Expectant Mother

All the rumours about weight gain on exchange are true; I know weigh 10 kg more, roughly the weight of two babies. I have decided to name my food children Khanom Pang Noei Nom [bread with condensed milk, butter and sugar] and Nam Neuang [a Vietnamese dish consisting of sausage rolled in rice paper with bananas, peanut sauce, starfruit and garlic].

"We are all in this together" - Ben Lee

Heart Stop

Sunday February the 22nd brings new falangs to The Land of Smiles: my mom and two sisters. I will be playing tourguide, native Thai and tourist for the next two weeks - experiencing things I never have before and showing my family the ropes on Thai culture and lifestyle. I have been planning what to wear to greet them at the airport for the past week; I haven't decided if I should reel them into the new me or just show up and let them have a mini stroke when the see how much I have changed.

I will not be posting for a couple weeks until they have left when I will post their journal entries from the week so you can see THEIR thoughts about Thailand [You must know how much I admire this country by now]. In the meantime - here is my Beavertale from this month to read. It has not been posted on the internet yet, but if you look up ROTARY BEAVERTALE on Google it should be up there in a few days

BEAVERTALE 2

A Rotary jacket is an exchange student’s canvas; a background for the colours and symbols that will shape our exchange and, in turn, ourselves. I wear my Rotary jacket with pride, excitement and modesty. My canvas has become one of intricate patterns, bold colours and stories of adventure. Every time I look at it I am reminded of the days that have passed and the blank areas probe my mind with inspiration for the future. The weight of my jacket now surprises me; looking at it brings back memories of all my exciting, crazy and wonderful travels. I can’t believe how many adventures I have partaken in, how many people I have met and how vividly every piece on my jacket reminds me of a specific moment in time.

Since my last Beavertale, life has changed from amazing to stellar [that would be the best word to describe it]; life is out of this world! Classes are now finished for the M6 students and instead everyone is up to their ears in study notes to prepare themselves for entrance exams this week. We will be on a summer break for just under three months and afterwards my friends will head off to Universities around the country to further their studies. I am only halfway through my exchange and still have many things to look forward to. I can’t help but tear up when my friends mention their departure from Nakhon Phanom. My classmates have become my best friends; I can rely on them, I have fun with them and I love going to school just to see them. It will be weird not being able to walk the block to my best friends’ shop and play guitar with them while singing our favourite Thai songs. Though their new beginning of education means they are leaving me, I am so terribly proud of them for being so successful; it is truly inspiring. When school restarts in May I will be repeating M6 with a whole new group of friends; it will be different, but I’m excited to meet even more people that I can rely on and have fun with.

In the past three months I have moved into a new family and in a month or so will be moving out. Time is moving by much too fast for my liking. My family now is everything I had ever imagined and more – I really connect with them and I will have a hard time leaving them. They are my family, my home and my friends. My house is much bigger than the last one, with four loving dogs that run to greet me when I unlock our giant gate. I love our golden retriever Sai Yo to no end; she gallops joyfully beside me as I walk up our massive driveway, often holding my shirt or hand in her mouth as we go. We also have a mutt named Khao Pun and two Chihuahuas – Loo Loo and La La. Not only does my family have pets, but I also have a little sister to spend time with unlike my first family. Mean is 14 and she loves to watch TV – I have broken into the habit of watching Thai soap operas with her while she helps me study Thai; in turn I help her check her English homework. My parents are adorable; my mom is a nurse and loves to teach me how to cook [she’s also continuously feeding me which has made it exceptionally difficult to fit in my jeans.] My mom’s little sister also lives with us and speaks very good English. I have the best conversations with her; she is a nurse as well and she loves to ask me all about the health system in Canada, the English words for certain medical terms and my opinion on various subjecsts. It is so refreshing to be able to actually talk with someone about such various topics and it has seriously increased my skill with Thai language.

