scattered recollection of site visit and a few things since

I tilted my head back and let the hookah smoke drift slowly from my nostrils as my eyes caught a neon man flash above me, walking across a Johnnie Walker logo. The taste of hummus and red wine lingered through the apple smoke, and a breeze foiled my smoke ring as it pushed past my fellow trainees and I, while a Thai band pushed relatively gracefully through Alanis Morrisette songs on a rooftop bar in downtown Bangkok.

I stood watching a health center worker clean a wound on man’s shin, about 2 ½ inches in diameter and down to the bone, while the head of the health center stood in front of 15 models of breasts, giving lessons on self exams to check for breast cancer. Meanwhile, all the women over the age of 35 in the surrounding 8 villages were upstairs getting free pap smears. As my stomach started to turn from staring at a man’s open shinbone, I wondered why I was there. This is all free care that we don’t offer our own citizens. They should be coming to us, teaching us. I started to wonder how immensely arrogant I must be to have come here with no specific skills and thinking I can improve their conditions. I visited all 21 villages in my subdistrict the night before, and was already starting to become overwhelmed at the shear size of the place. It’s nicer and more organized than where we’ve been training, and I wasn’t mentally prepared for this.

My already broken Thai was struggling through the cold building in the back of my throat. I could feel my headache growing more intense as I walked through another potential home. We’d learned to make deals and push for more amenities using Thai, but no one could front the funds for furniture I’d be renting. I found a nice house, but there was no way to get furniture. Any furniture. No bed, no fridge, no chair, nothing. We were told to call our project managers when we were in a bind, so I did. I called both of them. A few times. No one answered. My counterpart was getting more and more confused and I was getting frustrated and the headache kept getting worse and I finally just shrugged and said we should go look at the other house again, the one that was too big and that I’d only be able to live in for 5 months.

I took my first big sip of margarita and audibly sighed. Everyone smiled in agreement and we sat and ate fajitas and enchiladas and tacos and chips with guacamole until there was none. Then we ordered another pitcher of margaritas and went and got pizza. We already had tickets to see The Watchmen in Imax, and we savored every bite of everything we couldn’t get for the last 6 weeks, way past the point of being full. Even though everyone responded in English, we ordered everything in Thai, because we could and because we had to prove that we weren’t the farang (foreigners) that come to vacation here and find Thai wives and do all the things the daren’t do back home. We see them everywhere and they don’t make eye contact. There’s something intrinsically guilty in most of the white people we meet here, but we aren’t those people and we’re very proud of that. We’re just a bunch of kids that finally got a day off and are craving a bite of home. It was better than we expected.

When they talked about culture shock and adjusting and working in Thailand, they kept talking about all the highs and lows we’re going to have. When we’re on the top of the world and when we just want to crawl back into bed. I guess I didn’t realize how quickly we’d move from one to the other, but after the past weekend I think I have a sense. Because so much happened since my last post, I thought a few anecdotes would be more interesting and go further towards explaining this feeling than just a point for point. I realized that a lot of the highs were related to doing American things and the lows were from my site visit, but a lot of it was circumstantial, and such is culture shock. Bangkok was a great high because we actually had a full day off in a place with English speakers where we don’t have the same intense cultural restrictions of the more rural areas, and where we have access to recognizable and long dreamt of food options. All the pieces fit and we really needed the time off and it was great. Then the morning I left Bangkok to go to my site, I could fee myself starting to get sick. As I’ve already discovered, being sick takes the stress and the pressure and just makes everything suck. I maintained a smile and was fine, but whenever things started to go wrong here and there, being ill just compounded it, and I felt pretty low during a lot of site visit. Thankfully, I didn’t really show it, except when my headache got really intense during dinner, and a little time has helped me settle and get perspective on everything. Right now I feel a lot better, both mentally and physically, but I wanted to show how quickly the highs and lows come and go here, and so often in relative extremes. I’m not really looking forward to being bipolar for the next two years, but I’ll let you know how that goes.

