I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post on here. My excuse is that I have been traveling and gallavanting around Thailand. Here's a little summary:
My best friend and life long travel buddy, Brent, arrived at the end of February. I picked him up at the airport and there began our adventure. He and I have traveled together in various cities in the States, Japan, Czech Republic, Hungary, Mexico, and now Thailand! First, we went to Ko Chang (Elephant Island), a beautiful island in the Gulf of Thailand. Our schedule consisted of relaxing on the beach, eating delicious food, enjoying beer on our bungalow porch, elephant trekking through the jungle, island hopping, snorkeling, and hiking to a waterfall. The island is part of a marine national park and it was amazingly beautiful.
After departing the island, we took a 17 hour journey, including 9 modes of transportation, back to my site. The journey included a cramped, hot overnight bus with loud karaoke music and ended with a tuk tuk cart ride through the rice fields to my house in the pitch dark at 3am. The next day, unfortunately, I had some pretty severe stomach problems that were not so fun. I'll spare the details. Fortunately my condition improved, as the next day 4 new volunteers, who just arrived in Thailand in January, came to visit for a night and then they went to visit their actual sites. It seems crazy to me that a year ago that's what I was doing. I remember the anxiousness of visiting my site for the first time, hoping to make a good impression and to check out my home for the next 2 years. This whole Peace Corps thing is a crazy process and reflecting on what I was doing a year ago is simply strange and surreal.
After the new volunteers headed out, Brent and I spent a week in the rice field. For whatever reason, my house had no running water and frequent power outs. Fortunately, the neighbors were kind enough to share water from their reserve supply so we could at least bucket bath. One night there was a long power out and we sat in the pitch dark and pondered life and listened to the neighbor boy sing a song he made up about power outages. Then the neighbors set up a 3 day party right outside of my house, similar to the one that took place in my house with the 50 house guests back in October. Loud music shook my house all day and into the night and started up again around 4:30am. He also experienced the hot, sticky nights trying to fall asleep in front of the fan that just doesn't seem to cool you off. He experienced a true Isaan lunch - rolling little balls of sticky rice in your hands and dipping it into spicy papaya salad and bowls of unknown concoctions. One day we went to the pre-school and did a hand washing lesson with the kids since the new bathroom is finished. All in all it was a fun week in the rice field. It's nice to have a buddy to bum around with and watch endless hours of downloaded TV shows. In some ways, Brent got the PC experience condensed into 2 weeks.
The trip ended with a long weekend in Bangkok, which included lots of eating and drinking; our brunch on Saturday lasted nearly 2 hours. I'm so glad that Brent was able to come and experience a little piece of this experience with me. He's a trooper and up for anything so it was a blast showing him all aspects of Thailand - the sunset on a beautiful tropical island, the oddities of life in rural Thailand, and the craziness of Bangkok.
The day Brent left to head back to America, I headed to the training site in central Thailand for the new group's training. I was selected to be a resource volunteer for a week - I planned and facilitated an HIV/AIDS Integration session, which I think went really well. We had members of the area's AIDS group there for a panel discussion. I also helped with other sessions and hung out with PC staff. It was great to share some of my experiences and advice to the new volunteers as they finish training and start their service. Again, it's so crazy that that was me a year ago.
And now I'm back at site for about a week and a half before my next adventures begin. I'm going to Vietnam for a week with two other volunteers and then immediately after, Jonathan will be coming for a week and we will be relaxing on the beaches way down south.
After all these travels, I'm seriously going to stay at site for awhile and hopefully start some more projects here and study for the GREs. I'm not complaining about all of my travels, but it's time to settle down in the rice field for awhile.
No comments:
Post a Comment