In December Rotary took us on a trip around the Northeast and Greater North of Thailand. I experienced traditional Thai dining, Thai culture and Thai dance like never before. I went to see an elephant show, pandas in the Chiang Mai Zoo and many National and Historical Parks with breathtaking architecture. One of the highlights of the trip was a trip to the longneck hill tribes in Chiang Rai where children as young as 3 years old link heavy rings around their necks. It was my most compelling experience to date, but it was very unsettling. I felt like a tourist at a zoo while walking past all the women selling hand woven scarves; tears welled in my eyes when I met a toddler and her pregnant mother, both sporting rings around their necks while they posed and smiled for pictures. It was a way of life I could not fathom, and yet it stood before me as clear as day. That day will remain in my mind always, as I hope every day of this experience will. On our travels we stayed in absolutely gorgeous resorts, bargained underneath the bright lights of the Chiang Mai night bazaar and swam underneath waterfalls. Most importantly, I made friends that I will never forget, spent many nights I will remember forever and felt a happiness that filled inside of me, spilling over for days afterwards.

Christmas is not celebrated in Thailand, but the exchange students had the pleasure of spending the holidays together during the trip. Christmas Eve was spent in a clearing; we sent off fireworks and firecrackers, sat on the lawn while singing to guitar tunes and had bike races around the twisting pathways of the resort. Christmas Day was spent on a bus; in the evening we had a Secret Santa exchange, most of the exchange students called home to wish the best to their families and we spent the night singing and chatting in each others’ hotel rooms. As my dad is Chinese-Thai we celebrated Chinese New Year as well as the traditional Western New Year. New Years’ Eve I spent with my friends and the next day I spent lounging around the house. My dad’s entire family came over very early on February 6th and we prayed to his ancestors three times at a table laden with all kinds of food, from fruit to entire chickens; to fish stomach. Afterwards, Mean and I burnt fake Yen in a pot outside and made wishes.

For my birthday I went to the beach in Chanthaburi [a good 16 hour bus ride from Nakhon Phanom] with some exchange student friends and we spent the weekend playing football and soccer on the beach, swinging on ropes hanging from palm trees and jet skiing in the warm water of the Gulf of Thailand. It was my first birthday without snow or my twin sister but it turned out to be just as wonderful and all my friends gave me birthday hugs and well wishes as the clock struck midnight the night before. It was my friend Clayton’s birthday the day before mine so his parents bought us ice cream cake which ended up being shoved up my nose and tossed into my friends’ hair. It was definitely a birthday weekend to remember.

Life now follows a steady and comfortable pattern but it is nothing but dull. Every few days something sudden will happen, we will be visited by someone special or I will have plans to go and do something exciting with my friends. There are new obstacles that test my skill in Thai language and Thai culture everyday. Translating for patients at the hospital, booking plane tickets for my family to come visit next week, helping sell seaweed and fish sticks to children at my friends’ convenient store; the excitement is never ending. Just last week a monk came to our house and showed us pictures from his trek through the jungle in the North of Thailand. He stayed at our house for a few hours, cross legged on our couch while we sat at his feet on the floor. He told me all about Buddhism, taught me how to meditate and gave me a book and CD to help me practice. I now meditate with my aunt every night and I am making plans to be a Buddhist nun for a week in one of the temples in Nakhon Phanom. I have realised just how much I love Buddhism and I really connect with the beliefs of Buddhist people. Waking up early to present food for the monks and going to the temple to make merit is an important part of my life now; I particularly love having the monks and mechees teach me about Buddhism and how to disassociate my body from my mind.

The source of my new comfort zone is a feeling. A feeling of familiarity for all that is around me. I can’t explain it, but it is just IMPOSSIBLE for me to be angry or upset anymore. If anything throws me down, I bounce right back a few moments later and I can’t stop grinning from ear to ear. Living in this country, making new friends and experiencing a new culture that I put all my heart into has made me a truly happy person; an accomplishment I have made for the first time in my life. I feel peaceful and familiar with all my surroundings; I have become Thai.

There is no more for me to say at this moment except that I am having the time of my life; a fact I expected since the beginning of my exchange. I could go on for days and days about my experiences, about ordinary days with extraordinary incidents and all about my friends and family; I will save that for when I return and fail to keep quiet about “Thailand: The Most Stunning Year of my Life.” For now, I express my thanks again to everyone – my Rotary district in Canada, my Rotary district in Thailand, all my friends and family from both homes. I would not be taking on this exhilarating journey if it weren’t for you.

