Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Food!


Since coming to Thailand my view on food has changed quite a bit. One year ago I couldn't manage to eat squash, many kinds of fish, anything with strange textures, or even zucchini. I wasn't the pickiest of eaters, but I certainly wasn't the most adventuresome either. One year later I have had pig brain, intestine, liver, fried bugs, ants, ant eggs, fish eyes, and so many other things that I can't even remember because it just isn't a big deal anymore. As you can imagine, Thai food in the village is a bit different from the food you might order at a Thai restaurant in America. Most dishes have very strong flavors, usually involving lots of spice. If it is a non spicy dish it is sure to be sweet, salty, sour, or bitter. Any "plain" foods just won't cut it. Thai people generally eat rice at least three times a day and are amazed when I tell them I would eat rice about three times a month in America. This is always followed up with questions on how I have survived so long and what exactly did I actually eat in America? Bread, pizza, and hamburgers? I've been here so long now I am beginning to wonder how I survived on such a small amount of rice too. The other day I made an egg and then went to the neighbors to get rice for my egg because I simply couldn't imagine eating an egg without rice. I didn't even realize how strange that was until I started thinking about this blog post.

A typical day for me involves a breakfast of yoghurt and fruit, or oatmeal and fruit. Sometimes I mix it up and make pancakes, eggs, or cinnamon buns but I generally don't eat Thai food for breakfast. I stock up on huge containers of oatmeal when I go into town, and buy yoghurt whenever I can find it. The first question I get asked every day at work is what I ate for breakfast. When I respond everyone says "ohhhh" and shakes their heads in horror. They simply can't imagine how I make it to lunch without eating rice. For some reason this question never seems to get old.

For lunch during the work week I almost always go to a small restaurant with a few of my coworkers. Restaurant in this context is almost certainly not what you are picturing in your mind. Sometimes we sit on the floor on bamboo mat, on a small wooden platform, or on the ground. Other times we sit at folding tables on plastic chairs. Meals are generally around 30 baht, or 1USD. Most of the time the restaurant is just someone who sets up a stove along the side of the road. Our choices are either noodle restaurants or rice restaurants. Noodle soups are common for lunch and are served piping hot with balls of pork and fresh vegetables. Rice restaurants serve dishes like basil fried pork, coconut curry dishes, and all the dishes you might see on a Thai menu in America with a big heaping pile of rice.

Dinner is my favorite meal of the day. I usually go to my neighbors house (I call them my host family but they really aren't) and share a meal with them. I always try to cook a small dish at my house to bring over but that doesn't always happen. I make things like stir fried vegetables, spaghetti, an omelet, or one of the few Thai dishes I can actually make. Most of the time my family picks at my food a bit and once in a while they actually really like it. My host mom usually makes two dishes every night and they are generally Northern Thai food. I love her food and have not turned down a single dish she has offered me. We often have heaping piles of fresh steamed vegetables, a hot soup, a pork dish, and a spicy dipping sauce. A few times a month all the families in my compound kill a chicken and make Thai Chicken Noodle Soup which I can't get enough of. They recently decided that they think I am allergic to this dish (I had a crazy allergic reaction the day after eating it) but I refuse to be told I can't eat it. Every night my two sisters, my host mom, and I sit on a bamboo mat on the floor in a circle with the dishes in between us and a large container of sticky rice. All bowls are communal and we all just dig in. We grab a clump of sticky rice, roll it into a small ball, and reach in with our right hand to grab a bit of food and eat it with the sticky rice. Some dishes require a spoon, but more often than not we eat with just our hands. The ball of sticky rice is used to sort of scoop the food from the bowl. Nearly every bite of food that goes into our mouths includes sticky rice. The rice helps even out the strong flavors, has a nice texture, and makes us full. I love sticky rice now but still don't eat it when one of the dishes contains noodles, or when I make potatoes. After dinner everyone drinks a nice cold glass of water from the communal cup.

