An Epic Week: August 3-8, 2009

This week was monumental in the world of me—and dare I say of those whose paths I crossed. I don’t know if I can begin to break it all down but I’ll try. Last week was the perfect time to be out of the office because from Monday to Friday, the SAO was busy registering candidates and voters for the local election, which will take place on September 6. It’s kind of like the local equivalent to our presidential election—in the sense that this particular election (for village council members and SAO executive leaders) happens every 4 years, is very publicized, and it’s largely competitive. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I am obligated to stay out of all election-related activities and discussions. What a better time, then, to go out into the community and spend more time with villagers. Plus, the environment project needed a solid lift-off. My 300 surveys were not going to disperse themselves! And so, the week went a little something like this:

Monday:
Morning: Called Village Headmen from the 11 villages to figure out a good time to visit each in order to disperse environment surveys and tell them about the project.
Mid-Morning: Ended up going into the office for a few hours to check email, tell my counterpart my plans for the week, and talk with some villagers about the project.
Early Afternoon: Set out to meet with the first Village Headman (who happens to be a woman) and ended up staying at her house for a few hours chatting and eating fruit—pretty standard.
Early Evening: Met with the ‘Gaam Laan’ (the person elected to be the leader of all the Village Headmen) to tell him about the project and give him surveys.
Evening: Re-grouped, showered, and ate dinner with my neighbors—the usual routine. Worked on homework later on and went to bed.

Tuesday
Morning-Late Afternoon: Met daycare and primary school teachers at one of the 4 schools/daycares in the area. Then, I randomly stumbled upon a middle school science camp in-progress of which, I was quickly roped into and beckoned to “sing song” (famous last words of every Thai person I know) of which I countered with a pretty awesome version of the classic ‘Banana Song’. Then, I just sort of faded into the background the rest of the time—enjoying a delicious lunch and rich conversation with many teachers. Somewhere in the midst of all this, I vaguely remember explaining SPSS Statistical Analysis Software to my Thai tutor (who was one of the teachers at the camp)—Not an easy thing to do in Thai!
Early Evening: Met with another Village Headman. 3 down and 8 to go at this point.
Evening: Made a scrumptious red curry and had a feast with my neighbors. Then, the usual: shower, homework, Dexter maybe? A phone call here and there.

Wednesday:
Morning- Early Afternoon: Biked to the daycare located at the temple in my village to help out and get to know the daycare teachers better. Washed dished, served lunch, and entertained the munchkins.
Afternoon-Early Evening: Biked my way to 4 villages, met with Headmen, and had some great conversations with villagers of whom I wasn’t acquainted with yet. I ended up finding out some important facts about the different villages. Like, for instance, in the past few years one village had training on organic farming and had implemented techniques before. But, for some reason they thought these methods were expensive and unsustainable. As a result, the majority recently abandoned organic methods and went back to chemical pesticide use. Very interesting and insightful!

I have to pause here to comment on the magnitude of diversity that exists within my Sub-District. There are 11 villages total and at first glimpse, every villager seems to have a very similar, if not the same, livelihood and mind frame. Everyone wakes up at the crack of dawn, plants and harvests rice, goes to the temple, eats rice with 3 meals a day, wears the same color shirt every day, and many go throughout the day in the very same fashion. However, last week, I encountered this very eye-opening experience, which led me to infer that there exists considerable diversity amongst villages and within. I think there is this idea about collectivism that people in ‘collective’ societies all do the same, act the same, think the same, and therefore do not possess a sense of individuality. Perhaps, it’s just my idea. And in many ways people are homogenous; they do live in a ‘collective’ model though, really it’s only to a certain degree. There are still important distinctions between people. Like every human being, people in collective societies still have different ways of thinking and being at any given moment. People react and have differing opinions here too. Not everyone conceives their world to be the same as their neighbors either. That’s part of the beauty of humanity: tapping into the infinite possibilities though which to experience life. Anyways, I digress. The main point of that was that I encountered so many different opinions and fleeting ideas when I was talking to villagers about environmental issues and organic farming that I now can grasp a deeper understanding of the humanity here. Same, same but different.
Evening: Met with the Village Headman in my own village. Then, I ventured out more into my neighborhood and handed out some extra surveys to my neighbors. I got home and before long, I hit the pillow hard, feeling the fatigue through my bones.

