leaving

I haven't written in a while because I've been a bit gloomy and didn't want to put any of that negativity in words. I've been feeling stuck--I was ready to leave Thailand a while ago but the way things worked out, we decided it was in our best interests to stay still September. So I've kind of put my head down and powered through.

But now we're two weeks from out of here, and I'm starting to reflect on my time here. It hasn't all been great. It turned out that Thailand isn't a good fit for me, or, more fairly put, that I'm not a good fit for Thailand. I didn't adapt well to the tropical heat, or to the frustration of the language barrier, and I have never come to feel at home here. But the thing is, despite the downs, I've never for a moment regretted coming. I don't wish we'd gone somewhere else instead, or that we'd stayed in Spain, or even that we'd left sooner. It's been hard, but I think if it hadn't been so hard, I wouldn't have learned as much.

Leaving always makes me look more positively on a place--In my last weeks in Zafra, the claustrophobia of small-town life stopped bothering me so much. Right before leaving Bloomington, it sorta seemed ok that hipsters and hobos regularly pissed in the alley five feet from my bedroom window. So now that we're on the verge of departure, I'm coming out of my grumpiness and starting to remember why I came here in the first place.

Thai food, while something of a minefield of weird animal parts and peppers that set your mouth on fire, is some of the best stuff I've ever had. I'm to the point where I always crave curry breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I hit this vegan place every day for tofu green curry, mixed vegetables and sauteed seitan rubbed with red curry paste. It's honestly one of the best meals I've ever had. The red curry and penang and Sweet Kitchen, a riverside restaurant that Levi and I visit two or three times a week, is extraordinary.

The jungle that surrounds our little container house really is breathtaking. I've never gotten tired of just staring into the tangles of trees, flowers, and vines. I spend Saturday and Sunday mornings laying on our bed with the container door flung open, reading a book and watching the palm trees sway in the breeze, electric blue birds and butterflies the size of my palm floating by, the occasional thunderstorm rolling in, bending the palm trunks at  incredible angles and pouring rain on the tin roof.

And the people here, both my coworkers and the locals, are fantastic. It's been pretty rare that I've encountered an unpleasant person. It's the sort of place that lends itself to a laid-back attitude, and seems to attract that sort of person. So even in my occasional irritation with Surat, I've been happy for the opportunity to get to know some really great people.

So we're off to Madrid in two weeks. We'll be there teaching for a year, and if all goes according to our current plan, Levi will continue teaching and working on his photography (which is getting more incredible all the time) while I do a year-long masters program in archaeology at a university in the city.

I'm thrilled to be going back to Spain. Oddly enough, it took a teaching job in Thailand to make me realize that what I really want to do is live in Spain and eventually quit teaching. I'm also happy to be moving to a big city--it will be fantastic to have international restaurants, import-stocked grocery stores, museums and live music at our fingertips. Madrid is well-connected by public transportation to the whole province, which has several beautiful cities and national parks to explore.

I'm ready.

gang som and salt fish

Thai food is some of the best stuff in the world. Pad thai, rich coconut curries, spicy stir-fries and sweet, milky iced tea--amazing. All of those are wonderful treats, and the versions you get in Thailand are superior to the sanitized, less-flavorful versions available in the west.

But here's the thing: it's the best of Thai food, sanitized though it may be, that made it to the other hemisphere. The rest of of, quite justifiably, has no market where a European palett reigns. That coconut curry the waitress sets in front of you smells amazing, but stir it up a bit before you dive in--it's probably full of chicken feet and bits of intenstine. Anything you'd call spicy would be tasteless to a local, so the dish is so full of chilies that you've got tears streaming down your cheeks by the third bite. The shrimp in your pad thai is whole-vein, head, and all, and the chicken is full of gristle and fat. Your otherwise delicious noodle soup is full of what appears to be black tofu, but turns out to be balls of congealed pig's blood.

If you know where to look and know how to say "mild" in Thai, you can eat pretty well. Some of the best food I've ever eaten has been right here in Surat. But during the school year, while I was working at the elementary school, I would often stay and eat the free lunch that the school generously provides to the teachers. Some days, it was something simple and pleasant like fried rice or sweet curry, but every once in a while, after already committing to a plate and a drink, I'd find myself face to face with the unholy combo: gang som and salt fish.

