Flood Update

Remember that dusty, dry patch of land that was transformed into a lush green field with a cow grazing on it? Well, here it is now...

... the perfect breeding ground for frogs, mosquitos and plastic bags.

I am really counting my blessings with this flood situation. Several people who work at the WE office have been very badly affected. One lady is stranded in her home, unable to be reached even by boat. Another girl had many of her possessions washed away when the flood waters rose very rapidly and surged through her house. She is now staying with relatives. In the light of all of that, a bit of rainwater leaking in through the window onto my kitchen work surface seems neither here nor there!

The situation is exacerbated by the fact that, during heavy rain, the reservoir above the town becomes dangerously full, so they have to release the water. This adds to the volume of water in the already over-full river and canal, making the floods even worse. They make an announcement over the loudspeakers when they are going to release the water, but for people whose houses are in the affected areas there is not much they can do - their houses will be flooded, and that's that. They released the water yesterday and again today, and it is still raining...

Here is a clip from the Thai TV news about a brand new school in the Mae Sot area that collapsed, presumably when the land gave way due to the heavy rain. Thankfully, the children were not there at the time. We had a meeting today with the directors of two of the centres we are working with, and during the meeting one of them received a phone call to say that the centre had been flooded.

The forecast is for the rain to continue at least for the next few days. I was having a look at World Weather Online, and I could not help a wry smile at this piece of advice in their weather summary for Mae Sot for the coming week: "Make sure to carry an umbrella if you are out and about in Mae Sot, Thailand." Make sure you have a canoe might be more realistic advice!

Water, water everywhere...

So, rainy season has finally got going. Non-stop heavy rain for the last few days, and here is the result:

Mae Sot is under water, and that's before they started releasing water from the reservoir above the town. (I didn't take these pictures - they are from the "What's Happening in Mae Sot" Facebook page.) I am fortunate that my end of town does not tend to flood, so I am able to get to and from the office with no problems. Visiting some of the centres might be a challenge if it continues, not to mention getting to the shops.

I have also discovered all the places where my new house leaks. A few small drips from the ceiling, and a more serious leak through the kitchen window frame. I will have to try and get that one sorted, or I will be constantly mopping. The worrying thing is that the reason I was delayed moving in was because they said they were sorting that problem, so there is no guarantee that a second attempt will be any more successful. Workmanship here tends to be pretty shoddy.

There's no sign of it stopping any time soon, so I suppose one just has to get used to it. All part of the experience!!

Chiang Mai

My stay in Chiang Mai was very relaxing and enjoyable. The six hour bus trip on Saturday ended up being closer to 7 and a half, as there had been an accident on the road, which caused a very long tail back, so I didn’t get there until late afternoon. Still in plenty of time to explore the Saturday walking market, which doesn’t start until 5. Later, I indulged myself with dinner at an Italian restaurant, of which there are several in Chiang Mai. Melanzane alla Parmigiana – genuine article! Buonissime!

On Sunday morning I had the longest lie-in I have managed since moving to Mae Sot. No dogs, crickets, lizards, washing machines, frogs, noisy neighbours – I managed to sleep till 9am – bliss! After a leisurely breakfast I wandered to Wat Phra Singh, one of Chiang Mai’s many temples. As it was Buddhist Lent, the temple was quite busy, with lots of people making their prayers and offerings.

This is the main hall, which was richly decorated for the festival.

When I first went in to this building, I thought people were being rather disrespectful taking pictures of these deeply meditating monks. It took me a while to realise that the reason they were sitting so still is that they are not real, but incredibly lifelike models. I had to stare long and hard to make sure they were not blinking or breathing before I was convinced!

 

 

 

This building houses one of Thailand’s three much revered bronze Phra Singh Buddha images. The walls are decorated with intricate and colourful murals depicting old folk tales.

 

Some of the murals are currently under restoration.

The temple has a lovely shaded courtyard area, where I sat and read my book for a while. On the trees are plaques with sayings and words of wisdom from various different cultural sources. Enough to keep me in Thoughts for the Day for my blog for a while!

Later in the day I explored the Sunday walking market – no end of markets in Chiang Mai, selling all sorts of crafts and clothing. I was struck by the bright and vibrant colours of the textiles. In the evening I met up for dinner with Jane, one of the VSO volunteers in Chiang Mai, and another person that I am getting to know just as she is about to leave L

On Monday morning we had the 1% Fund committee meeting, which was much less onerous than it sounds! In the afternoon Jane took me around Chiang Mai a bit.