ไม่ว่าจะสูง แค่ไหนก็ไปถึง

ไม่มีคำว่าสูง วัดได้ถ้าใจถึง

จะหนาวเหน็บหนาวเพียงไหนจะฝ่าไป

ร้อนเป็นฟืนเป็นไฟจะฝ่าไป

No matter how high.. however high, I'll make it up there.
“High” means nothing. You can reach it if you're willing.
However cold, however freezing, I'll keep going.
The fire is hot. I'll keep going.

Seriously

The commenting is horrible.

ie. It is non-existent.

Let's fix that, shall we?

"If I were your girl would you be my guy?" - Ingrid Michaelson

The Miracle of Life

Wednesday morning I woke up and was eating an apple for breakfast when my mother started yelling for my sister; our Chihuahua "Loo Loo" had given birth in the night and my mother was watering the plants when she found one of the puppies that had not made it. Mean and I ran around our lot looking for Loo Loo and found her under a bush with two healthy, blind and adorable puppies. I carried the puppies to plastic box that we lined with old clothes and now the puppies and Loo Loo are safe in their box on our kitchen floor. They haven't opened their eyes yet; they wriggle around in the box and Loo Loo continually licks them and whimpers if you pick them up. She is making a wonderful mother.

We still don't know what type of dog the puppies will turn out to be; all of our dogs are female [for the purpose of them not giving birth] but somehow Loo Loo managed to become pregnant and produce two adorable girl puppies. It is a mystery.

I'm so excited to watch the puppies grow up while I am living with this family, and even after I switch families [I don't know where to yet] I will come back and visit them.

"There's nothing I can do that you can't do yourself" - The Bright Eyes

The End

The end of this school year is coming to a close leaving cause for celebration. Yesterday all of the students in M6 and M3 came to school early to make merit to the monks as they get ready to move onto the next journey in their lives. After making merit and a normal role call ceremony the flowers came out. Everyone was pulling out roses and giving them to their friends - it was like Valentine's Day except that it was on steroids and it wasn't the 14th of February. By the end of the day I had a bouquet of flowers, 5 long stemmed roses, three lollipops, a neck chain of fake money and a handful of candy.

All the students except for M6 and M3 left to go study and the rest of us stayed on the blacktop and prayed, chanted and waied some more. Afterwards we all made merit by placing one of our roses at the base of "Phra Piya" [the statue of Piyamaharachalai], wai-ing and then forming a line in our class. I am in M6/6 and when it was our turn we walked towards the big hall we would be having our party in and were greeted by all the students of M5/1. We walked through an archway to an overhang with coloured ribbons hanging from it and the M5/1 students crowded around us chanting our school song and handing us more flowers and candy. My friends started to cry.

We all took our places on the floor in the entrance hall and after many speeches from our teachers, director and a monk from the nearby Wat we started the Bai See ceremony. Everyone crowded on the floor, we layed our hands on the back of the person in front of us and the monk lit incense and candles; he said a prayer, chanted and then we ran around the hall taking pictures and having people bless us with the ceremonious pieces of string. When I saw my friends and blessed them I started to cry - I am not leaving yet, but they are leaving me. This week as well as next will be the last time I will see many of them, as they are all going off to University in April and I may not see them over the school break.

We took a lunch break and took hundreds of pictures outside where M5/1 had created a bunch of backgrounds for us to photograph around. There was a giant congratulations sign, a pink and yellow board made of balloons with superhero speech bubbles that had phrases written on them and two giant tshirts with our school emblem on them. After lunch, more picture taking, rose handouts and crying we returned to the hall where our classmates put on a concert for us with all of the most popular Thai songs. It was amazing. There were 4 boys who took turns singing and we were all jumping around and screaming at the front of the stage while some of them tried to jump off into the crowd; they almost made it.

Coming back to school in May will be different - my friends will have left me, I will make a whole new group of friends, and it will be that much closer to my return home. I look back now and wish I had spent more time at school and with my Thai friends than I did. I love them with everything and all of me; they are the kindest people in the world.

"You'll always be my best friend" - Relient K

[I will update this blog post tonight with a little more writing and pictures]

A Weekend of Sorts

This past weekend was full of many small adventures.

My friend Mason, originally from South Carolina and currently living in Khon Kaen came up to visit me and spent the weekend at my house. We spent the weekend watching movies, eating at my favourite Khanom shops and going to the internet cafe. It was relaxing, and very normal everyday life for myself; he however was quite sick of the quiet of Nakhon Phanom and I'm sure he was happy to go back to the hustle and bustle of Khon Kaen. I don't mind, I love Nakhon Phanom.

