50th Anniversary and Reconnect

I've been away from site for the past 2.5 weeks for Peace Corps events. It all started with the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps Thailand which was 2 days of celebrations. The first night was a "cocktail" party at the US ambassadors house. No actual cocktails were served because a worldwide rule of Peace Corps is that volunteers and staff can't drink together. It was an incredibly beautiful house right next to the embassy with huge gardens, a swimming pool, and a beautiful covered outside area. I got to speak to returned volunteers from group 1, the very first group of volunteers to go to Thailand. Most of them are in there 70's now and some still live in Thailand and have married Thai people. The next day we met HRH the Princess at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 60 volunteers got to take a picture with her (we picked names from a hat and I was one of the 5 or so unlucky ones that didn't get picked). That night there was a party at the Peace Corps office where volunteers from past and present got to share stories and experiences about their time in Peace Corps.

After the 50th celebration was over I went to Sing Buri to visit my host family from training and spent the night there. My host mom had become a nun at a temple for a few weeks so I unfortunately didn't get to see her or enjoy her fabulous cooking. After that it was off to Suphan Buri for 2 weeks of Reconnect or inservice training. We had 16 hours of language training which I spent learning how to speak Lannese. In my region of northern thailand the language is very different from central Thai so I am hoping to be able to study both regular central Thai and Lannese. It's pretty confusing trying to keep track of which language I am speaking. We had lots of technical and cross cultural training as well and one person from each of our sites had to come for 3 days of the conference to work through any issues and explain more about the program. Aside from training these two weeks were full of farang food, air conditioning, stories, hot showers, comfortable beds, western style flush toilets, great friends, and hours upon hours of speaking english.

Now I'm finally back at site and am readjusting to village life again. I came back on Sunday around  7am and was immediately horrified at the smell of my house. It didn't take me long to discover the source was toucay and gecko poop all over my floor, table, toilet, and even bed. There are also spiderwebs everywhere and its a bit "chilly" now that rainy season is in full swing. I started cleaning my house and got very dirty from all the poop and spiders I had to clean up and kill. It wasn't warm enough for my regular cold water shower so I boiled water and poured it into a bucket with cold water to take a luke warm bucket bath. Sunday I was "thainapped" and worked in the fields as free labor all day. We got to the field at 7:30am and immediately started picking fruit to be sold in the market. By 10am I was thinking to myself we have to be done any time now. By 2pm my back felt like it was going to split in half, and by 4 all I wanted to do was lie down and sleep. Now everyone wants me to go help pick their fruit but fortunately I have had the excuse of needing to work the last 2 days.

Tomorrow I am apparently going to meet a flying monk. Everyone is very excited about me meeting him and want me to ask him how he flies. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to do that without laughing so I'll probably just pretend I don't understand what they are telling me to say. Village life feels a lot less like a vacation after 2 weeks of western amenities but I am still loving every second of it.

Pictures to follow soon! Sorry for the long delay in updates but now that I'm back at site I should have a bit more time.

4th of July Festivities

For some reason this year I was feeling more patriotic for the 4th of July than I ever have in the past. I'm not sure if it was being abroad, serving in the Peace Corps or a combination of the two. On the 3rd I was feeling a bit down and depressed about not being home for the 4th and then started thinking about how many events and holidays I will miss out on over the next two years. So I decided instead of moping around and being a downer I would celebrate the holiday to the best of my abilities and share it with my friends and neighbors here in Thailand. 

Immediately after work on the 3rd I took my roundtrip 20k bike ride to the store to buy all the supplies I would need for my 4th of July feast. Unfortunately it rained the whole ride back. When I got home word had spread around the neighborhood that I was throwing a party the next day and I started to get worried that maybe I hadn't bought enough food. I had to work all day on the fourth but during lunch I got a ride to the store again to buy even more supplies. When I finally got home from work at 5 there were already 4 women waiting to help me start the cooking. We made chicken, pepper, mushroom, and onion skewers, pineapple salsa, spicy tomato salsa, homemade fajitas, and grilled pineapple. Over 15 people showed up all wearing red, white and blue. Some of them came and then found out the dress code and went home to get changed. I even gave a little speech to everyone about what the day means to Americans. The party was a huge success and tons of fun for both me and my neighbors. Plus I got to bring in the 3rd goal of Peace Corps and share my culture with my host country. 

I plan to continue this tradition and celebrate all of the holidays I'll be missing out on at home with my new family here. Hopefully it will keep me from getting all mopey dopey self-pitying around the holidays. Plus I'm sure everyone here appreciates the free food.

Enjoy the pictures!