Random conversations

As I sit at my computer, killing mosquitos with my electric zapper racket, trying to come to terms with the fact that the ‘cold’ season is coming to a tragic end, I reflect on the conversations of today.  I hope they give you a little inside scoop to my life as someone who will forever be a farang (foreigner), but so different from every other farang my people know they ‘kinda’ consider me Thai.

Story #1:

Every Peace Corps Volunteer knows the term “Intentional Relationship Building”, aka, IRB.  It’s used freely since we view everything we do involving Thai people as IRB’ing – always hopes of building a (working) relationship. This afternoon, after a day chock-full of IRB’ing, I go to my SAO (government office) and chatted with some of the daycare center teachers and the woman I’m ‘supposed’ to work with at the SAO - her name is Pii Boy and she’s a pisser.  Chatting up with these ladies is usually a good time with a guaranteed few laughs – it started with the usual: “where are you coming from, who’d you talk to, what’d you talk about? Erica is geng (good), Erica can talk to people, geng maak (very good)” and so on and so forth.

Pii Boy proceeds to tell the daycare center teachers that my ‘project’ while being here in Thailand is to ‘entertain’.  I bike around and hang out with people all day long simply to provide Thai people with good times because I’m a farang that speaks Thai ( wait a second, I thought that was called IRB...?!).  Thank you Pii Boy, for summing up this dream we call Peace Corps, into an entertainment job J

Story #2:

After the discussion of my ‘entertainment’ project, I was then asked to start a new project – I’ve never been asked to start a project.  We could say that I’m usually standing (tippy toed) on the fine line of begging people to get into an idea of mine, so I was waiting on her suggestion with baited breathe.  Drumroll please: create a farang man catalogue.  I was asked to hand-pick farang men that I knew were ‘good men’, and make a book with their pictures and credentials.  This way, all the single ladies (and for a culture that thinks you’re an old maid if you’re not married by 23 years old, there are a large amount of single “older” ladies in my community….) can have their pick.  Any takers?

Story #3:

A few of the ladies in the SAO asked me to teach them how to crochet plastic bags and it turned into a girly session.  The conversation of food came up (shocker!) and they asked me what I was eating for dinner.  I had just experimented with chili since my bestie back home, Jill, sent me chili powder in a recent package, and I would be eating the left-overs tonight.  I proceeded to tell them the ingredients:

Me: garlic, oil (just a little), salt (just a little), any vegetable you can find, tofu, chili powder, black beans…

Pii Boy: ooohhhh, black beans?

Me: Yep, black beans

Pii Boy: Do you know what black beans means in Thai, other than black beans?

Me: No, but please, do tell

Pii Boy: It means (and the rest is said in English), make love-gay-back door.

Me: laughs hysterically and proceeds to take out my language notebook and pencil – Tell me everything you know!

And so, I got a little lesson in Thai slang J

Story #4

The SAO has 2 kinds of people working there:  1) government officials: educated, and most of them (although not all) are on their high horse because of it and 2) ‘my SAO guys’ as I like to call them: uneducated villagers who work as the ground-keepers, chauffeurs (yes, the SAO has chauffeurs), the turkey farmers, the garbage

pick-up guys, 24/7 security and emergency/ambulance squad.  These guys are the bomb: down-to-earth, hysterical, beyond helpful and they love me.  In comparison to most Thai men, they are sober at work most of the time, but they do enjoy their drink every now and again.  As I was leaving the SAO at 6pm, I run into my favorite guy on his way to the bathroom – he’s 50 years old, on the emergency squad, approximately 4 feet 7 inches tall with a shit-eating-grin on his face all the time (he’s so cute!)and he happens to reek of alcohol.  I hear music playing over in their little shack and I know that they are having themselves a good time.  If I were back home I would’ve skipped right into that shack to hang out and enjoy a happy hour beer with them, but unfortunately woman don’t do things like that in Thailand and so I chatted with him as I put on my helmet for my bike-ride home.  He, ever so graciously, reminded me that if I was in any kind of trouble to call the emergency squad at 1669….with that shit-eating-grin on his face.  So, I gave out a real loud cackle (which the Thai’s happen to love) and said ‘But Pii, you’re all drunk….if I have a problem, how will any of you come pick me up?’ I wish I had a picture of his face – it was as thought this was the first time this thought ever occurred  to him. Gotta.love.it!

This night I hung out with my SAO guys after our New Year party.  I broke the 'gender rules' for once and just let loose and was totally myself hanging with the boys, drinking a beer and dancing.  My fave is the right of me :)

Left: the 2 bookends are SAO workers and next to me is my fave - we are the same height only when I bend down!

Sticky Rice article

Peace Corps Thailand has a quarterly editorial, Sticky Rice, that is sent out to volunteers and staff in Thailand.  It is written and edited by volunteers and it's often used as a source of information, story sharing and a variety of other tales about life in Thailand.  I've been wanting to write something on the the topic of the need of Peace Corps in Thailand as a blog entry, and ended up writing an article for the most recent editorial of Sticky Rice.  But, why not blog it anyway?  So, here it is.  