Gang som is, from what I've gathered talking to Thai coworkers, a favorite dish of southern Thailand. It's also the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted in my life. It's a watery curry of a strange grayish yellow-green color, full of fish and bitter vegetables, with a sour/sweet/deadly spicy flavor. I can't compare it to anything because I've never tasted anything remotely like it. The cafeteria cooks generally saw fit to serve it with another Thai delicacy that turns my stomach: salt-cured fish. It's an entire fish, cold and crispy and highly salted all the way through. There's no way to really separate the meat from the bone, so you just do your best and get the occasional sliver stuck in your throat.

After being burned a few times, I had to just admit to my Thai coworkers that I hate the stuff and excuse myself whenever it was served. They laughed at me for my lack of fortitude, but even they had to concede that it isn't for everyone.

crash

Thai driving is mad. As I've discussed before, Thai drivers, especially those on motorbikes (who seem to the the large majority) weave in and out of traffic, drive on the wrong side of the road, blow red lights, and generally behave as though there were no one else on the street. Generally, it works out. In my experience, it often seems to be a more efficient driving style. If every one of the katrillion motorbikers in Surat followed the rules of the road and behaved the way cars are expected to (stay in your lane, don't weave to the front of the line at a traffic light, don't drive on the sidewalk...) traffic would be nightmarish and no one would get anywhere. The roads just aren't big enough for it. So to some extent, I get it.

But there's no avoiding the obvious fact: motorbiking here is really dangerous. It's liberating and relaxing and fantastically fun, but it's really dangerous. You're probably going to crash at some point. You need a helmet.

But Thai people, apparently fifty-three percent of those who regularly drive motorbikes, don't wear helmets. Anecdotally, it seems to be at least that high. Considering that many people only put one on when they see a cop, or ride around with the chinstrap unbuckled (rendering the helmet entirely useless in preventing anything but a fine), the number of people who are effectively without a helmet must be much higher. This is why Thailand has the world's worst motorbike fatality rate, with eleven thousand people dying annually because they didn't want to mess up their hair (or whatever-no excuse is a good one).

The worst is the kids. Fine, you're an adult, do you thing, but your seven-year-old needs a helmet. End of story. But it's actually pretty rare to see kids wearing them. Pretty much daily, I see passengers holding entirely unprotected infants on the back of the bike, or a parent in a helmet (presumably only to avoid a ticket) ferrying two or three kids on the back without a helmet between them. It makes me shudder to think of what could happen if they hit a bump.

It's not only helmets, either. Thailand seems to have a general lack of concern for safety. You'll see ten people in the back of a speeding pickup truck, one seated on the rusted and precariously attached tailgate. Boats shuttling tourists around and between the islands will brave absurd waves, and occasionally you hear a story with a tragic, rocky ending. Children crawl around the front seat of the car or ride on the driver's lap.

People more intimately acquainted with Thai culture have told me that this cavalier attitude towards danger in rooted in some fundamental elements of the national character. Thai people are generally, about all things, very relaxed. They just don't worry about possible negative outcomes the way most Westerners do. One expat, here for a decade and married to a Thai woman, told me that they tend not to think in terms of cause and effect; if you crash your bike while not wearing a helmet and get a concussion, they will tend not to blame the concussion on the lack of a helmet. Since you couldn't have forseen the accident, they assume you couldn't have prepared for it, so there was nothing you could have done to avoid the injury. It was out of your hands.

That's another piece of the Thai psyche: superstition. You don't need a helmet, or a seatbelt, or to not get on that old wooden boat in a storm, because you won't die until it's your time to die. When it's your time, there's nothing you can do anyway, so why worry. They hop on the bike and trust the universe to do the job of a helmet. 

While I admire the Thai stress-free attitude towards life and embrace it in matters of work and play, I can't get on board with this one. Seeing my five-year-old students roll up to the school on the back of a motorbike, their tiny heads unprotected, makes it hard to smile at their parents. The universe won't help you out here. Put on a helmet.

Stats source

glitter

My school, like Thailand in general, likes to party. Every couple of months (at least), classes start being sporadically cancelled, or you'll show up and only half the kids will be there, usually a mostly male half. The poor little guys will tell you that their fortunate classmates don't have to come because they're dancing.

They're preparing for a celebration of some kind. The meaning is less important than the mode, which is always the same; take lots of little girls, doll them up Toddlers in Tiaras-style, and have them do an utterly Thai dance for a small gathering of the school's nuns, teachers, and a few parents. These shows are huge; the costumes alone must cost a fortune and take hours to put together, and the kids practice the choreography for weeks. Despite the intense effort it clearly entails, they appear to do it just for the kids and the photos; there is hardly ever any audience more than twenty people.

