So, I'm sitting here at my new site in Uthaithani, a province about three and a half hours outside of Bangkok. Honestly, this is the Thailand that I've dreamed of. There are these fantastic mountains that just pop out of nowhere in the generally flat plains of central Thailand. Right near my house is a preservation, Huai Kha Kaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, which has elephants and tigers. From the balcony outside of my bedroom, I have a few of a couple of the nearby mountains and about seven palm trees, just swaying in the breeze. Sometimes, I think it's unfair to call this Peace Corps. Not that being here hasn't come with its fair share of challenges so far. Language is obviously still a barrier. Even with my co-teacher, who speaks a bit of English, we have our moments of frustration. I'll ask a question, and she'll give an answer to a completely different one, or she'll speak to me in Thai as if I was fluent in it. All of this has made me that much more determined to improve my Thai. I realized yesterday, while sitting in a meeting at school, that I am going to have a difficult time getting people to trust me enough to involve me in community projects if we can't even communicate with one another. It can also be a really lonely situation. I'm surrounded by people all of the time (I live with seven other people after all), but I don't feel like I can really share who I am with them. They know I like to run, and that I will be teaching English. But, of course I can't tell them about the complexities of living in America, or why I really want to be here, or what my dreams are for the future. And I can't hear theirs. We can talk about food and the weather and how delicious Thai fruits are. I can just see how isolating this can all become, and how some volunteers may feel as if they're losing themselves, when they actually joined the Peace Corps to do the opposite: find themselves. I'm determined to not let it get the better of me. I have my mechanisms for dealing with stress and a good network of friends, both here and back home, so I know I can get through this; they know I can too. And that keeps me going.
I also have the support of a great co-teacher, who has taken me on as a daughter. Two reasons why I love her:
1) She's really down with the whole TCCO project. She knows that I'm not supposed to be teaching by myself. She likes working with me to create lesson plans (we've already done enough for one term), and she is willing to help me in whatever way she can to get started on my project in the community. Having someone that is really supportive of the objectives of Peace Corps is so awesome. Not having it be that way would make this whole thing much more difficult.
2) She's very modern and forward-thinking. In the classroom, she already uses many of the student-centered methods that we are proponents of. She eats brown rice because it's healthier than white. She has a daughter that works in Bangkok, speaks fantastic English, and has an American boyfriend. And from one of our conversations, I think she wants Thailand to do away with some of the more old-fashioned ideas, like minor wives.
To tell you the truth, there have not been that many things about Thai culture that have absolutely shocked me, besides the treatment, or lack thereof, of dogs. Dogs wander around. Everywhere. Some have owners or at least people that feed them. Some don't. They're in classrooms, public buildings, you name it. But I digress. I'll save the dog discussion for another time. One of my host "sisters", I came to find out, is a minor wife. Meaning that she is one of about twenty wives for this one man. She stays at the same house where I'm staying, but he only comes around every once in awhile. He works only about 30 km from here, so I assume he's staying with his other wives during the time that he's not here. I am not going to get on my soapbox here about how this is just another example of male chauvinism in a culture where men are glorified and women are simply tolerated or anything. I think thoughts like that are changing. It was just a shock to me because as my friend Sara put it: "It's one of those things that you hear about on TV or something, but you don't really expect it." To me, it was just another indication that I do not have this culture completely figured out just yet. It also gave me an entirely new respect for American men. Maybe men in America would take on more than one wife if given the chance, but maybe not. From this experience, I've also learned that Americans are more sentimental about love than other cultures, so maybe just one good wife would be enough.
I also have the support of a great co-teacher, who has taken me on as a daughter. Two reasons why I love her:
1) She's really down with the whole TCCO project. She knows that I'm not supposed to be teaching by myself. She likes working with me to create lesson plans (we've already done enough for one term), and she is willing to help me in whatever way she can to get started on my project in the community. Having someone that is really supportive of the objectives of Peace Corps is so awesome. Not having it be that way would make this whole thing much more difficult.
2) She's very modern and forward-thinking. In the classroom, she already uses many of the student-centered methods that we are proponents of. She eats brown rice because it's healthier than white. She has a daughter that works in Bangkok, speaks fantastic English, and has an American boyfriend. And from one of our conversations, I think she wants Thailand to do away with some of the more old-fashioned ideas, like minor wives.
To tell you the truth, there have not been that many things about Thai culture that have absolutely shocked me, besides the treatment, or lack thereof, of dogs. Dogs wander around. Everywhere. Some have owners or at least people that feed them. Some don't. They're in classrooms, public buildings, you name it. But I digress. I'll save the dog discussion for another time. One of my host "sisters", I came to find out, is a minor wife. Meaning that she is one of about twenty wives for this one man. She stays at the same house where I'm staying, but he only comes around every once in awhile. He works only about 30 km from here, so I assume he's staying with his other wives during the time that he's not here. I am not going to get on my soapbox here about how this is just another example of male chauvinism in a culture where men are glorified and women are simply tolerated or anything. I think thoughts like that are changing. It was just a shock to me because as my friend Sara put it: "It's one of those things that you hear about on TV or something, but you don't really expect it." To me, it was just another indication that I do not have this culture completely figured out just yet. It also gave me an entirely new respect for American men. Maybe men in America would take on more than one wife if given the chance, but maybe not. From this experience, I've also learned that Americans are more sentimental about love than other cultures, so maybe just one good wife would be enough.
