The end of the school year was an absolute drag. In May, it started to feel like the witching hour of the school year. Everyone was tired and cranky and over it. Some kids started to act out or skip class (not common here). One staff member actually walked off the job in frustration. And just when it felt like things were coming to a head, we still had a few weeks left. The witching hour turned into the hospice. We limped our way to the end and finished the year with a whimper, barely saying goodbye.
And now... summer.
I have to keep this post to bullet points, otherwise I'd be writing for a week. I've kept random notes on my phone to bring up here at some point, so I'm just going to dump them all in no particular order. I'm going to be making some sweeping cultural generalizations, so I hope I don't sound a little Trumpy. These are all based on my observations in the past year.
- Thai people smell good. Let's just say that you could think of some cultures that, by and large, do not smell good. I don't think I've run across a single stinky person here, no matter their socioeconomic status. Well, not a stinky Thai person... There are plenty of American trustafarian tourists here to funk up the place. Thanks a lot, Chad.
- There is this music here that's like bossa nova covers of popular songs, and it is everywhere. Everywhere. It's nice, but man. I've never heard anything so ubiquitous.
- We've had random infestations of things all at once. For a couple of weeks, it was scorpions. They were all tiny, no bigger than two inches, but still scorpions. I found one in the laundry when I was loading it into the washer. I found one in the dark with my foot when I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. We turned on the light and found not one, but two of the bastards hanging out on the floor. It stung me on the side of the ball of my foot. It burned, and tingled weirdly like that part of my foot was asleep. The pain was no worse than a bee sting, but the difference was that it lasted a very long time. It was a good 12 hours before I could walk on it. I had to call in sick and elevate my foot with ice on it all day. Anyway, the next thing we had were these comically fat little beetles. I saw them everywhere, but only for 2-3 days. And lately there's been a riot of butterflies all over. You drive down the road and it almost looks like snow, there are so many of them. Those can stay!
- People cut in line here more than I've seen in any other place I've been. It seems to be worse with older people. They just walk up to the line and get directly in front of you. I'm still a guest here, so I keep my mouth shut and take the abuse.
- A saleswoman at a mall in Bangkok started speaking Thai to me. I told her I didn't speak much Thai. She said that she thought I was Thai, and it must be my eyes. I've always had these top-heavy eyes I inherited from my Russian father, and in spite of the fact that I love them on him because they look wise and kind, I haven't liked my own (they don't translate well to a woman's face; I just look bloated and tired). But now that I think of them as Thai-ish? I love them! That was a huge compliment. Of course, they're also blue, so maybe the woman just had terrible eyesight.
- Women here do not wash their hands after using the bathroom. Yes, broad generalization, because some do (usually without soap), but the vast majority don't. For as often as I've used public bathrooms in the past year, and in as many towns in Thailand, this is a fair assessment. It's gross. Makes me scrub my own twice as hard. I bet my local friends will look for this now, if they haven't noticed it already.
- On that note, food allergies here aren't a fraction of what they are in the US. Hmm.
- Thai Time makes me MENTAL. Remember that I feel most at home in Germany. We'll plan to have dinner at a restaurant, drive out there, and it will be randomly closed for the night with no explanation. We just went to the beach with Nick's brother a few days ago, and most of the transportation there is a labyrinth of waiting. Nobody is keen to get anywhere. I don't consider myself a Type A person (my inner C student can usually handle it, although I am a hyper-punctual C student), but if I was, it would make me come unglued. It just makes me miss Germany even harder.
- We are removed from all popular TV, commercials, and most music, unless we seek it out. I like it, because less general noise = less stress for me. I was reminded of another reason I'm glad we're here just last week. I did not have to explain Orlando, or any other shooting, to my kids. It's not in the news. There's no news on TV, because we don't have cable! And few people talk about it. Here, we have natural dangers to worry about, like snakes and scorpions, or genuine accidents, like cars, although most of the streets we travel are low-speed areas. No twitchy, angry, random beta males trying to send a message of desperation or revenge or any other thing that a child shouldn't have to comprehend. It is such a relief. Poor girls are in for a mighty shock when we go back, between school cliques and violence in the news and the general top-volume BLAH BLAH BLAH of life in the US. I'm nervous. We've already decided we won't get cable when we go back. It's a small step.
- A few more things I miss: Trader Joe's hand cream, the thick stuff. Anyone who's been to my (US) house knows I had a bottle in almost every room, and one in my classroom. I also miss grapefruit, peaches, and berries. We have a pomelo tree on our property. We picked a huge one and cut off the 2" thick rind. It's not a grapefruit. It sucks. But we have a big bunch of bananas that's almost ready, and the mangoes will be right behind them. There must be a thousand mangoes on the trees out there. We're certainly not hurting for fruit. But some fresh blueberries would be nice.
