Sunsets and smiles
The past few days have passed by in a blur of colour.
On Monday night we slept at Jeab's home on the outskirts of Namsom - almost a little village of its own.
We cycled out after nightfall - a scary experience with no headlights on our bicycles to see potholes and dogs jumping out from the bushes.
Her parents home is very simple - a wooden room atop a breeze block ground floor. They seem to live in the one downstairs room.
There are the kind of shutters as the front door that you might find on a shop front, a concrete floor covered in places by rattan mats and motorbikes inside the front door.
There are old-fashioned wardrobes with glass fronts filled with Isaan pillows and adorned with photgraphs of Jeab, her sister, brother and parents, certificates and kitsch pictures.
A large squishy chair with no springs and a torn imitation leather sofa are infront of a cabinet with a TV, brand new DVD player and old fashioned hi-fi system.
Behind the TV unit is a large mosqutio net that covers Jeab's the beds. A wardrobe to the left of the net marks the sleeping area from the kitchen part. There is no table and no kitchen chairs. They eat on a mat on the floor.
The bathroom is an adjoining outhouse with green water in a stone container for the shower. There is no sink.
It is simple. The walls are not plastered. Sticky rice is rolled on the floor.
Natalie and I watch a hilarious Isaan film about a village girl from the north east who goes to Bangkok to fulfill her dream of becoming a factory girl but ends up working as a maid for a rich lady. She speaks in Isaan language so there were subtitles in Thai and English. She is very torublesome so the slapstick film was great fun - a lot of bungled kidnap attempts by beauty queens and gay men, who they thought wanted to rape them. The subtitle acutally had the line 'We simply abhor women!'. Brilliant.
After a poor night's sleep (we had no mosquito net and I kept imagining spiders, grasshopers, scorpions... jumping on me off the floor or creeping in under the shutters) we were awoken by Jeab's scary grandmother at 5.45am.
This large Thai lady was peering at Natalie, much to her surprise. I couldn't quite grasp what she wanted at that time of morning. Or night as it felt.
Jeab was making sticky rice for the monks. It was a special Buddhist day and we were to give food to the saffron-robed monks.
We had bought flowers and bags of curry and added these to a plate of sticky rice and waited at the side of the road as the monks approached.
We had to take off our shoes, kneel with the bowls in prayer and then stand and put a little rice in each bowl and give the curry to one monk and flowers to another. I was rather eager at first and ran out by the time the smaller monks came by.
By this time it was only 7am and gloriously sunny in a way that makes you feel superior to be up earlier than normal.
Jeab bought sticks of liver and chicken and we took these back to her home to eat with sticky rice - something us Brits and Americans were not used to so early.
We cycled back to Ban Falang and sat on the balcony until it was time for school.
Later, I read on the balcony as the sun set in the most stunning oranges and pinks, getting deeper and more beautiful as it fell darker. It had a strangely calming effect - as if nature was saying things would be fine - tomorrow, the day after, and in the future. It was a serene moment and I felt some of the Buddist philosophies and the ways of Thai people were sinking in.
They believe that if you want to feel happy, you should believe that you are. They think the mind can heal. One of their favourite phrases is mai pen lai - it doesn't matter, don't worry, it's fine, you're welcome. Another is sanook - fun.
They believe you should enjoy the moment that you are in and not continously look to the future for enjoyment or fulfillment.
Contentment is possible to find from yourself and should not be gained by material things or other people. Of course, this does not stop them wanting American clothes and large 4x4 vehicles - the prized possesion of Thai people.
Last night we had a Thai cooking lesson. We cooked a kind of fish soup which we ate with red curry bought at the market. We also made a delicious and very simple banana dessert. It consists of boiled (!) bananas, sugar, coconut milk and condensed milk. And it is stunning.
Things at school are going well. I find lessons easier to plan although the teacher, Pi Nang, wants me to use a textrbook that teaches them things such as asking to find a payphone when they can hardly say, My name is...
