The beauty of children is that they need no language to communicate. They're not fully socialized and bound by the cultural norms around them, their minds almost as innocent as can be. They speak in their own language, a language that's universal, one that can be understood by adults and children alike. My host cousin Ooeeng is my best friend here and we play together all the time. Last night before my final host family thank you dinner we played frog, where we hopped around on the floorboards, making sure only to hop on every second one. She followed me as I hopped around in my authentic Thai dress, consisting of burgundy fisherman's pants and a thin wool beige shirt, an elephant embroidered across the chest. I don't sweat much anymore, a remarkable feat in and of itself, considering my dad's genes have made it physically possible for me to dump any and all liquid from my body at the tip of the thermostat. We headed off to the dinner - our Suzuki needing to be jumpstarted, rattling and wheezing the entire way - and she climbed into the front seat with me. We played the "let's poke Leo's cheeks to make him into a fish" game, her squealing with delight each time she managed to make my lips pursed. "You have a big nose!" she said in Thai as she proceeded to poke it, not believing it was real. She's cute, so much so to the point that even when she farted she still was. Alright, well maybe not, but when she coyly said "fart," ("dohd."), it was. I know the word "fart" is in no way cute, just go with it.
We got to the dinner and sat down among the 175 other people there (33 students + all of their families), waiters serving us a variety of sticky rice, naam preeg awn (my favorite food here), fried chicken, and other authentic dishes. We gobbled the food, had some great awkward moments that involved authentic Thai dancing (some families taught their host students dances which were done with surprising skill - props to Britnee and Sam for getting up on stage by themselves). It was an all around good night, ending with a horrible rendition of a classic Thai song that all of us butchered, slaughtered, and posted on the meat hooks to let the flies have at. It was all in good fun though, and we presented our host mothers with traditional Thai flowers, which made some of the moms cry in the crowd. It really does feel like we've undergone some sped-up child development; when we got here we were like two-year-olds, unable to speak a lick of Thai and our mothers doting on our every word. Now it's like we're 18, moving out of the house and into the dorms, able to speak Thai (well, kind of - I'd classify it as being able to not have to rely on just hand gestures anymore) and communicate with the world.
So tomorrow, we move in, out from our host families and in with the new. Tomorrow's expected to be a fairly packed day, with Thai massages, getting situated in our rooms, and a solid welcoming party. Believe me, I'm sure it'll be a night worth blogging about.
This past week has been everything but slow-paced, hence the lack of posting. I've had so many things that I want to sit down and write about, but can't find the time to. I'll give a brief rundown of the week as a whole:
1. Four nights ago, I was absolutely worn out from the day, my eyes shutting and head bobbing as I brush my teeth for bed. It was 11:30, wayy past my bedtime, and my host father walked in and started rattling off in Thai. "What? Hospital?" I asked back, unable to catch everything he had said. He repeated it back to me, slower this time, and I understood the words, but what he meant, I had no idea. "You come with Paw and Mae to the hospital?" "Uhhh...go to bed?" I asked in Thai, pointing to my bedroom door. "Mai chai!" ("Not Right!", roughly) my host mom piped in, sticking her head through the bathroom door. It wasn't worth fighting. I threw on some athletic shorts and an undershirt and, half asleep, piled into the car with the two of them. We whizzed for a half-hour past rural rice fields, the crickets chirping softly into the black night, thoughts of me calling Ajaan at two in the morning to say that my family had abandoned me in Burma running fresh through my mind. We finally pulled into the hospital in which my parents both work, and my mom went inside, apparently manning the nurse night shift. My paw waved me out of the car and into the security booth, which turns out he is the head of for the hospital. After he milled around with some papers, he waved me back to the car and we drove home. Why the hell I went with them, I still don't know. Maybe my paw has narcolepsy. That's probably a legit theory because he spontaneously falls asleep on the living room floor every day, sitting upright with his legs crossed.
2. I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but geckos line the walls here. Honestly, everywhere you turn there's a gecko skittering up the wall, trying to chase after some mosquito or fly. They get manage to get everywhere you could possibly imagine. I have two of them that come to join me in the shower every morning and a tail-less one that habitually lives in my room - I named him Ned. I suppose it's better than centipedes or millipedes, the latter of which decided to join me as well in the shower a few days ago. They have other things here too, some of which I got to know really personally:
3. Again, two nights ago, it was late at night, and I was running on empty. I managed to retire witthout having any spontaneous field trips to the hospital, and slapped the light off as I lied down on my mattress. I had the fan blowing on high, and actually was slightly cold for once, and so I grabbed my Mickey Mouse comforter and pulled it up over me. With it though, came something slithering, slimy, and straight up my boxer shorts. I jumped no less than eight feet, literally bounding to the top of my desk as it fell out into my pitch black room, my heart pounding with adrenaline as I was in shock at the prospect that my boys were in the direct line of fire of a snake. I flicked on the lights. It was nowhere to be seen. I scanned the room, looking under my mattress, sheets, pillow, until I spotted a black, slick tail poking out from my backpack. I kicked my bag over and it came skittering out: it was a jet black lizard with yellow stripes, slimy as can be and just shy of a foot long. Now I, not the most pleased with his surprise entrance into my life, chased him around the room, specific choice words echoing out of my window into the night. I chased him into my dresser, over of my clothes, under my mattress, and finally out of my room, his body just barely escaping beneath the crack in my door. If there's ever been any time in my life where I've actually come close to shitting my pants, this was it.
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