Americans On Parade

Tuesday

The last day of January began at the preschool, which is probably my favorite teaching assignment. The kids are so adorable and they get so excited to see us. The teacher of one of my classes told me that since my last visit the kids are constantly asking her when they get to see me next!  I had a good day teaching them, we sang and danced, learned colors, and played Simon Says. They are so well behaved; they even wait until everyone has received their milk before they start drinking. I have one class that seems more interested in learning English than the other, but maybe that will change as time progresses.

After school, Narong picked us up and took us to a meeting Lam was holding with some of her staff that doesn’t live at Plaboo and also with government officials. They were trying to brainstorm ideas on how to teach the teens in the villages, towns and cities about old cultural ways, the importance of Buddhism and spirituality, and how to get them interested in these topics. To show us more, Lam took us to a huge temple after the meeting. It sat in the middle of a huge garden, with numerous gongs surrounding the temple. Many monks roamed the grounds, while others walked the steps to the Buddha statue and prayed. After banging some gongs, Lam encouraged us to walk up the steps to pray and showed us the correct method. We took her up on this offer and kneeled in front of Buddha, bowed three times, and the prayed. It was very peaceful and meditative and I can see why it is important to Lam. 

Inside the temple is a small piece of bone from the actual Buddha, one of only two temples that hold this item. Females are not allowed in the temple, but males of course can enter freely. Drinking and checking out Buddha bones are two advantages of being a man here. Oh and not doing dishes, laundry, cooking or cleaning. Pffft. 

On our way to lunch, we ran into a white guy! He was in shock to see us as he said we are the first white people he has seen in the five months he has been living in the Isan region of Thailand. Isan is very rural compared to the rest of Thailand, so it is not visited by tourists or other foreigners like the beach and Bangkok. It turned out Andy, our new white friend, is from England and moved here with his wife, who is Thai, and their newborn baby. He was overly excited to talk to us and the first thing he said was “you can’t get any bloody western food here anywhere”. He seemed surprised by that, but we never expected to find any. He then went on to say how poor everyone is here and all there is are cows, buffalo, chicken and rice. How embarrassing, Lam was standing with us and was born and bred in this region. We tried to tell her about rude Brits later in the day, but she just laughed it off. 

We ate lunch at an outdoor noodle shop. Lam ordered for us, as she normally does, and got us Pad Thai. Now, we told her this was probably the most popular Thai dish in America and she wondered if it would be the same. It came out looking similar but instead of the standard chicken, were big chunks of squid. I am a squid lover, so I was happy, Stephanie on the other hand, not so much. The flavor was similar to that in America, but the American version has a much heavier hand with the peanuts and peanut butter flavor. It was really tasty, but I definitely got the impression that it is not eaten very frequently here.

Later in the day, Stephanie and I were reading in our room when we heard “Alisa, Alisa, Alisa” being screamed from downstairs (Alisa being my Thai name while I am here). We ran downstairs wondering what they could want and to our surprise, an elephant was standing in the road! What?? Was I dreaming? Did I eat too much pad thai?? Apparently, it is fairly common for people who own elephants to walk them through the surrounding villages, selling rides. When asked if we wanted a ride, we excitedly accepted. Because the roads in the village are skinny and the elephant couldn’t sit down for us to board, we hopped in the cab of Lam’s pickup and were hoisted up by the driver. Lam’s dad joined us on our ride, which we found out later was his first time on an elephant as well! So there we were, atop a massive elephant, taking a walk around the village block. I mean, we already get lots of smiles, laughs, and stares when we walk through the village, and now we are sitting on an elephant. It felt like Americans on Parade, especially since the village boys were following behind us on their bikes. We passed by the farmers returning home and the stumbling village drunks, who really got a kick out of us. To top it all off, it cost us a whopping $1.25. The most I ever got for $1.25 on my block in Cleveland was a half-melted ice cream bar. 

As if that wasn’t enough for one day, Sanong, one of Lam’s staff, decided to take some of the staff out to dinner at a Thai BBQ. Unsure of what that meant, we arrived to find an numerous tables outside that had mini charcoal pits sitting on top. Basically it is like a Mongolian BBQ, but you go and get all the items you want and cook them yourself. The grill on top of the pits is shaped sort of like a bundt cake pan. This is so a soup can be made in the round part, and the meats are cooked in the middle. It was really delicious and the staff thoroughly enjoyed watching us figure out how to maneuver the grill. Oh and the best part, ice cream at the end. We were like two little kids; ok ok we ate all our dinner, can we go get ice cream now?? It wasn’t the greatest ice cream, but man did it taste good. We of course had a lot of laughs at dinner, as it was the members of staff we spend most of our time with: Li, Om, Toi, Lam, Narong, Pui, and Sanong. As the language barrier becomes less and less of an obstacle I begin to feel more included in their tight-knit staff.