so this teaching thing...kind of difficult, kind of amazing

I have now been an English teacher in Thailand for four full weeks. I am four days into my fifth week. I teach twenty-three classes a week, each lasting fifty minutes. I meet each class only once, meaning that I teach around five hundred different students every week, ranging in age from Kindergarten to fourth grade. I will teach until mid-September, almost twenty weeks when it is all said and done.

Those are the numbers that define my teaching experience thus far. They tell you something, sure. But in the end they're only numbers. To really talk about teaching, what it's been like so far, could never be summed up in such perfunctory terms. I am a teacher, a klu (the Thai word for teacher) and it is the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life.

Here's a little snapshot. I walk the non air-conditioned halls of my school (the classrooms have AC, thank the Lord) with a crinkled piece of paper in my hands. This piece of paper is sacred, because it is all that stands between me and complete and total disorientation. One of the very kind Thai teachers made it for me a couple of weeks ago, after I had gotten lost finding a class for the umpteenth time. On one side of the piece of paper are Thai numbers, and the other side has their corresponding numbers in English. You see, the Thai classrooms are labeled but the numbers are in Thai, and since I teach twenty three different classes per week (each one a different grade and each grade separated into four different sections), on three different floors, in two different buildings, along countless different hallways, I had been finding it impossible to remember where to go from class to class. For the first few weeks I either had to ask someone, or simply wander, peeking into the classes and hoping the students would call out if I passed the correct one. It was not the most efficient method and I usually ended up arriving late to class, sweaty from the exertion of going up and down stairs ten times to find the right floor.

So now I never go anywhere in the school without my trusted number translation sheet. It still takes me a while to find the right floor and the right hallway, but I'm getting better. Now when I look at my schedule and see that I have Grade 2, Section 4, there's something familiar there. I can at least get in the general vicinty of the classroom. So I'm walking along the hallway, paper in one hand. Under my arm I carry a blue ball, another extremely valued possession. It was left to me by the last foreign English teacher at the school, and I use it in almost every class. Take a tedious drilling exercise (asking the children to answer the question "How are you?" for example), add a ball, and suddenly it's a game. Simple solutions. Again and again I have found that the simplest solutions are what can make the biggest difference in a classroom.

In my free hand I carry my little plastic briefcase (they gave us these at orientation and thank God, because never once in my pre-trip packing did I think to get a bag to use for teaching). The briefcase is pink with a purple handle and it has accumulated several dozen stickers. The kids stick the stickers on me, I stick them on my briefcase. There are some Pokemon ones, some Disney princesses, a nice little mishmash of American and Asian culture all represented in tiny, colorful stick on pieces of paper. The briefcase always has my notebook in it (where I write down lesson plans), a couple of white erase markers (side note: white erase boards-worst idea EVER. Who decided to switch from chalk boards? I want to know your name mister or missy because I will hold you responsible for the constant smudginess of my hands. White erase marker gets everywhere. No matter how hard you try, you will end every class with blue or red hands, and quite possibly blue or red smudges all over your face and clothes. And even worse than that, white erase markers have no life. One will last me maybe two days. I have to buy these things every week, and yeah they're cheap, but it adds up. Give me chalk. I know it's dusty but chalk dust doesnt stain your clothes, and pieces of chalk don't suddenly run out of ink in the middle of a class, forcing you to put all your body weight into writing on the board so that maybe you will get a feeble outline. End of side note). In addition to the notebook and the markers, I will also usually have a thick stack of paper, most often something the kids can color. I mentioned before the power of coloring and I hold firm in that position. Some of my third and fourth graders will feign disinterest but by the end of the class (usually, not always) they are crouched over their desks, colored pencils in hand, brows furrowed in extreme concentration as they carefully color in shapes or the Amerian flag or any of the various other subject related objects printed out to be colored.


So with all of my teacher gear in hand I arrive in a classroom. I stride purposefully toward the desk, smiling but in what I hope is a firm, teacherly, authoritative way. I put my stuff on the desk. It's never my desk mind you. I don't have a classroom. I am a vagabond, wandering from class to class to class. If the teacher happens to be in the class when I walk in it's always a little awkward because I dont want to put my stuff on the desk while she's sitting here, but if I don't I have to just stand there with it, or maneuver it onto the ground into a little pile, all while attempting to keep my calm, cool, collected teacher demeanor of course. During this whole time there is usually a wall of noise, accompanied by lots and lots of movement. But for one brief, glorious moment (most times the only moment in the whole fifty minute class) the noise and movement stop. The class "leader" stands up and shouts in full on drill sargeant mode (and remember in my clases, this child is no older than ten, and half the time is only six or seven) "STAND UP". Everyone follows suit and then they half say, half scream this little gem "GOOD MORNING/AFTERNOON TEACHER." Now I'd say about 50 percent of the time do they get the morning afternoon part right (i.e. its 2pm and they're screaming good morning at the top of their lungs) but bless their little hearts for trying right?

And then they continue to stand, and in theory would continue to stand for the rest of the time if I didn't tell them it was okay to sit down. So that's kind of cool. If they ever really piss me off I might just test my theory out and see how long it takes for them to disobey and sit down on their own. But I am a kind and generous teacher (naturally) so I tell them it is okay for them to sit down. And then it begins. The class and the noise. I attempt to stave off the noise with a focus chant, which kind of works. It's simple. I do an action, they repeat. Hands up, hands down, hands up, hands down, to the left, to the right. You get the idea. And 9 out of 10 times the kids will do this. In first and second grade they're earnest and exited, all of their motions energetic. In 3rd and 4th they still do it but with that slight trace of irony, subtle maybe, but definitely there. Oh that terrible transition, when children get to the age where they start being ironic. Maybe that's my problem with older children. Even when they're giving you a straight answer there's this lingering feel of smart ass about it. Little kids feel every word they say. But at some point around age nine or ten kids start to learn that words can be manipulated and used, that emotion can be hidden. They learn to say what people want to hear, not what they actually mean. And maybe that's a part of life but I really hope my own children make it at least until they're 30 before they get to that stage. That's not too unrealistic an expectation right?


So the focus drill ends, and even after six weeks, there is always a tiny moment where a little voice inside my head says "oh shit". Now I have to actually teach, for fifty minutes, to a room full of Thai children, who don't speak my language. What in the world have I gotten myself into? But I soldier on, ready to put into practice my carefully constructed lesson plans. But there's that slight problem of the noise. Did I mention the noise. It shouldn't even be lower case n, noise. It should always be capital N, Noise. The Noise. Oh that unGodly wall of sound, voices at normal level, voices raised in shouts, voices in whispers, the sound of desks being scraped across linoleum, rulers and pencils and pens dropping at intervals with tiny clatters, chairs being scooted in and out, in and out. And that's just the kids in the background. No matter what we are doing there is always at least one, and very often many more than that, students sitting at their desks, hands in the air, shouting TEACHER!!!!!!!!!!!! over and over and over again. Although to be fair they're not always at their desks. Often they are only centimeters away from my face. And even though they are only centimeters away from my face they are still shouting as though we are on separate ends of a football field, TEACHER!!! They are Marlon Brando and I am Stella, and they are putting every ounce of lung power into getting my attention.

Some of them don't bother with the formality of shouting "teacher". Some merely walk right up and ask (sometimes in English but also sometimes in Thai) if they can go the toilet. They have to ask and I have to say yes (in theory, often they just walk out the door) and then they have to bow. Now I have learned the words for toilet and water (they all have water bottles which they can fill, where and with what water I have no idea). But there are lots of other requests or questions or maybe just statements I get in Thai which I have no comprehension of. A small child will come up to me, often when I'm in the middle of teaching, and when I look their way they let loose a long and very expressive stream of Thai. Then they look at me expectantly. And I offer my go to response, a smile and a yes. Now it's very likely their questions are not able to be answered with a yes or a no. They could be asking me whether they should use pencil or pen. Or what my favorite color is. Or any other question under the sun that requires more than a simple yes. But yes is what I say, because short of staring at them blankly for minutes on end, that's all I've got. Now I've given this some thought and I do wonder if at some point one of these children will ask me if it's okay for them to leave school early, or go play in traffic, or hitchike to Cambodia, or stab a pencil in their friend's eye. And me, being the hapless farang (foreigner) that I am, will smile, nod and say "yes", of course it's okay if you want to cut out of school early today and go get a full facial tatoo, of course it's fine if you want to go pee in the principle's office. This is not an entirely unlikely scenario (well the face tatoo part might be a little out there). But what can I do? As of yet I have not given permisson to any of these children to do something illegal, so here's hoping I keep that streak alive.


I used to try and fight The Noise. I would spend half the class miming quiet to the kids. I would walk the aisles and break up one little huddle of children only to see another huddle form out of the corner of my eye across the room. I tried everything. I tried yelling. I tried...okay mainly I just tried yelling. And let me tell you, yelling don't work. So now I try to work with The Noise. It's not going anywhere but neither am I. I may not be able to defeat The Noise but I darn well won't let it defeat me. After a couple of very hoarse weeks, I have gotten used to speaking at a permanent shout. It makes me feel a little ridiculous, especially when I'm doing something like going over the lyrics to the Itsy Bitsy Spider (for a unit on weather) and I'm practicaly screaming "down came the rain and washed the spider out." It sort of ruins the whole calm, pleasant teacher image to be standing at the front of the room, red in the face from shouting, but alas, it is my lot in life to do so.

