Yesterday afternoon consisted of chilling out in my living room doing nothing. Unless you count looking through the GRE book as something. But I wasn't actually studying it I was more so scoffing at the vocabuary we're expected to know and laughing while I was looking at the math section because I didn't have the energy to cry. Thankfully, my pretending to be diligent was interrupted by a surprise visit.

Outside my house I heard kids calling my name and I walked outside to see 5 of the kids from site sitting in the back of a pick up truck. They said to me, "Come on! Let's go!" To which I sortof grinned and paused, "Where?" And they said, "Camping! Hurry up! Get in!" and I paused and said, "No, I can't, I don't have anything." Then my friend Dtii came out of the driver's seat and said, "Quickly, pack up your bag and let's go." This is classic Thai. There are no plans for anything. And if there are, they're for the immediate future. I had no responsibilties to tend to, so I just threw a bag together as fast as I could, forgetting to bring anything warm like a blanket or even a hoody. It was nice to hang out with the handful of kids and staff off site. The kids really don't get out that often, so it was nice to see them enjoying themselves setting up a tent, setting up a fire and eating fish they caught in the lake.

After the kids went to sleep, the adults all had some whiskey and club soda. I decided that I'd only be able to tolerate the chilly night time if I was at least warm on the inside, so I drank twice as much as everyone else. Dtii wanted to go into civilization for some ice, but the pick up's back tire was caught in some damp soil. So I pushed it from behind while he accelerated and as soon as the car made it onto the concrete, I fell face first into the mud. Not too much of a problem, because there was a lake to wash off in right there. And sure, it was a little cold, but I had had just enough whiskey that I didn't care. In fact, I had enough whiskey that I didn't care when they put pig's intestine's and buffalo skin onto the grill. No problem whatsoever.

And the sleeping hours? There were two of them. I woke up before sunrise to the sound of my teeth chattering, but I actually wasn't tired. I decided to walk around to stay warm and I got to watch the sunrise. Unfortunately, I was so caught up trying to be warm that I forgot to take a picture. And now, I'm going to bed again.

It’s been rainy season for about three months now, I reckon. The days normally have at least a few hours of dry periods, but today it’s just been non-stop pouring. It’s a bit of a pisser, to be frank.

On the other hand, it’s a Sunday and I wasn’t asked to do anything at work today other than to come into the centre for a few hours to help kids with their homework. I’ve been on my own volition since 1:00 PM. It’s been getting a little colder at night. Right now, for example, I’m wearing a hoody and jeans and I still feel a little bit nippy. It’s also just past 6PM and the sun has already set. This reminds me of what it’s going to be like in October in New York. Hopefully it won’t be rainy, but it’ll be dark early in the day and it’ll be cold; probably really cold compared to Mae Sai.

Since late June I’ve been telling everyone at the centre that I’ll be going home in three months. I only stopped saying “three months” yesterday, now that it’s less than two months that I’ll be back in New York. I’m ready to go back. I miss a lot of people and things. I have an 8 month old nephew who can almost walk now and I’ve never met him.
On the other hand, I’m not looking forward to sitting in front of a computer searching on craigslist for work; sending resumes and cover letters to hundreds of places a week and never hearing back from any of them. Not having work sucks. I mean, too much work sucks too, but it feels good to be wanted and needed somewhere.

Leaving after 10 months will be strange. I’m not sure it’ll be so easy to say bye to a culture, language and so many people I’ve gotten to know this year. I’m not sure I’ll be done with Mae Sai for the rest of my life.

My last post was about how the kids on site needed to find a way to get money for their uniforms....And everyone, thank you for offering to pitch in their own savings for this project, it's really really appreciated. By the way, we accept donations for our various projects on our newly modified website at www.depdc.org. Though I recommend donating through this organization called www.friendsofthaidaughters.org because they endorse our projects from the states which means your donation is tax deductable.

I want the kids to have their uniforms, but at the same time, for once, I'd like for them to not feel like a charity case. The NGO can take care of them up until the point that they graduate, and then they're on their own. So many of them suffer from self esteem problems, and I think it'd be so good for them if they were given the skills to earn the money for their own uniforms. The joke of a school I teach with is in serious need of improvement. Scratch that, there needs to be a renaissance. My classes need to meet more than twice a week and I wish I had less than 130 students to be responsible for. It doesn't matter how old the kids are, they all think similarly. They're not confident to think independantly. They'll know the words "I," "like, " "want," "have" "go" and various names of animals, places and fruits, but they are absolutely terrified to string a sentence together with all of those words out loud.

We had visitors come last week and they planted a small garden for us. Dayk tagged along with them, but at some point he whipped out a block of wood and a knife and started carving away. 15 minutes later he produced a model elephant. I was shocked. Why hasn't he been doing something like that every day? This is the kid that the staff gave up on. He was giving teachers in government school problems and so they pulled him out so now he goes to the school on site for hilltribe minortieis and illegal immigrants from Burma. I explained to him that if he made enough of these toy animals he could sell them in a market.

Another volunteer, Mel, introduced me to this new NGO in Mae Sai, hidden a little more into the mountains than ours. I was completely blown away. The kids made their own homes out of mud. They built their own plumbing system and bathroom, designed so that their water doesn't go to waste; it all goes straight into their fruit and vegetable garden. They design lamps made out of bamboo and make various other handicrafts including furniture and jewelry. They study English and Chinese every day in addition to Thai and other book studies. Here's my favorite part: they generate their own electricity with the windmill they made themselves. And they did all of this by reading various manuals.