Aside from the three regular meals we are always snacking. Sometimes snacks involve fried bananas, fresh fruit, jelly desserts, or homemade rice snacks. Basically everywhere I turn someone is trying to feed me.

On to the pictures!


My host mom in her kitchen. There is a banana tree right outside the window that we can reach out and grab bananas from.


Everything is made by sitting on the floor! Kitchen counters don't exist in my neighborhood.




Eating dinner. My sister was trying to avoid this picture.


Kitchen sink area.


To wash the dishes we fill the black bucket with water then scoop water with the small pink bucket and dump it on the dishes, scrub them with soap, then rinse them with some more water. There is a small bucket to the right that you can barely see in this picture that we put all the scraps in for the pigs. Nothing goes in the trash.


Typical dinner. Sticky rice, boiled mushrooms, green vegetable and pork stir fry, red chili dipping paste, and fresh bamboo with noodles.



 Making naam prk ong, my favorite dish! Put garlic, red onions, lots of dried chili peppers in the mortar and pestle. Cook with ground pork, crab paste, soy sauce and a bit of water. 



Chili dipping sauce, Naam prik ong, Spicy mango salad, sticky rice, cucumbers.


Lunch of fried rice.


One of my other favorite dishes, kanom chen naam ngiew. The large dark brown chunks are congealed blood cubes.


Same dish with that sauce put on noodles, add in some fried garlic and parsley.

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Ants and larvae, yumm.


The only way to eat fish so you can enjoy every last part of it.


Gheng Keio wan, no clue what it is called in English but it has chicken, veggies, and a coconut curry sauce.


Snack time at the office


Two of my favorite fruits.



One of the restaurants we eat at pretty regularly. It's outside with a tin roof and we sit on a raised platform, no chairs.



Som Dtam or Spicy papaya salad. Usually is very spicy and has whole crabs along with fermented fish.


That's all for now. I'm off to Bangkok on Friday, visiting my host family, Mid service conference for Peace Corps, then spending a long weekend at a bungalow Cave Lodge in Mae Hong Son. Soon after that is the Songkran Festival (water throwing festival). It's going to be a busy April. I won't have my computer with me for a bit, but will try to update when I can. Happy Easter!

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

I've been avoiding posting for awhile now because I had been having a rough few weeks. I was frustrated at work, feeling useless, and constantly aggravated with a few of my coworkers. I couldn't get anyone to  agree to a project and was told to jai-yen-yen (relax) and just play on the internet all day. I started leaving my office and spending more times at the schools and at the health centers and things have finally started turning around. I have a few projects I am currently working on (sex ed, world map, dengue traps and environmental activities) and have lots of work to do to get these projects ready. None of the projects are actually with my office, but a few of my coworkers help me translate materials and lesson plans. I am still coming into the office regularly, but realized that in order to be productive and happy I needed to branch out a bit more. I am no longer going to sit around waiting for my coworkers to give me the green light on a project. After going through a rough patch for a few weeks I have come out happier and more content than before. I think I had been in a lull before and didn't realize it until things got hard and I had to find a way to deal with it and come out stronger.

Today marks one year at site, and one year until I will be leaving Thailand (assuming everything goes according to plan). It's strange to think that one year from today I'll be saying goodbye to my village and heading to PC offices in Bangkok to check out. I had expected that I would feel excited when I reached the one year mark, but instead I feel kind of sad and nervous. I want to accomplish so much more here and really make a difference, but at the speed projects happen here I don't know how much I will realistically be able to do.  I know that the next year is going to fly by and next thing I know I'll be boarding a plane and heading back to America!

I don't have any exciting stories or pictures to share today, but I promise a whole post full of pictures when March is over. I've been doing an activity that another volunteer created taking one picture a day off a list she made, so I promise to upload those once I'm done. I've also been taking pictures of my host moms amazing food that I will post about next week. I hope you are all enjoying the snow while I'm over here suffering through 90 degree nights...