Now The Noise has a companion, a little thing I like to call The Movement. I go back and forth on which is worse. The Noise is irritating sure, and it definitely makes it hard to teach lessons, just on a logistical level (if the students can't hear the teacher, that's a significant problem). But The Movement, well The Movement, is another monster. These kids could not sit still in their desks if their lives depended on it. I want to know if their parents are sending them out the door with mugs of coffee. Does the cafeteria serve red bull? Children all over the world are little balls of hyperactivity, but the kids at this school, at all times of the day, are simply tiny litte Tasmian devils. There are two ways The Movement works. There are the sweet, enthusiastic, excited children at the front of the class who move primarily to get my attention. A simple game of hang man creates a stampede of children who are all determined to plant themselves directly in my line of vision so as to be called on to guess the next correct letter in "January". And that's just hangman. In a lot of my lessons I play racing games where one kid from each team has a dry erase marker and they have to race to write something correctly on the board. And good God, I had no idea the frenzy that would be created from lettting children write on the board. I often find myselfs in impromptu games of tug of war with small children, me hanging onto one end of the dry erase marker, them on the other, locked in a battle of wills. Or else I'm in a mob of eight year olds, closing in from all sides, chanting "TEACHER!" and waving their hands in my face. The only thing that saves me from suffocation is the sheer fact that I'm taller than they are. I cannot tell you the number of times in one class I say (in calm teacher voice) "Go back to your desks please" or "I will only call on you if you're at your desk". I cannot also tell you the number of times in one class I yell (in desperate, dear God I'm about to be crushed to death by a horde of uniformed children voice) BACK TO YOUR DESKS NOW. And some of them do. Most simply go and stand next to their desks and dance around like they have ants in their pants, which I used to try to fight, but now realize I need to accept it for the small improvement that it is.

But like I said that's just one type of The Movement. The other type is the defiant, yay the white teacher is here, time for recess/gossip hour/playtime type of movement. And this is the kind that drives me slowly to the edge. Because the enthusiastic movement I can forgive. Heck most times I find it kind of endearing. I mean you have to love kids being manically, out of control excited about a lesson on the months of the year or numbers up to 25. But the other kind of movement is why I could never be a teacher for life. I dont have nearly thick enough skin to be outright ignored, and I think being outright ignored just comes with the territory of teaching. I cannot tell you the number of activities these children engage in in one fifty minute period. Every week I think I've seen it all and then I look over and one of my students is knitting, KNITTING. But at least that's contained. I don't have to worry about any collateral damage from crochet work. But especially in my younger classes, there is full on physical contact. I'll be trying to work through a lesson and then out of the corner of my eye I will see a small blur of white and navy launch through the air and land with an enormous crash onto another small blur of white and navy. They tackle each other. They jump on each other's backs. They crash into desks. They crash into walls. They knock chairs over. They knock posters off the walls. They are human wrecking balls, and half the time I simply try to get through the class without anyone losing an eye or breaking something (either bone or furniture). Depending on the class and how much energy I have, I choose one of two tacks to deal with this. If I have a lot of energy and am feeling particularly spunky, I'll chase them around and attempt to keep them in their seats. I will be stern and firm and grab students by their collars and point menacingly toward the hallway (usually it's empty but I think they get that I'm referring to the threat of going to get their Thai teacher). But this is problematic. One, they will stay in their seats maybe five seconds before bouding out again to body slam each other or stand on something or start running in circles (seriously these kids are on speed). Two, if I do this, and make it my mission to maintain control, then there will be no teaching. I will spend the entire lesson chasing the little monkeys around, and every time I corner one little monkey, why another little monkey on the other side of the class will be up and running around. It's like wack-a-mole. Except I can't beat them with giant hammers. But you get the idea.

So usually I go back and forth between ignoring them and dealing with it whenever it starts go get out of hand. And it kind of works. I try to focus on the students who are actually paying attention, because really what else can I do? So there's that and then like I mentioned there are the many, many disparate other ways these kids stay in motion. They play rock, paper, scissors. They color in coloring books. They turn their chairs around (as in their backs are to me, and then they look surprised when I ask them to turn around) and talk amongst themselves (nine year olds clearly have very complex personal lives that needs to be discussed at all times). They do their other homework (this is the most prevalent form of movement, yet oddly the one I mind least. I know I should fight it and sometimes I do but the honest truth is that if they're doing other work at least they're quiet . Also my class isn't graded. It's a supplement to their other English class, and these poor kids are at school all afternoon. Does it make me an awful teacher if I think it's kind of okay for them to get some homework done while I talk). They go and stand by the window and look out. They go to the bathroom...constantly. Again I used to try and fight this. I tried to say that only two at a time could go. But I dont think they understood me and they thought I was just saying no outright. Which I would never do because I have the smallest bladder in human history and the last thing I would want to do is say no to some poor child that legitimately has to go to pee. So I say yes to two and seconds later three come up to me and I say yes to them and it goes like that all class. And half the time they come back and their faces and hair are soaking wet which...? Again could fight it, but I've learned to pick my battles and that simply isnt one worth fighting.

I'll look over and there will be three of them at my desk. I never see them approach but nearly every time I look there they are. They shuffle through the worksheets I brought. They pick up my flashcards. They inspect my briefcase and play with the clasp. And if I forgot and left the ball somewhere easy to reach, they will pick up the ball and start throwing it to or more likely at each other. Now that is a battle that I willingly fight and that I quickly put an end to. How are these kids this energetic? I mean I know when you're little you are naturally more sprightly, but really? And the toys. How do they have these toys in school? They have little plastic cars they race over their desks. They have stuffed animals (one class I confiscated a pile of these and the little sneaks took them back when I wasnt looking and hid them well enough where I couldnt find them. I think I might have burst a blood vessel on that one). They have little video games. And if I somehow manage to take/get them to put away the darned toys, well then they just improvise. They start sword fighting with rulers. If it's a Scout day (I think it's sort of like our version of the Boy/Girl Scouts, but I'm not entirely sure), they play with the various accessories to their Scout uniforms, the crazy hats and a rope that goes around their necks which I kid you not, looks just like a noose.

This is the enivronment I teach in. These are my two major foes, The Noise and The Movement, and if you've just read that and have never taught before you're probably thinking, why in the world would any sane human subject themselves to it? And sometimes I ask myself that too. When I try to hand out what I thought was a fun birthday project (the kids would make a list of all of their classmates' birthdays and then color and decorate it) and the little twerps look at me, shake their heads and say "no" I ask that question. When I'm teaching first and second grade and at least one child in every class is crying I ask it. Oh the crying, that could almost be a capital letter too. It shocked me the first time it happened. I went to the crying child, tried to ask what was wrong (of course she or he couldnt explain it in English, but they definitely explained it, in detail, in Thai), tried to ask if they needed the nurse (again, language barrier), tried to ask who was responsible (this I could ascertain through the wonderfully universal act of pointing) but then what? I have no means of punshing these kids and boy do they know it. As far as I know there's no detention. They don't have recess so I can't threaten to take that away. I could send them to the principal's office but as far as I know that's not a thing here, and I'd probably just end up pissing off the very busy principal who doesnt have time to deal with things like that. Pretty much the only form of discipline at my disposal is physical violence, which as tempting as it sometimes is, I could never do. So when I see a kid hit another kid and then one starts crying all I can really do it speak in a harsh tone of voice, say a bunch of words the kid won't understand, and shake my finger. So that's usually what I do. So because I have no choice I've learned to just live with the crying, the same way I live with The Noise and The Movement. As of yet every crying child has eventually stopped. None of them have been sick or really hurt. They're just still babies really and well like all babies they occasionally cry.

So then why do I do this? What keeps me here? It's not the pay, although I probably make more than most of the much harder working, much more deserving Thai teachers. It's not because it's some relaxing vacay. My weekends my be filled with tropical island paradises or fun trips to Bangkok with friends (thank the Lord for my weekends, they keep me sane) but my weekdays are just plain old hard work. I'm tired all the time. I no longer have an immune system. Out of the six weeks I've been here, I've been healthy for approximately two. On the rare occasions I have an afternoon off, I take these crazy 5 or 6 hour black out naps, naps that are very nearly miniature comas. I wake up and I barely remember my name. This is exhausting. It's hard, harder than any job I've ever had (and I used to have to get up at 4:30 in the morning to go make espresso for eight hours). So then why do I do it?

Well I can say that every day, at least once, and on good days sometimes quite often, there are good moments, wonderful moments even. When I walk into a Kindergarten class and I'm surrounded by a mob of children all trying to hug me. When I walk down a hallway and every kid I pass lights up, shouts "ELIZABETH" (it's easier for them to say than Liz, go figure) and tries to shake my hand or get a high five. When those same, Tasmanian devils of energy get so into a game or lesson that I can see it in their eyes, when they're literally jumping up and down with enthusiasm and I know that somehow, against all odds, I did something right. When I go to review a previous week's lesson and amid a sea of blank stares, one child raises a timid hand and gets the answer right and I know that I actually, legitimately taught something, even if it only stuck to one out of the forty kids in the class. When I stop thinking about traffic control and babysitting and let myself have fun, let myself enjoy the pure and untarnished energy of the only people on earth who can be that energetic and not be on some kind of drug. There are things I really love about this job. I love the dorky kids in my classes, the ones who wear glasses and don't rough house around with the obviously "cool" kids (even in second grade there are cool kids, they just might not know it yet), and who sit in their seats all fifty minutes and never take their eyes off me. Oh how these kids melt my heart, the quiet ones who pay attention, who shoot irritated glances at their other, loud and hyperactive classmates. They're these little kids but they look at me with genuine, very adult commiseration. They try to help out and get the other kids to quiet down (they have about as much luck as I do). And I honestly love them for it. Some of them I can tell will have a rough go of it in school. They're quirky and crazy smart and they'll probably have to survive a few rough years (if the Thai social hiearchy is anything like at home) But I just want to take them by the shoulders and tell them how awesome they are, how they're going to get to college and everyone will suddenly realize how awesome they are too, because they have something that no amount of popularity will ever bestow, kindness and empathy and a wisdom that is far, far beyond their years.

