Six-month-review!

Today is exactly six months since I left a freezing cold UK for Thailand. I can still remember walking through Departures at Heathrow airport with a feeling of total disbelief at what I was doing! In our pre-departure training, it was suggested that it would take about six months to get settled into the placement and feel that things were really beginning to take shape, and I would say that was spot on, both on the work front and at a personal level.

In the first couple of months in Mae Sot, when I was seriously questioning whether I might have over-estimated my capacity for dealing with the change and challenge I had set myself, and the project seemed to be falling to pieces, I could hardly imagine staying here for two years. Now that I am settled in my lovely little house, with some good friendships developing, and enjoying the positive challenges of the project, I cannot believe that a quarter of my placement has gone already. Whereas before I was wishing the days away, now I find myself wanting to slow time right down, because I know that the next 18 months will just fly by, and I will be shivering at Heathrow again before I know it! It seems like the perfect opportunity to put into practice something that I have been trying to do for years, but have never been any good at - living for the present moment without dwelling on the past or fretting about the future. (Having said that, I had a dream just the other night about being back in the UK with no job - not an unrealistic prospect and clearly on my mind already!!)

So, things to take the time to appreciate:

• getting to know people from so many different backgrounds
• the opportunity to travel to new and fascinating places
• being able to develop my own project and work agenda
• learning so much from friendly and supportive colleagues
• the joy of working with small children without actually being responsible for them!
• a totally different pace of life
• never feeling cold
• the time to read books at a pace I have not managed in years
• the satisfaction of challenges overcome (yes, I actually quite enjoy riding my motorbike now!)
• the chance to make a difference - however small

Thank you to family and friends who have kept in touch with emails, blog comments, Facebook, Skype calls, cards and emergency clothes parcels! I have really appreciated the contact and support  from folks "back home"!

Shower Saga Part 2

Well, the shower repair lasted for about three days, and then it stopped working again. It took until Thursday to be able to arrange with my landlady for someone to come and look at it. I would like to think that they were qualified electricians, but I have my doubts. I was home this time when they came, so I saw something of what they did. As far as I was able to make out, they have rearranged the wiring this time, which seems rather more alarming than it being plumbed in back to front previously. Their parting shot of "Try it like that for a bit and if it doesn't work then we'll come back again" didn't fill me with the greatest confidence. The shower is actually working for the moment, but I'm rather hoping that it will break down again, as my landlady said that if it does she will get a new one.

Today I finally got around to having my hair cut. I had not had it cut since before I left the UK in February, so it had got quite long and raggedy. Another volunteer here recommended a place to go. She said they don't speak any English, but they do a good job. So off I went, armed with the words for "wash" and "cut", together with the relevant mimed gestures.
The washing was a mixed experience. Thai hairdressers have reclined couches, somewhat akin to a dentist's chair, which allow you to lie back with your head over the sink. So much more comfortable than those neck-breaker contraptions in UK hairdressing salons! The hair wash was very thorough and included a lovely head massage. The only down side was that the water was cold. I've had enough of that at home just lately!

Rather oddly, they then proceeded to dry my hair before cutting it - one on each side armed with a hairdryer apiece. Almost as strange an experience as one time I got my legs waxed in Italy with one beautician per leg! Thankfully only one person did the cutting. I indicated how much I wanted cut off, and then sat rather nervously, hoping that she wouldn't get too carried away. Despite the fact that she seemed to have one eye on my hair and one on a celebrity channel on the TV, she did quite a meticulous job. She insisted on drying it again, even though it was already dry!
The end result was not at all bad:

They suggested I should return and get my toenails done! As everyone wears flip-flops, toenails are on show most of the time, and many women do get their nails properly cut and painted. Give me another six months and maybe I'll get around to that!

Technological Mystery

So, here's a little conundrum:

When I first moved into my house, the shower worked ok, but after a while it began to play up a bit. It would take a long time for the heater to kick in, and sometimes it would not work at all. Pressing the "reset" button would usually resolve the issue, and then I discovered that I could trick it by turning the shower tap on before switching on the power switch. That worked for a while, but in the end even that was no good, and I found that the only way I could get hot water from the shower was to stand with my finger pressed permanently on the reset button, which left only one hand for soaping and rinsing - tricky! (Brief pause to allow appropriate level of chuckling at the image that conjures!)

