Goodbye Singburi, Hello Sizzler

OK, I apologize for the delay in blogging. My computer has been down (still trying to figure out where all my files are now) for two weeks and then I was in Bangkok for a week too. I think Bangkok is a good enough excuse for anything though…

So I left Singburi. I had made a deal with my Thai mother not to talk about my departure before I was actually gone. Perhaps that made the whole thing harder. The morning I left, my parents drove me to the hotel. I heard my mother sniffing in the backseat the whole way there. When we pulled up I unloaded my bike and noticed she wouldn’t get out of the car. I motioned for her to come say goodbye and she shook her head no. What do you do in that situation? I climbed back in the car with her and we hugged and sobbed for several minutes with her repeating, “Come home, come home,” in Thai. Man that was difficult. I had about 20 minutes to regain composure before having my exit interview with the country director. Geez.

That night the volunteers had to put on a “Goodbye Show” for the host families. I was too slow at signing up for the Northern Dance routines or the Thai instruments so I had to rock the American routine. And what happens when you have a bunch of Americans trying to think of classic American dances? Someone always says Thriller. And in any room where I am, someone always knows the Thriller dance. That someone is always me. So in addition to singing “This Land Is Your Land”, dancing to YMCA and Surfin’ USA, and following up with “Country Road”, I taught the Thriller dance. Classic.

Dancing with my Thai dad at the Goodbye Party (it was extremely hot that day!):

I also thought one of my going away presents to my family should be a thank you letter… written in Thai. It seemed like a really good idea before I started actually writing it. It was maybe two pages in English. Two pages in English took me three nights to write in Thai, and I know it wasn’t completely correct. I had my Thai teacher (who rocks, btw) look at it and she laughed.
“What’s wrong? What should I change?”
“It’s OK, they will know what you are talking about.”
“OK, so it’s wrong, but is it narak (cute)?”
“Yes, very narak.”
“OK, that’s what I was going for. Thanks teacher.”

And for my teacher’s going away present, we took her to Sizzler. What’s that? Sizzler? Yes. I know Sizzler is not so high class in the U.S. but it’s pretty good in Bangkok. After referring to steak several times in our language class, out teacher kept telling us about how much she loved Sizzler. We all made fun of her until we went. All you can eat salad bar for five dollars? On a Peace Corps budget? Yes, please. Oh, and I’ll have a baked potato too. It had been months since I’d seen a potato.

The Thai hotel staff is crazy. I don’t know if it was because I broke a glass or my roommate took a glass water bottle out of the room, but the maid was on it in a flash. She showed up and started saying something about glass. We kept trying to figure out what she was saying, but we knew she was talking about wanting some money. After about five minutes I looked at Natalie.

“You know, I’ve noticed that if you make a humming noise like you understand, most Thais will leave you alone.”
“It works?”
“About 50% of the time. Let’s do it.”
So we made our, “Mmmmm…” noises in response to her Thai. It didn’t work.
I looked back at Natalie.
“You know, we don’t have much time. Let’s just wai her until she leaves.”
So we bowed over and over and kept saying thank you. We also told her to talk to “lobby woman” and have “lobby woman” call our room. Lobby woman speaks English. We switched rooms.

Because everybody knew we would be leaving for our separate corners of the country, going out each night was somewhat a necessity. Everyone was stressed too so that meant no one was sleeping. After five nights in a row, averaging about three hours of sleep per night, I decided to talk to the doctor. The conclusion: I love Ambien! I took one for my bus ride down south and slept for 10 ½ hours. The only reason I woke up is because my co-teacher was shaking me. Which reminds me…
While in Bangkok, my co-teacher’s wife made it a habit to call every hour on the hour. Really. It stopped being cute after the third time. He wouldn’t answer the phone during meetings, but it was somewhat annoying when he talked to her during dinner, and I’m talking for like, oh, a half hour. Thank you for the sparkling conversation. Shopping was also somewhat of a nightmare. Everything he wanted to buy required a phone call home to specify size, color, whatever. Sigh. One night she called my phone looking for him because he didn’t answer his phone. I’m sure she was really happy when I told her I was out dancing with friends.

Random Info:
-Went to a restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms. You spin a wheel to see what STD you get (not for reals though). I got syphilis. It’s all about sex education while you eat.
-In Thai culture everyone is late for meetings on average 20 minutes.
-My dad snuck in Thai whiskey to the goodbye party.
-While at a dance club in Bangkok a band was playing in the bathroom.
-Someone in our group got sent home for not responding well to criticism. I respond by smiling. I’m planning on staying here awhile.
-On my last day in Bangkok my co-teacher asked where I wanted to eat. I said Sizzler.