Or the kids who are both class clown and super nerd. Who have a ton of energy and can't sit still but who so obviously love school and learning and who want to do well. I love how competitive Thai children are. I've talked about how I divide my classes up into three teams and give points for participation and take away points if they're too noisy. And they get so into it. One of my favorite noises in the world now is the sound of ten or fifteen Thai children cheering like they just won the lottery because they got one little point. They don't get a prize if they win, not unless you count a high five from me a prize. And well, the thing is they do treat it like a prize. They get excited and students from the losing teams try to sneak in for high fives, like I'm giving away buckets of candy.

So these are the moments that are good. And even though to be honest the good moments are more rare than the "run screaming from the building" moments, they just matter more. I can't explain why but they do. Here's an example. This past Tuesday I started each of my four third grade classes by asking them to take out their calendar projects we had started the week before. Now in three out of these four classes, there was absolute silence after I said this. I had to draw a calendar on the board and then only about five of them took them out. They hadn't worked on them at all since the last week which was fine because I planned on finishing them in class. I never intended for them to be homework. So maybe two out of the five started working on them in earnest, with colored pencils and rulers and everything. The other three I had to cajole into doing it, much to their evident dismay. And then the rest of the class, the ones who hadn't taken their calendars out. I had to go up to every single student and stand there with my hands on my hip until they took the darn thing out of their backpack or desk. Most of them tried to say "no" to me, you know, just "nope, teacher I'd rather not, I'd kind of rather play cards with my friend over here." I couldn't help myself. Immediately in a raised, very annoyed voice I said "this isn't optional!", even though of course they dont know what optional means. So finally they would take it out and then go back to whatever they were doing before, even with me standing there. So it would take another few minutes of negotiations before they would pick up a pencil and even then they looked at the calendar like it was an impromptu ten page essay. All they had to do was fill in numbers and draw a picture, but it was the last thing these kids wanted to do, much to my dissapointment.

And so it went for three classes, but then I got to my last third grade class of the day. I walked in with slumped shoulders, ready to go home, tired and annoyed and honestly a little hurt that these kids thought my calendar project was stupid. I had worked hard on it and paid for the copies myself and paper clipped them together for each student. And so I walked to my desk, wearily faced the students, ready for another tug of war. But before I even opened my mouth five students came up with their calendars in hand. I took them and looked down and I swear to God I nearly cried. Every single one of these students created the most beautiful, most colorful, most perfect calendars I could have asked for. And then after these five, more came up. And suddenly I was in a mob of students, but this mob I didn't mind. I welcomed it because they were all very eagerly holding out their wonderful little calendars to me, wish such evident but still slightly tentative pride that I could have started blubbering right there (luckily I didn't). Their drawings looked like they must have taken ages. Whereas my other students sketched a birthday cake in pencil and handed it in, these kids had drawn elaborate artwork. Sure it was a little random and not exactly what I wanted (originally in theory I wanted them to draw a picture related to the month, but I soon realized, as I often do, that explaining directions is the most challenging part of my job. These kids may know the numbers all the way to 100 but they do not, unfortunately, know what "be creative" means), but it was beautiful. I had several Pokemon calendars but no two exactly alike. And these Pokemons, well I never thought I'd be so thrilled to look over pages and pages of Pokemon characters. They had created stories, each calendar page bursting with color and characters, some even with little thought bubble above the character's heads. And that's just the Pokemon ones. I had calendars with Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse. I had calendars with princesses. I had ones with ninjas in full on battles. I had calendars with stickers, calendars with glitter marker. I had one calendar that apparently told a full story about a girl and a cat, each month a different chapter, with text and everything (in Thai sadly so I could not read it). I had in my hands calendars that had been drawn with care and with thought and with such childlike purity and singularity of purpose that it was one of the most touching things I've ever experienced. They had worked on these at home. They hadn't needed to. They probably had a ton of other work to do, but they had worked on my calendars at home. Whereas the other kids obviously chucked them in their desks without another thought, these 35 kids, for whatever reason, had decided to treat my little project like it meant something, like it was graded even though they knew perfectly well it wasn't.

And I can think of no better way to describe why I keep doing this, why I will finish the semester and why I havent already booked the next flight home. For every ten horrible moments where I think these kids are little monsters, there is one moment like that, where they are perfect and beautiful and precious and where all I want to do is help them to stay like that, if just for a little longer. And maybe 10 to 1 seems like not a great ratio. And I guess it isnt. But like I said before, the good moments just seem to mean a lot more. They are the ones that stick with me, the ones I find myself thinking of most often. And so it goes.

I am an English teacher in Thailand and it is the hardest, most impossible thing I have ever done. I am a teacher and there are moments when I love it. And those moments, well they make all the difference.

Oh Ko Samet (and oh life): FIN

So I've been sitting here in my school's little internet room trying to muster up the energy to write a new blog post. And I'm not sure at this point I really have but I thought I'd at least give it a go, because right now school is the only place I have internet (my computer power adaptor died, which considering my luck lately, of course).

Last we left off I had just recieved a mysterious phone call from a man who claimed he had my passport. Now at the time I wrote my last blog I still believed that this little tale had a happy ending, namely me getting my passport back and avoiding the huge, logistical, financial, and just plain old mental head ache that would come from trying to replace my passport. But little did I know, my soap operiffic drama would get even more convuluted before the end.

So we were riding on the bus back to Ko Samet when mystery man calls my friend Choua's phone and says he has my passport. After some intial confusion I found out he got Choua's number from the police report we filed (see not a waste of time after all). At this point I could have kissed this man's feet (which were probably all sandy and gross too, we were on an island). He had apparently gone out of his way to find me. He said he called my banks and the American embassy. He was a regular Dave in shining armor (Dave was his name). I told him I had left the island already. He told me he was going to Bangkok the next day. Problem solved, right? Right? But I get ahead of myself. I said I could be in Bangkok the next day and that way I could go to a Western Union, sort myself out a little. So great. We would meet up at one of the giant, massive malls and if he didnt get there in time I asked if he would mind terribly dropping it off at the embassy at some point during his stay.

Fast forward one day. I go to Bangkok and head straight for the Western Union I had looked up online. Now at this point I had never used a Western Union before. I thought you had to go to the specific branch, even though really that doesnt make that much sense considering everything there is electronic and money isn't physically wired to a branch like in a giant tube, but wired electronically and thus available at all Western Union branches. But I was sunburnt and exhausted and a tad unhinged at this point so my mind wasnt working at full capacity. So I took a bus into Bangkok (at this point I hadn't figured out precisely what buses to take to get into the city and so of course I ended up having to hop off at a random place and get a taxi the rest of the way), and found the Western Union. I had just enough money to get into the city (given to me, no questions asked, from my school) and was expecting to recieve a nice little security chunk of cash from my kind and understanding parents. And then I'd be set until my payday. Now I read on the Western Union website that you need a passport to get money, but surely I thought, surely, they must have some kind of loophole to that. Half the people who go to Western Union are probably backpackers or tourists who have lost everything, including passports, so it wouldnt really make that much sense to have a passport be a requirement. And I had copies, COPIES, lots of them, copies of my passport, copies of my French visa, my Indian visa, my Thai visas (man I have a lot of visas), copies of my social security card, copies of every official looking document you could probably imagine. So I'd be fine. No problem.

"M'am we're going to need your orignal passport." The very nice (even though at the time I wanted to punch her in the eye) Thai woman behind the desk kept repeating this sentence, yet I could not process those eight simple words. You don't understand, I kept saying. My passport was stolen, along with all of my credit cards and all of my money. That's why I'm at freaking Western Union in the first place. And so it went like that for several minutes, the nice lady repeating what was clearly a company policy and something she could not violate or else would probably be fired for, and me, blankly, telling her that I needed my money, that I didnt have my passport, but that I needed my money. I had to have that money. I didnt have a cell phone or a camera or a passport, but as long as I had some money I had something, something to make me feel at least somewhat not in this void of helplessness. Maybe if I had told her specifically about the void of helplessness it would have helped. But as it was, she was unmoved. And then it happened, that embarassing thing that happens sometimes when you've simply had it and can't take anymore and haven't slept that much and can barely move any part of your body without extreme pain because of the suburn from hell and sort of smell bad to top it all off (dont judge, you try walking around in Thailand and see how much you sweat). I started crying, right there at the counter of Western Union in the brightly lit entry way of a Big C Super Center.

