This one’s a long one, 2 full days, one less full day, and 2 full evenings worth. When I attended my district’s orientation they mentioned that we’d be getting the opportunity to teach English in early December and I was very excited but it was a ways off. Now it’s here and passed.

It was a 3 day camp in Ayuttaya, and the age range was 12-15 I believe. Originally most of the exchange students had thought it would be for much younger kids, grades 2-4 maybe. As usually is the case, we spent a while asking very specific questions and trying to get detail and an understanding of what would be going on, but our questions were mostly ignored or they answered a different question and then just stopped talking to us when we tried to clarify. This happens A. LOT. as an exchange student though so by now I’m used to it. I’m never going to stop trying to understand more each time though. That’s going against my nature. We didn’t know what kind of place we’d be staying the nights in until about 5 minutes after we arrived at the hotel and the people in charge finally answered our repeated “Is this where we’re staying?”‘s with an affirmative.

Anywho, lets start at the beginning. The people who lived in Bangkok city all carpooled into a big van, which turned out to be two vans. I got up at some o’clock that my brain has forcibly erased from memory, finished packing, and then my host parents got up and drove me to Siam square to the drop off point. The drop off point was a Soi (road) 3, which appeared to not exist. We then found the only place to turn off the main road between Soi 4 and Soi 2, which was the entrance to parking for a big shopping mall. After some compiling and comparing of information with another inbound who was circling the block as well, we discovered that we were actually supposed to be meeting at a cafe. That information had not come up in either the emails or the group chat lines messages, nor even my queries directly to the organiser so I was skeptical but it turns out that that was in fact where were supposed to meet. My host dad knows the area, and where the shop is which was handy, except that apparently he knows of 3 of those shops in the same area. What??

Eventually we found one on the corner of Soi 4, and the other exchange student who had already arrived was out in front of it so we decided that this was probably where we were meant to be. The other exchange students were on their way and we waited for them and for the organiser in front of the cafe. It was only a quarter after 6, and the cafe wasn’t open yet. That being said, we had been told the van would leave at 6 and as far as we could tell it hadn’t arrived yet. My host mom had gone up to the big white van parked on the corner before “Soi 3” or the parking lot and asked if it was the one taking the exchange students to Ayutthaya, but it wasn’t. I really haven’t been able to figure out how central Thai people view timeliness. As close as I can figure the person who ranks the highest or close is allowed to be late to a given thing. Example: school. The teachers often arrive at class 5-10 minutes late, and end class 0-25 minutes late. If students arrive late to the morning assembly (which starts 15 minutes before school actually starts) and you are caught by a strict or grumpy teacher, you have to stand in a separate block of students and after the assembly older students will come around and write down your name and your class and your number in your class (students are assigned numbers in their class so that the teachers can simply call out numbers in order when collecting work or checking attendance or really anything else. It’s also way easier than Thai names) and then if the teacher in charge is particularly angry stand through a lecture that I’m sure is much more invigorating if you can actually understand it. Then you go back to your class and may have gotten to miss lining up in front of your room and praying and can go straight into the classroom. That being said, my host dad is nearly always on time or early and if he isn’t he calls ahead right away to tell you. It’s really nice and I still don’t know how he manages it, even though I’ve lived with him for just over 4 months now.  0.O Wow. That’s a long time huh? More than 1/3 of my exchange already. That actually feels about right. I want to spend 2 more times the amount of time I’ve already spent here in Thailand. And I /think/ I still feel that way after my friend told me that in Thailand’s summer season (April-May) It’ll get up to 40-45, with the highest temperature being about 47 degrees C.  Everyone said that now is when I’m most likely to get homesick, including myself, them because of Christmas holidays, me because 4 months is a long time and would possibly start to feel like a long time. Now I’m starting to think that summer here is when I will truly start to feel homesick. Wow. 45 degrees huh? Well, I’ve finally adapted to the point when the weather right now is cozy, and at the moment it is 33 degrees C with 48% humidity. If I can do that I can do anything, right? =/    Oh- the forecast is for 35 degrees on Christmas! That’ll be really different.

So almost all of the bathrooms in my school don’t have toilet paper, soap, or paper towel. This isn’t out of the ordinary in Thailand as many public washrooms use a bum gun or (I’ve just encountered a few of these terrifying contraptions recently), toilets with built in jets with buttons on a panel on the side to control them. This means that most Thai’s don’t wash their hands after using the toilet, just sort of rinse. Most foreigners carry around tissues (and often soap) to wash and dry hands with. I’ve given up on the dry hands part but I still carry around soap with me. Today when I was washing my hands one of the foreign teachers was washing her hands as well and offered me a tissue. Without thinking I said “No thanks I can just do the dance” and proceeded to demonstrate the “dance” that one of the monitors at my circus camp tried to use as an ice breaker for the newbies when we ran out of paper towels one time. The dance involves raising your hands palms out, elbows bent so that they are directly in front of your shoulders, then moving them back and forth vigorously when moving your shoulders back and forth less vigorously and taking steps every two or three back and forths of your hands, bending your knees so that you are a bit lower to the ground the whole while. I only did this for a few seconds as I walked past her to the door but the look she gave me will stay in my memory for a long time. XD

