Hello, สวัสดี (Sa wa dii), Hola

Here are some random thoughts I've had about Thailand and Thai people that I thought I'd share:

Thai people HATE the sun ... for the sun being so strong in this part of the world it is amazing to me how the people who live here could hate it so much and manage to find so many ways to avoid it ... they do this partly because they don't want dark skin and partly because they refuse to sweat ... I am clearly the complete opposite ... they also are very confused that my cheeks are red but not burnt from the sun

I wish I could do the Asian squat ... if you don't know what this is its being able to squat down on flat feet ... they just hang out down there sometimes ... its awesome!

sport pants are the best purchase I've made here so far ... they fit amazingly and are surprisingly flattering ... I'm definitely buying more to bring home

Thais rarely wear sunglasses ... and I ALWAYS wear sunglass ... makes me feel awkward sometimes

The other day when I bought a "chah yen" (a Thai iced tea ... ie my most favorite new delicious drink treat of choice) my cup said, "Music is the greatest magic in the world our magic can't even come close to be compared with it" ... bold.

I've been to a restaurant and handed a menu in translated English that literally had on it as an option, "Stir fried appendix with stuff." I don't know about you but I am not daring enough to order that!

The fruit here is truly delicious ... every honey dew, watermelon, pineapple, mandarin orange, banana ... mmmm

Instant pre-mixed coffee is the beverage option of choice EVERYWHERE ... for those that love real coffee, finding it here is quite difficult ... At school the only hot beverage of choice is the pre-mixed coffee ... my morning tea gets consumed before school, I've taken to drinking hot water sometimes at school ... and the pre-mixed coffee is actually like a little shot of dessert (the cups they used are baby size)

I LOVE sticky rice! ... and laab (i have no idea how to spell it) which is a meat salad ... basically just any cooked meet chopped up real small mixed with mint other flavors ... its eaten with sticky rice and is ALLOY MAK MAK ... SAAAAAAAP

Oh and I think the teachers at Nong Hee have realized I like dressing like a hippy because I've been gifted 2 floor length hippy skirts in the past week ... this also might be a slight hint that they think the knee length skirts I brought are too short ... go figure

Thai people also complain that 50 degrees in freezing all the time ... like wear scarves and mittens and sweaters and jackets but as soon as they get in the car they put the air conditioning on ... THIS COMPLETELY BAFFLES ME! and yesterday Earm told me that if she was in America for winter she thinks she would die ... precious.

I think thats all for now

To begin, celebrating holidays in another country is weird, not in a bad way, just … different. Things have been so hectic and crazy that I barely noticed or even realized I was ‘missing’ the holidays at home. Which in many ways is a blessing, as we know I can be a stickler for traditions, and it was nice to be distracted and excited about new things, especially this time of year. The WorldTeach Volunteers were able to all get together on Christmas this year since it was a Saturday, otherwise we would have had to teach and get together on another day to celebrate. At a meeting earlier in the month a large group of us pulled names for a Secret Santa and we all agreed on doing a Yankee Swap as well, or for some, only. Everyone also offered other potluck dished and dessert, making this a ridiculous feast of American, Thai, and Vietnamese treats. We all found a way to Rita’s adorably decorated home at Chok Amnuay school, thanks in part to her students as well as her host family, and celebrated Christmas the way any family would. LOTS of eating, fireworks, scheming, laughing, and movie. It was almost like being back at orientation, with everyone sleeping in 2 rooms except that this time we has no mats or mattresses and some people opted to just sleep outside. The weirdest part of actually Christmas day for me was that I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts and eating corn on the cob, while listening to Christmas music. It may sound weird to some but I would much rather be freezing and wishing for snow on Christmas day. But I’ll continue … This week of teaching was also filled with dance practices, as I would be performing a Thai dance on New Year’s Eve with the 4 student teachers at ChoomChonNongHee, and New Year’s parties. New Year’s is celebrated in Thailand more than Christmas so everyone has a New Year’s dinner or party just like Americans would all have Christmas parties. Earm and Sumet had a party at their house on Sunday night, Monday and Tuesday I had dance practice until about 6 (I would leave for school in the morning and not be dropped off at home until it was dark), Wednesday I usually get home around 2 but instead I was driven straight to NongHee to practice, then I got home in time to be picked back up by people from PhonTan to go to the New Year’s dinner, then Thursday I also went straight to NongHee after teaching at PhonTan, then after we finished practicing and trying our outfits on, as they had been picked up that day, I was informed we were going to a wedding for the daughter of one of the teachers at NongHee… well a dinner for a wedding that we were invited to at 7am on Dec. 31st but we were going to be too busy setting up for the party at the school that we opted to go to a dinner the night before … so Earm, Sumet, and Kerry went to the dinner with all the other teachers from PhonTan and some other guests, confusing I know, and then Thursday was the night Michelle’s school was having their New Year’s party, so I got dropped off at home and then walked over to where the party was on campus, since Michelle was being asked a million times where I was ... Now on to Friday. I got picked up around 7am to go to NongHee to help set up for the party, including staple gunning fabric around the bottom of the stage, and basically using fabric to decorate everything, and I watched some Takaw games and a volleyball game and then after lunch began the process of hair and make-up for the dance. Thai dancing involves a very serious amount of make-up and hair spray – if my years of dance competitions were actually this serious, I don’t know that we would have survived. So neither the hair salon, nor the girl who was going to do our makeup was ready when we were … obviously. This meant that I hung out at one of the student teacher’s houses eating fruit until it was time to go back over to the salon. I got my hair done – which involved teasing three front pieces, hair spraying, blow drying, and pinning them into place, then teasing out and spraying my curls into a giant ‘bun’ on the top of my head.