And this poor woman just shrugged and repeated the lines she had to repeat, that she was paid to repeat. At the time I thought she was the enemy, but looking back I wonder how many crazed, cash-less, passport-less Westerners she's had to deal with in her day, how many times she's had to patiently wait for said Westerners to finish their little meltdowns and move on and let her continue her probably underpaid job. Somewhere amidst my barely contained blubbering I heard her say that I could try a bank, that all Thai banks work with Western Union and that maybe a bank wouldnt require an original passport. Well luckily enough there was a tiny little bank in the same area of the Big C. After going to the lady's room to compose myself (ie sniff loudly into a tissue while trying to regain some tiny shred of my dignity), I went to the bank, sure that the same thing would happen, willing myself not to cry publicy at a second Thai financial institution that day. And as luck would have it, they could have cared less that I had copies. Five minutes later I had cash, glorious cash, my own little lifeboat.

So after feeling deeply silly about the whole, completley uneseccary Western Union meltdown (and seriously considering going back to apoligize) I headed off to Siam Center (aka land of the ginormous malls) to wait around for British Dave and see if we could meet up. He only had email so I brought my laptop into the city with me and camped out at Starbucks. (Side note. I LOVE the Starbucks here. Now mock me if you most. Oh Liz, can't even go a month without getting your grande latte fix, but I don't care. Five days out of the week I dont have hot water or television (Thai soap operas do not count) or even internet at home. So when I get the chance to indulge in a little Western fix, I'm going to darn well indulge. And the baristas at the Starbucks here (across the board at the ones I've been to) are like the most cheerful people on earth. I don't know what they're putting in their morning coffee, but they all have these massive smiles plastered on their faces, and they act like your drink order is the most important, momentous thing that has ever happend to them, and that getting it right is not just a job description but a calling from God. Why yes, I would love to sample that delicious treat (they all have sample platters and they offer seconds!). Why yes, I would love my muffin warmed to perfection (and for some reason the muffins here are so much better, just little, fluffy, pieces of heaven) and served on a real plate and brought to me on a tray with a knife and fork. Half the time in the States the Starbucks baristas act like they're doing me a favor making the drink I (over) paid for. Here they act the complete opposite way. Seriously the most chipper people I have come across in a nation of insanely chipper people. End of side note.)

So I camped out in Starbucks and waited for word from Dave. By 6pm no word and so I figured he wouldnt get there in time. I didnt want to head home too late (it takes half an hour to two hours depending on traffic) so I sent Dave an email (he doesnt have a cell so it's the only way to get in touch) and asked if it would be okay if at some point in the next week he dropped it off at the embassy, because it was difficult for me to get into Bangkok during the work week and I couldn't take another day off. So I figured problem solved. I thanked him profusely, told him how much I appreciated all of his efforts.

Throughout the next week I kept checking my emails, waiting for Dave to say that he'd dropped off at the passport, but no word. But a bunch of CIEE people were going into Bangkok for the weekend so on Friday I emailed Dave again, told him I'd be in Bangkok, and that if he hadn't already dropped the passport off, we could meet up, preferably Saturday during the day. I got to the hotel in Bangkok around 8 and saw that I had a text (apparently Dave can send texts through email but I cannot send anything back through my phone), saying that he would be at a bar near Khao San Rd (an infamous backpacker haven in Bangkok) and if I wanted my passport I should meet him there as he was leaving the next day. Now, this is where I started to think, hmm. A little bit weird right? He's had all week to drop the passport off, because he had no idea I would be in Bangkok in person again before he left. But he's held onto it, and now that he knows I'm there he wants to meet at a bar at night in a kind of sketchy area. There was no way in hell I was going alone (especially because it was dark and Bangkok is huge and confusing and my knowledge of its geography is very limited). And by the time I met up with my friends it would already be 9 or 10 and I wasn't going to ask them to go all the way there (we were all staying in an area in Siam Square which is not close to Khao San Road). But I couldnt text any of this back to him, so I had to wait until I had internet access.

I got another text from him not long after, saying "dont you want your passport back, you should meet up with me tonight" which again, hmm. Finally I got access to a computer and I emailed him this.

"Hi Dave, sorry I have not had internet access for the last several hours and could not respond to you until now. Sorry we could not meet up tonight. Can you drop it off at the nearest police station to you or to the American Embassy (whichever is more convenient). Please let me know where you drop it off (it's a police station then the address would be helpful). Thank you so much! Please let me know that you received this."

Reasonable right? There are police stations all over Thailand. I figured it would be a lot easier for him to drop it off there than to try to meet somewhere both of us would know without being able to communicate through cell phones. But the next morning I recieve this.

"Liz, Your disregard towards your stuff shocks me, especially when I run around for you breaking my laptop in the process. Yet again am paying 40 B for 10 mins to write this message, why I don't know. I suggest you meet me at 3pm or just after on platform 4 first class section, I am wearing blue shorts with a white pattern. Dave"

Say it with me people, hmmmmm. First of all, why is he talking to me like a stern parental figure when we've never met. Second of all, I need a little clarification. I might just be slow but come again, how exactly am I responsible for him breaking his laptop? (he also texted me about this, saying that he "sat" on his laptop in his "rush" and that he "was not happy.") What rush was he in? We hadn't arranged a meeting place. As far as dropping it off somewhere like a police station I assumed he could do that on his way to leave, and even if he was in a rush, that could have been solved by him DROPPING OFF MY PASSPORT AT THE VERY CENTRALLY LOCATED AND EASILY ACCESSIBLE US EMBASSY ANYTIME IN THE PREVIOUS WEEK. Plus he said in the same email he wasn't leaving Bankok until 3-4ish, so why was in such a fluster in the morning to meet me, such a fluster in fact, such a panic, that he had no choice but to sit on his laptop and break it. I know when I'm in a rush to go somewhere the first thing I do is sit on my laptop. Sitting on a laptop and hurrying to go somewhere are pretty much one and the same. And okay maybe this is mean but at this point this guy is a butt face and/or a serial killer so I dont really care, but how much do you have to weigh to break a laptop the second you put weight on it? If it was closed it really should have been okay with the momentary weight from an adult male. But this is all besides the point, because REALLY? Really you sat on your own laptop in your imaginary hurry to get to our imaginary rendez vous and you're mad at me for it?

And it was at this moment that I realized British Dave was a total psychopath. There was no way I was meeting him at this vaguely referenced station of some kind. First of all. He did at no point name the station, or say where it was in Bangkok, or even what kind of station it was, bus, train, who knows? Bangkok is kind of a large city, large enough to have more than one station surprisingly enough. So in theory I could have gone to a "station" of some kind at "3pm or just after", just hoping that by some psychic intuition I happend to get the right one. But even if I had gotten the right one, no. At this point I would not have been surprised if "Dangerous Dave" (as he was henceforth dubbed) would try to make me pay him in full for his supposedly crushed laptop (which I pretty much sat on myself, that's how directly responsible I was for its demise) and/or lecture me and/or push me onto the tracks in front of a moving train/bus/whatever type of vehicles operates from this mystery shrouded station. It was painfuly obvious at this point that he wanted a reward for the passport, that that was why he didn't drop it off at the embassy even though he had a full week to do so. It also became a possibility that Dangerous Dave was the one who stole my stuff in the first place, kept everything valuable, and then thought he'd make some more money off the passport reward. Whether or not that's true is probably never going to be known, but I do know that this guy seems seriously unhinged and that it's probably a good thing I never met him in person.

But after all that, I was faced with the reality that I would not be getting my passport back. I emailed him once more and asked if he had left it at the "station" and if so which one, but it's been a week and no word and I'd be highly surprised if I ever hear from him. So yesterday I had to trudge into Bangkok, take another day off work (which I legitimately feel bad about), and go to the US Embassy. Now in my mind I was picturing the embassy all sparkly with gleaming marble floors and large, sunlit atriums, lots of flags, maybe some official looking uniforms, oh and badges, definitely official visitor badges with pictures on them and everything. I'd walk in and immediately be taken under some kindly American expat's wing, ushered into a crisply air conditioned office, given a coke and told that everything would be okay, that I needn't worry, everything would be taken care of and I'd have a brand spanking new passport in no time. And it's possible parts of the embassy are like that (minus the cokes probably), but the part I was directed to was the Citizen Services wing, which, picture the DMV. Okay got that mental image. Shrink it a little. Replace the American employees with Thai employees. And bingo. Sort of depressing after all of my grand mental images of American diplomacy at its most elegant and shiny.

So turns out it costs 100 bucks to replace a passport. But here's the kicker. In order for them to even start processing my new passport I need to bring them the police report (which of course I misplaced, thinking I didnt need it after talking to Dave). I pointed out, politely of course, that people must need new passports all the time who don't have police reports. What if you just lose it, or it catches on fire, or it's swallowed by an elephant. Surely things like that must happen all the time. What did those people do? Very similarly to Western Union, the probably very nice Thai lady who had probably had a long day dealing with people like me, just repeated the same line again and again. We need the police report. And then she informed me that I would be stuck in Thailand forever and/or arrested if I didn't do this promptly.

Which brings me full circle to where this whole crazy thing started-Ko Samet. Out of all the places I could be forced to return to, Ko Samet isn't too horrible. I mean I guess I could handle some more clear, green waters and a few more hours spent on blindingly white sand beaches. So a week from today that's where I will be headed, to get the police report primarily (I'd really like to avoid getting arrested) and to have a weekend in paradise without any major calamaties. So that's the end of this very long story. I appreciate it if you've stuck with me through the whole thing. I know it was a whopper.

So for now.

FIN.

