Pictures! Pictures! Pictures! Pt. 2

More pictures for you!!!

A favorite food of mine here. These are pidgeon eggs, I used to eat these when
I lived in Mexico. I looove these :) The thai word for egg is cai.

About 3 days after I got here I went to the walking market with Kwan and
her friends and made some friends of my own!

Woranari Chaloem, my school, was having an open house and my friend Cher was all
 dressed up and preparing to sing! She looked so beautiful I had to take a picture :)

I'm in my school uniform but I am with my friends that were performing at the
open house :)

Still at the open house with my friends, Ing and Gle, they are dressed up
to represent China :)

Me in class with my friends Gle and Ob :)

Me and Rung :)

Me and Ob :)

Me and Than :)

Those are all the pictures I could upload this time! More are on their way! If there is anything you would like me to write more about let me know :)

Peace and Love,
ดำว

Aug 25, 2011

Today, my friends shared with me a new snack, one I have never tried before. But thats not where I want to start.

Everybody here knows atleast one word in English, and that one word that everybody knows is 'happy'. My teacher just asked me like 2 seconds ago if I was happy. Sometimes these people confuse me. They seem to be like not afraid to be touchy but then they don't wanna hug you. When someone is talking to me or a teacher is asking me if im happy they like rub and squeeze my arm and it makes it seem like they are a realy touchy type of people, but that is SO not the case. I have only a few friends here that are not afraid to give me a hug.

Anyway, back to the snack. It's sweet, its spicy, its fried and they tell me its originally chinese. My friend Pee sells it in my classroom, she gets it from her family because her family sells treats like that as part of their business. They call it Giaw. Take the shell of an egg roll and cut it into squares. For size reference 4 of the squares fit in a perfect box on the palm of my hand. The first time they made me try it, it was way too spicy for me and I did not like it at all! Then they made me try it again the next day, then the next day again and suddenly I decided it was ok, then I decided I liked it!

I'm glad I enjoy it now, I eat alot of it in class :)

Rachel

Aug 23, 2011

It's Tuesday and I am at school in math class and honestly? Don't understand a word. I can look at their books and recognize the diagrams and equations but I have no idea what the teacher is saying. They are learning the Pythagorean theorem.

Anyway, thought school is mostly boring when it comes to sitting in a class that is being taught in a language other than my own,  it is also a lot of fun. Yesterday after school when I was waiting for Kwanม Tian and I went to play badmitton and we met us some boyzzzz :) Tian came to me and told me that someone wanted to talk to me, which brings me to something that is annoying here. Thai people are extremely non-confrontational, it gets annoying because they wont come up to you and say hi, they go to their friend who goes to their friend and then they stand around you until you look at them and they bow their head before they address you which most of the time would make you feel honored but mostly for me I'm thinking, JUST TALK TO ME.

Anyway, back to Tian. Since Tian was my friend she just came up to me and told me someone wanted to talk to me, of course he was bowing his head so I couldn't really see his face, but when he lifted his head I was like... Well, actually I didn't say anything because I was completely speechless.... he looked like he walked straight out of a magazine.

Just to let you know this is kind of embarrassing typing this but I think it adds to the sense of the experience that I am trying to show you :)

Anyway, by the time my breath finally came back, he had asked me my name and I told him and he told me his name. Nek. Nek, straight out of Men's Health Magazine. He was taller than me which is acually saying alot because I'm alot taller than most boys and girls here. My friends talk about boys ALOT and every time I meet  a new person the third question they ask is if I have a boyfriend.

Thats all I have time to type now but, yea, BYE!

Rachel

My Thai Name

I attended my second Rotary meeting last Wednesday and I needed them to give me a Thai name so that I could have it sewn onto my school uniform. I will make a post about my school uniform later.

Anyway, my Thai name. Before I got my Thai name (which I have officially had for a week now) everybody called me Ma Muang or a Thai variation of my real name that they could actually pronounce, lacheau. But now my nickname is Daw, which in Thai means star.Written in Thai that is ดาว. Kwanz and her friends gave me the nick name but Rotary gave me my real name.

 My country counselor, Ba Oui, which actually means Aunt Oui, gave me the name, Ratchada and I got my host sisters last name Petcharat. So, all in all, Ratchada Petcharat. Written in Thai it is, รัชดา เพชรรัตน์. I had my friend Lung type that for me. I am currently sitting in the Internet Room of my school with 3 of my friends.

Well, that's all for now I didn't write anything for a few days and now I have a lot to catch up on :)

Daw ดาว

More about school

So, right now I am sitting in my Thai classroom. Apparently there is a big test next period in Chinese and everybody is 'studying'. You know what I mean. Honestly, If I was trying to study I would not be in here, I would be actually anywhere else. Its so loud I can't believe there is any studying going on.

Today is my second day at school and people are still looking at me everywhere I go. I really do like this school its like the size of a college. All the teachers and administrators wear this army outfit that I promise to get a picture of. In their little army uniforms the teachers look scary but they are extremely nice I have not heard any of my classmates say one of their teachers was mean. The only teacher they do not like is their economics teacher (or I think its economics) and I understand why. She is older and always looks tired and just has a very annoying voice.