On Saturday morning Mason decided to sleep in and Suzanne and I went to a 5 year anniversary of the death of P Kaew's mother. Like all Buddhist ceremonies there was lots of food, lots of people and monks. For this particular ceremony there were 5 monks and each was given breakfast and a present after the ceremony. I wondered how one person could possibly eat that much food to themselves, but they are only allowed to eat before 12 pm so they must be pretty hungry. We spent a while praying and chanting [I have started to recognize some of the chants in the repeating pattern and try my hardest to speak along with everyone else], then the monks took branches dipped in water and sprayed us with them. The whole time while they waied they had a piece of string lined across their hands. I really love ceremonies like this, I feel so fresh afterwards.

Sunday morning Mason and I went with my host family to Phra That Phanom where there was a big fair going on. Usually when you make merit at a temple you have three incense sticks, a candle and a bunch of flowers that you put in different places and you wish on each before you do so. There were so many people at the temple that they had bonfires set up that you placed your entire bundle of items in. Smoke, chatter and laughter filled the air while we made merit and I started to feel quite claustrophic. We didn't even take our shoes off before entering the temple becuase there was no way we could have found them on the way out. After making merit we wandered through the countless stalls while merchants called out to us. I bought a Rubix cube and that was it. We also stopped to play with a bunch of baby bunnies; I asked my mom if I could buy one but she said "Sai Yo will eat it." I wouldn't want our golden retriever to eat my bunny, so I reluctantly left them behind.

Sunday night my host family set up a dinner party in our driveway with straw mats set up on the concrete and Korean BBQs set up. My parents', aunt's and sister's friends were there as well as Mason and Suzanne. We sat on the mats eating until we were so full it hurt and laughing throughout our conversation. It was wonderful - I love Thai dining.

Last night was Buddha's birthday, a day off school and a day for everyone in all of Thailand to go to the temple. Three laps of the temple, three sticks of incense, a bunch of orchids and two little yellow candles - we were anew. It felt wonderful to be a part of such a celebration. Tonight there will be monks coming to visit my aunt and she is going to take me as well to learn about Buddhism and how to meditate. We will also go to give them food in the morning. Buddhism has reached out to me; Thai ceremony has touched me in many ways. I love going to the temple, making merit, giving food to the monks and taking part in special ceremonies. It feels comfortable, it feels fresh, I feel accepted into their celebration.

"It is not how we are the same, but how we are different"

Alive Again

It's enevitable this would happen; I knew it would happen before I even came to Thailand. I would lose friends, and I would make friends; it's an experience of life itself.

After being here for 6 months I have realised I love my family more than anything - they are always there for me and support me in everything I do, even if they aren't happy about it. I didn't used to get along perfectly well with all of them, but I can now say that the distance has strengthened our relationship and I can't imagine a family different than them. They are perfect.

I have noticed who my true friends are - the friends who have always cared about me, the ones who never truly did, and the people I have never really noticed that are now more important to me than anything. I have lost friends I thought would be there forever; in return I have gained friends that I know will stick around.

To be honest, I wasn't perfectly happy in Canada. Not that there is anything wrong with Canada but I didn't feel honestly happy about my life or anything in it. That has changed immensely. I am now a truly happy person, in every aspect of my life. Even if something upsets me, frusterates me or makes me angry, deep down I am ecstaticly content and I can't stop smiling; nothing gets me down anymore.

It's a wonderful feeling, change. It's fresh and new; it's a feeling I have never truly experienced before.

When I mentioned this to Tony the other day he said, "It sounds more like you are in love." I guess I am in love, with life.

"I feel so Bohemian like you"

The Turning Point

In every story there is a beginning, there is a middle and there is an end. The beginning of the story lays the facts out on the table: who is in the story, where they live, what the problem is and it starts some of the adventures. The middle is where you decide whether you love the story or you hate it; the characters go through heaven, hell and back again. The end is where everything wraps up and everyone goes home happy.