Oh Ko Samet (Part Two)

Last time on our thrilling adventure, five backpackers were left stranded on a beach in Ko Samet, purses stolen…

And just kidding. If you want the first part of this gripping tale, please scroll down and read it. I will wait here. Okay, everyone caught up? So yada yada, I was on a beach at 4am, in the midst of a full blown emotional mess. I was consoled by many, many backpackers who were far more inebriated than myself. One Australian girl in particular kept assuring me how “funny” this would all be one day, before I knew it really. Which sure, maybe, but at that moment, not funny. I think the “funny” part is going to take a while, if ever. Finally after many, many very kind but sort of empty words of heavily accented and slurred consolation, someone came up with some actual help. And it came from the strangest and most unexpected of places. In my last blog I mentioned that there were fire-dancers on the beach. Well the two Thai fire-dancers, both heavily tattooed, had long since finished their show. They were at the bar, knew of what had happened, and had helped look for the bags. That would have already been above and beyond, but as I stood crying on the beach (I cannot tell you how much of a hot mess I must have looked like at this point. I was soaking wet. I’m sure my eye makeup was running from the combination of salt water and tears. My hair was doing what it normally does in response to humidity and salt water-pretty much turn into a tangled, frizzy web of insanity. And to top it all off there was a nice trickle of blood down my leg from where I had cut myself on the rock. Let me tell you, I was stunning. I have no idea how some modeling scout didn’t scoop me up right there on the spot). But I digress. So the fire-dancers came up to me and my friend Lauren (the other purse stealing victim) and offered to let us use the internet at their tattoo shop in town. Don’t worry mom, there was an Australian girl backpacker who knew these men, had friends who were friends with them, and who came with us so we didn’t ride off into the night with total strangers.

So we hopped onto a songthew (an open air pick up truck with rails on the side and benches-it’s pretty much a giant taxi and on Ko Samet they are the only form of taxi) and rode about ten very bumpy minutes (the roads on Ko Samet are not exactly paved) to “town.” And just as they promised there was internet. We both immediately went online to cancel our credit cards, write emails, and basically try to start putting our lives back together. It was an enormous literal and emotional help to be able to do this that night and not have to wait until morning to do something proactive. One of the fire-dancers (really wish I could remember their names) brought me a bottle of water. The other one, I kid you not, immediately gathered a first aid’s kit worth of supplies and ordered me to put my leg out, like some no nonsense school nurse. He went to work, first with an enormous spray bottle of alcohol (remember this was a tattoo parlor so they had plenty of this stuff on hand). Then he cleaned up the blood. Then he put some white gooey stuff on it and bandaged it up. I would not have been surprised if he handed me a lolli pop and told me that I was a good little patient. I was so helpless at this point and exhausted (it was about 5am at this point), and so it was wonderful to be taken care of.

After we finished our little emergency online session, we were given a ride back to the hotel on a motorbike (again mom I know you’re probably reading this and freaking out, but we had to get back, this was the only form of transportation, and our driver went at a snail’s pace to placate us). I know very little about these men other than they are tattoo artists who moonlight as fire dancers (or maybe the other way around) and that they were uncle and nephew. Like I said I don’t even know their names. But I wish I did. I wish I had some way of thanking them for their unbelievable kindness and generosity.They asked nothing of us. They didn’t want money. They didn’t want anything other than to help two silly Americans who had idiotically left their purses unattended to go swimming. Everyone told us during orientation about the Thai spirit of selflessness, how the second you ask for any kind of help, it will come at you from all sides, unyielding and overwhelming in its scope. And this past weekend, in my hardest moment thus far in Thailand, there it was. The more I think about what these two guys did for us that night, the more amazed I am by it. So even though at the time I wanted to punch people in the face who talked of silver linings to the situation, there really was something good in the midst of all the stolen purse related drama. There was real, honest to God human decency. Call me Blanche DuBois, but in Thailand I think it is entirely possible to rely on the kindness of strangers.

So the next morning, mere hours after I went to bed, I woke up so that Lauren and I could trudge down the steep and winding dirt road toward the police station to file a report. Now it may have taken me a little longer than it would have otherwise, but after a few beats standing on the hotel veranda, I realized where I was. Ko Samet in daylight; blinding, dazzling daylight. The sky was clear. The sun was out. All of the things that had only been darkened silhouettes the night before were now in techni-color. It was like I was Dorothy finally emerging from her broken, tornado spun house. Where before there was only shades of black and white, now everything was in bold, beautiful color. Lush green palm trees crowded the view in front of me, their soft fronds swaying ever so slightly in the breeze, enormous coconuts clustered in bunches near the trunk. An orange dirt road, muddy from the previous night’s rains, curved in front of the hotel, before a steep drop to the beach below. And then my eyes found the beach. And oh, what a beach. The phrase “white sand” is used so often it feels like the worst kind of cliché. But as I’ve often found, clichés are clichés because they’re usually an apt and concise way to describe certain things. And the only way to describe the beach of Ko Samet is to say white sand, the whitest sand, sand so white you almost have to shield your eyes to look at it. As my eyes were still adjusting to the sight of the sand, I looked up a fraction of an inch, and for a moment I didn’t know where the water began and where the sky ended. They were just two impossibly blue shades of turquoise with no discernible beginning or end. The water off of Ko Samet is like looking into a hazel iris, a brilliant, dynamic vista of color shimmering with flecks of light. There’s nothing solid about the color, nothing homogenous or easy to define. The second you think you really know the color of this water is the second you realize it would take a lifetime to know this color, not simply blue or green but every subtle, nuanced shade in between, shades that have no name expressible in human language, that could never be replicated or manufactured as paints or crayons. The water off Ko Samet is one of nature’s trump cards. Try as we might, humans, with all of our grandiose plans and ideas, all of our science and our education and theories, just can’t replicate a color like that. We wouldn’t even know where to start.

As we walked slowly and deliberately toward the police station (careful to avoid puddles and motorbikes and songthews) I couldn’t stop stealing glances to my right. I was exhausted and hot and incredibly thirsty, and I kept having painful flashes of all the things that were gone, but the sight of that beach and that water made me want to grin. It made me want to laugh and run, fly, down the hill and spend the rest of the day, the rest of my life even, in that warm ocean. But before I could shred my ties with the outside world and turn into a beach bum, I had business to attend to. So the Ko Samet police station, not exactly the most crack operation in the world. Okay, I should first say that by the end of this story the police station will have played their part, admirably even, but at the time, as we sat in the hot, open air police station (pretty much a police garage), I thought it was pointless. The man we dealt with seemed to not even work there or have any idea what he was doing. The only other person there, a twenty something girl in a bedazzled top, kept disappearing off to a side room to watch television. There were no actual police officers in this police station, and there was a giant, human sized cage in the middle of the floor which was apparently the jail cell. It was all very bizarre and surreal and by the time we left all I cared about was getting to the water. The purse and all attempts to locate the purse seemed to have reached their hopeless end.

I was determined not to let my weekend be ruined. As fast as I could I scarfed down breakfast at the hotel (all hotel food I’ve encountered in Thailand is about 90% Western/American, although not always entirely accurate-one club sandwich I ordered had an egg on it and something that tasted far too sweet to be any kind of mayonnaise), then grabbed my bathing suit, sprayed myself with Aveeno 45 SPF sunblock (ha! we’ll get to that) and headed as fast as my feet would carry me to the beach. And that’s how I spent the rest of the day. It was heaven and paradise and every other utopian name you can think of. It was probably the only place on earth where I could have even attempted to not think of my lack of money, cell phone, camera, passport, keys, etc. and etc. And even though thoughts of the kind kept bubbling up every once in a while, I did a pretty good job ignoring them. It was easy because all I had to do was look around me. There are supposedly very quiet and very isolated beaches on Ko Samet and ours wasn’t too crowded or too crazy (it’s low season in Thailand right now) but there was plenty to look at. First the Thai people, or at least the Thai tourist groups. There were several of these and there were some characteristics shared by all. They all sat far up the beach in the shade (which-very smart and I wish I had followed suit). They all had huge fancy cameras. They all were fully dressed and went swimming fully dressed (I had already read about this trait). And they all put on the most entertaining and extravagant photo shoots. One person would take pictures while the others came up with the most creative poses, always insanely complicated and pre-planned and sometimes taking minutes and minutes of prep time. They posed in the water. They posed near the water. They posed on the statue of a mermaid and a prince that sat atop a rock formation nearby.

Then there were other Western tourists. In Thailand there are a lot of Europeans which means a lot of speedos and a lot of men who are far too old to wear anything in the speedo family, but who wear them without a trace of shame or embarrassment. The Euro factor also means topless women. We only saw a couple but…how can I put this delicately? If you want to go topless bathing in Europe, sure, go for it. It’s your thing, and while it’s not something I would ever be comfortable with in a million years, I get it. You’re all very comfortable with your bodies and sex and all that and don’t have that whole Puritan guilt thing that we’ve got going. I lived in Paris so I got that even in a climate where everyone was fully clothed. But you’re in Thailand where people swim FULLY DRESSED. Ko Samet is by no means a conservative community but it’s still, despite the number of tourists, a THAI community. So the least you can do is tone down the European exhibitionism and put on a bikini top. I mean seriously? Do you have to flaunt your boobs to these poor people who aren’t even comfortable with the idea of bathing suits. It’s just incredibly tacky and culturally ignorant and well sorry to rant but it got on my nerves. At one point these women were swimming topless right next to Thai children. They probably scarred them for life. I know in a lot of places in Thailand topless swimming is illegal and I only wish it had been in Ko Samet. It would have been kind of satisfying to watch those clothing averse ladies get arrested.

