Hello, สวัสดี (Sa wa dii), Hola

In my ever growing pre-nostalgia, I decided that I needed to have pictures of everything in Nong Hee so I would always be able to look back and remember exactly where I lived for a year in my twenties. Taking pictures of your everyday surroundings is a weird concept since it's hard to decide what is worth taking a picture of. But luckily for me digital cameras and loads of computer memory allow me to take over a hundred pictures of what I see when I walk "the loop". Aka the triangle of roads that goes away from my house to the main road, along the main road, and back to my house; it's the route Michelle and I typically use for walking, running, or biking. Of course no excersizing adventure would be complete without some student companions. This time I was napping and I suddenly hear some little voices at my door ... "KERRRYYYYY TEACHERRR KERRRYYY" and I look out my window to see min, seigo, and bee all ready for some kind of Kerry entertainment. I have chosen some pictures of the adventure to share with you, just to give you a sense of what I see when I am futzin' around in Ban Non Hee . . .
just someone burning their trash and a dog checkin it out

typical house, this one is one the main road

a store on the main road

my friends trailing behind me, bee has her little sister on her back ... poor girl was struggling!

Another typical house, this one tucked back off the main road, closer to my house

bee modeling in the phone booth for me

Another example of Thai houses

The police station

An old lady in her sarong just chopping things

And one more house, this one I think is so crazy because it has so many roofs, they have a lot of covered space with no walls, it's very Thai to have this and after living in a concrete box in this heat, i completely understand why!


I hope you enjoyed this quick look into my daily surroundings!

I can't believe so much time has passed since my last blog update - I feel like so much has happened and the days are just slipping away from me, which is exactly why the antics I am about to show you were able to happen in my otherwise efficient classroom.

Recently at Phon Tan I have been doing alphabet centers with my classes since I see them twice as often as my students at Nong Hee and I am a big supporter of hands on learning. I also have mixed classes at Phon Tan so figuring out ways to keep everyone interested and involved can be challenging. And the latter is exactly why this occurred in the first place. I have only 4 students in my P. 6 level and all of which are pretty quick witted and can learn what I teach a lot faster than their peers, so when they are assigned to the centers that are fairly easy, they finish quickly and are left with time, pipe cleaners, and big imaginations. I walked over to their corner of the room to find Bee-ah Yai and Moate making glasses, mustaches, microphones, and ties. I could not physically stop myself from laughing and saw no harm in the situation since their assignment was completed and then made the executive decision to not let this pass me by and grabbed my camera.






I also recently had students at Nong Hee make me some lovely flowers out of pumpkin, eggplant, and carrot . . . classic.


Now onto big city adventures - Last Friday was a Buddhist holiday so that meant no school on Friday or Monday (yay, long weekend!) Because we already had these days off Kaitlin and I decided this would be a perfect time to go to Bangkok to get our visas for India, and luckily Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2 was premiering the same weekend! We also needed to do some serious JJ market souvenir shopping. This all sounds well and good until we realized that the visas could take up to 5 business days as opposed to the 2 we originally thought, so Kaitlin and I ask our school for some extra days off and headed to Bangkok on Tuesday night - We get to Khao San road (the backpacker haven), get ourselves a cheap room, and freshen up to head over to the office that is designated for Embassy of India visas. We get ourselves before 10am and soon realize it is exactly like a DMV - awesome. After an friendly chat with the employee and the organizing, stamping and payment portion of the trip he informs us that the first day we can call to see if our visas are ready is Tuesday and 4pm. Wonderful. I always wanted to be indefinitely trapped in Bangkok. I realize this does not sound exactly terrible and it really wasn't - just unnecessarily expensive. hahaha Luckily Gen arrived on Thursday and Amanda on Friday so we had plenty of distractions including Harry Potter himself! 4 American girls in their early twenties, spending a year in Thailand cannot be expected to act at all calm during the epic finale to a series we grew up with - no matter how crazy we looked, even to the kid in Harry Potter glasses who took this group shot of us.


Also, this is the nicest sign I think I've ever seen at a movie theatre.


SOOO SAD!!!


Just battling with the best.


I am able to end this post on a happy note - The visas for India were obtained on Tuesday and we did make it back to Nakhon Phanom on a 12 hour 2nd class overnight bus ... and when I had just finished my obnoxious amount of laundry it started down pouring. BUT my roommate brought me chah yen, gluay tawt and rotis chicken with sticky rice from the market before the storm so needless to say I LOVE THAILAND.

It dawned on me the other day how what can at one time seem outrageous, uncomfortable, and strange can easily over time become normal, expected, and comfortable. When thinking back on my feelings at orientation to everything I found confusing or strange, it makes me laugh to now realize how comfortable I am in Thailand. When I arrived a mere 9 months ago, I did not know what to expect AT ALL. I had no idea what Thai people ate, what their dwellings and bathrooms would look like or contain, their views on life, education, and drinking, and what to do during a Buddhist ceremony or visit to a temple. Even more unnerving to me as I embarked on this adventure was my complete and utter lack of knowledge about their language. My worries were soon eased and I settled into my life in Thailand with as much grace as one can in there circumstances. I was instructed on what do to when visiting a temple, how to cook AND eat many Thai dishes, had a Thai style bathroom of my own, and surprisingly learned WAY more of the language than i ever anticipated. All of these thought stemmed from a ride home from school last week when I thought to myself how the sound of Earm and Sumet holding a conversation was no longer unnerving to me but actually comforting. I was enjoying listening to them talk. Honestly I am not sure what the conversation was about as they were speaking quickly and I wasn't listening for words I knew, but just the sound of it was pleasant to me.