Thursday:
Morning-Early Afternoon: Set out early to another daycare—this time at another temple about 7km away. The daycare happened to be short staffed on this particular day with 2 teachers and about 30 children. So, I was compelled to be more engaged with the kids activities and overall regulating. This haphazard circumstance led to a short-lived—maybe 20 minutes—attempt at teaching random English words to toddlers who barely even speak Thai. Actually some only speak Khmer. It wasn’t my original idea but the teachers seemed to be really excited about it. I’ve found that Thai people, in general, are very enthusiastic about English. This activity led to another even more interesting and amusing event in which, I was given a stack of blank white paper with a magic marker and asked to draw pictures for the children; all of them. I’m no artist and I wouldn’t doubt a 4-year-old could draw a better picture than I could. Even so, my creative juices happened to be flowing like a raging river in that particular instance and I have to say I cranked out some pretty fun pictures. It was something definitely out of the norm for the kids and I think they enjoyed it. Given it was just the 3 of us, I had more time in the afternoon to talk to the teacher who were telling me about the problems at the daycares and schools. The bottom line was that they feel overwhelmed because children are not getting adequate care at home and when they come to school, they have a flood of needs to be addressed. Many of the very young children are looked after by their grandparents while their parents go off to work in Bangkok and other places. When they come to preschool, they often learn for the first time how to use the bathroom properly, how to brush their teeth, wash their hands, eat a balanced meal, and otherwise basic routines. This often leaves a huge burden on teachers. The teachers seem to love their jobs but feel very overwhelmed by it all. I’ve known that worker migration is prevalent in this area for a while now. When I went to the health clinic, I witnessed first-hand the problems that arise from leaving children with grandparents or older relatives. Many of them don’t have the means or the energy to take care of little kids, even though they give them love just the same. Heavy. I suggested that maybe we could try to get some of the middle-schoolers to come and have story time once a week. Possibly even start a group. I know one other Volunteer from 120 who came up with this project idea and others have tried it. Seems to be helpful to the teachers and good for the kids. So, I planted the seed just the same. Whenever people tell me about their problems or of those in the community, I instinctively start thinking of ways to address them. I’m kind of that way, in general. It was a start.
Mid-Afternoon: Trekked on over to the 3 nearby villages and sat around with villagers for a bit in each village to talk about the environmental surveys and organic fertilizers. We also put a dent in a bowl of Rambutan too.
Later Afternoon: Made my way back to the office where my counterpart was waiting for me. From there we visited the two local recycling dealers located in the District, about 6 km away. This was a basic assessment of the local recycling resources/outlets to help us organize upcoming community/school recycling activities. Talking to the first dealer, we got the name of a teacher who already does a recycling project at the district middle school. So, once we were done with the dealers, we were hot on the trail of this teacher. By this time it was after 4 PM but we decided to take a chance to see if she was still at school. Even though, I was in no riap roy condition to be at a school or meeting this teacher—hello, I had been riding around on my bike all day—we got lucky and tracked her down. The school is huge so this was really fortunate. She was really helpful and gave us some tips on how to go about setting up a project at school. All the more, she agreed to come by when we set up an activity day at one of the schools and share her knowledge. Naturally, I was very pleased with this whole random occurrence. I’ve noticed that’s kind of the way things happen here—very arbitrarily. Just like I recently saw a friend quote John Lennon’s words, “life happens when you’re busy making other plans.” It’s so very true.
Evening: Went to the market with my counterpart to relish in the productive day and stock up on fruit and goodies. I then went home and, once again, passed out relatively early.