Then there’s the Thai people who are totally working the tourists for all they’re worth. It wasn’t as bad as some other beaches I’ve been too (Barcelona in particular was really bad) but there’s definitely a constant stream of people walking past trying to sell fruit or sarongs or henna tattoos or massages or ice cream or…well you get the idea). They don’t really hassle you and they usually move on quickly if you wave your head no, so it’s kind of more entertaining than anything (although that’s easy for me to say after only having to put up with it for a day and a half). It’s just this parade of fruits (mangoes and coconuts and grapefruit to name only a handful) and fabrics (the sarongs are beautiful and cheap, I got one since I didn’t bring a towel and they serve that function wonderfully in a climate as hot as Thailand).

But when I wasn’t people watching or fruit watching or anything watching, I just laid back and watched the ocean, gentle and clear, the horizon only occasionally broken by a boat or jet-ski. Spaced far apart were tinier, rockier islands. When I got too hot to lie down anymore I went swimming. In the light of day it was even better than the night before, even warmer somehow, and so, so clear. I love swimming in the Atlantic. The beaches off Charleston are some of my favorite in the world. But there’s nothing like swimming in clear waters, being able to see your feet kicking beneath you. I could have stayed in that water all day, swimming or treading water or just floating on my back, looking up at the blue sky. From the water I could really get a grasp on the whole island. It was like any tropical island you’ve ever seen in a book or magazine, so perfectly lush and green and hilly and well paradise like, that it’s hard to believe it’s real and not some movie set. But it was real, every beautiful inch of it, every rise and fall in the topography, every palm tree, every burst of color from flowers or birds.

The day was perfect, so simple and easy after the events of the night before. You can go snorkeling or scuba diving or fishing in Ko Samet and I fully plan on doing these things because I will be back many times, but we all agreed we just wanted to rest and lie in the sand and swim all day. Plus it would be nice to work on my tan (what I should have thought was that for someone as pale as me the last thing I needed to do was try to tan underneath a blazing, tropical sun, but alas). Aveeno 45 you suck. I’m sorry. I thought we were cool, but despite dousing myself in you with your supposed promises of sweat proof and water proof, you didn’t seem to protect even an inch of my body from a hellacious sunburn. So you’re dead to me now. I will find myself another sunblock (or a hat…or a burka).

Roasted and revived from the sun and the water (can you be both at once?), we decided to try a bar a couple of beaches down (they all have names and I swear I will know them soon, but right now I have no idea). We took another songthew and were slightly alarmed when we were dropped off in a clearing that appeared to be in the middle of nowhere or to be more precise in the middle of a jungle, but our driver pointed to a path and said to walk. So walk we did, hoping that tigers or snakes or any other lethal animals were not native to this area. When we reached the end of the path we stood on a beautiful, quiet beach, which appeared to be in a kind of bay, the land curving in a semi-circle around the water, with a smallish opening out to the gulf. White yachts sat idly a little ways out, their windows dark. There were still bars and restaurants but this was decidedly less rowdy and back-packery than the beach we were staying at. The music was soft and low and more Jack Johnson than Lady Gaga. The bars were more ice cold beers than buckets of margaritas (oh buckets, so delicious yet so evil). It was exactly my speed for that night, actually exactly more my speed period. Most of the bars spilled out onto the sand, all with creative seating. Some had huge, colorful cushions in circles. Others had elevated platforms with low tables that you sat beside on the floor. We found a bar with a cluster of chairs and a couch around a table lit by candles, right on the beach.

The events of Saturday night were far less exciting than the events of Friday. The only thing of note really was that after about half an hour, we had made friends with an American seated nearby. One of the things I love about traveling in a foreign country, particularly an Asian country, is how fast you make friends with other travelers, especially if they’re American. America is an enormous country and when you’re in it you cling to smaller groupings. You identify yourself by your city or state because the country itself is too big to really be a cohesive thread. But that evaporates when you go abroad. You suddenly feel that America is tiny, that every American you meet is immediately your friend because well, as horribly corny as this sounds, we’re like this big, extended family. You feel this inexplicable closeness and protectiveness toward any other American you come across, that no matter where in the US they’re from, you’re connected to them. You hear an American accent and want to know right away who the person is, where they’re from, what they’re doing in Thailand, their whole life story. And 9 times out of ten, if you’re in a quiet place where there aren’t a lot of people, you will find out who that person is, where they’re from, what they’re doing in Thailand and their whole life story. So we found out all about Solomon (Saul), from Colorado. He joined our table and hung out for the rest of the night, and as difficult and strained as it is to meet new people at home, here it’s as easy as pie. Because being Americans abroad, well it does connect you. You know that there are just these intrinsic things that you have in common, and I’m not sure if I could appreciate that if I hadn’t traveled out of the country. It makes you feel really sentimental toward home and downright patriotic, because home is suddenly so much a part of who you are, ironically because of the fact that you’re not there. When you’re home you forget about America being America. You take it for granted. It’s just this big, abstract notion that isn’t that much a part of your day to day life. But then you go abroad and it’s everything, from your passport to your accent to your penchant for peanut butter and French fries. And you want to share that with other Americans, revel in your very American-ness, and so it makes it really easy to meet people and get to know each other in what feels like seconds.

But I really digress. The point is Saturday night went off without any more thefts or calamities. Sunday morning was spent again at the beach (burn on top of burn, oh my skin loves me right now). Around 2pm we got on the ferry to go to the mainland. As we crossed the water (much slower than we had on the speedboat) I watched the island recede in the distance. The farther we went from it, the more the entire island came into focus, no longer just disparate, magnified parts, but a miniature whole, large and green and hilly against the nearly fluorescent, light filled turquoise waters. It was as beautiful from a distance as it had been up close, the closest thing to paradise I have ever known, perfect in its every imperfection.



And I knew as we grew further and further way, that I would be back, hopefully many more times, in the future armed with the knowledge that a purse is something that should be guarded with one’s life, and that night swimming, while enjoyable, should only be undertaken with extreme precautions and unimpaired judgment.

And that’s when I thought this story was over. Until half an hour into the bus ride back to Bangkok, my friend Choua’s phone rings and the caller asks for me, says he has my wallet and passport. Dun, dun, DUN.

Stay tuned for the even more thrilling conclusion to “Oh Ko Samet.”

I really have no idea what’s wrong with me. I swear I will not end every future blog this way. Just humor me for at least one more post.

oh ko samet (part one)

There are two stories to my weekend spent in Ko Samet, an island in the Gulf of Thailand about three hours south-east of Bangkok. There is the story where I went to paradise, swam in the warmest, bluest waters I've ever swam in, sat on the whitest beaches, drank icy cold Singha beer at a bar so close to the water that my feet were in the sand (see above picture for proof of paradise like nature of said island). And then there is the story of how I went night swimming with my travel buddies and had all of my personal belongings stolen-camera, cell phone, wallet, passport, shoes, medicine, keys, all of it. Although to stop and think of it, there are many more stories than just those. It wouldn't be fair to sum up my weekend with either of them alone. So I will do my best to tell the whole story, the one containing all of the many threads and moments in a weekend that good or bad, could never be called forgettable.

As soon as my last class was done on Friday I was off. As I've written, I'm getting to like my teaching job. Within just one week I've gotten better, more patient. But by the time Friday rolled around I was ready to be off. I'm one of a handful of CIEE participants who are not at a school with another participant. And while this allows me to get to know my Thai teachers and be independent and all that, during the weekend I want to be with my other American teachers. I want to speak English rapidly, not having to pause between each word and repeat myself (I don't mean this to disparage the Thai people I know whose English is lightyears better than my Thai could ever be, it's just that no matter how well someone speaks a second language, unless they are incredibly fluent and have lived in an English speakin country for years, it will never be quite the same as talking to someone who is a native speaker of your own language). So I grabbed my backpack, took off my seersucker knee length skirt and button down navy top (my best teacher attire) and threw on a floaty yellow top and shorts (my best beach attire), and took a bus to meet my friends who live half an hour from me. Together we travled to the Ekami bus station in the east of Bangkok, got there in the middle of a downpour of course, and ran through the rain to catch our bus to Ban Phe (the port that is the jump off point for Ko Samet). It was my first substantial bus ride in Thailand (not counting the orientation bus which was private and just for our group) and I was pleasantly surprised. We were given water and snacks and even blankets. And if I understood Thai there would have been a movie to watch too (although even without understanding Thai, the Thai movies I've seen here seem to all start of funny and slap-sticky and then bizarrely end with people getting riddled with bullets-so a little confusing).

We arrived in Ban Phe around 9pm and within seconds of getting off the bus had already arranged to share a speedboat to the island with another foreigner (an Australian girl), who had been on the same bus. There are ferries that go to Ko Samet during the day but they stop running at 5pm. So your only option to get to the island is to charter a speedboat from one of the many private companies all over the port city. The ferry is only about 1.50 US dollars per person. But after taking the ferry the way back I can say that despite the price increase (the speedboats cost about 1,000 Baht to charter, around 30 US dollars, but if you have at least four people it's only ten dollars per person), I much prefer taking the speedboat. We clamored aboard with all of our stuff and sat down. Minutes later we were zooming across the inky darkness toward Ko Samet. For the first five to ten minutes, we were in near blackness, except for the distant pinpricks of light from the mainland on one side and the distant pinpricks of light from the island. The driver quickly increased the boat's speed and we were flying. I gripped onto my purse (oh the foreshadowing) and backpack for dear life and held on tight to the seat underneath me, as the boat nearly went airborned with every wave we passed. The sound of the engine and the wind combined into one enormous roar that blocked out all other noise. For the first time since I've been in Thailand I was outside and not sweating or sticky or hot. There was wind in my face, my hair was going nuts, and I couldn't stop smiling. Here we were, hurtling through space, pewter gray water on all sides, jet black night sky above, and growing closer and closer the outlines of Ko Samet, black, rolling hills against the night sky. Half way there the driver had to stop to refill the gas tank, and the second we stopped it was like a switch was flipped off. Where moments before it was too noisy to hear my own voice, the second the engine cut off there was the most unbroken silence. Everything grew still. It was one of the few occasions where the phrase "you could hear a pin drop" is applicable. We bobbed silently on the water while the driver poured in the gas, and I took in the whole island in front of us, mountainous and hilly in the middle, tapering off to flat outrcrops of land on the edges. And then we were off again, flying over the water, occasionally passing other speedboats, all the while the island growing larger, the lights growing brighter.

