Saturday Aug 28

Aug 28
Satudarday was a relax at the house day. Rew woke me up, and I was sure that I couldn’t get out of bed. My back and insides ached with fatigue, it felt like getting up back in high school. But I thought about all getting the full experience, and didn’t want to miss Saturday breakfast with Mae and so I stumbled out of bed and into the shower, and then I was O.K.

Breakfast was phenomenal. Since I discovered it, I have been going nuts over Tom Yum ramen in the states. Mae cooked, what I have now discovered to be her famous, Tom Yum Gung. (shrimp tom yum) for breakfast. Needless to say, it was great and she shrimp still had squishy black eyes. We had fish chips – not fish and chips, but thin thin thin slices of fish deep fried into crunchy flakes. We had pork sausage fried in little disks, and some curries besides. Don’t forget every breakfast’s big mug of Ovaltine. Colin, you would have LOVED this breakfast, it made me think of you.

After playing for awhile Rew led me down the hill to the institute warehouse where Pi La was working. We wandered into his office to use his computer where the internet was working. (it constantly won’t connect at the house). Rew looked up all kinds of fish and asked me how much they would cost in the states, and I would google a price. He would laugh and laugh when I told him. It was usually about 5 times as much.

I did laundry, and only made a few mistakes this time. In Thaland you never give someone your socks or underwear to do, or throw them in a load, you wash them by hand separately, they you dry them in a secrete discreet place. However, my family doesn’t seem to follow that generalization. Their undies were just hanging out for the world to see on big racks in the back yard. So I put my load in the washer and did my uniforms (light purple and white) by hand and those personal items. Paw kept popping out and watching me, or telling me to scrub harder, and since it was obvious that he didn’t care I tried not to care he was watching me scrub my undies. I was all done and getting up to get hangers when paw comes over and says, “soap” and dumps a load of liquid soap into my rinse water basin where all my rinsed clothes were sitting! So I ,er, washed them again, rather quicker, in the second soapy tub. (I think the second soap may have been fabric softener.)

On the back porch-kitchen Rew got his hands all soapy and blue bubbles through a ring in his fingers. It was so fun! He blew one so big he had to use his other hand to support it, it was bigger than a basket ball. Then we got straws and popped little bubbles out of the tips of the straws and finally he froathed up a cup of bubble soap to look like pink bubbling soda until it poured over the side into the grass. Meinwhile, we had picked some stalks of what turned out to be lemon grass, pounded the so they cracked with a stone mallet, and then boiled them into a golden tea. “Beer” says Rew, as he pours it into two glass mugs. Doused with sugar, it was amazing, I loved it hot and sweet, but he put his in the freezer to cool off so I followed suit.

Paw left to go visit the hospital and I took an non-voluntary nap. Rew, missing the attention pestered me for a bit, then realized it was hopeless and went to play computer “game zombie’ with lep. When I got up I was sort of cranky for a bit, and had a glimps of my brothers annoying side as he jabbed me in the ribs and threw a giant stuffed bunny (larger than him) at me. However, as usually, Rew had a pretty good sense of when I wasn’t enjoying something and quick switched to be more enjoyable. (seriously, this kid is so good that way). He made a fort and crawled in and I would say an animal name and he would come out and pretend to be that animal. It was a blast. Somehow, he would make the animal “bite” me, but it was gentle and usually my arm or foot so I quickly got into the game and forgot about benig annoyed. The ants were tiny pinches, the penguin would smack me with a flipper, ext… Some animals, like the raccoon, were adorable. He climbed up on a rickety blanket stand and peered around with big eyes while pretending to eat everything. I had a big atlas with animal pictures, so if I didn’t know a name Lep would say it in Thai, or try to read the name if he didn’t know, which didn’t usually work out too well.

When we ran out of animals, Rew got the red blanket out again, and became the … shot shot shot I forgot the name again… m… m… er I’ll try to remember and put int in. The long wiggly snout animal. Only this time he was a m____- in distress. He would say “help me” “helpme” and “I’m hungrey” and I would pretend to give him delicious food, or give a pillow when he was “sleepy” and the red fuxxy creature would snuggle up with my foot and “nussle my foot with its fuzzy snout. I would gently rub his/its back. It was almost breath takingly sweet. It was like the blanket/assumed identity gave permission for a kind of physical closeness I don’t think a tweleve year old boy usually gets. It sort of challenging to figure out my role here, what relationships will develop as, what is O.K. but it’s also kind of fun, and very exciting. Alli, you were spot on with the boys being a great way to integrate and not have to worry about cultural mess ups. Lep and Rew are always pulling on my ears, grabing my face, or feeling my nose – which by the way they find extremely interesting/alarming to feel.

Despite being continually bombarded with delicious food, and being full and keeping eating because it is so delicious, or I still have more on my plate, I think I am loosing a bit of weight. The cause might be the culture shock, or the shock to my digestive system of eating basically rice and meat, with a tiny bit of fruit and veg, or maybe its sweating constantly all day long.

Also people here do not hesitate to call themselves, and others fat. Even when their like, no fat really at all, just curvy. Seriously, three people, Mae, Paw and Bahh May Pen, have all taught me the Thai adjective for fat and skinny. It makes me sort of uncomfortable because they are like “I’m fat” in thai and trying to get me to say it in thai too, and I’m like “mai oh-um” not fat! Or in Paws case, I’m skinny, Mae is fat! Eventually, I went along with it. Eep!

mmm. and I am craving sugar. I guess I must have eaten so much more sugar back in the states, because cookies, pocky (which is 45 cents here, yay), ice cream, all taste unbelievable. Desert here is, when we have it, fruit (Yay) or thin, fish jerky (at first not so much yay when eaten along with fruit, but I’m getting to like it now).

Dinner was a big affair with lots of family. Let see there was Dawng M, Bah May Pen, Bah la, Bah (don’t remember, but is pregnant, as acted out by May Pen), Pi Boon, and a few others too. Rew got my Set cards and started a game, he/we taught Dawng M to play and Pi Boon and Paw Wat watched from the sides and helped Lep out so he could keep up with the older kids. It was great, just like back home, the adults having a good time ‘playing’ through the kids. Like the red blanket I guess. I was proud when Paw started dong this. I felt like a great facilitator of a good time, and a good baby-sitter (super good game for your brain!). I would give Lep a card that was in a set to get him on the right track and he would find the second nd Rew would finish it, after a few times I looked at Rew and said, English, “stop taking your brother’s sets, you can find your own dude, I know you can.” And this he totally seemed to understand and gave the set back and at the same time started working with dawng M so that they worked together and each time he found a set he would give her one card and each time she found one she would give him one card.

Mae is very conscious of giving me space, and reins in Rew to make sure I can relax and not have to go to the fish market with him tomorrow, which is kind of her, but I really want to go and hang out with him, anyway. After dinner we went to the hospital to visit Ta, grandpa. The hospital was super nice. I met my cousin Duk (duke?), who is twenty.

Ohhh I forgot!
In the afternoon we picked up Lin! My sister (19). She can speak English pretty well, but doesn’t talk much, I’m not sure what our relationship will be yet.