Now I am the tour guide...

Saturday, 28 August 2004

Now that Christy is here, and Jill is trying to pack up, visit with friends, and preparing to depart for Arizona, I have become the tour guide. Christy and I caught the shuttle from the "bus station" to Big C. It cost 7 baht to travel each way. We spent time grocery shopping for household things, then we caught the crowded bus back, sweating through our clothes and really feeling the Nakhon Pathom heat (this town apparently is one of the hottest towns in Thailand). We could have caught a moto for 20 baht straight to and from our place, but we wanted to try the bus, and it was good to walk, if only not for the heat. It was interesting to hear "farang" called out, as Christy definitely sticks out, as she is the only farang looking person in town.

So, now I become the translator, and I joked with a teacher that it is the blind leading the blind. We walked back with our heavy bag of groceries, and on our way back I took a wrong turn so we ended up walking by the post office, heading back in a circle back to school, dying in the heat.

After getting home and talking to Jill’s friends a bit, we watched the Olympics and I practiced my Thai, as I figured I would need to get dinner for me and Christy. We walked to Soi Sawng, where the street vendors are. I got her khao men gai, chicken with rice, since Christy is not so keen on noodles and seafood. I also got her chao manao, a lemon iced tea, roti with bananas, and a bag of fresh pineapple with the chili pepper sugar. I wanted noodles, but it was either not available or I didn’t really understand what the woman was saying to me, so I ended up getting khao men gai as well. We also bought chicken skewers, which were yummy.

On our way back, Tik and Pi Lek were getting Som Tum, so we waited with them, chatted, and walked back home together. I feel so safe walking around late at night down the streets and alleyways, but it was nice to chat with others. We had them over to eat, as we watched the Olympics, and they gave us a hard time about Argentina beating the U.S. in basketball. We talked about muay thai, thai boxing, and they taught Christy thai numbers. I was proud (and so was Tik – Thai people are impressed when you can speak Thai) that I managed to get us dinner, dessert, and appetizers.

Christy is still adjusting from jet lag, the everyday noises (I have grown accustomed to the wild dogs that hang out on campus and yelp in the middle of the night, the train that goes right by our school every half hour throughout the day and night, and the janitors and neighbors who start sweeping and chatting at six o’clock in the morning.), and the heat. We talked about ideas for the classroom, education, and how she will watch me teach these next couple of weeks so she can become more familiar with routines and the school and students.

Christy and I will see if we can join a language tutor on Friday afternoons, led by a graduate student of Linda’s (the Master’s in Education TEFL professor at Silpakorn University, also the English program advisor for our school). Christy is beginning to realize after a day and a half here that you really can’t get by here in Nakhon Pathom without speaking Thai.
While watching the Olympics, I couldn’t stand the pitter patter of the big brown cockroaches having little seizures while being seized by poison (from traps I set, because I was tired of seeing long antennas sticking out from under the door). There is a colony of cockroaches that are living in the kitchen door and come out at night in search for food. Pi Lek stomped on one barefoot, and I threw away about five when we got home, but I was determined to catch at least five more before I went to sleep. As I chased them around with a wad of paper and a magazine, I splatted one good, with guts splurting everywhere, though I only managed to kill two. Oh well, good enough. The geckos I figure can stay the night, since they eat a lot of bugs. As I prepared to go to bed tonight, I vividly recalled the cockroach that I just smashed closely resembled the insect I ate last week. Ah, yes, how lovely.