We curved around the outer edge of the island and the scene changed abruptly. Where before there were only scattered lights and darkness, now the beach in front of us was alive with color and light. A row of beach front bars and restaurants sat back a few yards from the shore, there neon signs visible as we grew closer. We could hear music and as my eyes adjusted I could make out firedancers on the shore. I looked for a dock of some kind but there wasn't one in sight. We headed straight for the beach, the jungly, moutainous island rising steeply behind it. And then when we were almost on top of the shore, the driver cut off the engine again, and motioned for us to hop down. And hop down we did, straight into the shallow ocean waters which even at night were unbelievably warm. It is a strange but awesome feeling to arrive on an island in this fashion. As we trode out of the water right up the beach toward the bars and hotels, backpacks and all, I sort of felt part cast away, part James Bond. It's quite a way to make an entrance, I can tell you that. The nice part about the speedboats is they take you directly to the part of the beach where your hotel is, so we only had to walk across the road to get to Naga Bungalows.

The bungalows were interesting, very basic, very rustic, very hippie, backpacker-y, beachy. They were cheap as dirt (12 dollars per person for both nights) and they took care of what we needed. However, even though I'm only 23 it's getting harder and harder for me to stay in "rustic" places. I think my days of hostels are rapidly growing to a close. I like AC. I like private bathrooms with hot water. There's something that comforts me about having a minibar in the room, even though I never use these. Yet I like knowing it's there, same with cable television. I'm spoiled okay, and if it means shelling out some extra money I'll do it. But we barely spent any time in the bungalows so they worked for what we needed and were right next to the beach. But next time I might splurge on somewhere where you don't have to sleep under a mosquito net.

After throwing on dresses the five of us set off toward the beach. Now the game plan was for a mellow night, back home early so we could be well rested for the next day. That was the game plan, and it went well for a while. We found a bar right on the beach, and we sat at a table with our feet in the sand and drank pina coladas and watched the firedancers (who are incredible by the way, I have no idea how they dont burn their faces off, there's so much twirling and throwing and jumping going on with these huge flames, but obviously they know what they're doing). The water spread out in front of us, the color of a nickel underneath the black sky and moon. The waves were soft but there was still a rustle everytime one crashed, more of a soft lapping than breaking. It was the perfect quiet evening. That is until the dancing started. With the dancing came a few, ahem, more drinks, and then came more dancing, and it's sort of a vicious cycle. The bar was crawling with backpackers and we got into conversations with them and with the Thai bartenders and even the firedancers. It wasn't an early, mellow night, but we were having an awesome time. At around 3am (this might make me sound geriatric but it's been a very long time since I stayed out that late) we gathered our things and set off for the hotel, only a little ways down the beach. On the way back someone (can't exactly remember who but knowing my penchant for this I wouldn't be surprised if it was me) suggested a quick swim. The water had been so warm when we got off the speedboat and it was so calm and shallow, what could be the harm in a quick dip before bed. We set our stuff on rocks on the beach and waded in, careful to keep an eye on our things. And the water was as amazing as I thought it would be. Even in the dark you could just feel how clear it was, how the next morning it would be blindingly blue. It was soft in that weird way water can be soft, absolutely one of the best feelings in the world, the air the perfect temperature so that even in wet clothes it wasn't cold. After about ten minutes, someone walked up on the beach and started talking to us. Just a couple of harmless questions, where are you from, etc. and etc. We thought nothing of it and he moved along down the beach after a couple of minutes.

After just a little more swimming (wherein me and my friend Choua collided with an underwater rock and got some nasty scrapes, hers way worse than mine, she seriously looks like she's been attacked by a bob-cat), we walked out of the water to get our things. It was really dark so we thought nothing of it at first when we couldn't immediately find them. The beach where we were was really rocky so it wasn't easy to find the exact rock we had left our stuff on. But after a few minutes of searching, a panicked feeling started to bubble up in my chest. Our things had to be there, they just had to be, but why couldn't we find them? There was no current. We hadn't come out of the water at a different point than we went in. And our stuff was left just feet from the water. Finally I saw a bag in silhouette a few yards away. I went to it and thought it was my gray, cloth bag. When I picked it up I knew right away it wasn't. It was one of my friends. Instead of giving us more hope that we would find the two remaning bags (mine and my friend Lauren's), this sort of dealt the final blow. Our bags had all been very close to each other. If this bag was here, then the other ones would logically be right by. Except they weren't. They were completely and utterly and hopelessly gone. Which we knew right then. Of course we did. But we did what all people do when they have lost very important things. We convinced ourselves we could still find it. We walked up and down the beach, far, far from where we had put our bags down, thinking maybe just maybe they'd turn up. A group of British (or possibly Australian) backpackers we had met in the bar came down to help us. Then the firedancers and the bartenders joined in. It was like some makeshift search party, all of these half dressed people (it was an island after all) walking in circles along the beach, eyes straining in the dark to make out something, anything that could possibly be a purse. When this proved fruitless we went to plan B. Obviously our bags had been taken (almost definitely at the moment the random guy talked to us from the beach, thus distracting us while his cronies ran up behind him and took the bags unseen), but maybe the thiefs had dumped the bags after taking cash and cell phones and cameras. It still was horrible, but if we could at least get our passports back and maybe our credit cards, then it wouldn't be quite as terrible. Hell I would have been estatic to find my shoes (mine were the only pair taken and for whatever reason this just struck me as incredibly cruel, fine take the expensive electronics and cash but do you really need a pair of women's size 7 flip flops?, especially when the owner only brought one pair of shoes that weekend because she was trying to pack light for once in her life). It might have been a half hour or an hour later when we finally gave up. We could come back in the morning, but nothing was turning up that night. And that's when I lost it. I couldn't wrap my head around how I was going to replace everything or even just function without money and a cell phone until I could replace them. Tiny, trivial things like food (once I got back to my town and wasn't with friends) and getting around and just these inconsequntial details you never think about, suddenly became magnified. They loomed monstrously over my head. My apartment keys were in my bag, and my apartment office was closed on Sundays so I couldn't get back to my town till Monday, but how was I going to let my school and coordinator know without a cell phone. The list of things I had to do and the complexities of doing them were just too much. And it was made worse by the fact that this was supposed to be my relaxing, beach weekend. School had been so exhausting and so overwhelming and the weekend was going to be my little paradise get away, so I'd come back refreshed and energized and glowing from the sun (ha, more on that later). And now everything seemed ruined. The items that had been in my purse kept flashing before my eyes, in sharp focus, one after another, on a loop. Boom-nice digital camera that I had gotten for my birthday, boom unlocked international cell phone that wasn't only my phone but my only way to access the internet at my apartment, boom passport which logistically was a nightmare alone but sentimentally was a blow because while I could replace a passport I couldn't replace my stamps and my visas and all the little mementos of my travels thus far. I couldn't stop seeing these things, and each time they flashed before me, they seemed to weigh heavier than before. The shock and confusion and denial were wearing off, and it really really really sucked. There's no mor eloquent way to sum up how it felt. And so I sort of, kind of, just lost it. But that's where this seemingly straightforward horrible story took a turn and become something much more complex and much less just a cautionary tale for stupid backpackers who leave their purses unattended to go night swimming.