Today, she told me I was a good teacher. However, I feel a little guilty. I have confirmed that I am to go to Pai on August 18, so I will leave the quiet and peaceful Namsom next week to take a week in Laos. Travelling through the north of the country will bring me to North Thailand and then I will travel to Pai, near the border of Myanmar (Burma).
She doesn't want me to go and would like me to help with an English seminar later this month. She also wants me to take trips with her family and go to dinner with them and I feel terrible that she has been so kind to me.
However much I love this place, I am itching for more to do at weekends and in the afternoons. Around Pai are beautiful waterfalls, hot springs and plenty of Thai nightlife. There is also trekking and Chiang Mai (the main town in the north) close by.
Today the children went to the temple to learn about traffic safety with the police. Anticipating a lie-in, Natalie and I planned to climb to the top of a mountain where there is a pagoda and views across the valley.
However, Pi Nang arrived and invited me to join the seminar. The children were sat very properly in a hall at the temple that was open on all sides. Tree trunks (possibly imitation or covered in some preservative) held up the roof and at one end was a Buddhist shrine. It was not a particulary beautiful temple to my disappointment.
But the teachers were kind and police were delighted I had come. One sat down to practice his limited English and insisted on calling me darling. He took photos of me on his camera phone and then showed me photos of his daughters and wife, making very sure that my prouncement was correct.
I chose not to tell him churlay was not my name but charlie - it seemed rude to correct him. Another thing different in our cultures.
I kept getting into a tizzy about whether I could cross my legs, as I do by habit. Pointing your feet at people is considered very rude and touching something or someone with your foot is a cardinal sin.
I wondered if pointing them at one of the tree-trunk pillars was fine or if it was not proper to display them at all - and I had painted my toenails such a pretty colour too.
On Monday night we slept at Jeab's home on the outskirts of Namsom - almost a little village of its own.
We cycled out after nightfall - a scary experience with no headlights on our bicycles to see potholes and dogs jumping out from the bushes.
Her parents home is very simple - a wooden room atop a breeze block ground floor. They seem to live in the one downstairs room.
There are the kind of shutters as the front door that you might find on a shop front, a concrete floor covered in places by rattan mats and motorbikes inside the front door.
There are old-fashioned wardrobes with glass fronts filled with Isaan pillows and adorned with photgraphs of Jeab, her sister, brother and parents, certificates and kitsch pictures.
A large squishy chair with no springs and a torn imitation leather sofa are infront of a cabinet with a TV, brand new DVD player and old fashioned hi-fi system.
Behind the TV unit is a large mosqutio net that covers Jeab's the beds. A wardrobe to the left of the net marks the sleeping area from the kitchen part. There is no table and no kitchen chairs. They eat on a mat on the floor.
The bathroom is an adjoining outhouse with green water in a stone container for the shower. There is no sink.
It is simple. The walls are not plastered. Sticky rice is rolled on the floor.
Natalie and I watch a hilarious Isaan film about a village girl from the north east who goes to Bangkok to fulfill her dream of becoming a factory girl but ends up working as a maid for a rich lady. She speaks in Isaan language so there were subtitles in Thai and English. She is very torublesome so the slapstick film was great fun - a lot of bungled kidnap attempts by beauty queens and gay men, who they thought wanted to rape them. The subtitle acutally had the line 'We simply abhor women!'. Brilliant.
After a poor night's sleep (we had no mosquito net and I kept imagining spiders, grasshopers, scorpions... jumping on me off the floor or creeping in under the shutters) we were awoken by Jeab's scary grandmother at 5.45am.
This large Thai lady was peering at Natalie, much to her surprise. I couldn't quite grasp what she wanted at that time of morning. Or night as it felt.
Jeab was making sticky rice for the monks. It was a special Buddhist day and we were to give food to the saffron-robed monks.
We had bought flowers and bags of curry and added these to a plate of sticky rice and waited at the side of the road as the monks approached.