Back in April and May, when the weather was unbearably hot, it would not have been an issue, but the temperature has now dropped sufficiently for a cold shower to be not quite comfortable. So, after I got back from Bangkok I contacted my landlady to get someone to have a look at it. They duly came the other day, and when I got back from work I noticed that the inlet and outlet pipes were positioned the opposite way round from before. Close inspection revealed a sticker on the base of the shower unit that confirmed that the current configuration is correct, which means that previously the shower was plumbed in back to front.

Now, I don't know a vast amount about electric showers, but I am rather surprised that it was working at all before, if the water was going the wrong way round, but perhaps that isn't actually all that crucial to its functioning. Anyhow, the shower is now working properly, and I am once again counting my blessings at the luxury of having the possibility of an instant hot shower every day.

Bangkok Trip

I set off on the night bus on Friday for my purely touristic visit to Bangkok. The journey takes about 8 hours, with a break half way (sometime between midnight and 1am) for a toilet and food stop. Personally, I had no particular desire to eat at that hour, but the Thai people all converge on the food hall at the service area to eat a cooked meal. I did mange to get some sleep, but was pretty tired when we arrived at Bangkok's northern bus terminal around 4.30 in the morning. It is a huge bus terminal, and even at that time of the morning is buzzing with activity. I got a taxi to my hotel and went to bed for a few hours before setting off exploring.
I took a boat down the river to get to the Wat Pho, home to the famous Reclining Buddha.

 

The head end...

 

 

The middle...

 

 

The feet

 

Later I met up with Chandanie. She is pretty busy with her new job, so we were not able to spend as much time together as we would have liked, but it was still good to catch up.

On Sunday, I braved the crowds to visit the Grand Palace. It was a very hot and sunny day, and the place was teeming with tourists, of which of course I was one! It was quite difficult to move around and take things in, and impossible to get pictures without lots of people in. I happened to have arrived at the same time as a boat-load of sailors from somewhere-or-other, all smart and pristine in their white sailor outfits. So I decided to turn it into a game and not take pictures of anything unless there was at least one sailor posing in front of it. An easy task, as it happened!

I also visited a fascinating new exhibition about Thai textiles and clothing, which is a long-standing project of the queen herself. Apparently, back in 1941, the Thai government decreed that everyone should wear western style clothing. This meant that, when it came to the 1960 grand tour by the king and queen to the US and Europe, the Thai traditional dress had been completely lost. So the queen set about working with various designers to create a new style of Thai dress, based on the old traditional styles, but using modern tailoring. Her wardrobe for the tour included many of these new designs, and it seems they caused quite a sensation at the time.
Later, in the 1970s, she set up a project to encourage the rejuvenation of traditional silk manufacture in parts of Northern Thailand, and has continued to use the silk produced for the manufacture of her own clothes.
Another wonderful thing about the exhibition was that it was in an air-conditioned building, which was a blessed relief after wandering around the palace grounds in the Bangkok heat!

I did some shopping - mostly of the window variety - in the afternoon. I found Marks and Spencer, which is ridiculously expensive here, but it was fun to wander round and look at all the familiar products!
The night journey back was pretty uncomfortable and I didn't get much sleep. By the time I got back I was feeling not at all well, and spent much of Monday and Tuesday nursing a fever and an upset stomach. Opinion among my (Thai and Burmese) colleagues as to why I got ill is divided. Some say it is because of the weather, with it being so much hotter in Bangkok. Another view is that it is because I don't eat properly (my habit of eating sandwiches, fruit etc. for lunch is a source of constant amazement and disbelief for my colleagues, who eat three full cooked rice or noodle meals a day). However, I think my coordinator, who has a very wise head on his 22-year-old shoulders, probably hit the nail on the head when he said, "Well, you have been driving yourself since you arrived in Mae Sot." Good point!

Mothers' Day

12th August is a public holiday in Thailand for the queen's birthday, and it also doubles up as mothers' day. So at the child care centre that we were visiting this week, they had a special celebration today, to which all the mothers were invited.

Songs were sung in honour of the queen (the Thai royal family are very highly revered)

 

Some of the children performed a delightful dance

 

The children paid respect to their mums, and there were also awards given out to "good mothers"

 

All this followed hot on the heels of another action-packed day yesterday when a team of dentists came to the school to talk to the parents about dental care. For that occasion, officials from the local Ministry of Interior office came at the start of the day for the "opening ceremony". We were introduced to the chief of the local MoI office, who was very welcoming of the aims of our project. My coordinator found that encounter somewhat overwhelming, as this was such a high level official that we were meeting.

