Snakes and Elephants oh my!

Hello lovely people! Another week has flown by in Thailand. Monday-Friday I spent the mornings in Thai language class struggling to learn the alphabet and tones. In the afternoons I went to visit government offices, health centers, wats, day care centers, schools, and key village people and interviewed them in Thai. It was very challenging and half the time I had no idea what they were saying back to me. Instead of boring you with all the details here is one example of me stumbling through an interview...

Interview with a Monk: First of all, I find monks oddly terrifying. I am very intimidated by them and never know how to act or what to say. When you speak to a monk you have to use a whole different vocabulary. The words for you, eating, sleeping, hello and who knows what else are all completely different from regular Thai. On top of all that there are certain ways to wai and sit near a monk. So of course I have to mess up one of the most important rules.. NEVER sit next to a monk. For some reason I assumed this never sit next to a monk rule didn't apply when the table was round... Anyways let's just say things got really awkward really fast. After the horrifying awkwardness of everyone freaking out and me jumping up I have to try to think of all these questions I want to ask him and he can't understand a thing I say... It was really not fun at all. But on a positive note, I am one of the few females in the world who can say they got to sit next to a monk.

Other than that nothing too exciting happened this week. My family now calls me an old grandma because I am always losing things and asking them to help me find my phone or keys or purse. Apparently in Thailand only old women lose things and everyone else is super organized. I have also given them the impression that America is a very hot country. I was trying to hide it from them but I have begun to sleep with a comforter on... I know this sounds completely insane considering how hot it is here, but fans make me really cold! I'm pretty sure no one has ever used a comforter here and I'm really not sure why they even have one. They were horrified when they discovered I was sleeping with it and have been talking about how hot America must be. I then showed them pictures of snow I brought and they are utterly confused.

Now some pictures of my weekend adventures!

Chilling with a snake. My sister took me to a zoo/aquarium/vegetable patch. I saw tons of strange fish from around SEAsia and lots of different kinds of tigers. Oh, and gigantic cucumbers and squash...

Chilling with an elephant. This was not at the zoo but at a market. I got to feed it too!

I was on a boat behind this. All of a sudden people were chanting and throwing spears and jumping off the bridge into the lovely green water. No idea what was going on.

Floating market in Ayutthaya. There are boats all along the water selling food and drinks. On the other side are restaurants and shops all right along the water. It was beautiful!

Pictures at last!

The last few days have been full of activities! Yesterday I biked around my village with 4 other volunteers creating a big map of the community showing all of our houses and the important places such as iced coffee stands. I saw two huge monitor lizards, two snakes, lots of fish, and some turtles. Then I met my host brother for the first time and we went out to an outdoor market in Sing Buri and then to a restaurant for dinner. My host mom held my hand the whole time because she was so worried I would get lost. Although I think that would be pretty difficult since I stick out quite a bit around here. Today was Chinese New Year and my family is part Chinese so we had quite the day! I woke up and gave two whole chickens, lots and lots of fruit, and some snacks as offerings to Buddha. I must have lit hundreds of incense and stuck them into the chickens and fruit. we also tied flowers onto the front of the car for good luck. Then we went to a bunch of wats around sing and gave more offerings. I had to pour oil on things, push buckets of water down a hill, rub gold on Buddha, light more incense, and shake a lucky number out of a container. I really had no idea what was going on all day but apparently I should have excellent luck because I earned a ton of merit. And now picture time (if I can figure out how to do that)!

One example of the many rice fields I ride pass on my bike everyday on the way too and from class. 

Standing in front of a giant Buddha with my host mom (who told me today I should be calling her sister and my grandmother mom... woops!) and Ginny, a fellow PCT. This is just one example of the many Buddha statues I saw today at various wats. I also had hundreds (no joke) of pictures taken of me throughout the day. 

