Again, it's been awhile since I've written. My parents were here for 2 weeks and then I was in Bangkok for a week for mid-service conference. I'm now back at site and oddly happy about that.
It was incredible to have my parents visit me here, although a bit odd as 2 vastly different worlds merged. I picked them up at the airport. I stood there anxiously awaiting their arrival as streams of people poured into the airport. We spent 2 days in Bangkok, which was plenty. After visiting the Peace Corps office, taking the water taxi, and visiting the Reclining Buddha all before 11am, we were standing in line to buy tickets to see the Grand Palace and my dad says "Have you been here before?" I reply, "Yes, twice actually." He then says "Can you just send me the pictures. I want to have lunch." And then my mom chimes in "You've seen one temple, you've seen them all." So we quickly left the line, hopped into a cab and enjoyed a lovely lunch. The Chadwicks know how to get things done.
We then spent 5 days in Chiang Mai, a beautiful city up in the north of Thailand. One day we went ziplining in the jungle, which was really fun. My dad and I loved it; we are pros at these types of things since we went skydiving together. My mom, on the other hand, was a total trooper, but I was convinced that she actually wanted to kill her own daughter, since I had convinced her to do this. I think she enjoyed it when it was all over, but it was a good adventure for the Chadwicks.
My parents also experienced Peace Corps volunteers at their finest (or worst) on New Year's Eve. It was quite an eventful night, but my parents kept up with our drinking and bar hopping like professionals and partied down until midnight. Everyone lit up and sent off lanterns into the sky as a way to release bad deeds and baggage from the past year and start anew. It was beautiful with the full moon as I watched 2009's hardships and struggles drift off amongst the other lanterns. As I look back at the past year, I'm sad, happy, and confused, which I suppose is Peace Corps in a nutshell.
After exploring Chiang Mai, we flew back to Bangkok and rented a car to drive the 7 hours to my village. It was quite the trip as Dad did the driving and I navigated with the assistance of Sally our GPS that came with the car. Like any good road trip there were plenty of pit stops for kanoms (snacks). I introduced my parents to the amazingness that is Thai kanoms.
Once we arrived to my village, the neighbors were immediately curious about these 2 new foreigners. You never know what's going to happen in the village, I prepared my parents the best that I could. They visited my pre-schools where we gave out stickers and did the Hokey Pokey. We spent some time at my office where we took many, many group photos. At the temple, we chatted with my monk friend. The monk kept grabbing my dad's belly as he said things like "Nice to meet you! You are from America!" in English. Despite my cultural lessons, my mom went ahead and shook the monk's hand. It is highly taboo for a female to touch the monk, but what do you know, that's what she did. I also prepared my dad that it's common for Thai men to touch each other. I laughed to myself when I looked over to see that the mayor had linked hands with my dad. Oh life in Thailand.
We headed back to Bangkok for one last night and it was time for my parents to go back to the cold winter in North Dakota and for me to head to mid-service conference. It was an amazing trip and I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to share this experience with my parents. This is an odd existence I have chosen, and now my parents can relate just a little bit more. They took it all in and just went with the flow. Over the past year, my parents and I have become even closer, they are my constant support and it truly means so much to me that they were able to see my life here. Thank you, parents for your constant support and a fabulous trip around Thailand.
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