Slowly, slowly

I had a work trip to Bangkok at the end of the week, to attend a meeting of NGOs, CBOs and relevant government ministries involved in the field of migrant education. I travelled at lunchtime on Thursday (by plane - I have yet to experience the joys of the 8-hour bus trip!), and went to the VSO office to sort out some paperwork and pick up the last of my belongings that I had left there - a bag of books and papers. Later in the afternoon I had an appointment with a specialist at the BNH about my finger. I now finally have a diagnosis for the mysterious lump that became infected about a month ago. It is, apparently, most likely to be a sort of ganglion cyst, though it's a bit of an odd place for one to form. Nothing to worry about, in any case.
The meeting was on Friday. It was a very full day of talks and discussion, mostly in Thai, so I was listening through an ear piece to a simultaneous translation. I take my hat off to anyone who can do that - it is such an amazing skill! I came away suffering a serious case of information overload, and a growing realisation of the complexity of the situation for migrant education.

Included in the bag of books that I brought back with me were my VSO training booklets, and I have been having a look at the section on emotional ups and downs, culture shock and coping strategies. Of the various likely emotional ups and downs identified, here are the ones I have definitely experienced already:

Shock/Denial - unable to take it all in; sometimes frantic (Small things can suddenly overwhelm me and send me into mild panic - walking past the smelly bowls of wriggling eels and baby turtles and cages of half dead rats in the market tends to have this effect!)
Pining/Searching - going back in reality or in thought to familiar places. (This is an interesting one, as I have been finding myself pining a lot for Italy, rather than the UK. The other night I even dreamt a really vivid dream in Italian, something that has not happened for a very long time!)
Depression/Apathy - e.g. minor illness; don't want to go to work; difficulty sleeping. (Difficult to say to what extent feelings of apathy and lack of motivation to do anything are related to culture shock and how much it is just because all my energy is sapped by the heat!)
Guilt - blame the self e.g. Why did I volunteer? Why am I not happy? (I am not sure if I would quite describe this as guilt; more a feeling of complete inadequacy and a fear of not being up to the task.)

Things that I have yet to experience:

Euphoria/Minimising - making the best of it; seeing only the exciting things e.g. "at least I'm not in rainy Britain." (The joy of having left the UK winter behind diminished rapidly with the soaring temperatures. On my trip to Bangkok, I savoured the delight of an air conditioned hotel room and snuggling under a duvet!!)
Anger - blaming someone else e.g. local colleagues; the Programme Office. (There have certainly been some frustrations, but I wouldn't go so far as to identify feelings of anger.)
Acceptance - letting go e.g. taking up new interests, travelling, making new friends. (Interestingly, in the same section of the booklet, VSO warn against panicking yourself into trying to make all of this happen too soon, which can lead to making hasty commitments that can later backfire. I do have a tendency to ask a lot of myself and to want to achieve everything right away, but I am taking things quite slowly and doing things at the pace that my physical and emotional energy levels will allow. At the bottom of the page in the booklet is a handwritten note that I added, which reads: "Be gentle with yourself"!)

Also in the bag of books were my ukulele books. The ukulele itself arrived last weekend, when the VSO Education Programme Manager came to visit. So now I have the books as well I can actually start to play it. I hope the neighbours won't mind!

The one place where I do not feel too hot is at the World Education office, where they have the air con on so high (or low, whichever way you look at it) that I actually feel quite chilly. This picture is especially for Auntie Joy - thank you again for the beautiful scarf, which is proving very useful!
The photo on the calendar on my desk is of the River Wye at Ross. I bought the calendar (of the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean) before I came away, to have a little reminder of home! Later in the year there is the Monnow Bridge at Monmouth!