Friday
Morning-Early Afternoon: Saving the farthest village for last, I enjoyed a good 45 minute ride to village 9. I met up with the Village Headman at his assistant’s house. We drank fresh coconut juice and talked about the surveys, rice farming, the ghost that lives in my house, and President Obama. Every now and then I jotted down new Khmer words, which seem to be popping up in every conversation I have nowadays. Only in Thailand could this all happen at once! I ended up staying at the Assistant Village Headman’s house until 2 PM; long after the Headman had left to plant rice. His wife happens to be the leader of the area women’s group so, they were definitely important people to know. Her and her daughters started cooking lunch at 10:30 AM which, I thought was a bit unusual since we wouldn’t probably eat until 12:30-1 PM. Well, turns out they ended up going out and butchering a chicken and slow cooking it so we could eat it with noodles. Meanwhile, her other daughter had gone to the market (a good 16km away) to get more fresh fruit...for me. Talk about killing the fatted calf! Thais sense of hospitality and overall generosity never ceases to amaze me! The noodles were amazing too.
Afternoon: On my way back to the office, I passed through the remaining two villages where I didn’t get the opportunity to have quite the chats I’d had in other villages because there was a funeral going on at one and the other was significantly desolate since everyone was planting rice. Nonetheless, I delivered and briefly explained the surveys.
Late Afternoon: Regrouped at the office to touch base with my counterpart and check my email. The power ended up going out around 4 PM and I took it as a sign it was time to go home.
Early Evening: When I got home I immediately crashed and woke up around 7PM with a fever and terrible stomach pangs. Apparently the weight of the week was toppling over on me. So I took some medicine and called it a night.

Saturday
Mid-Morning: Having only halfway recovered from the night before I decided to give myself a complete day of rest. However, the universe had other plans in mind. After being incessantly summoned to open my door and come out and play by 10 + little rascals, I finally came to the door to deliver the news that P Heidi was in no shape to play today. Still determined, they hung around my yard for a good 2 hours after that and played with my jump rope—if I don’t use it, somebody ought to be, right? So, since I was up and electing to lock myself inside for the time-being, I took the opportunity to tackle my graduate portfolio and finish it once and for all. By the way, if all goes to plan, I will complete my degree by the end of the month! Very exciting. I ended up working on it intermittently all day.
Mid-Afternoon: After the kids left, I heard a bunch of voices and splashing from outside. Then, a man was knocking at my door. Since I didn’t know what was going on, I scooted my chair to the tinted windows that sit above my front door to catch a peek at who it was. I saw my landlord with 3 of his cronies, one of which was completely immersed in my giant earthen water jar. Strange and yes, comical. I opened the door to find that the immersed man was removing the water from the jar so they could move it. The jar had been slowly sinking into the ground and I’m guessing if it stayed that way, it might disappear or have a dramatic demise in a matter of months. I watched as these beanpole-thin Thai men, wearing nothing but what might be considered loincloth, move the jar onto a platform of wood. When they were done with that, my landlord turns to me and nonchalantly says, “So, I hear you’ve been wanting to make a compost bin.” (I’ve only been trying to do this on my own for weeks now!) He continues, “ Oh yeah, we have one at the school, they’re easy to make...I have this old wood laying around, we can make it right now.” I excitedly ran into the house and pulled out a couple model pictures to give them a visual of what I wanted. Then, I watched as they almost effortlessly constructed my bin. After about 10 minutes, I went inside to cut up some mangoes and by the time I was done they had finished. Poof! My very own compost bin! Before we could sit down, take a load off, and eat some mangoes together, my landlord was on his motorbike explaining to me they had to go to the rice field, to drink whiskey. What a guy! I at least managed to get him to take the mangoes with him.

The compost bin-making extravaganza really was the pinnacle of the day and an appropriate closer of this very epic week. It was definitely a week a full of many important strides. Who knows what the following weeks, months, and year will bring so, for the time-being, I’ll continue to make plans, plant seeds, and embrace whatever comes my way. Hopefully, I will have more weeks like this one!