My story had a beginning; one of the best beginnings in history. It has a middle; I've decided I'm in love. It will have an ending, and the beginning of the end for me was yesterday - my 6th month anniversy and the day that I stopped counting the days here, and started counting the days until I return to my homeland. I will not be going home happy.

It makes me sad to think that over half my exchange has already finished, that the time has slipped through my fingers and now the clock is ticking faster and faster as each day goes by. Soon it will be summer - the summer tour with Rotary, my mom and sisters coming to visit, Songkran, meditating at the temple. Soon after that it will be the rainy season - more family visits, more meditating at the temple and soon... it will be the end of July and I will be packing my bags to come home. It has all gone by too fast.

Time is a complicated and fickle friend. Or rather, in turn, WE are the complicated and fickle ones. We count down for exciting moments - willing the time to fly by.. and yet it never does. Then, when we realise how much time we have wasted on trying to speed time up, we realise it is going too fast and we beg for it to slow down. It never does; it races past, pushing the hardest at the end, flying through the finish line and onwards with full speed ahead.

I'm excited to come home to see my friends. I love them more than anything. I'm excited to be home, in my comfy bed with my pets and to be with my family; I'm excited to drive, to go back to work, to learn something new and exciting at school... to dance and go to band practice again.

But I'll be leaving behind so much more - my family, my friends, my language, my country. I will be leaving behind food I love, people I can't imagine not seeing, a culture I have fallen head over heels in love with and a language I am terrified of forgetting. It's almost what I left at the beginning of my story, but this time I don't have a countdown for when I will come back. There is no ending to my return to Canada. Just a beginning. And the beginning of my end in Thailand started yesterday.

"I love you as midnight loves the moon"

The Beach

It was a while ago but I forgot to write about it.

On Friday January 16th, Suzanne and I set off on a 15 hour long bus ride to Rayong. We left at 7 in the morning and only stopped once for dinner until we reached Rayong at 10 pm. It was a lot of sitting... it was a lot of sadness... it was a long long trip in which I finished 3/4 of a book, at least 20 Sudoku puzzles and tried to sleep while the man in the front seat snored like a chainsaw. By the time we got to Rayong we were fed up and tired.. we just wanted to sleep. We needed to meet our friends in Chanthaburi [another bus away] but there was no bus that late so we had to find a hotel to stay at. The first one we saw was our haven.

The next morning we decided to wake up intime for breakfast, but no earlier. At 10 we set off to the bus station to catch a bus to Chanthaburi and a three hour ride on a love bus later we arrived to meet Colin, Chris, Adrian, James, Michael and Clayton. Before heading to the beach we went for lunch and coffee and then the 8 of us piled into a song taew and set off for the beach. On the way we chatted and [in my case] sang musicals. The beach was beautiful, the water wasn't too warm, not too cold - the temperature of a nice swimming pool. We spent the better part of the early evening swimming in the gulf, throwing frisbees and playing catch with a football. We played in the sand and went on a walk along the shoreline. It was wonderful. When we decided it would be a good time to check into a resort we picked one and settled in. A big room with three double mattresses lined up beside each other on a platform. It was Clayton's birthday so we went out to the tiki huts on the sand for dinner and all of us ordered our favourite Thai food. After dinner Suzanne and I made faces in the sand while the boys played soccer with some Thai kids and then Clayton's parents showed up with icecream cake, candy bars and chips. The cake ended up all over Clayton's face and he in turn decided to shove a handful up my nose as his "Birthday buddy". More cake went flying and everyone was covered in icing. After dessert we walked along the beach more, found some blue micro-organisms in the sand that were way too interesting to be sane and then we found haven at the Rasta Bar [a small shop on the beach with a big swing we took turns playing on and bamboo floors]. At midnight everyone wished me a happy birthday and Clayton passed off the "Birthday Wisdom" to me as the first person to give me a hug. I got a hug from everyone - it was a nice feeling.. I have missed hugs. Also, Chris gave me a Thai Raggae CD for my birthday which I really like. When we had had enough of the beach we went back to our room and watched TV while everyone got ready for bed.

