baby bees and rubber trees

After 10 long weeks of training I took an oath on Monday and swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer! The completion of training felt like such an ending, when really it is only the beginning of my service here in Thailand. I am now at my site and will not be seeing any other volunteers for a few months. Even though I have been in Thailand for a while now, this feels completely different because I am not surrounded by other Americans everyday. 

After a 12 hour overnight bus ride I got to site around 6am yesterday. For breakfast I ate baby bees. They were actually pretty delicious even though the texture was a bit funky. By 8am I was at work meeting people and getting to know the community. For some reason they insisted that I bring my pet porcupine with me.  He sat next to me all day long.  Thai people think I’m strange enough as is so bringing a porcupine to work just makes me even stranger to them. They kept saying they hope he dies so they can eat him! 

At work I met all of the police and fire volunteers then someone handed me a scary looking knife and I carved a tree until rubber came out. The rest of the day I tried to practice my Thai and avoid falling asleep.  After work I went home and met all of the neighbors. For a few hours I sat outside and talked to the kids while neighbors came by to see me. The whole time there were about 10 kids ranging from 2 to 16 years old hanging out in the yard.

After dinner my host family asked me if I wanted to go watch people do aerobic exercises. When we got there I realized they didn’t want me to watch they wanted me to actually do aerobics because they want me to lose weight. Aerobics was fun and I got my 5 year old host brother to join in.

So far I love my new home and am excited to see what the next two years will bring! The office building in my village has internet so hopefully I will still be able to update my blog weekly.

Last week of training a few volunteers and I found real bread and cheese! First time I have had either in a few months and it was by far the best grilled cheese I have ever had. It must have been well over 100 degrees kneeling next to that fire cooking but was certainly worth the effort.

Singing karaoke at a going away dinner. It's not a real Thai party without karaoke. 

My Sing Buri host family at our last dinner together. This is one of the only times I was able to get a picture of them all together.

Porky.  Looking fly as always.

Fried Food and Wedding Dresses Galore

I don't think a week has gone by yet without something ridiculous happening to me. Last Sunday I was taken on an hour long drive to a photo store. I had my hair, makeup and nails done by transsexuals who all wanted to date me. After that they took my upstairs to a room full of wedding dresses and told me to pick out three. At this point I decided it was time to draw the line. I kept saying "no wedding, no wedding" and everyone was laughing at me. So eventually they just picked out some dresses for me. The first dress I had to wear was this puffy white knee length dress. I feel pretty confident that it was a wedding dress but they kept saying it wasn't. I then had my picture taken with a beach as the background as I was playing a violin and laughing. Then we all had family photos taken with me in my wedding dress. Next dress was a European ball gown with a hoop underneath to make it puff out, then a japanese gown, and finally traditional Thai. I eventually found out that these were family photos and that they were going to replace the ones already on the wall in the living room. Hopefully they decide not to buy the one with me playing the violin in my wedding gown. But it was really nice of them to want to include me in the family photos, even if the entire experience was kind of terrifying.

In other news, this week I think I ate french fries everyday. My family has been concerned about me and to show this they make me lots and lots of french fries. Yesterday for breakfast I ate french fries, deep fried chicken, and mini hot dogs. Today for lunch I ate fried papaya, fried mushroom, and fried corn. Quite the healthy diet I've got going on.

I had my final language test yesterday which was a 30 minute interview all in Thai. It was going pretty well until she asked me what I studied in college. When I told her I studied the brain she asked me what about the brain I studied. The only thing I could think to say was "well if you touched me but I didn't know you were touching me I would study why I don't know that you are touching me." Pretty sure she thought I was a bit strange after that. In my defense explaining neuroscience in Thai is incredibly hard! My pet porcupine also came up which didn't help my image.

In one week I leave for my permanent site!  I will try to update one more time before then. Hope all is well, and I miss everyone! Eat some pizza for me.

Site Visit!

My new home is located in Northern Thailand in an area known as the golden triangle near the borders of Laos and Myanmar. I will be the only Peace Corps Volunteer living there for the next 2 years. My village is in the mountains and right on the other side of it is Laos. There are 2 different hill tribes in my village, plus Northern Thais, Isan Thais, and immigrants from Laos. It is a beautiful place and is very rural.

After a 12 hour overnight bus ride from bangkok to my site, I was picked up by my Thai counterpart and taken to her house. After eating a bit of food she asked me if I was ready to go out. She probably said where we were going in Thai but I didn't understand it. Next thing I know I'm at a funeral. Funerals are very different here. There are groups of people hanging out outisde eating and drinking. Males in one area and females completely separate. Everyone stared when I walked in and I heard shouts of foreigner coming from every direction. Everyone wanted to talk to me and know who I was and what the heck I was doing in their village. The separation of male and female didn't seem to apply to me for some reason. I met lots of key village people and learned to cook some Thai food too. After that I went to a wat and got string tied around my wrists from a monk who chanted over me and poured water on me. From there I was taken to a waterfall, a market, and a windmill.

That night I stayed with a host family. We ate some delicious food and everyone sat on the ground and ate with their hands which was very different from what I have experienced in Central Thailand. The next morning I met two elderly women who weave mats for sitting on the floor. They taught me how to make one and I sat with them for a few hours making the mat. They asked me if I could help them develop a market for selling them because they can not make enough money. Then I walked down the street and met another elderly women sewing traditional hill tribe shirts. I sat with her for a while and spun a bicycle tire attached to a string that spun out the thread for her. After about 10 minutes my arm was killing me but this lady could probably do it for days on end. In the afternoon I met a teacher who is very excited to work with me and was incredibly nice. 

The next day I went to the government building in my village which will be my main base for doing projects out of. When I walked in everyone was so excited and was yelling and could not wait to meet me. I said hello in Thai and everyone dissolved into fits of laughter. After being introduced to everyone they crowded around and whipped out a scale. Everyone is gesturing for me to get on it and at first I am horrified, but after a few seconds I thought the whole situation was hilarious and stepped on the scale with tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. When they saw how much I weighed people were high fiving and laughing even harder. Then they told me I need to diet. It was an incredibly strange experience. I also went to a daycare, health center, and a community group to meet with people and discuss why I am here. In the afternoon back at the government building they dragged me upstairs, handed me pom poms and told me I was going to be a cheerleader. About 8 of us practiced a cheerleading routine for an hour and then at the end after seeing how bad I am they asked me if I can do a Thai sport instead. Apparently there is a big sports day competition next month against other villages and it is very competitive. Every day they stop work an hour early and split into groups to practice the sports they are competing in.

Near my site with my counterpart Pii-Dao.

2 year old who I stayed with! She's incredibly energetic and tons of fun. She took me around the neighborhood to meet everyone and by the end I had 10 kids hanging onto me.

If you're thinking gosh that looks like ants and maggots in a sandwich bag, then your only half right. Those are red ants and ant larvae in a sandwich bag, get with it people. I only ate the ants and was very nervous to do so because I thought they might bite me since they were still alive. The larvae looked a bit too much like maggots for my liking. This is a common food in my Tambon, people love it which I absolutely do not understand.

View in my village. This is what a lot of the area looks like. There are gigantic fields everywhere with mountains/hills in the background. Beautiful.

Cheerleading practice with my coworkers!