I Think This Post is Mostly Pictures

    So we've almost been here three weeks. And tensions in the group are running high. The next few months are going to be really fun (sarcasm heavily implied here). Where we are going and what we will be seeing are going to be amazing, no doubt there, but the six hour car trip there is going to be a whole other story.

• Almost got to sleep in!!
• Except my internal clock wakes me up at 8. And we weren't leaving until 11:30. Bit of a disappointment. 
• Learned the colors!!
• When I have more energy I will take a picture of our text book, but basically it's trying to teach us colors like we are a dog. By this I mean the Thai word for a color is next to a white/gray/black circle. Not the most effective teaching method I have found.
• Lilith revealed her true colors!!
• So today Niko and Alessa went off by themselves to eat. Which meant Lilith followed the rest of us around. And listened in on our conversation about how we are not fond of Alessa and Niko. When we arrived at the classroom, she was putting the final touches on a doodle of a horse on the white board. Then she had the horse saying "sometimes you get mad and often speak words" which we all realized was directed at us. And it came straight from the horses mouth. 
• Unfortunately, I can see Lilith being bashed more and more on here as this trip goes on. It's really hard to live with someone who seems to hate us all but forces us to be around her. The only good thing so far is that she has not talked about wanting to kill us all because we aren't of the Aryan race. 
• I think I forgot to mention she's a Nazi. Who hates black people. 
• And we get to meet some of her relatives when we visit Laos. I think I'll just go to the hotel and hide under the covers.
• Started volunteering at a school!!
• Previously on this term, people have volunteered at a English teaching school for the few weeks we're here. Drexler took us over and left us. Niko took the computer class, Karen took the intermediate class, Donna and Alessa took the super beginners class, and the beginner class was left to Deanna and me. Literally.
• The teacher who was supposed to be teaching did not show up so the other teacher who teaches the class tried to dump them on us. They do not speak English, we do not speak Thai. It was a train wreck. We even tried talking to the 'principal' (who I swear was on something) to get him to make her teach. He did not. Eventually one of the students got the teacher and she took over till the main teacher showed up and took over.The way the classroom worked was pretty confusing. Deanna and I were pretty ticked the rest of the two hours, but that's mainly because we were hungry. I also threw in a few curses at Drexler for abandoning us. 
• So we sat there as they taught and tried to figure out how to teach like the regular teachers. Because after our group shows up the teachers suddenly fall sick and we are forced to take over the classes. 
• We're going to go for the next few days (because Drexler said we could do it everyday for the next five weeks. My opinion: heck no we aren't!!) to get a real feel for it. But from what people were saying afterwards I doubt all six of us will continue on for long.
• As we were leaving, Deanna and I started telling people about what happened in our classroom. Niko felt inclined to tell us we sucked and that we should have gotten him because he has taught English all over the world without speaking the language. Because he knows everything and could do everything and blah blah blah. I really wanted to shove him into on-coming traffic. 
• Crossed the interstate!!
• Had a few near misses. 
• Still have all my limbs. 
• Almost lost my shoe.
• Jumped into a moving songthaew.
• Got really freaked out when the driver took back streets all the way back to our guest house.
• Rewarded for our bravery!!
• Papa Duck (or Drexler as he's known to most people) took us out for roti, which is basically Thai crepes. I believe all the girls got chocolate with cocoa powder while Niko had banana and chocolate. 
• I am not a Justin Bieber fan. Niko is a Justin Bieber fan and tried to convert me. Or at least make me stop saying Justine Bieber (the first time I heard Bieber I thought it was a lesbian singing). Really had to stop myself from 'accidentally' pouring my hot tea on him. He went on for a long time until he realized I had tuned him completely out in favor of the Thai/Japanese soap opera that was on. 
• I think I understand Niko's distress. Many people believe Niko is a girl who identifies as a boy but is still physically a girl. Many teachers address him as a girl and people have asked us away from Niko if he is physically a boy. 
• Lilith did not get any roti because she decided to stay in her room the whole day. 

