madre

Our apartment is interior, which in Spanish architectural conventions means that its windows open to an interior rectangular patio surrounded by other apartments. In the summer, when our patio neighbors' windows are open, you can hear the life of dozens of the homes of this working-class barrio--telenovela stars monologuing, talk show hosts screaming at each other through the static of ancient radios, children laughing, babies wailing, cats meowing from windowsills, a lapdog downstairs expressing its impotent rage, the construction workers on the ground floor singing while they hammer and drill.

We 're right near a corner of the patio, and just caddy-corner from the apartment of a woman in her fifties. She's South American, by her accent, although she's been here long enough that her grown children speak with the lisps and smooth cadence of Madrid. Her window to the patio is in her kitchen, so around meal times, we get a full blast of her volatile emotional life. The family is in the living room behind her as she prepares lunch, chopping garlic and onions with furious whacks of her knives on the cutting board. She throws down pots and pans and slams shut cabinet doors, all the while screaming at her family in the next room. They don't come see her enough, they don't care enough about her, they say mean things to her and never take to her advice. She's a good woman and a good mother, goddammit, and they should be better children.

The kids respond the same way every meal: we're always here, Mom, we call every day, we eat nearly every meal with you. But there's no calming her once she's in her stride.

After the meal, she's back in the kitchen to do the dishes. Apparently the heat of the stove, or possibly that of her fervor, has become unbearable, because at this point she often whips off her shirt and does the washing up bare-chested, her naked top half in full view of anyone who cares to look into the patio. Free from her elastic bonds, she really lets loose, bellowing out the window about her terrible children, about how her shows are all jumping the shark; the bills, the rent, the government, the nagging phone calls from various parties--nothing in her world is safe from her braless recriminations.

Dishes done, she retires into the more soundproof recesses of her flat (presumably after donning her discarded shirt) and we enjoy a few hours of the relative quiet of jackhammers and yapping yorkies.

back

After only fifteen months away, here we are again in Spain. I couldn´t be happier. Thailand was a great experience, but it certainly taught me that I would just really rather live in the developed western world. Our little flat in the center of Madrid has hot water, high-speed internet, a flush toilet located in a bathroom inside of the dwelling itself, an oven, sinks in the bathroom and kitchen, sufficient and comfortable seating...after Thailand, and especially the jungle container, it´s pure luxury. Three months in I still emerge from every hot shower amazed at how fantastic it is to have a hot shower. I´ve been cooking elaborate meals in my fully-equipped kitchen and haven´t once had to scrub mold off the walls. Life is good.

I´ve also been struck by how much easier this transition has been than any of the previous moves I´ve made. My study abroad time in Argentina was six months of culture shock; I never fully adapted because I couldn´t speak the language well and it was the first time I´d really experienced a culture other than my own. When we moved to Zafra, it took me months to being truly understanding the accent, and adjusting to small-town life was difficult and often frustrating. Living in Surat never stopped feeling insane--just when I would start to feel at home, a spider the size of my hand would scuttle across my floor, or my neighbor would proudly present me with an entire octopus and wait expectably for me to eat it, or my school would throw an enormous celebration (the motivation for which I was never once able to fully understand) in which the students would dress up in traditional Thai dance costumes and drape Buddhist scarves around a statue of the virgin Mary, or ceremonially give me a bath towel with a bow wrapped around it. There were days when it was just wholly, insurmountably foreign.

This move hasn´t been like that. I understand what people are saying. The things they do make sense to me. I can get everywhere easily, whether my bus or metro, without walking miles through unmarked village streets or risking my life on a questionable motorbike. I can buy any food I need or want. With three years under my belt, teaching is a breeze. The challenges I face every day are normal life challenges, not ´´I can´t figure out how to order food without chicken guts´´ type challenges.

Happy to be back.

rey

The Thais are a patriotic bunch. The king, the longest-ruling monarch on the planet, inspires more adoration and awe than any celebrity or leader I've ever seen. On Mondays, the weekday of his birth, a striking proportion of the population wears a polo with his crest, in yellow, his personal favorite color. His birthday is the biggest holiday of the year. His face graces (by law, I've heard) every business, every public building, and most houses in the whole of Thailand. There's a law in place that makes it illegal to do anything to an image of him that could be considered "defamation." People have been arrested for drunkenly painting on posters of him, placing pictures of other people above a picture of him on websites, and sending unfortunately intercepted text messages expressing distaste for him. I can't figure out if it's actually illegal, but the Buddhist taboo about feet, combined with the image of the king's face on the currency, means that it is completely unacceptable to step on a coin to keep it from rolling away from you. You may think this wouldn't be that big of a deal, but I'd bet you do it way more than you realize, and it's a tough habit to break. It also tends to happen when you're fumbling for change in crowded places with lots of witnesses. Awkward moments had by all.

Probably the most obvious manifestation of this legally-enforced lovefest is the national anthem. It's not actually called that, but referred to as "the King's song." It plays at eight am and six pm in every public place, every TV and radio station--everywhere. And it stops everything. Everyone drops what they're doing, however important, to stand at attention. No one walks or moves. Cars driving by the schools in the morning, upon hearing it on the loudspeaker, hit the brakes. A friend once joked, probably inappropriately, that if you ever want to wreak some unopposed havoc in Thailand, do it at eight or six.

Our neighbors have two little white puffball dogs, poodle mutts or something. They're generally pretty quiet and relaxed (very Thai), only getting yappy when we drive our motorbikes too close to their house or when a cat goes by. But through some weird training regimen that I can't fathom, their masters have gotten them into a habit of howling like maniacs ("singing," they insist) when the King's Song plays. They start when the music starts, and stop immediately after the last note. I thought at first that it must be a fluke, that they just barked when music played on the TV, but that TV runs all days, and those dogs are quiet as can be, except for 8 and 6. Like clockwork.

When I was reading about the king for this post, I found out that people have actually been arrested for remaining seated while the song is played before a movie at the theater. They don't bother with this for us foreigners at the English-language movies, but at Thai movies, they run it before every film, regardless of the time. My boss told me that he recently went to a movie with his Thai wife where they played not only the song, but a long and highly emotional slideshow of photos of the king, from his birth, to his coronation, to his present advanced age. My boss watched, bemused, as his wife and everyone else in the theater broke down in tears.

But my favorite King's Song anecdote came from a fellow teacher at Thida, the Catholic elementary school where I spend my mornings. The building is a gorgeous modern construction, a giant, domed circle lined with four floors of classrooms overlooking a tiled central courtyard. Every morning, the children line up in front of their classrooms, facing the center, to say morning prayers, do some calisthenics, and sing the song.

Like many Thai buildings, Thida has a wide open entryway to encourage much-needed airflow. This allows stray dogs to occasionally wander in, and since strays here are treated well and are therefore generally docile, no one bothers to shoo them. So one morning, while the children were lined up, two dogs entered the building and made their way to the center of the courtyard. After hanging about unmolested for a few minutes, they decided to make some puppies. Normally, someone would break this up quickly to avoid the awkward questions of the over 2,000 watching three-to-eight-year-olds. Unfortunately, this went down at 8:00 on the nose. No one could move. No one could do anything. The dozens of nuns, teachers, parents, janitors, administrators and lunch ladies were all frozen in place by a lifetime of twice-daily renditions. So for the sixty-second duration of the song, 2,000 pairs of little eyes watched as two muddy street dogs banged in the middle of their school, during the King's Song, right in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary.

My friend could barely tell me this story with a straight face. Thai teachers--less amused.