Goodbye, Tik!!

Wednesday, 6 April 2005

Last night, Aw, Tik and I went to get ice cream and then visited Hello Coffee to say goodbye to her half-brother, P'Berm. It's funny how people don't talk to some people on a daily basis, but when you are about to make a big move or leave somewhere, suddenly all these long goodbyes come out. This morning, Tik went to Ong Phra (the chedi) to pray and give her blessings, praying for a good job when she gets home, as she moved home today. Aw and I walked to the Soi Sawng morning market to window shop and buy sticky rice with grilled chicken. After eating a delicious treat of sticky rice with sweet yellow mango and mango ice cream last night, I think all this sticky rice must be just sitting at the bottom of my gut. All the colorful Thai shirts (basically loud Aloha shirts but with Thai people and things on them) are out for Songkran Festival, so I had to buy a few, along with some Thai beer shirts.

We headed back home to help Tik move boxes. I can't believe she got everything packed! Last night I was giving her an 11 pm deadline, and she still had things sprawled out all over her floor. But, by 10:30 this morning, everything was boxed up and ready to go. A few of her students and teachers helped. Tik, Aw, P'Nan, and I walked to get lunch along the canal at her favorite shop where we ate dinner many nights. We ate som tum and a couple of her students joined us as well. The pepsi across the street was too expensive, so we borrowed the shop owner's motorcycle to go back to my house and get pepsi in our fridge. After lunch, Tik's mother, sister, and aunt were waiting to load things on the truck. They had just arrived after leaving at 5 am this morning. We all helped fit boxes and bags of clothes and things into the back of the pick up truck and tied it down. Then, the step ledge on the back of the truck fell off. But, the driver just put it in the back with the rest of the things.

We said a tearful goodbye, "Kitung" (miss you), took photos, and then Tik and her family piled in the truck for their 6 hour drive ahead of them to her hometown of KoLat in Nakhon Ratchasima province, north of Bangkok in the northeastern part of Thailand. Aw told me when Tik first arrived at Bamrung school to be a math teacher five years ago, she just had a small bag of clothes. She held my hand and gave me many hugs before she stepped in the truck, reminding me of Tik's sweet loving self; the beauty shop lover who gets her hair straightened about once a week, loves Thai soap operas, always holding your hand as we walked to get dinner together each night, practicing her English, window shopping for clothes together (especially pink ones, her favorite color), eating everything with "many, many chilis!", and laughing about the many "friends" she has now made over SiamMatch.com (and she promised she'd share half of her 155 contacts with me). Now, she leaves behind beloved students, our resident dog Dang, whom she used to give leftovers to each night, and many dear friends. My experiences living here in Thailand just wouldn't be the same without her and Aw. Tik, I miss you already!