Here's some pictures from last week:

 

Us playing cards between classes. Clockwise: Me(against the wall), Niko, Alessa, Donna, and Lilith

Dance lessons. And a full shot of me in uniform. Thai dancing does not require a lot of movement so it can be done in a pencil skirt. Left side, front to back: Deanna, Me, Donna, Lilith. Right side: Dance teacher, Karen.

After dance lesson we were taken out by an administrator. For most of us, the khao soy (cow soy) was too hot to eat so she ordered us some really good ice with coconut milk. However, there were these weird green and white tasteless worm things made out of flour but with the texture of a gummy worm in it. This is my reenacted reaction to them. It was really weird, okay?? How often do you find weird green things in your food??

Here's Karen and I at the elephant farm. I had been posing with an elephant but it's trainer decided to grab some money right before this was snapped and I turned to look for it. There is another picture of me being smelt by an elephant but the person who took it has not given it to me yet. So for now I look like Cousin It while Karen gets a perfect shot. 

In retaliation, I upload Karen making one of her goofy at the camera with a scorpion.

It's right next to her head. That weird brown spot to the left of her face. It's seriously there. Here's a close up.

Lizard count: 6      They came back to us!!

Night(s) of the Novice Monks

    A fun time was had by most at the novice monk camp this weekend!! We meditated, made bricks and feasted at every meal. Overall it was an experience I will not be quick to repeat, as you will see below. Lawrie is a former monk and arranged for our trip up there. He spends some of his weekends meditating up there.

