I Constantly Leave Site

From time to time as a volunteer you get these “culturally maladjusted” days. Since the 6 months at site is here, they have been happening more frequently. The good news is that in about another 2 months, they should be happening in rare cases. When I signed up for PC I thought the hard part would be the physical adjustment: toilets that were just holes in the ground, living with all kinds of weird bugs, eating strange food, sleeping in a one room hut. None of these things are happening. My toilet is a western toilet that flushes, I am able to buy strong bug killer (to get the bugs the geckos don’t eat), I eat vegetarian – tonight I’m having pasta, and I live in a spacious 2 bedroom house with a hammock out back. Physically speaking, I’m doing pretty well.

The hard part is actually the cultural aspect. I can’t leave my house to go to the store without people shouting at me constantly. Even if I know them, they yell my name. If I ask “What?” they either laugh (if they’re an adult), or run away (if they’re a child). The color of people’s skin is a huge deal. They darker you are, the uglier you are, and people will say it to your face. If you are fat, you are ugly. If anything is “off” that day, people will point it out to you, and then tell everyone around you. I knew that I would be living under a microscope here, and most days I’m fine with it, but 6 months of hearing the same thing all the time gets pretty annoying.

This is why I constantly leave site: I need a little anonymity.

This past week my co-teacher brought some kids in the meeting room. I was in there getting ready for my first class when I noticed all the kids looked alike. I listened to what he was saying and was able to figure out that he was talking about food. I asked my other co-teacher what he was saying. “He is telling them that they are too fat.” What?!?! Now maybe I’m being too sensitive on this, but I was in shock and couldn’t believe he had called kids aside to have a meeting with them about their weight. The thing that really got to me was that he was having the kids stand on a scale while the other kids told them that they were fat. Other kids were outside the room laughing. I just don’t know if hearing that has the same effect on children as it would in the US. Anyways, I got pretty upset and left school for a couple of hours to cool down. So yeah, that was another culturally maladjusted day for me.

I don’t even remember if I wrote about walking in to find one of my co-teachers (the woman) hitting a boy with a switch. We had a big conversation about that too which ended up with me being told that, “It’s normal. You’re too sensitive”. Yeah. I asked what he did. He hit a boy. I then asked if it made sense to teach not to hit, by hitting. She shrugged her shoulders. OK. Deep breath from me on that one. That was a definite culturally maladjusted day.

Another reason why I constantly leave site: I need to cool off.

Now that other volunteers are getting settled at their sites and working on projects we call each other less. My closest volunteer is Catherine, 4 hours away. We get along great and she always makes me laugh. But 4 hours? Keep in mind this doesn’t include transfer time for buses or wait time either. If I leave my site around 3:00 in the afternoon, I can make it to her site by 8:00. There are plenty of people in southern Thailand who are traveling around, but maybe they speak English; most likely they speak Dutch. If they do speak English they still have no idea what you go through daily as a volunteer. In other PC countries volunteers are usually placed in groups so you have someone to meet up with on a regular basis. Actually only the 6 of us in the south are spread out so far from each other. What I though was a blessing (getting placed in the south), actually turned out to be the hardest part – the distance away from everyone else here.

Another reason why I constantly leave site: I need to see other volunteers so I don’t feel so isolated.

So that’s where I stand this week. If I sound frustrated, I am. I’m still happy with my choice though. For every bad day here there are 2 good ones, so I keep reminding myself of that.

On Friday I’ll be leaving for Krabi. Hamburgers, pizza, and beer. I’ll be fine by Friday.

Random Info:

-I sang my first karaoke song in Thai.
-Got to see the MTV video awards (I didn’t even have cable in America).
-I keep finding dead geckos in my sink. Don’t know why, but it’s pretty gross.
-Nakhon Si Thammarat is having it’s version of a county fair this weekend. I’m buying Christmas presents tomorrow.
-3 teachers at my large school retired. They retire halfway through the school year. Oh, and they don’t get replaced until next year. Oh, and Thailand doesn’t have anything like substitute teachers, so the other teachers all cover the classes instead.