Offerings to Buddha. You can't see the incense very well put the pigs head has incense stuck in it. There were also fruits and chickens, and lots of strange things I didn't recognize and I hope I never learn what they really were.

Putting gold on Buddha. You are supposed to stick the gold on areas where you want help/luck. I chose the mouth to help me learn Thai, the eyes because my vision is horrible, the knees because my knees are horrible, the heart, and the ear to help me understand thai.

Thats all for now, more updates soon. Thanks for reading, have a fantastic day/night!

week one of PST

Sorry for the delay in updates but life in Thailand has been insanely busy! I only have time now for a brief update with some highlights of the last few days because my host mom is waiting for me to practice Thai with her.

I moved in with my host family on Sunday and they are AMAZING. I have a mom, two grandparents, and a 19 year old brother. The house is beautiful and I even have my own room with a bigger bed than I had in America. The only person in my family who speaks any english is my mom. We have a very hard time communicating so I basically never have any idea what is going on. I smile and laugh all the time. They feed me insane amounts of food. For example breakfast yesterday consisted of hot dogs, chicken wings, chicken fingers, eggs, and shrimp. Yupp I said breakfast not dinner. After I eat all of this food they keep telling me I will get fat and I keep trying to say then feed me less but it is not working! Today we ate dinner outside and the mosquitoes were attacking me as usual. This apparently means I am the dirtiest one according to my host mom. So all of a sudden I start getting zapped by a tennis racket looking mosquito zapper. All through dinner my mom electrocutes me to get rid of the bugs and it doesn't hurt but I laugh so hard and she thinks I am crazy. Then, I am in the living room and try to open the trash barrel. Apparently you are just supposed to wave your hand over it and then it opens. So when it flies open at me I yell and jump back and then when it shuts I jump again. This of course sends my grandmother into fits of laughter. I am a constant source of entertainment around here.

Every day I get woken up around 6. I am then supposed to shower and get dressed then have breakfast with my mom. Then I bike to training (about 7k). My grandmother rides in front of me on her motorcycle and I have to bike behind her so I don't get lost. She goes very very fast and by the time I get to school I am drenched in sweat. I then study Thai with my 4 person language class from 8-12. Have lunch until 1 where I bike or walk to a nearby restaurant and eat pad see-oh because it is the only thing I know how to say. Then return to school for technical training from 1-5. Curfew is at 6 so I go right from school back home and hang out with the family the rest of the night. My family is usually worried that I will get lost so they meet me on the road on my way home. My mom teaches me Thai all night and I am attached at the hip to a notebook and Thai dictionary. I am usually exhausted and in bed by 9.

I will try to update more later. I have lots of amusing stories! I also need to figure out how to put pictures on this thing.

I miss you all!

Finally in Thailand!

After a long and uneventful 24 hours of traveling I have finally arrived in Thailand! We were greeted at the airport with leis made from beautiful fresh flowers and then were immediately sent through customs and on to buses which drove us straight to the hotel. It was 85° when we got here, in the middle of the night, and this is supposed to be cold season? We didn't get to the hotel until after 3am and then had to be at training by 9:30am. Training involved getting rabies and japanese encephalitis vaccines and a big medical kit and medical books from the Peace Corps Medical Officers. We also heard more about how to dress riap roy (appropriate and complete) and then learned how to wai when you greet someone. Just to give you a little taste of the language this is how you say "hello, my name is kayla, what is your name?"  Sawatdee Ka, di Chan Chuu Kayla ka, kun chuu a-rai ka. And to make matters worse you have to make sure you use the correct tone with certain words too. It's certainly going to be a challenge to say the least.

The rest of the week is full of more training, bike rides, more shots, and then on Sunday moving to our homestays. My whole blog is in Thai right now and I can't understand any of the buttons so hopefully I can figure out how to switch it to English.. it took me a very long time just to figure out how to post something. The hotel I am at has free wifi which is pretty awesome so I will be able to update more later and include some photos if I can remember to take some!