Anyway, This morning they grouped the entire student body onto the soccer field, their paved soccer field, and they prayed to Buddha (don't have to if you don't want to) and they song a song to their queen and they took attendance. There is this old man who walks around among the sitting students and when the kids see him coming they put everything way, and sit like they are supposed to. If he sees a girl looking at herself in the mirror he takes the mirror, if he sees any drink but water, he takes it, if he sees a brush or a comb he takes it. He is one of the only ones who I have not seen in the army uniform, he just wears normal clothing, when I find out who he is I will write :)

The whole organization of the school reminds me of Miraflores, the school that I went to in Mexico. Very organized and everything I love this school :)

Post #6: Thai Words I have learned

So, these are the few Thai words I have learned so far :) I have written them in my own pronunciation so that I can remember. This is in no way how you actually spell the word because they have their own alphabet entirely! I carry around this really small notebook so that I can write down what people tell me and it helps me remember :)

Teacher: Kun Krru (roll the 2 r's)
How you would pronounce: Khrū p̄hū̂ s̄xn

Sticky rice and mango: cao niao ma muang (ข้าวเหนียวมะม่วงด้วย)
How you would pronounce:K̄ĥāwh̄enīyw mam̀wng

I think I will stick to my own description of the words :)

I like...: chan chop

Japanai?: Where are you going?

auleva: what? (this is the not so polite way of saying what, you would not say to a teacher or your parents, just your friends :)

cao nalac: he's cute (the first thing I learned, lol)

ko tor ka: excuse me (sorry, get out of my way)

chan mein heu: I'm not hungry

chan heu: I'm hungry

ca pun  ka: thank you (I use this alot)

sa wa dee ka: greeting (you put your hands together and slightly bow, i do this to show respect for my teachers and parents and older people)

falang: foreigner (I hear this alot)

karuna (please)

Ma muang: Mango (has become my nickname because nobody can pronounce my real name and they watch me eat alot of this)

aloy - delishious

aloy ma  - very delishious 

Me - mom

Paw - dad

tang mo - watermelon

pet - spicy (i use this alot)

cao - rice

cao tom - rice soup (yummy)

Lin saw - pencil

pa(w) ca - pen

chan mai shop -  I don't like


I learn more and more by the second but atleast these words I can jot these down :)

Rachel (Ma muang)

Pictures! Pictures! Pictures!

My breakfast at school, it was really good, egg, pork and rice and lemon iced tea

Me and a friend from school

A few of my friends from back home...

My family....

Queens Birthday, memorial to her...

Rotary club members, my country counselor is on my left, and the club president on my right

My host sister Kwanz and her dad in the back...

Our uniform for school...and girls in my class...

More pictures on the way, they just take sooo long to load :)

Respect

Ok, so when I first got here I didn't even realize what people were doing and saying when they greet each other. I must have been really out of it getting off that plane.

Anyway, even though my host mother does not speak English she is a very good teacher. She will point at something and tell me the name of it in Thai. I listen and repeat until I get it right and most of the time I forget in the following 5 minutes but she always goes back and tells me again. Every Thai person knows at least one English word, and the one that everyone knows is 'happy'. The way they say it is soo funny if I can catch it on video I will.

Back to what I was saying, my host mom first taught me the traditional Thai greeting. Its hard to explain but I found this video that pretty much says it all, I might make my own later though :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRtsCuVqxtQ

I have to do this for all my teachers, my parents, and all the old people. A lot of the time at school you see boys doing it to girls (like a lame way of flirting). When I walked into my first class which thank god was English, every body in the class went crazy when I shook my teachers hand. My English teacher is not Thai, he is from the middle east.

That's all for now :)

Rachel

Post: My first days in Thailand

This is going to be my first real post because up till now I haven't even felt like writing. Ive tried to write but I haven't been able to get my thoughts together until now :)

Anyway, I guess I should start with the city itself. It reminds me of Mexico and Africa combined. The busy streets filled with more motorcycles than cars, the markets and the street vendors. The bulletin boards advertise calling cards, skin lightening creams and electronics all with popular singing groups or some really pretty modeling. Here you can drive a car at 18 and mann a motorcycle at 16 which of course means you can drive at 16 and motorcycle at 14. Convenient right? The way people drive here reminds me too much of Jamaica. Motorcyclists swerve through speeding traffic and when you swear someone is about to get killed they get out of the way in a split second.

True story: My host dad was driving 120mph on some little street while on our way to a wedding (which I will talk about later), and....I almost pissed my pants.

 When I got off the plane in Hat Yai I was greeted by 2 Thai women in rotary uniforms, at that point I was ready to go home with anybody, all I wanted to do was sleep. I got into their car and thought they were going to take me to a place where I could do exactly that, but instead they took me to this children's jail. No, they didn't take me to imprison me for being American but the rotary group was doing a service project where they planted mango and palm trees (for palm oil). Personally, I don't think bad little children deserve mango and palm trees but whatever.

Anyway, I got there in time to hear them sing the queens anthem because apparently I had arrived on the queens birthday, yay. Anyway, guess who they wanted to help them plant their little trees! Me, and honestly I was so tired that I had a hard time giving a crap about their little trees. I think they could tell I was tired because they kept asking me if I was ok and I kept saying yes.

TO BE CONTINUED

Post #5: One plane ride away

So, I'm on the plane right now and I'm bored so I figured it wouldn't be too hard to do some writing. Food at the Detroit airport was super expensive, I got a banana, a fruit and nut bar and a small frapuccino and it came to about $8. Yes, $8.

Later...

As the plane was lifting into the sky I noticed how fast the clouds were moving...in the opposite direction. This temporarily made me go crazy, ask the war vet I was sitting next to.

Post #4: Saying Farewell

Aug 9, 2011
Well, this morning I said goodbye to my parents, grandparents and brother. I have already had my going away party and I saw grandma Anne yesterday evening. Saying goodbye to her was the hardest, I just felt like I was never going to see her again. I didn't think I was gonna cry at all while saying goodbye at the airport but I cried as soon as I hugged my dad, so much for the no crying plan.

Pictures

:)