We had to take off our shoes, kneel with the bowls in prayer and then stand and put a little rice in each bowl and give the curry to one monk and flowers to another. I was rather eager at first and ran out by the time the smaller monks came by.
By this time it was only 7am and gloriously sunny in a way that makes you feel superior to be up earlier than normal.
Jeab bought sticks of liver and chicken and we took these back to her home to eat with sticky rice - something us Brits and Americans were not used to so early.
We cycled back to Ban Falang and sat on the balcony until it was time for school.
Later, I read on the balcony as the sun set in the most stunning oranges and pinks, getting deeper and more beautiful as it fell darker. It had a strangely calming effect - as if nature was saying things would be fine - tomorrow, the day after, and in the future. It was a serene moment and I felt some of the Buddist philosophies and the ways of Thai people were sinking in.
They believe that if you want to feel happy, you should believe that you are. They think the mind can heal. One of their favourite phrases is mai pen lai - it doesn't matter, don't worry, it's fine, you're welcome. Another is sanook - fun.
They believe you should enjoy the moment that you are in and not continously look to the future for enjoyment or fulfillment.
Contentment is possible to find from yourself and should not be gained by material things or other people. Of course, this does not stop them wanting American clothes and large 4x4 vehicles - the prized possesion of Thai people.
Last night we had a Thai cooking lesson. We cooked a kind of fish soup which we ate with red curry bought at the market. We also made a delicious and very simple banana dessert. It consists of boiled (!) bananas, sugar, coconut milk and condensed milk. And it is stunning.
Things at school are going well. I find lessons easier to plan although the teacher, Pi Nang, wants me to use a textrbook that teaches them things such as asking to find a payphone when they can hardly say, My name is...
Today, she told me I was a good teacher. However, I feel a little guilty. I have confirmed that I am to go to Pai on August 18, so I will leave the quiet and peaceful Namsom next week to take a week in Laos. Travelling through the north of the country will bring me to North Thailand and then I will travel to Pai, near the border of Myanmar (Burma).
She doesn't want me to go and would like me to help with an English seminar later this month. She also wants me to take trips with her family and go to dinner with them and I feel terrible that she has been so kind to me.
However much I love this place, I am itching for more to do at weekends and in the afternoons. Around Pai are beautiful waterfalls, hot springs and plenty of Thai nightlife. There is also trekking and Chiang Mai (the main town in the north) close by.
Today the children went to the temple to learn about traffic safety with the police. Anticipating a lie-in, Natalie and I planned to climb to the top of a mountain where there is a pagoda and views across the valley.
However, Pi Nang arrived and invited me to join the seminar. The children were sat very properly in a hall at the temple that was open on all sides. Tree trunks (possibly imitation or covered in some preservative) held up the roof and at one end was a Buddhist shrine. It was not a particulary beautiful temple to my disappointment.
But the teachers were kind and police were delighted I had come. One sat down to practice his limited English and insisted on calling me darling. He took photos of me on his camera phone and then showed me photos of his daughters and wife, making very sure that my prouncement was correct.
I chose not to tell him churlay was not my name but charlie - it seemed rude to correct him. Another thing different in our cultures.
I kept getting into a tizzy about whether I could cross my legs, as I do by habit. Pointing your feet at people is considered very rude and touching something or someone with your foot is a cardinal sin.
I wondered if pointing them at one of the tree-trunk pillars was fine or if it was not proper to display them at all - and I had painted my toenails such a pretty colour too.
posted by charlie at 7:13 pm
1 Comments:
This was a fantastic post Charlotte! Makes me very jealous (again..).
I totally know what you mean by the up at 7am superiority feeling, I experienced that last week in Kyoto. Somehow I feel like it only applies when you're doing something fun such as climbing to mountaintop pagodas tho.. Also loved the inclusion of the Thai philosophies.
Looking forward to you cooking Thai for me when you get back ;) take care x
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