Thailand Fever

This morning I went to Chao Tai Mai School to help teach at the English camp that’s mostly taught in Thai. I felt much more useful today than yesterday though. We helped the kids plant morning glory, the purpose of which was to teach them to appreciate and respect their natural resources and the hard work it takes to get something like a seed to the dinner table. We were pressured into eating lunch at the school- Thai culture. I’m reading “Thailand Fever”. It’s written for couples with a Western and a Thai partner, but I’m reading it to find out more about Thai culture. One of the sections I read today was about how generosity is very important to Thai’s. They want to be hospitable, which explains why they insisted so much that we eat lunch with them today. They also find it important to keep each other company, especially guests, so there’s rarely a moment alone. This tends to clash with the Western value of privacy.

Now that I’ve begun to re-write the book, on to something else. There were a lot of new volunteers at the TVC Monday night meeting, which is exciting especially since I think most of the projects could use a lot more help.

I’m at the Khao Lak Nature Resort at the moment. Just finished a BBQ with the English camp volunteers who are staying here until tomorrow. There’s a guy named Gan (kind of sounds like “gun”) who’s been really friendly, including me in everything.

It’s difficult to tell which guys are gay here because most of them dress and/or act “camp” (British term for a guy who appears gay). I asked Ae, one of the members of the OC (organizing committee) for the English camp and a member of Aiesec Thailand, what the long pinky fingernail means on guys here and he said it means they’re gay. I have a feeling it might mean something else as well since one of the guys at Thaikea with the long fingernail hit on one of the female volunteers, and the other is married and has 1 kid.

It’s been raining hard and not so hard for 24 hours now, and I hear it will be like this for the next 4 days. However, the end of the rainy season is supposed to be the end of September. I wish the weather would just follow the calendar sometimes. It’s been cooling down a bit too, which means those cold showers that were feeling great just a couple weeks ago aren’t as pleasant anymore. Hopefully my Southwestern experience of cold showers to help wake me up at 5:30a will help out here.