Deang Dua

Wednesday was the day of Nakhon Phanom's parade. Both my school "Piyamaharachalai" and Suzanne's school "Nakhonphanomwittayakhom" have been working for weeks at all hours of the day preparing for this parade. After the parade there was to be a soccer match, so all the classes were cancelled so that the soccer team could play, the students could practice their cheers and everyone else could help prepare the floats and signs. My job was to help paint things, pour sparkles on them and cover letters in tinfoil.

On Wednesday morning I was up and at the school for 6 am to get dressed in a Traditional Thai costume called "Daeng Dua". My hair was teased up into a beehive [this is normal for every fancy occasion in Thailand] and then my makeup was done - dark eyebrows and pink lipstick included. I don't mind getting all dressed up and painted like a doll, but the eyebrows that are a completely different colour from my hair and the bright pink lipstick is pushing it a little. I look like a transvestite, though all the Thai people say I look like a doll. They must have some scary looking dolls.

After we sat around for a long time eating, playing with Rubix cubes [the new fad in Thailand] and talking we got changed. Every single person had to get personally dressed by this one man. First you had to wear a corset [which by the way was the most uncomfortable thing ever taking into account that it was made to fit a THAI person's chest, not a foreigner's] and then over top of that they had a sash that wrapped around and went over your shoulder. Then you had a traditional Thai long skirt, a crown, and lots of gold jewellery including an armband and a belt. They decided since I have blue eyes they should cover me completely in blue. I even had blue flowers in my hair which made my eyes stick out like a sore thumb - they looked very creepy.

At 11 o'clock we piled into a van and set off for the parade marshalling area, and then at noon we were off. I was sitting on the back of a float with two other girls at the front and two boys sitting in the middle. Sitting politely in a skirt is uncomfortable and you start to lost feeling in your legs - it only took me a few minutes. The parade was great despite the fact that I had to smile the whole time and my face started to hurt. It was great to see how excited all the townspeople were about a falang wearing Traditional Thai Dress. One woman picked up her daughter, set her on the edge of my float and ran behind us taking pictures. Whenever the float stopped for the slightest second swarms of people ran up yelling "Look at this camera! Over here!" The whole time, everyone was yelling "Oh, FALANG!" Two boys even sat on a bike and rode beside the float the whole parade route yelling "FALANG! FALANG! FALANG!" It was great. Some boys from my school were handing out water at one point and they yelled into the microphone "ARE YOU THIRSTY?" I nodded. They proceeded to yell into the microphone "She's thirsty, get her some water, beautiful, very beautiful, she's thirsty." They brought me some water as I was in tears of laughter - Thai people are crazy.

When we finally finished the parade the floats turned into the soccer stadium to one side of the stands full of students from both schools, and the other side full of spectators. It seemed like everyone from the whole town was there! The students were performing perfectly insync and choreographed cheers - they had signs with different colours that would spell out sentences when they all held them up at the same time. The other school had colour coded their shirts to spell out their school initials. It was great, so much school spirit! I wish schools in Canada had this much spirit, it makes going to school events much more fun. After many speeches we left the stadium while I heard them making a speech about me over the microphone. My host mother waved to me from the crowd and I made funny faces for her which made all the teachers laugh at me.

Tomorrow I am off on my first Rotary trip of the year. I won't be updating this blog until after I get back on the 26th, with lots to talk about. So, I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, a great new year and safe and happy holidays. I'll be thinking of everyone from the Land of Smiles.

"The greatest gift of all is to love, and be loved in return"