Mâi khâo jai.

The title is "I don't understand" in Thai. Nothing sums up the last 3 weeks of my life more. 

To start, back at the end of October I was invited to a merit ceremony. Merit ceremonies are a Buddhist celebration for the dead. In life, you earn merit by doing good for yourself, others and Buddha. When you die, it becomes your family's responsibility to earn merit for you.  So, the result is a party in which the whole village is invited to. 

The party begins with a feast. Typical dishes include sticky rice, pork curries, open-flame cooked fish, meat balls and stewed veggies and chicken wings.  My favorite dish is Pad Krapow Moo, which can be found at any party, local restaurant or school canteen. It's stir fried pork with holy basil. So yummy!

After you are sufficiently full (it's rude to be the first to stop eating!) you then join the other partiers for a parade around the village.  Buddhists believe it is bad luck to turn left, so in a clockwise fashion you move around town. You hold some sort of merit to honor the dead and you walk and dance your way with the fellow partiers and the stragglers you pick up as you pass their house. 

After you end up back where you began, it's time for another meal, typically a sweet dish or a savory soup. Pom (my school coordinator whose Dad was the one we were honoring) provided us both savory and sweet: banana and sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves, coconut sticky rice in banana leaves, and pork fat soup (which is pork meat and congealed fat floating around in pork broth).  After you're again stuffed to the brim, it's now time to pray.  Monks show up and chant as the sun sets, honoring the deceased and granting him merit.  All guests are to bring a gift for the monks or to donate money. This is how the deceased gets merit.

Thai Buddhists honor and respect water, so it ends with a water ritual. Guests bow and honor the monks and watch them depart. Then, it's time for meal number three. 

At this point, Maggie and I decide to leave, as we can't fathom eating another bite and it's very exhausting to be the only white people at a foreign event. You are asked to be in every picture and are asked to sit at every table to talk to everyone, even though every conversation consists of "where from?" "America" ...silence... As this is where their English ends and my lack of Thai begins.

It's hard to describe what it's like here. I get accused of not sharing enough, but I find it hard to sit down and write exactly what happens everyday. 

Just going to the store is an adventure. Buying a bottle of wine in this country is an event. Thais don't understand wine, don't believe women should drink and just plain don't understand english. You ask for dry red, they bring sweet wine. Well, okay, that works, too.

Coffee, as well, is an adventure. Thai people do instant coffee or espresso: there is no drip coffee, even at Starbucks (which I have to travel 2 hours for the nearest Starbucks)!  The other day I ordered a double espresso, no sugar, no milk. I asked her if she understood and she said yes... I ended up with two iced coffees, one with sugar, one with milk. 

I have started to get into the groove of life here. I do have two regular coffee shops I go back and forth from (don't worry, they understand what a double espresso is!). I have a chicken shop I frequent and I can finally speak a whole conversation in Thai with the lady! She gets the biggest smile on her face every time, even though I am just ordering chicken and negotiating price. It's the little victories, I suppose. I have a regular route to school and a regular routine after work. I run at the school. I am in a yoga club, which meets twice a week. I do additional English lessons outside of school and have traveled for a spelling bee competition where I was the word-reader. I know the local dogs, which ones to pet and which ones to avoid. I have gotten used to people petting my arms and hair and proclaiming "soi!" ("beautiful!") over and over. I know... What a hard life. But, when people follow you and try to touch you and take pictures with you when all you're trying to do is buy toilet paper, it gets to be a bit much. But, no one means any harm. They don't understand me as much as I don't understand them. 

And, in a place this beautiful, all I can proclaim is "Mai Pen Rai" (No worries!"

The sunset over the lake at my school!

Next blog will be about my ups and downs as an English teacher!