Survivor. During a conversation I was having with my friend, also a Peace Corps volunteer, we were talking about some of the things that we have been having to deal with during our time as volunteers and they said this: "This is like a really strange episode of Survivor." Now this was totally meant as a joke and I can tell you that it definitely got a laugh out of me, but it got me thinking that there is a little bit of truth behind it. If you haven't seen the show before, the main premise that I would like you to understand is that there are groups of people put into a totally different environment outside their comfort zone and have to pass certain challenges to then be deemed a survivor. Some things that are totally different from the show and my experience is that I'm not on a reality T.V. show (not yet), there's no competition, I'm not living in that rural of conditions as the contestants on the show are, I am supported by Peace Corps and my community members, and I have access to my friends and family back at home. The truth behind the statement is that I am constantly outside my comfort zone, I am challenged in ways I never have before, and just "surviving" the day is something that comes to mind every so often.
People back at home constantly like to tell me that I look like I am having the time of my life and that everything I do looks like "so much fun". Yeah, I have been having a pretty good time and I cannot complain about getting to see parts of this country I have never seen before. I have talked about a lot of the things that are going great about this experience and I am sure you have seen all of my pictures with a smile on my face. But also who wants to take a picture of the bad times, when you're stressed, or just not comfortable. It's just not realistic. In this post I would like to talk about my "Survivor" moments. The Weather. I do not know when or if I will ever get used to the weather here. Since I have been in Thailand, the weather has been 70s and above. Recently, the weather has gone days of reaching 100 degrees for weeks straight because this is their hot season. Some buildings have air-conditioning systems, like supermarkets or stores, which make for loitering in a store more of a "fun trip" when you're bored. My host family's house doesn't have an AC system so I tend to stand, sit, or lay in front of a fan for a long period of time just to keep my self from becoming the latest waterfall attraction. Sweating is a pretty normal thing in Thailand and luckily it is not really deemed as being disgusting as it would in America, which is only because EVERYONE is sweating. I can tell you right now that I always still feel disgusting. A question that you will probably hear almost every day in Thailand is, "Rawn mai", which is "Are you hot?". Sometimes I don't know if it's a rhetorical question because usually when they ask it's when I feel sweat dripping down my face or have sweat stains on my shirt. All I can really do is laugh. However, contrary to popular belief, it is not always hot. As a matter of fact, there are times when it's pouring rain and there are hard gusts of wind that comes every so often, and it's only humid (so a little hot) or rarely it can get cold. The next few months coming up are supposed to be Thailand's rainy season so I have started mentally preparing myself. In order to be ready for the rainy season before coming to Thailand I bought myself three things: a rain jacket, an emergency poncho, and a backpack cover. Back during my pre-service training we got a little taste of what rainy season was going to be like when we had to bike from our training building to our host families' houses during a big storm. Feeling clever, I broke out my emergency poncho that I kept in the bag I was using that day, luckily (or so I thought), and I braced myself. Now to paint a picture of what wearing this poncho looked like, while I frantically pedaled as fast as I could in order to avoid being in the rain for too long, I will say this. If you have watched The Wizard of Oz think back to the scene where Dorthy is flying in her house in the Tornado and hallucinates the wicked neighbor that then turns into the wicked witch of the west riding her bike in the tornado. Well replace the tornado for just hard pouring rain and wind. Instead of the person on the bike being a mad women laughing hysterically to herself, think of a large plastic poncho over a human and the poncho only covering half the person's body (cause biking with a poncho in hard winds and rain isn't realistic), and the person is wearing glasses that they can't even see through because of the rain, still laughing hysterically to themselves. The struggle was very real. Emergency ponchos are nice in theory, but I would give it a 0/10 and would not recommend the purchase. The weather is constantly changing and I honestly cannot keep up with it, but the trick is just to embrace whatever weather it is that day. If it is 90 degrees and sunny in the morning, then I could have the possibility of it just being really hot all day and I will be sweating on the bike ride home or it could turn into a storm and I will just be hot and wet when I have to bike home. As I am writing this, the night before was a heavy storm that I witnessed for the first time at my site, and when I say heavy, I mean roofs of some structures were thrown into trees and the power went out from the wind, rain, and lightening affecting the power cords to the houses. Though, today, it is sunny with some clouds and 80 degrees. Paa-saa Thai (Thai Language) Understanding Thai language has become a challenge that really is an every day issue. I had training for about two and a half months learning about my program and learning the Thai language at the same time. I would say over all I had about 128hrs of learning Thai formally during that time and then the rest of the time I was able to practice the language on my own with the locals. I had a pretty good understanding of the language before heading to my permanent site, but then we were informed that some of us were heading to a region with a different dialect of the language we were learning (central Thai dialect), so there could be more to learn. I was one of those people. I live in a region called Issan, which consists of both Thai and Lao people, so the dialect they speak is a mix between Lao language and Thai language. The dialect has similar sentence structures and some vocabulary, but the differences are changes in most of the vocabulary and other aspects of the central Thai language. I have been at site for about a month or so and I have come to realize that not understanding the dialect is something that does come as a burden for every day conversations and trying to eavesdrop (we all do it), but when they want to talk to me they know to speak central Thai. For the most part I can understand what people try to ask me and they can somewhat understand what I