So here we are, almost one year in.  I’ve heard many discussions and have participated in a number of them, as to whether or not Thailand needs Peace Corps.  Everybody is entitled to their opinions, but when I hear this I automatically think “Are we living in the same country?”  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve listened to the arguments and understand the points made, but the more I live here, the more confident I am that PC should not be leaving Thailand any time soon.

I started to look into the Peace Corps directly after college when I was 21 years old.  It was one of those ‘Sooooo, what do I do with my life now?’ phases.  There was stuff going on at home and I knew I couldn’t leave for two years at that point in my life.  So, the natural progression of work, grad school and more work eventually took place and Peace Corps became a distant goal.  Despite that, I always wanted to live within a rural community in a foreign country, live the simple life, learn about a new culture and its people and above all else, help people.  I’m sure this sounds familiar to many Peace Corps volunteers.  So, life happened and seven years later I found myself back at the point of “Sooooo, what do I do with my life now?”  I clicked on the Peace Corps website after leaving it stagnant for years and began the application process immediately.  

Whenever I thought about the PC, I always thought I would go to Africa as I have a public health background focusing on sexual health & HIV/AIDS and well, because that’s where I wanted to go.   So, not so ironically, I was nominated for a health project in Sub-Saharan Africa to leave January 2011.  Yet, due to medical ‘stuff’, when I received my formal invitation, Thailand was highlighted yellow.  I have to admit that part of me was disappointed, but I was also pleasantly surprised and instantly excited.  I started to spread the word to everybody and although there was a lot of excitement, I got a lot of the following: “Uh!  I love Thailand, the beaches are gorgeous….you have to go to that place they filmed The Beach with Leo! (what?); Thailand is one of my favorite places to vacation (wait - what?); Thailand, really? Peace Corps is in Thailand? (ok, seriously?)”  So, I started to get a little upset.   This didn’t sound like the dream I’d pictured for seven years of roughing it and helping the neediest people in the world.  I expressed my concerns to a RPCV China friend of mine and she said: “Erica, I served in China, one of the powers of the world.  Thailand and China may not be Africa and your lifestyle challenges may not be what you imagined, but believe me, the language and culture will be more than enough challenge.  And c’mon, every country needs Peace Corps, including America which is why we have Americorps.”  I still carry those blissful and honest words with me.

Countries in all stages of development, face a variety of challenges.  Some may say that third-world countries have it the worst because they lack all ‘the goods’ of a developed country.  But developed countries lack many of the wonderful things of a third-world country such as resourcefulness, survival skills, no television and all that other technological stuff that is beautiful, yet ugly at the same time. 

Developing countries, which is where I would categorize Thailand, falls somewhere in between that.  Developing countries are working so hard at becoming developed, that unfamiliar social, family, gender, economic and health challenges, creep up on them without recognition. 

Historically, Thailand culture is known to be quite conservative, yet many aspects of this are changing.  Youth aren’t finishing school - and most PCVs know it’s not to help the family in the fields; 15 year olds are losing the sense of responsibility to help the family (in a country that values family and everybody playing a beneficial role); youth are using drugs/alcohol and having sex at an earlier age; couples spend their entire marriage in separate cities or countries for better jobs to be able to give their kids opportunities they never had; people are leaving their children to be raised by Yai and Da so they can work in a big city and buy the newest phone, car and/or electric lights for their motorcycle, etc, etc.  These are just some social issues – I haven’t even mentioned the health and environmental stuff.  I’m not trying to bash on Thailand, as I jing jing love it here.  But, let’s be honest – after living in any country for a period of time, anybody could make a long list of its strengths and less-than-desirable traits.  Thailand, America or Togo, they’ve all got good and bad.  I’m sure we could all agree on this, chai mai?

Yet, despite these growing problems, some will still argue that there’s no need for PC Thailand.  It may depend on one’s definition of community development or one’s view of the PC purpose, but…..jing law?  PCV’s in Thailand may not do the volunteer work being done in Africa because the needs are different – but there are still needs.  Much of it depends on the volunteer, the community, and the interests of both. 

I realize many people join the Peace Corps because they want to make a large and tangible impact – in many ways, I’m one of them.  But we must look at the reality of that.  I’d say it takes a good solid year for us to be fully integrated in our communities.  That would leave us with one year to make this huge impact we all came here for.  Community development can take a lifetime - one year is NOTHING.  

My parents have given me some great advice since I’ve been here, and it’s simply ‘to plant seeds.’  They told me to just do the things I love to do, like cook without sugar, exercise, plant an organic garden, recycle, empower youth, carry around a pocket book made from plastic bags and carry all the materials to make it so when someone asks, I can show them on the spot how to make one, and one never knows who this impacts.  And let’s not underestimate the power and beauty of cultural and ‘life’ exchange.  It’s largely what PC is about (66% to be exact) regardless of what country you are in.   Even if just one Thai person is inspired by anything you do or say, they will have the power to make a change, one we may never be here to see.  

As idealistic as I am (and we are all idealistic or we wouldn’t be here) I also realize that nobody leaves any Peace Corps country after two years with their village being totally and completely different.  And why would we want that?  There is so much to love.