All of this is making me realise that the workshop that we have planned for mid-September is going to have to be a rather more formal and prestigious event than I originally had in mind from my experience of helping with Alice's workshop for migrant teachers. The context is very different!

I am taking advantage of the three day weekend to have a trip to Bangkok. I am planning to meet up with Chandanie, the VSO volunteer whose house I moved into. It'll be good to catch up with her. I will also probably stock up on a few items in Boots!

Oops!

Despite forecasts of severe stormy weather ( the tail end of a cyclone or something of the sort that has been making its way across SE Asia), we have had several quite hot and sunny days. Yesterday, I set off for work thinking, "Ah, this is the life! Riding along on my little motorbike - sun on my face, wind in my hair. What a wonderful sense of freedom! Hang on a minute! Sun on my face? Wind in my hair? These are new and unfamiliar sensations - how come? Oh *£~#&$*~**! I've forgotten my helmet!"
Thankfully, I had not got very far down the road, so I turned round and went back home to get it, and continued my journey to work with the squished-face and slightly claustrophobic sensation that I have become familiar with!
Looking at the dark sky outside, it looks as though the sunny spell is about to come to a dramatic end...

Back to normal?

Today after aerobics I had my first shower in my own house for almost a week. I think the problem with the water supply is finally sorted, though there have been several false starts over the last few days, so I'm not counting my chickens. Everyone else has had their water back after the flooding for several days already. But due to some crazy system that my landlady has set up whereby 5 houses that she owns all share a single water tank and pump system, we remained without water because of some unidentified problem in the system. I have been taking showers at Alice's house and filling up buckets on the rare occasions when the water came back for 10 minutes. Hopefully it is sorted now.....
It has really brought home to me just how much water we waste, and even though I promised myself that I would try to continue being frugal with the supply once it came back, I don't know how long I will keep that up.

On Sunday I did some "language exchange" with the young lady who came and translated when I signed the house contract. She speaks English quite well, but is keen to improve, and I definitely need to improve my Thai!! I hope we will be able to get together on a semi-regular basis, as our commitments allow, as I think it could be a good way to make some progress on the language front. I am also able to pick up some language from listening to the lessons at the child care centres! Today I learned some vocabulary related to the cleaning of teeth!

Next weekend is a long weekend, as Monday is a public holiday for the queen's birthday. I am thinking of going to Bangkok for the weekend. It's time I experienced the joys of the night bus!!

For those of you interested in wider VSO news, here is The Link to their newsletter.

... but not a drop to drink

A rather ironic side effect of the flooding in Mae Sot is that the mains water has been cut off. This is apparently a common occurrence here when flooding occurs. So, along with much of the rest of the town, I have been without running water for the last two days. Some people have reserve tanks or wells, and there are big lorries going round delivering water to houses that have a tank to put it in. I was caught spectacularly unprepared, without even a large receptacle for gathering rain water (though the rain has actually stopped for the moment, which is a blessed relief. We even had a bit of weak and watery sunshine today.)

Drinking water is not actually a problem, as that is purchased by the barrel at the local shop. But I am now reduced to using my barrel of drinking water for everything else as well, which seems a bit of a waste, but at only 12 baht a barrel it's not going to break the bank. Alice has a reserve tank, so she is never affected when the water goes off. I have been going round to her house to take showers. I think a priority purchase this weekend will be a large plastic bin with lid for storing emergency water!

The situation at the other end of town near the border, and across the river in Burma, is still very bad, and the migrant communities are especially badly affected. I was hearing today that many people on the Burma side are stranded without food. Apparently the Thai military are standing by with boats to rescue them or deliver supplies, but the Burmese authorities refuse to ask for help. It all sounds depressingly similar to what happened after cyclone Nargis.

My other minor inconvenience this week was that I noticed a few days ago that I was getting bitten at night by something that was not a mosquito, and I began to suspect that I might have brought bed bugs back from the hotel in Chiang Mai. I searched the bed and found no signs, but then last night discovered the culprit sitting on my pyjamas. I plucked it off with a pair of tweezers and made sure I killed it (combination of Tesco kitchen-spray-ant-killer and boiling water. Seemed to do the trick!) I did not get bitten last night, so I am hoping that it was a lone individual and that it has not laid any eggs....

So, what with no running water and bugs in my bed, I am beginning to feel like a real VSO volunteer! (Oly, take note! You and your walking 15 miles in bare feet through mud to the telephone!)