am trying to say, but there are times when I am sitting in a room full of Thai people and they have rapid fire conversations in Thai or the dialect and I can only catch a few words that I understand. Usually it's my name because they are talking about me. I honestly just tune out into a state of concentration to understand what they are saying and the next minute I wake from my blank stare to someone asking me a question that I understand: "Giin cow leho roo yang" (Have you eaten yet?). Now you're speaking my language. Thai language is a five tonal language, which just means that the way you say some words just by changing the tone at which you say it can change its meaning. When I am having conversations with some of the people in my community, they can be saying one word and I can understand it one way and actually they are talking about something totally different. There will also be times where I thought I said one thing, but I said it in the wrong tone or used the wrong vocabulary and instead of what I wanted to say I actually said I wanted to get married or I wanted to eat my hand. Using body language and pictures on my phone helps a lot, but I think back to when people didn't have smart phones and I just think how difficult things could have been. Most of the time the Thai people in my community are patient with me and they know that I am trying, but every day there is always some type of confusion over the language. The mindset that I have taken up to get through it is: "Fake it Till you Make it", this consists of a lot of smiling and nodding, so far it has worked out pretty well. Mareng (Insects) If you know me well, then you would know that I hate insects. I understand their usefulness and all that mumbo-jumbo. It is not that I despise them, but I just cannot handle an insect flying into my face, crawling along my arm, or even just looking at them. Quick side-note. I took a class at my university with my friends called "People, Pests, and Plagues", and the class was designated as one where it had a lab as well (I know what you're probably thinking: "What was he thinking?"). The reason I took the class was because I heard from other friends and classmates that it was the easiest class to take, I took it with friends (shout out to the bug club!), and I did not like science at all, so I needed it to be an easy class. It turns out that it just confirmed my hate for insects when I had to stare at each of them under a microscope and study what each scientific name of the insect was; Isoptera (termites) that's all I can remember, the ugliest looking of them all. So now that you understand how I feel about insects. Thailand has a lot of bugs. Like a lot. Did I do my research about the kinds of insects in Thailand? No. Why? Well I already knew that was gonna be a given, and yes, it did come up in my "People, Pests, and Plagues" class where some of the bugs could have been located, and yes, Thailand came up. Mosquitos, probably the biggest nuisance of them all, are actually the one insect that I have come to terms with since being in Thailand. It is inevitable that I am going to get bitten by mosquitos because they are everywhere. In order to deal with it the best I can is after my morning showers I douse my exposed skin for the day in bug spray and I go on with my day. That's all I can do. However, there is at least one new mosquito bite a week. Thankfully I am not in an area with the possibility of getting Malaria, but there is still the possibility of getting the Dengue virus during the rainy season. So yeah, dousing. All the other bugs are red ants, ants, spiders (many different kinds), cockroaches, scorpions, and yeah my favorite ISOPTERA. I could give you a long narrative about every single experience I have had with insects while in Thailand so far, but I do not feel like writing a novel for this post. I will, however, give you two short anecdotes for your amusement because I think they are hilarious.
I have come to terms with the fact that I am gonna have a lot of experiences in Thailand where they will mostly all have the words "that time when". Here are a few of my experiences that I can say I have done so far: - I ate a grasshopper - I ate a cricket minutes after thinking it would be different - I thought I ordered fried rice and got rice with a fried egg on top - I got chased by dogs on my bike and fell in a bush my first day of riding my bike - I was called up onto a stage to dance in front of people at a festival - I told my host mom I liked to dance, so she said she wanted to take me dancing and I ended up at the same stage, at the same festival, and was told to dance in front of a bigger crowd - I got in the car thinking we were going to a party, but it was actually a funeral - I got woken up at 4 a.m. by the sounds of gunshots outside my house, but it was just my neighbor setting off fireworks in the drive-way for Chinese New Year - I got scared there was a snake on the road, but it was just a stick - I thought there was a stick on the road, but it was actually a dead snake - My friends and I thought we told the taxi to take us to a Mexican restaurant in Bangkok, but instead we end up outside Bangkok and the taxi driver had no idea where he was going the whole time - My friends and I thought we were lost in a taxi again the next day on the way to our bus home, but actually we were going exactly where we told the taxi to take us the whole time - I went with my neighbors to a wedding of someone that I thought my neighbor knew, but we realize at the end of the dinner that we went to the wrong wedding - I gave an impromptu speech to three meetings in a row - I ate six meals in one day - I ate ant eggs - I ate a farmed rat (not the same as house rats) - I thought I was eating chicken when it was in fact frog - I went to work thinking I wasn't going to get wet during the time of the Thai New Year (water festival), and then ended up drenched head to toe having a water fight with kids from my office - I danced with over a thousand people in a choreographed dance in the streets of my province for the 200th anniversary of their first governor - I lead the staff of my government office and the people of my village in their longest parade giving merits to the king - I was pelted with mosquitos as I was biking home in the evening, only two got in my mouth - I have had over +300 pictures taken of me by other people that I do not know since I have arrived in Thailand I have come to a realization that my service is going to be made up of "survivor" moments. However, "survivor" moments are experiences that can happen not just in Thailand but anywhere; well I mean most of them. I have reacted to my survivor moments with frustration, anxiety and confusion, but I have found that reacting with humility, optimism, and a smile is the key to surviving. I am learning day by day, but I know I'm going to survive.
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