Then I was carted back over to the house where our makeup was getting done. Villa, the dance teacher at PlaPak is from NongHee, her mother works at the school, and she taught us the dance – was in charge of doing out make-up. She’s adorable and I know her from orientation because she is the one who taught us dance then, and her mother has since tried to get me to set her up with John … she wants them to talk on the internet. Anyway, it took her about a half hour of dabbing my face with this shellac-like foundation, brushing powders and eye shadows, trimming my eyebrows with a razor blade then drawing on big dark eye brows, lining my eyes with liner, gluing on fake eyelashes, and painting my lips for me to look like a Barbie. And thus a Thai dancer.


But NO! the process wasn’t complete … my arms all the way down to my fingers, neck, and visible back were then covered in a pinkish white powder (that was applied with a wet sponge) to ensure that all parts of visible skin were flawless … because lets face it, performers a flawless. So now that my entire upper body is painted and air sprayed into place I have about 4 hours to sit around a do nothing while the other dancers and getting made up … WOW that boring! Not to mention I was tired and the fake eyelashes are so heavy! My eyes wanted to water so badly and I had to use all my might to keep them from smudging the pound of make-up that was on my face … wow that’s difficult! But time eventually went by and it was time to get dressed and then time to go over to school and I took a bunch of pictures and saw some students and was told I look like a doll and was beautiful ... yes!



And then we danced and it was so fun seeing the reactions of my students, as I was able to Thai dance and look Thai. And then I was used for some sort of award ceremony, where I held a silver plate that envelopes kept getting put on, whatever, then I was finally able to eat!!! It was about 9pm at this point and I was fed delicious food and managed to not get any of it on my outfit … whaaat?! Who am I?! Then I was allowed to get changed so we went back to Villa’s house, got all changed and went back to the party where I met up with Teeda (Earm and Sumet’s 25yr old daughter who speaks awesome English – and she’s awesome) and her husband boo-e, who is also awesome, and all their cousins (my adopted family hahaha) and we sat on our designated mat and had a few beers until midnight (which at the point I really only sat there for two hours). We also danced a little, super fun. And then the countdown happened – part in English, part on Thai, some fireworks went off from somewhere in the crowd – legit I felt like I myself had set them off, they were that close – and then everyone started cleaning up … what? No seriously, midnight came, went and the party was over. But since I was with people who basically run the school/the party I didn’t get driven home until about 2 … then I talked with Michelle for a while, so I really didn’t get to bed until about 3, only to wake up again at 5 to wash all of this make-up and hair spray off of me because I was getting picked up at 6am to make merit to the monks. All I knew going into this was that I was to wear a long skirt, and it was currently freezing because the sun wasn’t up yet and I was tired. I get picked up, only about a half hour late and driven to the school, where I was greeted by a ton of people all in the canteen sorting through all of the food, that just kept coming and arranging it on plates and trays. I’m talking this was like Thanksgiving at a soup kitchen. I was part of the NongHee teachers so that meant that I basically ‘worked in the kitchen’ while the ceremony was going on and ran out only to ‘make merit’ (ie put small bits of sticky rice in each special bowl for the monks, that you are not allowed to touch) and then we were back to the kitchen to continue sorting through all of the food. And now that the ceremony has started sorting through the food means picked out all of the packaged foods from the sticky rice that people ‘made merit’ with. Super fun. Then once that was all done, we took the trays over to the ceremony and they were placed on the stage in front of the sitting monks, then we were able to go and sit. We watched this next part of the ceremony, or rather sat with our hands ‘wai-ing’ while one of the monks spoke. Then the monks began eating while yet another string tying ceremony happened … my first with NongHee … then the monks left and the food trays were distributed to the groups of people about and we ate breakfast … apparently all the donating of food to the canteen was part ritual, part you actually get to eat it when all is said and done … then of course more cleaning up. We cleaned up from the ceremony and then finished taking down all the fabric from the stage and cleaning up where the party was and then at 12:15 I was finally driven home to sleep! Yesss!!!