We had a stroll by this lake near the university, and then went for a Thai massage. This was my first time trying out Thai massage, and I think I would describe it as a mixed experience. There were some parts where I thought “That’s quite nice” and others where I thought “OUCH!” Afterwards I would have happily gone to sleep, though, so I guess the overall effect was relaxing. We both decided that the next best thing to going to sleep was cake, so we went to a coffee shop and devoured some very large and tasty muffins!

Our plan had been to go to visit the temple at Doi Suthep on a hilltop just outside the city, but after a couple of very hot and sunny days the heavens opened and it poured with rain. Once it had eased off a bit we went to the night market (as I said – no end of markets!)

 

We had dinner at this atmospheric “macrobiotic” restaurant. Not quite sure what that means, except that the food is all very healthy – lots of lentils and vegetables!

 

The journey back was incident free, and I was back in Mae Sot in plenty of time to go to the market and stock up my empty fridge. It was great to get away and have a change of scene and focus – just what I needed, I think!

Things I Learned - Volume 3

• Flapping poncho sleeves make it very difficult to see anything in your mirrors
• A lychee can be worse than a grapefruit for squirting you in the eye
• Tesco kitchen cleaner spray also works as a highly effective, instant-action ant-killer
• It is a good idea to check your bike helmet for creepy-crawlies before you put it on your head
• Surest way to get the rain to stop: get all togged up in your rain gear. Of course, the inverse is also true!
• There is an order to putting on aforementioned gear: rucksack first; then poncho; then helmet. This is not a good point to discover that you have not unlocked the gate yet and your keys are in the rucksack...
• If you are not used to drinking tea, eating Burmese tea-leaf salad can have the effect of keeping you awake at night!
• Soybean cooking oil is almost as good as WD40 on a stiff padlock
• If you want to go to the toilet when the bus stops at Tak, you have to be QUICK (and have your 3 Baht ready)
• Whichever door you enter a temple by, you have to go out by the same one because that's where your shoes are
• Spaghetti cooked in a rice cooker actually don't turn out too badly :-)

At work and play

Here we are at “work”, though it doesn’t feel much like work! So far we have been observing in the four centres that we will be working closely with, making an initial assessment of current practice and areas for development. But of course, you can’t really just observe, without joining in…

Even with no shared language, you can still enjoy sharing books together. There is a real scarcity of books for the children to look at in these centres. One of the reasons given is that they do not look after them. Surely they can be taught to look after them, Heather thinks to herself….

Here I was given the job of squeezing limes to go in a juice drink that the teacher was making from the petals of a purple flower. Now, I know Health and Safety in the UK has gone a bit mad, but here we have the other extreme. This activity involved boiling up a pan of water on an electric stove on the low table that the children were all gathered round. They were all very attentive to start with, but after a while became more and more restless and fidgety and I was on tenterhooks the whole time, thinking “That’s a pan of boiling water on the table that these children are jostling.” The teacher seemed oblivious. To think of the risk assessment forms she’d have had to fill in in the UK!

 

Here we are singing a song about washing hands. I learned the actions, if not the words!

 

 

My coordinator has turned out to be a natural with the children, and joins in their games with great enthusiasm! His language skills (Burmese, Thai and Karen) mean he is able to communicate with them more directly than I can, though usually when involved in a shared activity, spoken language turns out not to be so essential after all.

These two little girls seemed to take a particular liking to him!

 

Last Sunday I went with Alice to have a look at the Reclining Buddha in a temple just near the border at the other end of town. There are quite a few temples in different styles here – Thai, Burmese, Chinese. Apart from the one where I gate-crashed their Songkran party in April, I haven’t really explored any of them. I should make the effort to do so!

This week another VSO ECD volunteer who is based in Ranong in the south of the country (about 16 hours away on the bus – Thailand is very long!) has come to visit Alice and see what she is doing in the migrant learning centres here. So on Tuesday evening Alice invited us all round, ECD advisers plus co-ordinators, for dinner. The rain held off and we were able to sit outside in what used to be called the “VSO compound” back in the days when there were about a dozen VSO volunteers in Mae Sot and three of them lived in the three houses in this little compound.

The coordinators making themselves useful!!

 

Great food and wonderful company!

 

This weekend I am off to Chiang Mai. I have joined the committee of the VSO 1% Fund. The other three committee members all live in Chiang Mai, so committee meetings have been easy to arrange up till now. Monday and Tuesday are public holidays for Buddhist Lent, so I am able to go for a long weekend. I will travel on Saturday (about 6 hours on the bus) and return on Tuesday. We have planned a meeting for Monday morning, and the rest of the time I will be able to explore Chiang Mai. I am looking forward to the break and change of scene.