Now granted, these people have a much smaller group of people to work with. They put a cap on the number of people they let in: 25, no more. We have more than 300 kids at The Half Day School alone and we're grossly understaffed...but that doesn't mean that more couldn't be done...I already voiced my complaints about classes not meeting enough for the Half Day School and there being too many of them in one classroom. They're finally adding on more days to the curriculum next term. The volunteers talked to the directing team about our neighboring NGO; the younger and better one. And the lack of vocational training offered here at our NGO. It was so relieving to see the kids doing something other than making candy this afternoon. There were kids learning to crochet in one room, kids using the weaving machines in the other and a group being coached in soccer. There was a group of about 10 of them sitting with the centre's handiman, carving away at pieces of wood making various toy models of elephants. I hope they'll have the opportunity to gloss them and paint them so that they become more marketable. It'd be so nice if they could fund their project with cash that they earn.

The kids had a soccer competition on Wednesday. It was the first time I’d ever gone….they practice every day on site, but this was the first competition I had seen since coming here. They don’t have that many chances to compete. Cindy asked me on my first day if I could coach the young kids soccer. Boy oh boy am I glad I didn't agree to that because that would have been really embarrassing. Because those guys are incredible. They're short, have thighs of steel and can river dance around a soccer ball like no one else I know. I won't even play with the kids under 10 because they're still way more coordinated than I am. I'm happy to watch, thanks.
What sortof killed me on Wednesday was watching our team go onto the field wearing the stock jerseys with holes in them when the government school kids came out wearing immaculate glossy blue uniforms. Dayk 's sole fell out from under his shoe in the middle of the game. He panicked, quickly untied his laces and and shouted to his friends in the bleachers, "Quick! Throw me your shoes!" It felt so uncomfortable to watch. Then a staff member turned to me and asked me about how we could raise money for the kids' uniforms. It might be a new project of sorts to get the kids to sell expensive candy on the streets of Mae Sai. Just like inner city kids in the subways of new york. Maybe.

After having written a blog entry lamenting about work and my dog, I immediately jumped on my motorbike and rode to Chiang Rai. It was refreshing to see a group of graduates from the organization’s centre and to catch up with some people I hadn’t seen in a while. Half of these guys living at this new centre in Chiang Rai were in that immersion night class I taught my first couple of months of being in Thailand. I also know for a fact that these guys aren’t particularly happy in their new environment in Chiang Rai. They’re swamped with random work and they miss Mae Sai and all of their friends from home.
One of the reasons I had come up there was to help them with their English homework. A staff member living on site asked me that while I looked for other volunteers to live on the centre in Chiang Rai, I just come up to visit every now and then to see how they were doing. So in the midst of helping one girl with her homework, it was non-chalantly brought up that her mother had died last week.

This was one of the girls from that night class from way back. One of the more stellar, modest and dedicated students I’ve ever had, and thus, one of my favorites, though I know you’re not supposed to have any of those. And I was shocked for her. “What?” I asked her, and she just fixed her posture and expanded her smile, opening her mouth to display her pearly whites. “Yes, last week.” And this was still a seemingly non-issue, for her and all of her friends in the room. It’s very Thai to have minimal displays of emotion…and this is awkward because I’m not Thai and I don’t know how to brush off pieces of information like that so casually. So for a few seconds I looked at her with my eyebrows knit in sympathy and remorse, not knowing what I was supposed to say. “No one told you?” she asked me gently. I shook my head and said, “No.” And after a few seconds of my looking at her silently, she let out a forced chuckle and said, “Jamie, stop it. I don’t want to cry.” And her eyes started watering though she was still smiling.

Of all the things I have come to learn, understand and appreciate about Thai culture, I am perpetually mind boggled by the whole concept of death and how it is dealt with in these parts. I’ve managed to make an ass of myself on numerous occasions while confronted with these issues. Some of you might recall that I once crashed a funeral with my motorbike. For the same occasion, I was invited to eat dinner by a one of the bereaved, a person whom I had never met. Then this one time I made an ass of myself speaking to a staff member over lunch. He had asked me about my family life; how many siblings I had and what they all did, etc. Then he told me about his older sister having passed away the year before…and where I come from this is normally where the other person offers their condolences, and so I did that but I really offended him. “Just don’t say that sortof thing to a Thai person,” was his advice to me. Maggie once told me how one of her classes was interrupted with news of one of the kids’ mothers dying. Her classmates’ reaction to the prospect of attending a funeral was similar to my reaction to someone giving me tickets to a U2 concert.

In the case of this 16 year old girl, whom I remember had already lost a father a few years ago, I couldn’t help but display sympathy for her. I didn’t want to cross any cultural boundaries, putting her on the spot with my reaction in front of her friends so she wouldn’t be able to save face…and I didn’t want her to think I didn’t care….having decided there was nothing appropriate to really say or do I just patted her on the shoulder and told her, “If you ever want to talk about it, let me know.” And I let her change the subject.

Later on that night I met up with a staff member, Dtii, a pretty good friend of mine now, and asked him if he knew about Gnew’s mother, and he said “Yeah, yeah! I went to the funeral.” I asked him what happened to her and he paused for a few seconds, looking away from his bowl of noodles and said, “I don’t know,” and he dipped his spoon into his bowl again. I couldn’t just drop it, for whatever reason, and I insisted on getting an explanation from him: Why is it soo wrong to be upset in front of people in this country? Yes, he’s Thai, but he’s also a friend, and I felt comfortable enough asking….He attempted to give me a very concrete answer, dropping his spoon into his bowl and clasping his hands while looking up at the ceiling, “You see, crying is like a disgr-…no..it’s just important to –no…you have to let people know that you’re str-. No.. you know what, I can’t explain it, I’m sorry.” I was actually amused at this response and decided at that point to just drop it. Some things are just the way they are and there’s no point trying to understand “why,” I guess. In this particular case, I really don’t get it and I’m pretty sure I never will. I'll stumble through the rest of my term here being awkard in all of those situations, not really sure what appropriate behavior is supposed to be.