“Kerry chim”, meaning “Kerry taste” is a phrase I often hear, but today took things to a whole other level! Instead of teaching English today I was shown off at the health fair that took place on school grounds. The fair was put on by the health center in NongHee and it focused on iodine, its importance, deficiencies, and ways to get it. Apparently iodine helps with your I.Q. and there is a lack of it in Isaan … or so I understood. But back to being “shown off” … I use this phrase to describe me walking around the fair because that’s literally how I felt … yesterday I was warned by Earm to not wear sport (despite the fact that today was Tuesday and I was told countless times that ‘NongHee teachers wear sport on Tuesday’), since many people would want to take their picture with me. I was told specifically to dress ‘suay’ (beautiful). So I did. And when I say that people want to take their picture with me … sometimes it doesn’t even matter whose camera it is … for instance I have taken pictures with people, who are asked me, with my camera, and they never see the picture … curious. My VIP status grew 10 fold when I was handed a baby to take a picture with (on my camera only).


But no complaints here on that one because I honestly miss human contact so much that holding that baby for 30 seconds was amazing!!! …I’m a creep. Now to the tasting … for about an hour and a half straight we walk around the fair stopping at each booth, which more times than not contained something for Kerry to ‘chim’. Most of the food was ‘arroy’ (delicious), some was not … and most was ‘phet’ (spicy) … which I now enjoy … to a certain degree. There are dishes of som tam that Earm tries and goes “Kerry no eat.” Hahahaha The people of Isaan like their food on fire! Then we had about a two-hour lunch where I was given sugar cane to eat … which was my favorite discovery of the day … surpassing the baby. It’s cut into slices and you bite pieces off, chew the sugary liquid out of it and spit out the hard part … ‘saaaaaap’ (Isaan word for delicious).

The term ‘mountain climber’ can now be used to describe me. No joke. During sports week I agreed to travel with the teachers from Phon Tan to Loei for the upcoming weekend, figuring it would be an “adventure” and entertaining. They get very excited when I say I will do things with them and I did come to Thailand to spend time with Thai people so … here goes. All that was communicated to me before we left was that we were going camping on a mountain … now that could mean many things in Thailand and plans change like the weather in Ireland, so I was prepared for anything and everything … or so I thought. SeeSuda picked me up at 7am on Friday morning and we set off on our way. We spent all morning driving, stopped for lunch (where whiskey and soda was served, typical), drove some more and then randomly stopped for haircuts … don’t ask. We were escorted by someone’s friend to the national park from inside a town (where the haircuts were) and found that it had closed for the day … since it was now about 3pm. We then found a hotel, had some happy hour drinks, while sitting outside on mats, went to the night market nearby for dinner, and hit the sack. Thank god for that, as I would learn soon.

We awoke at 6am, showered, dressed, and headed out in search of caffeine and food. We arrived at the park a little after 7am to find that many people had already arrived and the crowds were just as they had told me, big. We checked in, walked over to where you ‘check’ your bags to be carried to the top of the mountain via a bamboo pole balanced on someone’s shoulder, and began what would soon be the longest and most difficult hike of my 22 years of life. THANK GOD I decided to check my backpack and not be a martyr.


This hike was literally 9km of a 45 degree angle UP. Oh. My. God. All I could think while we were climbing was that this was NOT for the faint of heart … and that Jim and Fran could not do this with me so it’s a good thing I’m doing it without them. Hahahahaha


Clearly Thai people know me well, or maybe I’m meant to be Thai but after the first kilometer I was greeted by a beer and a piece of watermelon (at 9:30am) … classic.


