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Thailand Newsletter #2 - February 10, 2001: I’m sitting here on our sky-blue-flowered, sheet-covered bed under a canopy of not-so-effective white mesh (bug net) and wondering where to begin. First… How We Are Doing Fine! …in a word, still hot but not as exhausted…a little less worn out at the end of each day after long hours of training. This is the end of our 2nd week. Monday morning we arrived hot and sweaty after our 20 minute bike ride to U-Thong. There we turned over our new bikes to a local shop for some minor adjustments. PC provides great 21 speed mountain bikes but no tool or tire repair kit because “they cost too much.” Go figure!? We joined the 29 others for medical, language, cultural and technical training, received more arm bruises from our shots. (Only the 3rd rabies and our Japanese encephalitis series left!!) As we anticipated, the absolutely-miserable-looking 72 year old woman decided to return to the USA because of difficulty coping with the physical demands here. One trainee came down with a virus, otherwise we all seem healthy. During the week, Nurse Malee dropped by our house (8 pm) to check on us. She explained to the family that we shouldn’t be given rainwater to drink because our digestive systems couldn’t handle it yet. She also warned us for the 5th time not to drink the tap water. (Of course, this means we haul around 3 pound bottles of drinking water everywhere and refill them every chance we get from tanks provided by PC.) By the way, Mom, she also checked out and cleared the cooking area and food storage. U-Thong The upside of our trip to U-Thong was dinner at our now favorite restaurant and the hotel stay. This trip, our room was air-conditioned with cabinets, a couch, a queen-sized-relatively soft bed, and TV…not that it did us much good. We wondered if it were a sad state of affairs…our excitement, that is, at seeing a few recognizable brands on commercials. Our Schedule It looks like we will remain with our small group (4 of us plus 2 trainers) from Wednesdays through Saturday
mornings. This means that most of our training will be at the library of the Wat Prathumsaranas School, the local elementary school, and “practice teaching” in some classrooms there. PC
wants us to get as much experience as possible before school lets out for the “summer” (from about March 15th to On Monday mornings, we will ride bikes in to U-Thong for big group training. There will also be three days coming up when we will be split into new groups of 3 and sent together, out on our own, out of the province. We have heard that couples will be split up for this short trip. This means we will be more difficult to reach for those days. We’ll let you know when they are scheduled as soon as we know. Village Happenings: Two days ago was a special Buddhist holiday celebrating the miracle 2544 years ago when hundreds of monks from many different regions spontaneously decided to travel to see the Buddha in India. All arrived at the cycle of the full moon and received enlightenment. On Thursday morning at 8am, we went to the larger, newer temple with the family taking food for the monks and to share with other villagers. After lighting candles and incense, after an hour of chanting (MP3, 55 kbytes) and honoring Buddha, (and backaches for the two of us), the monks ate. Then we joined the villagers in a meal. That night, a similar ceremony (without the food) ended in a candlelight walk, three times
around the ancient temple (Wat Prathumsaranas). It is a beautiful site in the process of being restored. Saturday Picnic Our 2nd week ended with much needed down time and play at a wonderful resort about 30 minutes north of U-Thong. The lodge restaurant was managed by a woman who has a Master’s Degree in English from a university in California. The swimming pool was cool lapis blue off the second floor lobby. Toilets were western flush style with real toilet paper and actual soap at the lavatory. This is as close as we’ve seen to a 4 star hotel and rooms cost $15 per night! Outside, the grounds were full of exotic trees, plants and flowers. We spent most of the day lounging around the grassy areas, playing Frisbee and Badminton. Some of the group played golf. Others went to the lodge for Karaoke sing-a-longs. We had delicious bowls of ice cream and a catered lunch. It was a long way from the sometimes OK, sometimes stinky dirt paths between houses in our village. The resort grounds were open and available to the public so what struck us most was that almost no village Thai people seemed to be there. We saw only one small group of Thais at the lodge. They appeared to be attending a conference. Sunday is Coming Except for next weekend, Sundays are our free-time days. We will spend it doing laundry, preparing for our 1-hour classroom teaching experience next week, packing for the overnight in U-Thong (Monday-Tuesday), and looking around the village for some photo-ops. We’re having trouble learning a Thai song that must be memorized by next week, so plan to audiotape some villagers singing it. We also hope to get a group photo of “our family.” Here are a number of photos to give you an idea of our surroundings both at training in town and in our
village. Aon (17yrs), you remember, is the daughter of our host and Chompoo is the niece. There is a shot of our small group at the local school library along with a couple of the local Misc. Curiosities The law here licenses moped and motorcycle drivers at the age of 18 but in reality there are no controls on age of drivers. We’ve seen 10 year olds in heavy traffic and a few kids who look no older than 7 or 8 driving on the back roads. Motorcycles are the main means of transportation. Many times a day we see dozens of bikes carrying 2-3 or more people on them or loaded with baskets. Cycle accidents are the #1 cause of injury here. Peace Corps volunteers are strictly forbidden to ride on motorcycles for that reason. A recent article in The Nation, an English language newspaper from Bangkok, reports that the government supports free and open access to education for all children to attend public school. Next school year, competency tests will no longer be used for entrance into kindergarten and 1st grade (except in 15 specifically designated schools) . They also reported that parents were “buying” entrance for their children to desirable schools and new laws were intended to curb this. Contact With the Outside World: Not much! We heard about the earthquake in India and about Bush missile defense goals. Veteran PC volunteers are hungry for pretzels and other American junk food. What We Wish We Had Brought With Us:
What We Wish We Had Left Behind:
What We Wished We Hadn’t Put in Storage in Bangkok:
That’s all for now. We send our love. Norbert & Carol
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about May 15th).
Day in and day out, we have become the local English “homework helpers” for 2-3 local Thai high school students taking English.
Aon asks if we would be willing to help out this friend or that friend. 
Photos and Sound Bites
teachers. We are also adding a