a few walls and belayed tons of people. After lunch, we went inside some caves, did some zip-line-type-stuff, and then repelled down inside the cave like 200 feet! It was such a thrill. Everyone at Chiang Mai Rock Climbing was incredibly helpful and definitely made the experience worthwhile. I think I might go rock climbing at their wall later on this semester. The whole day made me pretty tired, so as soon as I finished dinner I went to sleep and I wanted to be well rested to wash all of my clothes by hand the next morning.

I have been in Thailand for about a week and I have experienced so many new cultural traditions, one being Buddhism. My parents seem to be strict Buddhists. They have a spirit house outside of our house (because every house is said to have a spirit, so it also needs to have a place to be) and they have a Buddha shrine in the corner of one of the bedrooms. Saturday we went to the city of Lamphur, which is a half hour away from Chiang Mai to a beautiful Buddhist temple. There are a lot of rituals that people do to honor Buddha in the temples, including bowing, chanting, praying, giving flowers, food and money, and lighting a candle. It was here where I found my love for coconut ice cream; it has chunks of coconut in it. In Thailand, Carnation sweet and condensed milk is put on or in everything… for example, gaffee yen (iced coffee) and cha yen (iced tea) both use Carnation as the cream/milk. They also put Carnation on the ice cream J The only thing I have ever used Carnation for was to make Papa’s fudge. On the way home we stopped at a Talaad (market) along side the road. It reminded me of a mix between a Meijer or a Hy-vee and a Haitian market. There was the seafood stand, the dry fish area, the fruits and veggies part, the 10+ different kinds of rice areas, and the clothing section. It was huge! My Mae even bought asparagus, which is my favorite… it will be interesting to see how she cooks it.

The evening we had some lost in translation moments and definitely a lot of confusion, but somehow Mackenzie (ISDSI student from last semester a.k.a. my brother who was visiting for the night) and I ate at both our house (green curry, bamboo stuff, and fried pork… probably my favorite meal yet) and then we went to Johnathan’s house and sang karaoke and ate more food there (shrimp/onion tempura and rice). In the end, the night ended up being a lot of fun! I am really enjoying getting to know my family and looking forward to starting the Foundations course on Monday. Thanks for the emails and facebook messages! I am so blessed to have people supporting me while I am here! Cup Koon Ka (Thank You).

ally j