And that's where I must leave off for now. I've been in Starbucks at one of Bangkok's fancy malls but must head home before it gets late. I should be able to post again tomorrow from the school. I kind of feel like this is back in the day and I'm writing one of those serialized stories where every chapter ends with someone hanging off a cliff or about to be run over by a train or mauled by a tiger, but maybe the suspence angle will be good for this blog, spice things up a little. So for now I'll leave you with another image of Ko Samet (from google images, obviously not my own because if you've been paying attention my 350 dollar camera is probably being sold for 200 Baht on some street stall right now), which will hopefully clue you in to the fact that despite the shiteous events detailed above, the story of my weekend can't be all bad, because, well, I really was in paradise.

marching bands, the power of coloring and other observations from my first week

So before I start, I just have to set the scene a little. I’m sitting here, on my bed in my apartment at around 4pm. I just had a delicious bowl of Milo cereal (a Nestle brand cereal they sell here which is pretty much Cocoa Puffs). I stopped eating that sugary type cereal at home a couple of years ago (except for the occasional slip when Reeses Puffs or Lucky Charms are calling my name a little too loudly), yet it’s easy when you’re abroad to let the dietary rules slide a bit. My theory is that since everything else is measured differently here (you know, that whole metric system that everyone in the world uses besides the U.S. and which makes it incredibly difficult for Americans to know what the temperature is, or the distance from one thing to another, or even one’s own weight the second you step abroad), well I’ll just assume calories and sugar are measured differently here too. They just don’t count the same. But I digress. I’m sitting on my bed with the AC on full blast (the sun was actually out today and it’s absolutely baking, although I have no idea the exact temperature because again, I’m American, measurements lose all meaning when I leave my country). And while I don’t have any music playing, there is a full soundtrack, because every single afternoon around this time, my little apartment is filled with the sounds of a marching band. If I go onto my little back porch I directly face a large building which I just learned is another school (pretty much across the street from my school). And this school apparently has a world class marching band. Which is lucky because if they sucked I would have to listen to them sucking on a daily basis. But they’re awesome, amazing, incredible even. And their choice in music is even better. Two days ago as I was hanging laundry out to dry, I was serenaded with Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” followed by “Let’s Do the Twist.” As I sit here right they’re warming up and I’ve heard traces of, unbelievably enough, “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” And this band must have been practicing all summer, because despite the fact that it’s the first week of school and that none of these kids could be older than 15 or 16, they sound impeccable. I cannot tell your how surreal or quite frankly, lovely it is, to be here in Thailand and to hear every day, from the comfort of my bed, these American classics interpreted in big, booming, beautiful fashion. One thing I’ve definitely learned so far is that Thai students don’t do anything half ass, and this secondary school band is the perfect example of that. They’d be at home on any college football field in the United States, seriously, like straight out of that movie “Drumline.”

But the point of this blog is not to detail my neighboring marching band, but to talk about the last three days of teaching, i.e. the three days following that hectic, overwhelming, dreaded First Day. So first things first, it got better. Not to sound arrogant, but I got better. I had to. As I mentioned before the first day forced me to throw my theoretical lesson plan out the window and come up with a lesson plan that would actually work in the reality of a Thai primary school. I had second graders the second day, and I will tell you that my first class that day was a dream. They were adorable, well behaved and enthusiastic. I think what really helped was the addition of several new components to my lesson. They told us a lot during orientation that Thai students are insanely competitive. Make anything into a game and they’ll be into it. So I divided the classes up into three teams, and played this flashcard game, where I hold up a flashcard and see if they can name what the picture is in English. Whoever answers correctly gets a point for their team. I bought a ton of simple picture flashcards before I left, and boy did these come in handy. One they’re a great time filler. To get through the whole pack takes about fifteen minutes. And two it was an awesome way for me to find out what the students’ vocab level was, which even in my “worst” classes was always surprisingly high. Way more advanced than my French language level at their age. I’ve used them in every class since my first day, and the kids really respond. Even in my best class there’s usually a couple of kids ignoring me and talking to each other, but for the most part they get really into it, almost too into it in fact. If I show a card everyone knows, there’s just this insanely loud chorus of “TEACHER!” and kids literally bursting out of their seats to get my attention. And pretty much every time a team gets a point all of the kids loudly cheer and high five each other. So pretty adorable.

My last two second grade classes on my second day were a little more challenging, but with every class I felt like I was getting more and more used to the rhythm of a class, and a little better at keeping calm even in the midst of chaos. My best classes, coincidentally were also the ones were the Thai teachers came in and out of the room. Like I said before, Thai kids behave beautifully for their Thai teachers. But the advice I got a lot and which is really important is that the noise and the restlessness are in no way a reflection of me or their enthusiasm for the subject. Because at the end of every class I was always surrounded by a group of kids who wanted hugs or handshakes (I even got several “gifts” like a random candy and a Winnie the Pooh post-it), sometimes even by kids who had been the “bad” ones during class. I think the truth is that the kids are very tightly scheduled during the day, they don’t get recess, and so they seize their “English Conversation” class (a class they’re not graded in by the way) as a time to just have fun. And I can’t really blame them. The oldest I’ve taught are only ten after all.

Which brings me to day 3. Fourth grade. I was supposed to teach four classes, but only ended up teaching one (which was not the class I was supposed to be teaching that hour by the way). I was also warned that it’s not too uncommon to go to a class and be told that the class has something else to do that day (ie a trip to the library, or play rehearsal or an assembly). There’s this thing called “Thai Time” which I think bleeds into a lot of life here. Basically it means that punctuality and rigidity aren’t really all that valued. If something is late or disrupted or changed Thai people don’t get worked up about it. Getting angry or upset is a no-no in Thai society, so really a rule of life here is to go with the flow. So go with the flow I did. And when I accidentally taught the wrong class (it’s so confusing knowing which room is which, all the numbers are in Thai!) the teacher (my coordinator actually) didn’t seem to care at all. She just told me no big deal and that I’d teach the right class next week. In American schools I have a feeling that might not go over as well. Just a hunch. The class I did teach was a little interesting. Fourth grade is old enough to sort of be over the novelty of learning English. And there was already that noticeable group of “cool” kids who sat at the back and outright ignored me. You know the ones, mostly boys, shirts casually untucked, looks of boredom on their faces. I haven’t really experienced that in any of the other grades but I think 4th grade is about when the first traces of that start. Which makes me really happy I’m not teaching secondary school.

Which brings me to today, first grade. I was kind of dreading first grade. I just assumed their English level would be so low it would be really hard for me to communicate with them and that as six/seven year olds they’d be a little hard to control. But one important thing happened before I started today. I slept. I slept through the night. Which is normally not an issue for me. But since literally the day I got to Bangkok I’ve been sick. It started as a throat thing. I got an antibiotic. When the throat thing started getting better the day I took the first antibiotic, I assumed it was just a cold and that I didn’t need to continue the antibiotics until the end. Stupid, stupid move. Because apparently the throat thing was not just a cold. A few days later it came back with a vengeance and was now not only a throat thing but a chest thing. I lost my voice last weekend. And Sunday night the coughing got bad. So bad I woke up constantly, coughing so hard I ended up gagging. You know the kind of cough. The one that makes you sore. The one where you’re bent over and sweaty by the end of a particularly nasty coughing fit, gasping for air. It was not pleasant. And so yesterday evening my coordinator took me to the hospital (Thai people go to the hospital to see doctors, even if it’s for something like a sore throat). My doctor confirmed what I suspected. I had a throat infection which didn’t clear up because I needed antibiotics and so without the antibiotics it started creeping its way into my chest, thus producing the terrible, sleep depriving cough. So now you know my full medical history. The point is I got drugs, lots of them. An antibiotic, two different pill form cough tablets, and one little bottle of liquid cough syrup. All of these prescription, all of them paid for without insurance, all of them amounting to a grand total of about fifteen US dollars. Sigh.

So I medicated up last night and actually slept through the entire night. It was glorious. I woke up and felt so much better than I had in days. I didn’t realize how exhausted and run down I’d been all week until I actually got a full night’s sleep and remembered what not being exhausted felt like. And the energy level made teaching a lot easier. That and the fact that my first graders are probably the cutest things on the planet. I don’t remember being that tiny in first grade! But they’re tiny, just babies practically. And they are so well behaved (well except for my last class of the day but oh well, can’t win ‘em all). But my first two classes were angels. They were so enthusiastic and actually knew a lot of English vocab and just so tiny and cute (I can’t get over it!). One girl in my second class was seriously miniature. The smallest one in the grade by far. But she was smart as a whip and knew every answer. She was better at the flashcard vocab than some of the fourth graders. Their ability to string together sentences is a little weaker. It took me a while but I finally realized that the random ones coming up to me and speaking in Thai were asking to go the bathroom. Luckily I figured it out and didn’t end up with a class full of Thai children with nearly exploding bladders. And they bow after they ask permission! So freaking cute.

But the best part of today was learning the power of coloring. Now American children love coloring too. I remember this from when I was little. I’ve seen it with my babysitting. But Thai children, like I’ve mentioned before, are very exact. They use rulers for everything. They’re all little perfectionists and slight control freaks. It sort of makes me wonder why Thailand hasn’t taken over the world by now.

I figured I needed something a little simpler for first graders so I got copies made of a worksheet with a black and white American flag that can be colored in. I hung up an actual flag and then asked them to color. And in my first two classes (that third one was tricky) there was immediate silence. Every one of these kids hurriedly and very seriously set to work, coloring in the most perfect, exact American flags you have ever seen. Ten minutes went by and half the class has only finished one red line. The other half was meticulously coloring in blue around the stars. Not a single color outside of the lines, I can tell you that. And then to see their little faces light up when I told them they were doing it right. Well maybe it’s a little early to be biased, but I officially love my first graders. This might all change when I teach my grade 1, section 4 class tomorrow which all of the Thai teachers have warned me about and call the “monkey class,” but for now I’m just happy to have had a good day. It wasn’t perfect. Like I’ve alluded to my third class was kind of wild. But having energy made an enormous difference.

So right now, with the marching band playing in the background, a good day behind me, and another hopefully restful night’s sleep ahead, I can say that I’m feeling good. This first week teaching was really hard, possibly one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. There were times when I wanted to run screaming, when I couldn’t imagine dealing with these insane children for 5 months. But the times when I felt okay, when I really thought I could be good at this and actually teach these kids some English, well those just seem to matter a lot more.
So those are my first four days. I probably won’t post again until at least Sunday because I’m going to Ko Samet this weekend!!! It’s an island about three hours from here and it’s supposed to be beautiful. A bunch of us from CIEE are going and I cannot wait to finally set foot on a Thai beach. So bye for now. Lots of love from Thailand :)