Sunday morning we woke up and went for breakfast, then got ready for a big day at the beach. We spent the day making sand castles, lying on the beach, renting inner tubes to play with in the water and going jet skiing. It was my very first time jet skiing and I LOVED IT!! Chris and I shared a jet ski and Suzanne shared with Adrian - at one point the other jet ski was stopped so Chris told me to drive by them and splash them. I got close and slowed down, and then when I sped up again I didn't turn fast enough and bumped into the back of them! They went flying off and had to climb back on, while I decided to let Chris drive. We went all along the shore to an island where we saw a little hut in the side of a cliff face - I wondered what it would be like to live there. In the early afternoon Clayton's parents came to pick us up and brought us back into town. Adrian and Chris had to catch a bus back to Rayong/Pattaya and then the rest of us went to Pizza Hut for dinner. I had been craving pizza for a long time, so it was a great birthday present. We went to the market and bought some movies and then went to Michael's house to watch some movies and spend the night.

Monday we woke up early, went to get coffee and then caught a bus to Korat. The ride wasn't too long; I finished my book and talked to Ashley and the family on the phone. We arrived in Korat at 4 pm and there wasn't a bus to Nakhon Phanom unitl 10 pm so we called some of our exchange student friends Kat and Kaitlyn in Korat and met them at The Mall. I had McDonalds for lunch [first time since I've left home.. I was craving Chicken McNuggets] and then we went to the arcade. We played Guitar Hero [normal version AND whack-a-mole version], Mario Kart Racer, Bumper Boats [like bumper cars but on water.. soooo fun] and then played some Karaoke. We had Swensens for dessert and then went to an internet cafe before heading back to the bus station. We took an overnight bus to Nakhon Phanom and arrived at 5 am, waking up my family when they had to come and unlock the gate.

It was a long, tiring and AMAZING birthday weekend. [I'm a little sad I missed the Bingo party back in Canada though].

"ได้ยินไหม ได้ยินไหม โปรดฟังว่าฉันรักเธอ"

Dog Town

So, Friday was the first [and hopefully only time] that I tried dog. Thai people DO NOT EAT DOG [a point my host families and friends made clear after I told them of my adventure] but up on the border of Laos where I live we have lots of different Thai people; Vietnamese Thai, Chinese Thai, Japanese Thai. It just so happens that in Vietnam they DO eat dog, so while Tony, P Kaew and I were on the road to Sakhon Nakhon we passed by a small little village with a woman on the side of the road selling barbecued and stewed dog. I decided I should try.

We pulled over to the little shop [for those of you who have yet to understand that a "shop" is pretty much a tiki hut roof on stilts with some tables underneath.. that's what this was] on the side of the road to a small old woman grinning when she saw a falang step out of the car. P Kaew told her that I would like to try - she laughed. Tony said I should try the barbecued kind instead of the stewed kind becuase the stewed kind might make me sick. I tried the stewed kind just to prove I had balls. It tasted like rubbery and not appealing chicken. Then I tried the barbecued piece; just like beef jerky. I actually liked it, so the woman cut another piece and gave me some sticky rice to eat it with. We sat around talking for a bit while I munched on my dog jerky and rice. She even gave me a doggy bag [of dog, oh the irony] to take with me in the car. This was the first thing I had had to eat that morning since we were on the road. When we got back to my house at 4 pm I threw up and was in bed for most of the rest of the weekend. As Alicia would say "Karma".

I do feel a little guilty for trying it, but dogs are not generally pets here, so it didn't phase me as much as it would have in Canada. My twin sister Ashley said "HOW COULD YOU?!" and when I think about it, it does make me feel a little sad. But it's no different than a cow and a pig when you see cows running all over the place and you go to a farm on slaughter day [yes I've had some interesting adventures]. So, I guess it's safe to say that when I return to Canada ... I will be willing to eat everything.. maybe even mustard.

The list of things I've eaten here:
Pork
Beef
Chicken
Fish [don't worry the list gets worse than this]
Squid
Cuttlefish
Octopus
Crab
Liver
Kidney
Tongue
Cow stomach
Fish stomach
Fish skin
Pig skin
Pig ear
Grubs
Grasshopper
Dog
Chicken blood
Cow blood
Fish fins/tail/part of head
Frog [ADDED]

I'm sure there is more - I will add to this as the list increases.

And I would like to mention that these things are not on a THAI menu - a lot of this food is Isaan food [the Northeastern part of Thailand where I live] which consists of a lot of Laos food.

"You've got so much love in you" - The Rocket Summer