The Museum of World Insects

12-23-09

So my favorite part of my day / whole life in Thailand is when Khun Paw drops me off on his motorcycle. Today was “cold!” (probably like 65 degrees) when zoomed off into the late sunrise. The air rushes by my legs and hands and cheek. He always gives me the helmet. We zoom down the street, whizzing by other cars. When there’s a red light he just makes a left turn, crosses the street and makes another left turn to keep going. When the cars are stopped we weave between them snaking towards the light to meet up with the pack of motorcycles that accumulates at the front of the line.

Yesterday Erin and I went on an adventure to the Museum of World Insects. This really should go with accompanying hilarious pictures, but my card reader is broke… The place is just this old house turned museum. The guy who runs it is crazy. Like, he’s seriously had malaria one too many times. (apparently he’s had every kind of malaria there is… probably because his wife is a mosquito researcher and he is a malaria researcher). You would think being a malaria researcher would make you a mosquito’s enemy, but this guy is the biggest mosquito advocate ever. He wears a t-shirt with a hundred holes cut in it, which he called “mosquito feeding stations”. He has signs everywhere like “get to know them and you will understand” and “every creature is part of a natural cycle of nature made by God’ confusingly right next to people with horrible disfiguring tumors from mosquito born disease…??? I tried to start some conversations with him about what should be done to control disease and he had some decent points like when they fog for mosquitos they are killing the wrong species where they fog, and that people don’t finish their meds and make super strains of the disease, but he wouldn’t answer how malaria has been mostly gotten rid of in Thailand (my killing tons of mosquitos). Mostly he got side tracked telling me about he manager of my body (presumably brain?) that could take me on trips to the moon, and get rid of head aches, and he knew a man who researched headaches who’s manager showed him a three-faced girl and the girl could make his migraines go away.

The whole place was a hoot. He had paintings of women in the forest holding body-sized mosquitos, and huge idealistic painings of mosquitos tenderly touching arms together while poised on flowers with the sunset behind ect. He also had a present from the first visitor to his musueam (an elephant off the street when the place was under construction) which was a pile of elephant dung in a case. Upstairs he had the most extensive insect collection (he found them all dead (didn’t kill any) by following trails of ants through the jungle to find where the bugs went to die and the ants went to eat them….) and signs that said stuff flike ‘I, the insect, donate my life to science to educate people”.

We are all becoming regulars at a café/coffee shop/internet place called Zane’s café. Its cool, we are getting to know al the people there. Theres an amazing ramen shop right in front, and a garden with tables, and many couches ect inside. Its pretty near the dorms.

That night at home, Paw and I lay on the floor and watched TV while the boys played GTA (Grand Theft Auto) on the computer. Paw and I watched a show about stunt drivers, and played balloon games with Rew. Rew and I drew some before bed.

Today I’m going to go see Avatar and then go grocery shopping at the foreigner grocery store. I’m making American food for my host family for Christmas dinner tonight (a day early cause my Mae has to work tomorrow). I think it will be hamburgers and mashed potatoes… (there are no ovens in Thailand).