It proceeded to take us about 6 hours to finish the climb ... at which point i became a "conqueror" of Phu Kradaung


And THEN we had to walk along the dirt road at the top of the mountain another 3 or so kilometers to the visitor center. The road literally opens up to a giant field filled with tents … just rows and rows of tents as far as the eye can see.


Our bags were not yet at the top so we ‘gin khao’ (ate lunch, literal translation ‘eat rice’) and then waited for our bags … one would think that a shower would be exactly what someone would want after this epic hike, but as it turns out by the time our bags got to us the temperature had dropped at least 15 degrees and I was now quite chilled. The thought of getting into a probably dirty, campground shower, that only had cold water was the farthest thing from appealing at this point. I bought some tshirts, we rested in our tent, we ate dinner (gin khao), and then went to bed. I was the youngest person in the group by at least 10 years so my company was pretty dead at this point. Once again, luckily we went to bed so early because I was rousted from my slumber(or as much as I can call laying on the ground with a blanket in a tent in the freezing cold, slumber) at 4am … told to get dressed … I was freezing so I put on a tank top, l/s shirt, cardigan, jeggings, socks, sneakers (I know, fashion faux pas, but my feet were frozen and I had to hike down the cliff this day), and a scarf … (later I would realize this outfit was the worst choice EVER) and we packed up and went to go wait in line to check our bags and wait in line to use the bathroom … fun times when its going to still be dark out for almost 2 hours and its frigid. We then got breakfast which consisted of hot tea, coffee, and the most delicious egg dish everrr … it was basically and open face omelet served in the pan it was cooked in, with delicious ingredients such as, tomato, onion, pork that tasted like a maple sausage type thing, and cilantro. “Alloyyyy mak mak” (“delicious, very, very” in Thai) After breakfast we set out to attempt to see one of the waterfalls that is at the top of the mountain since the famous viewpoint was another 9km away and this was a lot closer … along the way I was warned that since the ground was wet I had to watch out for something that was going to bite me … this could obviously be a multitude of frightening creatures and was completely unsure of what exactly I should be worried about … awesome. We saw a baby waterfall and continued on to try to find the bigger one … as we are walking along SeeSuda stops, looks down at her shoe and goes “oh Kerry, this!” I look down to see a small black slimy wormlike creature slithering through her shoelace and shoe to her foot … she takes her shoe off and peels the creature off her foot to show me the small bite it has made … another teacher we were with, Mem, immediately started jumping around freaking out … They are trying to ask me what I call this creature in English and as I try to get a closer look I see one slither through the mesh of my sneaker and obviously freak out throwing off my shoe in the process, then as I’m trying to compose myself one tries to get into my other shoe which causes me to repeat the throwing of my shoe and now I’m in my socks in the damp dirt freaking out. We manage to get my sneakers back on sans frightening creatures and quickly move on to an place where hopefully there are none. Needless to say we did not make it to the waterfall because the signs got confusing and it was getting a little late for us to be exploring up there when we still had to climb down the mountain and drive home … we then decided to just go see the Buddha image since it was on the way back to the visitor center and head home. As we were sitting at the Buddha image I asked SeeSuda to type into my electronic dictionary the name of the creature, to which there was no translation and she tried to explain to me that they live in water but there is a kind that lives in the mountains and come out when its wet … I then typed “leech” into my dictionary to get the thai translation and of course when I showed SeeSuda she shrieked in excitement and said “YES!” … awesome … a leeched tried to slither into my sneakers this morning … hopefully I will never experience that again! We then set off to journey down the mountain along with the other hundreds of people who slept at the top on Saturday night and I actually saw a traffic jam of people going down a mountain … something I never thought I’d experience hahaha and it was during this journey to the bottom that it became VERY clear why I saw people wearing shorts sweatshirts or winter coats at 5am … It. Was. Freakin. Hot! The pants and long sleeved shirt were sticking so badly to me that all I could think about was getting to the bottom so I could change into a tshirt and flip flops for the drive home. We eventually made it down, with no falling or sliding (thank god) and I was able to change into my tshirt and flip flops … I was also handed a cold beer which made this all even better! Hahaha we then headed to the car to make the gazillion hour drive home … I was eventually able to fall into my bed around 11:30 … then another full week of teaching started bright and early Monday morning!