We got to Bangkok and saw the Peace Corps Thailand HQ, then headed to the hotel and from there were on our own for the night. Naturally, we all went out pretty hard, so when class started the next morning at 8 a good number of folks hadn’t shown up yet or were falling asleep continuously. I was fine through class, but when it was done and I went out and had a big meal and saw Watchmen and got back to the hotel to regroup and preparty, I just passed out (And If you’re planning to see Watchmen, save your money and buy the comic book). But I needed the sleep. I woke up Saturday and could feel that I was starting to get sick. I traveled with the volunteer that will be closest to me to visit the same current volunteer for a night before we went to visit our sites. The girl that we went to visit is dating another volunteer that I met earlier and they both seemed pretty cool. We didn’t get to do or see much at her site though, so we just sat and talked with her. She seemed pretty well integrated into her community, but was still obviously an outsider. It also looked like she was really active with her students outside of class and was making a difference, which was good to see. Still, she was talking about the things she wanted to do as a secondary project, and she sounded a little like us trainees, still waiting to get out there and do things. It made me realize how quickly the year must go and that I can’t procrastinate or hesitate or I could end up a year into service with very little accomplished (since I’m not an English teacher, my work is to do the projects that come secondary for them).

Quick note, after site visit training really starts to speed up. I’ve barely had any free time, and the part of this entry that is above I wrote in small segments over a period of several days. That’s why I won’t date it. A lot has happened since visit, and the highs and lows are not limited to my time away from the pst town. I really realize this because, although I usually don’t get the chance, I am constantly thinking of things I want to put in the blog and how I want to talk about them and describe them etc. I realize that from day to day my outlook and mood are constantly changing and they really paint how I am writing. Sometimes I’ll feel really good or really bad about something that happens, but by the time I get to writing about it it’s been processed and I don’t feel the same, or some over event has colored my perception of the previous one. I wish I was writing more often right now to really be able to convey a sense of how I’m feeling, but there simply isn’t time. We got back last Tuesday and debriefed site visit, then planned a life skills camp for 10 to 12 year-olds and had the camp on Saturday. In the mean time, my language group is preparing to do a 45-minute presentation on Friday about everything we’ve learned about the community we’ve been studying since we’ve been here. Oh, also, we’ll be giving the presentation to the people that live in that community, and we’ll be giving the entire presentation in Thai. Then Saturday is the final language exam to test our proficiency before we go to site. Also, today we went to a farm to learn about organic fertilizers, and on Wednesday we’ll be going on a trip to learn about helping people living with HIV and AIDS in our communities. And the whole time I’m drifting back and forth between feeling melancholy and tired, and feeling motivated and content. I think the frustrating part is never really understanding what’s pushing me back and forth between the two, or when I’ll feel good again. But I know it’s just the stress, and I never move too far in either direction (although I think the type “a” in me is really going to kick in when I get to site). Anyways, just wanted to say I’m really busy and will be, so forgive the weak posting. Back to site visit, but briefly.

So Site Visit. I got there Sunday afternoon and left Tuesday morning. The place is nicer and bigger and with much more dense villages than I expected, but I’ve come to terms with all of it by now and am working on plans of attack. My counterpart speaks English at about the same fluency that I speak Thai, which is great, except that today (Monday) I spoke with my project manager that called him to check in about my housing options and it turns out he’s moved to a different community during the week since my visit. This somehow didn’t come up at all while I was there. I need to find a new counterpart, but there’s no hurry on that, so I’ll worry about it later, when things slow down and I’m at site. The leader of the place where I’ll be working (the SAO, Subdistrict Administrative Organization), is up for election again soon and is apparently not favored, but he seemed nice and I liked his family. I spent a lot of time with the leader of one of the community’s two health stations, and she has a gorgeous house and from the looks and work of the health station, she really has it together. I think I’ll be staying with her for my first two weeks at site while I finish figuring out my housing.

The community itself is distinctly Issan. I guess that doesn’t mean much to many people. It’s flat and characterized by small checkers of dried out rice fields with trees growing spread out between fields. It gets really hot there in the summer and relatively cool in the cool season. They rely on the rainy season to grow rice and the rest of the year the ground is cracked, baron, and bone dry. The people are friendly and lively and are very proud of their sticky rice and fermenting fish and the fact that they all speak a dialect that is more Lao than Thai, even though they can only read and write in Thai. It’s just not the Thailand that people come to visit, but I’m happy about that. Right now I have a few decent housing options, but everything’s so up in the air I’m not going to bother describing them. I just really don’t think I’m going to be able to find furniture or internet or air conditioning or a water heater or western toilet or a sink or anything that I was crossing my fingers for when I went house hunting. The furniture is obviously the most pressing part, like a bed or a stove, but I think even these things I’ll have to buy with the settling in allowance they’re giving me (around US $200). Anyways, I need to sleep. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to post this soon and maybe even write more. I guess you’ll know if that happened. Oh, I also spent yesterday morning working in a cassava field. That was fun. Bye, blog friends. Hope you’re all well.