Wednesday, February 18, 2009

IT IS GETTING HOT!!!!

One week of foundations completed… and overall this week has been pretty incredible. We were put into our permanent Thai class groups and worked rigorously on the Thai alphabet. I got so frustrated and it wasn’t sticking. It is so different from learning a language like Spanish or French because both use a similar alphabet to English. Thai is based off of a Sanskrit-type alphabet. My homework has consisted of a lot of memorization of each letter and all of the rules that go into forming words PLUS learning new phrases and words in THAI.

Our foundations course is taught by Dr. Christina Fink. She is so knowledgeable about Thai culture . The course is focused on providing information about Thailand that will enhance our experience here now and during our other courses. Some of the topics we discussed this week were Gender and society, Rip Roy (the idea of being appropriate in who you bow to, the length of your skirt, the things you say, showing affection, etc), and then we spent two days on Education in Thailand. Thursday we visited two schools in Chiang Mai, first we visited CMIS (Chiang Mai International School) and then PRC (The Prince Royal’s College). Both schools are private Christian based K-12 schools, but they are very different. CMIS has about 400 students total and teaches mainly in English with no uniform requirement (one of the only schools like this) and PRC is 54 acres big and has 6,000 students. About 99% of the students at PRC are Thai and everyone wears a uniform; it also has a bilingual section of the school where students learn in English, but otherwise in the rest of the school English is taught as a normal subject like science or math.

My homestay is still going very well. I am almost getting to the point where I can walk home from my bus stop. Usually, I call as soon as I get off the bus and tell them in my broken thai that I am walking home and that I really enjoy it and they usually say ok and agree. But then a few minutes later, my Paw will show up on his motorcycle/moped and drive me the last 200 ft or my Mae will walk and meet me on the road and then walk me the rest of the way home. haha, I think they are still very protective over me.

One night our neighborhood had a parade around 8:00 pm that went to the Wat (Buddhist Temple) down the road from our house. The parade consisted of shooting off fireworks in the street, playing loud music, and lots of bright lights... it was really cool to watch, but kind of scary. The party lasted into late in the night and I definitely fell asleep to "Apple Bottom Jeans."

The food here is definitely one of my favorite aspects of Thailand. Wednesday night was the first night I had Pad Thai, which is kind of crazy because I assumed, before I came here, that I would be eating Pad Thai all the time. However, my parents are still all about introducing me to all different dishes of Thailand. Some other ISDSI students said that they unknowingly ate ant eggs!! AHHH! That freaks me out a little bit and so far I haven’t been served them… but I do scrutinize my food before I put it in my mouth. One morning our Thai classes were a little different. We went to a market and bought a bunch of food ingredients (using our Thai speaking skills) and then we came back to school and cooked four different Thai meals. I wish I could tell you what they were called… but ate each dish for lunch and everything was spicy and so delicious. Two ingredients I have never eaten so much of…. Pork, Eggs, and Garlic. In the application for this program, everyone was required to sign a sheet that said that we would not be vegans or vegetarians while we were in Thailand. This is for two reasons, first, it could offend our homestay families if we decline food that is offered and second, it would make eating a balanced diet very difficult here. People here put pork in everything, seriously, I have had it for every meal, and somehow Thai people never seem to get sick of it. Me, on the other hand, have started to really appreciate chicken more. I asked one of my instructors why pork is so common in dishes here and he said that it is not because it is the cheapest meat (chicken I guess is) but because it is thought of as like higher class…which I am still confused about. The other ingredient is eggs… some of you may already know how cooked eggs seem to upset my stomach, so this has been a challenge. They didn’t really warn us about how many eggs you may consume here, but I think they maybe should have.

This past weekend we had a retreat to Mork-Fa Waterfall. We started our Friday by going to a reservoir to do our swim assessment. It consisted of swimming to a buoy 150 meters off shore and swim back and then treading water for 15 minutes straight. It turned out to be really fun, despite the murky gross water and the lack of good goggles and swim caps. We hung out at the reservoir for a good three hours. For lunch we had a kind of fish soup, deep fried shrimp, a pork dish, spicy papaya salad and goong deep bin (raw, alive shrimp)… ahhhhhh! it was crazy! They gave us a bowl with a lid on it and said to shake it up (to mix the spices with the shrimp) and then when we took off the lid a couple would jump out! Even when you held them in your hand they would squirm around, worse yet when you put them in your mouth if you didn’t chew fast enough you could feel them moving around. I honestly don’t know if I will eat them again, but they were tasty, it’s just the idea of eating something still alive and moving ugh. haha.

After lunch, we rode in pimped out vans that had mirrors on the walls and ceilings and played “50 Best Dance Songs” which included “Toxic” “Bye, Bye, Bye” and “I’m too Sexy”…we had a dance party and it was hilarious. Our sweet rides took us to Mork-Fa National Park where we ended up camping out for the rest of the weekend. We rented out the long house cabins and the kitchen/picnic area. The weekend was chill and relaxed. It was a nice break from the city life and it was a good way to get to know the other students in the program (17 total, 9 from Calvin and the rest from various schools). We swam in the waterfall, hiked a lot, and hung out. I learned how to cook some more Thai dishes and became pretty good at making and flipping a kai-jiao (Thai Omelet) in a wok. Thai Omelets are a lot more difficult to make than an American style omelet because it is flat and cooked in a wok and not folded and cooked in a skillet.

When we arrived back into the city we (Johnathan and I) waited at school for two hours until his parents picked us up. We had to make some errands around the city before we went home, but the errands took a long time and the next thing we know we are parked in front of a restaurant. I got kind of worried because my parents weren’t answering their phones and I assumed they probably were going to have dinner for me when I got home. When I was dropped off at home, as I had assumed my mother had dinner ready. I felt bad and got a little frustrated once again with miscommunication. I am still trying to get used to the Thai traditions and customs… it is definitely going to take some time, especially trying to understand little things like where and who to eat dinner with. Anyways, I appreciate all of your prayers and support. I hope you all are doing well!

ally j

p.s. I am trying really hard to add pictures... but it seems to not be working. Pretty soon I will add pictures.

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