On our own

Monday, 30 August 2004

Today is a special Chinese holiday, the mid year celebration, so many students were absent from school. (This town happens to be mainly a Chinese-Thai community.) We did not have the usual band playing in the morning, skipped our exercise routine, and had a more informal morning ceremony due to over half of the students being absent. Only two of our students in the English program were absent, so we had five students today.

Jill showed Christy around on her last day as she prepared to leave this afternoon. She also observed me and worked with the kids a bit to get to know them and the school routines. After school, Phu's mother offered to drive us to the night market nearby where we could get fresh vegetables and fruits. We walked along the street vendors and pointed and grabbed apples, bananas, cucumbers, tomatoes, garlic, rambutan (a yummy, red skinned fruit with green spiky hairlike things, looks and tastes like lychee on the inside), etc., enough to last us a week, all for a couple of dollars. This old woman found entertainment in the fact that we couldn't understand what she was saying to us, and after we bought some bananas from her, we passed by her again, and she forced an extra bag of 3 more bunches of bananas into my hand with a big smile and didn't ask for any money. She was the sweetest thing. Christy wanted to get some pad thai, but I wasn't sure which vendor had noodles (My next venture will be to learn how to read some of these Thai signs, as nothing is in English here.). So, we found some meat on skewers, which are 5 baht each. We pointed to some that looked yummy and bought a few each and planned to just cook rice at home. It was pouring out, and we really didn't feel like walking to Soi Sawng to get more food. When we got home, cooked the rice, got ready to sit down to eat, Christy took a bite of the skewer and asked, "Uh, is this liver?". I looked at mine, and smelled it, and all of a sudden it didn't look like the yummy chicken or pork I thought it was. I took a bite and realized from the consistency that yup, sure enough it was liver. I haven't quite developed a liking for liver, even if it is good for me. So, I ended up eating spicy hot instant noodles, rice, and our pseudo-salad. Even after Jun's mother tried to teach us some Thai so we could get food, this is just more motivation to learn Thai.

This weekend, Phu's mother offered to take us to see the pagoda and other historical sites in town. The parents are so nice and generous. It's great.