These photos are from the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the school, but they're pretty representative of Mother's Day, Father's Day, the River Spirit holiday and others.

First and second graders perform for the nuns

Coming offstage in a blur of pink and gold and fake eyelashes.

Some of the high school girls from the other campus getting ready in the teacher's room before the show.

Big silk scarves unfolded from their skirts in the finale, which came out all blurry on my sad little camera.

Some of my kids performing the dance their class prepared.

The whole elementary school performing the final number. It was cool to see from above, but I was one of maybe three people to go upstairs to check it out.

the job

I work at a gigantic elementary school. On most days I teach three classes, each with over fifty second-graders. I see these same kids for an hour every day, so I've gotten to know them pretty well. They are amazing.

 I walk into the classroom and one designated kid, usually of the suck-up variety, shouts "Stand up, please!" They all rise, their hands clasped in the prayer-like gesture (call a wai) used to show respect. "Good morning, teachah," they chant, their Thai tongues unable to handle that final 'R'. I say good morning and ask them to sit down, to which they respond, "Thank you, teachah." The second they're seated, the politeness drains out of them and they return to their noisy, misbehaved ways.

 Months ago, I divided each class into teams. These teams earn points by being reasonably good, and the reward for a certain number of points is a homework-free day. They like the incentive, but mostly they just want to honor of bestowing a name on their team for the day. They wrestle each other's arms down and squeal "teeeeaachaaahh,"  hoping to catch my attention. The kids I call on proudly shout "Team Angry Birds," "Team Amazing Spiderman," or, in the last few weeks, "Team Gangnam Style." One tech-savvy class once gave me "Team iPad," "Team iPod," and "Team iPhone." My kiss-ass class comes up with things like "Team Teacher Savi is Beautiful" and "Team America is Great." They know how to get extra points out of me. The same class once realized that I'd give out points for candy (I have limited integrity when it comes to points) and I spent two glorious weeks being showered in sweets and, once, an entire cake.
 

Maintaining peace in the face of violence

I start class with a game that gets them moving around, usually something that has them racing to the board to write vocab words. It's amazing how intensely interested they suddenly are when I throw in competition. Some kids get positively spastic. When we study animals, I have a few class clowns come up and act like gorillas or dinosaurs (T-rex arms are a personal favorite of mine). When we're doing adjectives, they come up and puff out their tummies for "fat" or have jumping contests for "tall." One very entertaining week on professions, I had the rowdiest boys posed as ballerinas and the daintiest girls aiming fingerguns as cops. At the end of class, I assign them homework and listen to their argument against homework. Alright, it's less an argument and more "teaaccchhahh noooo homework!" In the end they laugh and do it anyway.

When I see them around the school, they run up for high-fives and hugs. I'll occasionally see one at a store or restaurant and they freak out, waving and shouting "HELLOO TEACHAH!" until their parents hiss at them to show proper respect with a wai. They're still so small that seeing a teacher outside school is exciting enough to make them forget their manners.

Somedays they give me headaches, aggravate me with their inability to conjugate a verb properly despite weeks of practice, and I swear if I hear one more of them singing "Gangnam Style" I might lose it, but they are just awesome. I mean, look.

Pictured: pure evil

enlaces

In lieu of an actual blog post (it's one of those days) here's some links to Levi's photos and a few articles I've written for our school's website. Enjoy.

Tai Rom Yen National Park
Chiaya
Weird Surat
Levi's Flickr Albums

hablar

On a rainy weekend in mid-April, Levi and I got on a bus with forty adult English students and rode to Hervás, a beautiful Medieval town tucked into the snow-capped mountains of northern Extremadura. The group of students came from the Official Language School in Almendralejo, a small city near Zafra. The activity was a three-day language immersion. Levi and I, along with four language school teachers and nine other native speakers, were to see to it that not a word of Spanish was uttered all weekend.

I had expected it to be formal, maybe a bit tedious, but we actually had a fantastic time. Every hour I met with a different group of three or four students to play games, take a walk, have a beer, or just talk. Saturday night everyone piled into a little rec center at our campground and learned some highly effective American drinking games, much to the displeasure of the rent-a-cops. On Sunday we took a hike into the village. We stayed in a cute little cabin with four Spanish guys, all of whom we've met up with since. It was a great weekend.

Borrowed from the internet because my pictures are on my crashed harddrive, but this is a good representative shot of the town

At dinner with our cabin mates

The whole group