I think my last post was right before the first semester final exams.  That’s because I no longer had easy access to a full desktop computers once exams had started for the other students.  I stayed home and was SUPER lazy for all of exam week.  After that we had the holidays, 7 days of which were spent “practicing for sport day”.  I can fill another post on that alone easily so look for that later.  I was sent my quarterly report right before that week and a half, but since sport day training is an event deliberately constructed to leave students too exhausted to study for other school’s high school entrance exams, I feel a lot less guilty about sending it in late.  I made plans with some of my friends for after exams; with one group I was going to go to the palace and then tour around to some other particularly picturesque parts of Bangkok.  Our plan was to spend all day doing this, but unfortunately the night before this, the king of Thailand died. Because of this, going to the palace was definitely out of the question since it was being used for the funeral ceremonies, and frankly no one in Thailand wanted to go out and do anything after that.

I found out from my host mom, about 2 hours before the news was officially released.  She had asked me to come to the bank with her that evening and about 20 minutes after she had said we would leave she knocked on my door, looking shell shocked, and told me “Actually, my king is dead.  This makes all Thais very sad.  Please be ready to go soon.”.  It took me a moment to realise what she was saying, and I was shocked that she would still be going to the bank in light of what had happened.  I think she may have been using the normalcy of the task to help deal with the shock she was in.  I actually had been fretting about this happening, because the king didn’t seem like he would still be alive next July after I left from everything I’d heard. As of then I had had no exposure to Thai mourning customs, and the internet only goes so far, especially when it comes to someone who the Thais respect as nearly a god. I had been trying to find a casual and non-disrespectful or rude way to ask about this for a while, but I’m pretty sure that it is considered bad luck in Thailand to speak of a living person’s death. Because of this I hadn’t yet asked, and now everyone was in extreme grief and I still couldn’t ask. I tried asking many times, a half hour after it had happened, an hour, etc. but my host mom was unable to answer. I conferred with the other exchange students in my district, thinking we could all collaborate on the information gathering and by doing so not burden our host parents with a full on quizzing right after their hearts had been broken.  Good in theory, but not good in practice.  I now know that there were certain aspects that were dictated by the government, and certain that were personal choice.  Since we have very little documentation of the mourning process for the previous king, the government had to do their best to guess and decide.  All outings already planned were cancelled, everything for the next year must be in less bright colours and must be less loud.  Weddings and other parties in the next month must be cancelled, and after that time they are still requested to play music in speakers instead.  All government workers were required to wear all black for 30 days and then either their uniform or black and white for one year after the day of the kings death. The government asked at first that everyone wear at least black and white for 30 days, preferably black, with jeans being the exception, but then changed that several days later because prices for black and white clothing rose drastically, and not everyone would be able to reasonably afford that. They said that people could instead wear a black ribbon on their left breast or shoulder. My host parents both decided that they would wear as close as possible to all black for 100 days. It really depends on the person. This meant that when I was conferring with the 30 other exchange students, we got about 10 different answers. All of whom thought they were answering the question of what should that exchange student do in their household, I presume. I’m still not entirely sure what I should follow- the mandatory period is over, and he wasn’t my king, but I did and do respect him greatly. Also my host parents wont be wearing colour for another 2 months. I think that for now I will wear either black and white or black and white with a little bit of pale or dark colour. Black pants and a dark green shirt for example. I think almost everyone in Thailand is still wearing black or white though, but some have added navy or peach or grey. It definitely isn’t anything like the sea of colour I was expecting.

Inside this class-on-the-roof, I learned very quickly that bowing was different after the incantation at the beginning or the class when one sits on the floor.  (I also re-learned something I had read in a Thai travel guide that says you must never step over a person or their food.  Not even their extremities.  I realized this because the kids in my Thai instrument class kept wanting to go past where I was sitting with some of the children [who were all in nice rows save me because I had thought we’d be sitting all jumbled together] but wouldn’t go even after I shifted in order that they could just step over my feet a little bit.  They refused to go until after I realized this and tucked my feet in and scooched over.)  Anyways I put my hands together to prepare to Wai the teacher and everyone else had their hands clasped one over the other resting on their thigh opposite to the side their legs were tucked under.  I decided to copy them and see this through, so when they put their hands palms together on the floor diagonally away from them I hurriedly followed suit, only to have everyone fling their heads at their hands on the floor!  I bowed my forehead to my hands which is what I figured they were probably actually doing.  I think I was right but I am not sure yet.  This was repeated in my Thai dance class (I’ll tell you more about how that went later XD) and nobody corrected me either time so I’ve about a 50/50 chance I was doing it right.