It is unclear what Thai people refer to the last day of Sports Week as but from what I witnessed, I consider it to be nothing less than a finale event. This such event involved Kerry getting picked up at 6:40am (when it was actually quite chilly and the sun was on its way up) and driven to school, where we then walked over to the temple to meet everyone. I obviously had no idea what was in store for me until I arrived at the temple to find my P. 4-6 girl students dressed in what I would call a “dance costume” complete with fishnets and black boots … full hair (including fake hair pieces) and makeup completed the look. There were also students dressed in traditional Thai attire as well. As time went on, it became clear that all the schools had assembled a ‘drum line’ and baton twirlers to parade down the streets of Nong Hee and process into the school grounds … how entertaining!

Here is ChoomChonNongHee parading ---

WHAT A DAY! I went to NongHee for Sport Day, which we've been having all week ... having Sports week means we do no teaching a basically watch the students compete against other schools in various sports. It is quite entertaining since NongHee does fairly well in most sports haha ... but in any case I went to school and watched the boys play 'football' and then watched a game of 'beach volleyball' (literally on sand with two players on each team) ...


The boys football team ... aka my darling loves who I attempted to teach "yo, what's up?" to


And the star volleyball duo ... bpaay noi and chuue ... LOVE THEM

and then the student teachers asked me if I wanted to see the people of NongHee use their special fishing equipment, this one particular day of the year ... rough translation but I of course said sure! ... so we hop on motorbikes (yea I rode on the back of one for the first time! wooo!!!) and drove over to the river (same place we hard Loy Kratong) and sure enough they had created our of bamboo and net these fishing apparatuses ... according to the one student teacher this only happens on one day of the year.



AND THEN they asked if I wanted to see silk worms ... so I said yes! ... so they said ok first we "gin kaio" (eat rice aka eat lunch) so we hopped on the bikes and went back to school to eat and then hopped back on the bikes and rode to a nearby house to where a woman was legit old school spinning silk from the worms ... AWESOME ... I was shown the worms before cocoon, during cocoon, and after (aka while the silk spinning was taken place) ... then one of the student teachers starts scooping out the silkworms from the boiling water that are completely out of their cocoon and goes ... can eat ... uhhhh what? at that moment I get handed a silkworm peeled out of its outer membrane if you will and was instructed to just pop it into my mouth ... so I did. it was a little crispy on the outside and smooth on the inside ... not too bad hahaha I ate a few more and then it was apparently time for a fashion show with the hand woven silk this woman had crafted ...








just another typical day in NongHee

So I realized the other day that every meal I eat in Thailand contain in some way or another rice (khao), eggs (khai), and/or bananas (gluay). By no means am I complaining ... yet. hahaha While I like all of these things, having them so often can only lead to me becoming sick of them. It's funny that in the U.S. I would NEVER choose to eat rice over other carb options but since coming to Thailand and eating it with every meal I actually find myself craving rice if I haven't had it in a while (meaning like 1 meal). hahaha I love that I am taking cooking class with my students every Monday afternoon because then I am learning how to make many of the dishes that I have eaten and enjoyed.

Another things I learned this week was how to play "bay thong" ... at least that is how I am guessing you spell it ... its basically a version of bocce ball that I see my students playing ALL the time. I've been dying to try to play and finally I had a chance on Tuesday. I had just finished teaching P. 1 and P. 2 in the pavilion and was walking back to my classroom to return an eraser when I noticed some of my P. 5 boys playing right at the bottom of the stairs ... I stopped to asked them what it was called and then asked if Teacher Kerry could play, in as much of a Thai/English combo that I could muster that we understood one another. They said okay so I quick put my things down and went to go play. We made two teams of two and one of the boys threw a small stone, which we were to trow one of our 2 heavy metal balls at ... kinda like curling but with a ball. They showed me how to trow the ball and they would tell me when it was my turn. I wasn't really sure of the scoring until Ajan Sumet showed up and would translate the score after each set ... after each player throws their balls you switch sides and the small rock gets thrown again. I know you want to be the closes to the rock and its good to hit other people out of the way ... i got some cheers for that haha I'm still trying to learn exactly how to play but I'm sure that will come with time.

The third new thing I learned this week was how to make paper flowers. On Friday I was told I had to make a bulletin board about Father's Day because Sunday is the King's Birthday/Father's Day. I commissioned one of my P. 5 girls to make me a bunch of flowers since that is the preferred way to decorate a bulletin board in Thailand and then after school when I was hanging out with Earm and the students teachers they taught me how to make them.

To recap, Kerry loves rice, can play a game with her students, can fold banana leaves, cook Thai food, and make paper flowers ... the only thing left to do is work on my Asian squat and the transformation is complete!