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| Lanterns at a night market. This has nothing to do with today's post but I thought it look pretty. |
Hi All,
I am currently sitting at my desk at my school. This school is absolutely ridiculous, even by Thai standards. Just to give you a heads up, this email is pretty long but hopefully I'm a charming enough writer you can make it to the end.
This week is my schools 60th anniversary and so Monday and Tuesday were celebrations. Yesterday was the king's birthday and so there was no school. Today is apparently a continuation of a "sports day" that has seriously gone on now for at least two months. I'm beginning to wonder if my school is actually a day care. But hey! Don't get me wrong, I love it.
I walked into my first class and waited for them to arrive. After a half an hour a few stumbled in and upon seeing me said "Oh! Andi! ugh.. Hi! I go to the bathroom?" and then bolted out the door never to return.
The thing is that I'm such a lazy person, I really don't mind not teaching. I sort of taught one class today but we just played games before we were interrupted by an organ playing. What the hell? When did the school get an organ?!
It's hard to describe just how little idea I have of what's going on right now. There are two stages set up, one outside on the soccer field another in the main gym. On the soccer field there is an entire class of 3rd graders doing some choreographed dance someone taught them. My favorite is this little boy who is running the show smiling from ear to ear and shaking his booty (or as Thai's say "moving his ass"). They look like they're having so of fun and I have this strange urge to jump up there with them and dance in the sun.
The next stage currently has this little girl, probably 4th grader, who looks like she will need a lot of therapy later in life for how traumatized she is. Seriously, she's mumbling song lyrics into a mic with her eyes squeezed shut and her knuckles going white from holding the mic so hard. She's pretty brave to sing in front of about a hundred students and strangers. I was tempted to go up on stage with my guitar and have her sing along to try to throw her a rope, but I don't speak enough Thai to explain why I'm interrupting her show (Hey there Thai girl, I'm really happy for you and I'm gonna to let you finish, but first...)
Now there's another girl on the stage. She sounds good! I'm still confused as to why she and everyone else is not in class though.
....
Yesterday was the King's birthday. It's very hard to describe the sensation around the King. Imagine the fervour that the world has towards the British Royal Family and then imagine that the queen actually had political power like President Obama. Except with the King of Thailand has even more influence as he is regarded as the Father of the country and as a holy figure. In fact, his birthday here is father's day.
Yesterday I got to sleep in and went to a nearby noodle shop for breakfast. The owners were so kind to me and made sure I was all nice and settled before they handed me a nice steaming bowl of pork noodle soup. I was really enjoying myself. As I slurped up noodles and meatballs, I looked around the restaurant and saw fathers getting breakfast with their children to celebrate the holiday.
One girl looked like she had been literally dragged of bed to come get breakfast with her dad and seemed to still be pretty upset about it. I was reminded about in high school when my father would bang on my door, order me out of bed to get breakfast and give me 5 minutes to get ready. I would groggily get dressed and drag myself to his old pickup truck where he would be waiting (I remember one time there wasn't any shocks in the car, that was fun). Then we'd go off to some Mexican restaurant in the middle of a cotton field and catch up on life.
As I was missing my dad, a giant horse fly flying around my bowl decided to commit suicide and landed smack dab in the middle of my noodles.
I stared at in drowning in disbelief. Then a wave of rage swung through me. What the HELL fly?? Why? WHY?!!!
I flung it out of my soup and looked up. The owners of the store hadn't seen what had happened and chirped away at me in Thai asking about my life, where I was from, etc. I still had half a bowl to eat and I knew that if I didn't eat at least half of that it would be considered offensive.
I smiled back at the store owners, but in my mind I was swearing up a storm against the f$%ing horse fly. Because what do horse flies eat children? That's right! Feces and rotting meat.
I dumped a ton of hot peppers into my soup hoping that would somehow sterilize the floating pieces of poop in my soup, picked up my chopsticks and ate a giant bite of noodles. The shop vendor walked over to me "Arroy Mai? Delicious no?"
"Mmmm so good!" I said trying to smile and to not think about all the things floating around in my spoon.
Thanks a lot fly.
......
Yesterday the entire country celebrated the king's birthday. The king's color is yellow and yesterday all of the older generation was wearing yellow to honor him. Red is the color of an opposition party and so I made a conscious decision to wear yellow along with most of the country.
The reactions from some Thai people upon celebrating the King's birthday was really something to see.
But here are those who do not agree. It is public knowledge that there is a group called the Red Party or People's Alliance for Democracy that holds a strong majority in the north, especially in Lampang and Chiang Mai. The party attempted a coup in 2008 and the party leader is currently in exile. There have been a few protests again in Bangkok since I have lived here.
There are whispers about party activities in Lampang, and when I went to a candle lighting ceremony last night to wish the king happy birthday, we were approached by a man who asked us if we loved the king but in a semi confrontational way. I smiled and nodded yes. There was definitely tension in the air, but it was still a beautiful ceremony with hundreds of people including myself lighting candles at once and wishing good health to the King.
....
I just got finished "teaching" a class. I wanted to cancel because only ten kids showed up and I'm incredibly lazy but they all started to protest and ordered me to teach. I found it really heartwarming! They like me! They really like me!
This place is literally a zoo right now. Seriously, someone brought it little animals at the back of the gym that you can pet. A few teachers have run up to me asking me if I'll sing for everyone. The thing is that I haven't done a show in so long, I'm actually itching to be on that stage right now belting own some Adele for everyone to sing along with. We shall see if they're serious about me singing.
Oh dear. Someone is singing Whitney Houston song and does not speak English. I can't go outside because I know I'll start bursting out in laughter.
Thanks for reading and much love!
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