Doggy Update

Last weekend I began to notice a strange quiet, and realised after a while that the yappy dogs from the house opposite were no longer there. After my comment in a previous post, I think I should hasten to point out that I had nothing whatsoever to do with their disappearance! I know that Alice’s coordinator, who lives next door but one had complained about the smell from the yard. I need to ask her if she knows what has happened to them. It is a wonderful relief not to hear their neurotic barking anymore!

I have also finally identified the source of another mysterious noise that I had been hearing. My attempts at matching it to any familiar sounds had led to the following hypotheses:

1)      Someone snoring into a microphone, which was then relayed via the street loudspeakers

2)      Someone using a blow torch in very regular, short bursts

3)      A very large, asthmatic dog breathing/ growling

I always seemed to hear it late at night or very early in the morning, and it would start and stop quite suddenly. The other evening it started up earlier than usual, so I went outside to investigate, and discovered that it is coming from an ancient, fell-off-the-back-of-the-Ark washing machine in the front yard of the house next to the ex-yappy-dogs-abode. Out of the frying pan?!

The three-ended candle

A little while ago I dispensed some sensible advice to a friend who was working herself to a frazzle, pointing out to her that "the candle only has two ends to start with". Well, this week I have had to take some of my own medicine and realise that, now that the project has finally got going, I need to pace myself a bit. The last two weeks we have been very busy with the observations in the child care centres. Last weekend I spent cleaning and then moving into and organising my house. On Sunday night I went round to Alice's to watch the Wimbledon final, though I decided to go home after the first two sets, partly because I was tired, but mostly because I could not bear the possibility of it all going horribly wrong! On Monday after work I dragged myself to the aerobics class, and was mildly surprised to find myself still standing at the end of it, as I was feeling somewhat light-headed and seemed to have completely lost my powers of coordination. On Wednesday evening I was going to go to see the documentary at the film bar, but by the end of the day I was so exhausted that I just went home and collapsed onto my bed for a while. I did much the same thing last night, and this morning I got up a little later than usual, as we had planned a quiet "catch-up" day in the office. I am starting to feel a little more human again now.

Part of the problem is that I am not sleeping very well, mostly due to the various nocturnal noises, some still completely mysterious and unidentified, that wake me up at all hours. I am hoping that I will eventually get used to them and sleep on through. The dogs across the way are especially irritating - I fear I may end up committing doggy-cide before my two years are up!! According to Alice, they are very badly neglected. The owner is hardly ever there, and they are just left in the front yard the whole time, in filthy conditions. I don't think they are ever let out. It's no wonder they are so neurotic. It doesn't really make me feel much more patient towards them, though!

Apart from that, I am very happy with my new home. I am particularly enjoying having the kitchen sink inside the house. It makes preparing food and washing up so much simpler! I have also inherited the VSO library, from the time when there were about a dozen VSO volunteers in Mae Sot and they set up a "donate and share" library. I am certainly not going to be short of reading material! In fact, I am going to get rid of some of them, because there are far too many, and I would like some of the shelf space for my own things!

Home Sweet Home

The front view. The front yard area is under cover, so my motorbike and bicycle stay dry, and I can also hang my washing out there. I asked if a mosquito screen could be fitted at the front door. They finally did it the day before I was due to move in! They did quite a good job, except for a bit of a gap at the top that could let in flies, let alone mosquitos! Still, it's better than nothing, and means I can have a bit more light and air in the house by leaving the front door open.

These two pictures show just how close I am to the houses next door! My shutters won't open all the way because the wall is in the way!

 

The view from my bedroom window into next door's front yard

The bedroom - the sheets were provided. I probably wouldn't have chosen anything quite so ... floral!

Door to the bathroom - note the flip flops!

 

The bathroom is quite luxurious by Thai standards, with an electric shower and flushing toilet. Many houses still have the container of water with a plastic pan for flushing the toilet.

 Living room with kitchen area at the end. Notice the barrel for drinking water. Heavy when full!!

The kitchen sink! There is no cooker, so all my cooking from now on will be done with a rice cooker and an electric pan. We'll see how inventive I can be!

 

The living room the other way round, with fancy new screen door. As you can see, I'm not quite fully unpacked and tidied away yet, but nearly there. Planning to get a few more bits and pieces this weekend, including something for filing all my various papers!