• Day 1 (Friday)
• Left the guesthouse about 8:15 in the morning. All of us tried to pass out immediately. We were woken up when we stopped at a 7/11 to get some supplies.
• My mosquito bites on my feet had become unbearable by this point. One on the right side of my right foot was huge, jutted out so that wearing shoes (both sneakers and flip flops) was painful, and felt more like bone than puffed up skin. The gas station had nothing to help.
• Back on the road and back to sleep till we started on twisting mountain roads. That road was made without thinking of people with motion sickness. We eventually made it to the camp where we were given food. And rice. Then we choose rooms. Alessa and Lilith choose the room with the hot water heater while Niko got the room next to them. Donna and I had a room with four floor mattresses in it while Deanna and Karen got a couch and a raised bed in addition to two floor mattresses. 
• Then we realized there was no toilet paper. Anywhere. And we weren't told to bring any. Plus, there was not a way to flush the toilet, you poured water into the bowl until anything in there washed away. Toilet paper took a few buckets to go down. 
• Stopped at a convenience store where I picked up some eucalyptus balm. It works miracles for mosquito bites and smells delicious. All my bites have gone down considerably since then. Thank god. 
• Shortly after we were whisked away to a temple on the Burmese boarder. Literally. The monastery was divided in two and you could see what remained less than half a mile away. But thanks to all the landmines there was no way of getting there. So we went to a Shan refugee camp. While the grown ups talked (and talked and talked and talked) the ducklings found two kittens, one who couldn't settle on a person or a place to sit while the other one curled up on my lap and passed out. We saw some weaving, watched some soccer, it was like a normal village.
• After we returned to the camp we found out another group had come to stay at the monastery, two different types of engineers who were building different items for the temple. But a married couple had come with so the monks told our translator Lawrie that Lilith and Alessa needed new accommodations. So for two nights Donna and I shared a room with Lilith and had no say in the matter. 
• In Karen and Deanna's room (which Alessa had moved into) a scorpion had been found. A very tiny scorpion. It was 'accidentally' killed by Niko. We were on a nature reserve so it was illegal to kill any and all animals.
• We watched the novices go through chanting and mediation then each group introduced themselves. They in English, we in Thai. Every novice started out with "Hello, good evening."
• Since we were expected to get up at 5 to chant and meditate again, bedtime was early.  
• Day 2 (Saturday)
• Woke up at eight, missed chanting, missed breakfast, and was ridiculed by Niko (who I found out is a (stupid) freshman. Not sure I like his attitude towards everyone anymore). Worst wake up I have had in a while. Lilith slept in as well but this was ignored in favor of teasing me. Lawrie talked to the cook who gave us some food. And rice. I was forced to put Lilith's dishes away because she doesn't do anything. Ever. 
• Helped out the girl engineers saw some wood but realized quickly we were useless. There was not enough tools and a huge language barrier so we were allowed to leave. We failed. 
• After lunch (more food. And rice) we were made bricks out of mud. It took us 40 minutes to make 16 usable bricks (one broke after coming out of the mold) while the novices make 250 a day. We failed. 
• More hangout time until dinner where we had some food. And rice. What I'm trying to say is that I don't remember the food we had but we had rice at every meal of the day. Then meditation where we watched a movie on the Burmese-Thai sex trafficking business. 
• Then finally bed!!
• But not before another scorpion was discovered in Deanna's and Karen's room. I rushed over, barefoot, to see it. Big mistake, since it was right by the door, and I became trapped. Karen started poking it with a broom to get it to move, which it did, by falling into Alessa's stuff. This simple motion had Deanna in the bathroom, Alessa on the raised bed, and me screaming my head off in the door way of the bathroom. Karen searched for the scorpion and startled it so that the Satan spawn crawled under the nearest mattress and curled up in a ball. It was swept outside, where I had to venture. Barefoot. With a mighty roar I leapt into the night and whimpered my way to my door. Less than two feet away. 
• Giant spiders have also been found in their room. 
• Day 3 (Sunday)
• I was woken by Lilith in the bathroom being as loud as possible. She was greeted by one of my glares as she came out. And went back in. I realized that I was not getting any bathroom time so I headed out for some food.
• As previously mentioned, the monastery did not have toilet paper so I bought some for myself and Donna. Which Lilith helped herself to, even moving it on a couple occasions. Without asking. 
• There were other issues with her over the course of the weekend that are not making it into this blog. 
• After breakfast we were informed we were making bricks the hard way: by mixing the mud with our feet and carrying it over to the mold. Lilith refused to get close to the mud and instead stood there awkwardly. 
• Next we covered the inside of one of the rooms with the mud. The houses we stayed in were made of mud and have to be recoated every once in a while. It was a lot of fun and even Lilith did some work. We tried to remove some of the mud in the nearby lake but then we had to pack and leave. Lilith left her bed in a mess so Donna straitened it for the novices. 
• We were literally pampered there, they cooked and served us food, had our rooms ready to go when we got there, among smaller details. We were asked to do little things like clear away our dishes or fold up our blankets when we left. Lilith refused to lift a finger she did not have to which was seen by the rest of us as incredibly rude. 
• After a while on the road Drexler and Lawrie decided we should see these Buddhist caves. These caves were the undoing for our group. We were sent in alone where once we reached the actual caves we were assaulted by tour guides, who Niko and Alessa wanted to hire immediately. After arguing for a minute or two we were lead along by a guide on the worst tour ever. The sign had promised amazing sights but it was a cave. That's it. Then Deanna became claustrophobic and we began exiting the cave. Karen and I wanted to explore further so when no one was watching we went down another passage and found a sleeping Buddha. We quickly left because the guides expected a tip after the tour. When we got out Niko immediately asked us if we had tipped and then tried to berate us for not doing it since he had tipped the guide 500 baat and expected us to pay him back. When we did not he sulked the rest of the way back, even after getting money from Drexler. He worsened Deanna's condition by being incredibly rude to her about the whole money issue. 
• I am starting to wonder about the people I am traveling with and feel that the less time I spend with some of them the better. 
• We were amazed at the bathrooms when we came back (they flushed) but then went out to an Italian dinner. Where I got stuck by the seat of my pants to my chair. I had studs on my back pockets and one had gotten into one of the circles of the chair I was sitting on. I also had a chocolate desert with brandy in it. Suddenly the weekend seemed better. And apparently most Italian deserts have an alcohol of some sort in them according to what the rest of the table received.

I have to say here that the novice monks were all so cute, especially this little thirteen year old one who gave me a muddy high five. And they worked hard too because in addition to their monk duties they were going to school and doing HIV/AIDS counseling. But they were so happy doing it.  

Lizard Count: 4            I don't think they like our room anymore.