So now with a heavy heart, I inform you that mango season has come to an end. As the mangos from Thailand are the BEST and most delicious mangos I have every consumed this is a huge blow to my diet. We have however, entered into the season of fruits that look like they came out of a Dr. Seuss book. Here are two examples of Thai fruit at its strangest.

First we have mangosteen. It looks like a plum, with cartoon-like features. It is actually the fruit of H.M. the Queen herself. The King's fruit is durien, another strange and actually foul smelling fruit of Thailand.

You DO NOT eat the outside, which is surprisingly thick, as you can see. This white, soft part is the 'meat' and very sweet! I personally think it tastes like a sweet tart, others have said caramel, either way it is a-lloy! There is also a seed in the middle that can be rather large, so its best to spit that out.


Next we have rambutan. This particular fruit looks like it came straight out of the Great Barrier Reef, but alas it did not. One would hopefully not try to eat the outside of this one.

To eat, one simply breaks open the shell and eats the soft center. The flavor of rambutan is milder, but nonetheless sweet and refreshing.

But again, be careful of the seed, and also the pieces of seed that come off on the fruit. Michelle and I so lovingly call them the wood chips, as they are not smooth.


Lastly, I leave you with a short video of my P.6 boys performing a dance for the rest of the school one morning. A teacher allowed the girls to sit down and proceeded to make the boys to this multiple times much to the enjoyment of the audience.

“Kerry, what are you doing on Saturday and Sunday?”

“Um … I’m not sure … maybe go to Nakhon Phanom?”

“Do you want to go to a waterfall?”

“Ok, sure, what day? What time?”

“Sunday … I think early morning.”

This is a typical conversation between Sumet and I over lunch either on a Tuesday or a Friday, when I am being invited somewhere. It is a mix of Thai and English and comes out something like this. By me agreeing to go to this “waterfall” I clearly have no idea where it is, what the name of it is, and who else is joining us on this excursion. Later in the day I ask if I will be swimming at said waterfall, so I will at least be prepared for being wet.

Sunday morning rolls around and I am up early, since I know how Thai people operate, I could be picked up 30 minutes in either directions of the mentioned time, which is this case was 8. At approximately 8:45 Sumet and Earm arrive in my driveway and I go to meet them eager to see what the day has is store for me. While waiting for another teacher (Han Yoat) I am informed that the waterfall they originally wanted to go to was dry, as it had not rained enough yet this season … IT HASN’T RAINED ENOUGH YET? I am confused at what “enough” is. Nonetheless this day shall prove to be more interesting than originally planned.

We drive towards a nearby town and stop at 7 Eleven for snacks, yay! And then head on our way to god knows where. First stop, a peace memorial in which the words translated for me were, “rebel”, “anti-government”, and “The queen built this.” Well, that sure tells a complete story!


We then get back in the car and arrive at the site of a "volcano", as I am told. It is "sleeping" ... so that's a good thing. It was actually a really cool thing to see, as there were about 4 places where I am guessing the volcano would erupt that were filled with water and subsequently lily pads and lotus flowers. Really neat looking. I also noticed that walking on the volcanic rock was hotter than over in the parking area. Quite peculiar.

The tiger dog that lead us around the volcano

a weird Thai bug . . .



Next stop, a frightening bridge that has been here for god knows how long. The concrete bridge next to it for the use of cars was only built about 7 years ago. What did this people do before that?! Although the bridge is concrete, metal, and wood, it still swayed was really quite terrifying … photo shoot!



The homies that drove onto the bridge and curiously stopped right where they could see the "farang"


And finally we arrived at the waterfall that is in fact quite dry and walked around there, climbing on rocks and such for some time … clearly a perfect opportunity for a photo shoot of Kerry! I was basically positioned exactly where there was flowing water and that is it.



Then we stopped somewhere for lunch, goy dtiow (noodle soup) and leo beer … how very Thai. After lunch and a small buzz from the beer we head out to what is actually a national park and a flowing, shallow river where we could "swim".








As you can see by the photographic evidence, I was told to stand or sit in a ridiculous number of places during a short amount of time for my picture to be taken ... typical Thailand!

Simply because I am awesome and teach at 2 schools in Thailand, I get 2 Wai Khru days ... as a fellow volunteer put it, "double the worship" hahaha These pictures are from my second and much larger Wai Khru day ceremony at Nong Hee

First we have to help the annuban (kindergarten) sit down in the right places


SO MANY STUDENT!!! (over 300 attend Choom Chon Nong Hee Samakee)


which means SO MANY SHOES


Because there are so many students this takes a long time ... so of course boredom sets in . . .


note the flowers in their mouths like cigarettes (this is 6th grade)


note the flowers resting on the girl's head like a crown


also the boy with the plastic bag on his head


Bow to meee (so strange!!!)


Students walking on their knees to give flowers to their teacher


Sumet gather flowers and respect from his students


Beautiful flower arrangements


So many flowers!!! how will I ever carry them all?!!?


I KNOW!