The Wilting Wildflower

I am convinced my time here in Thailand, particularly at Wildflower, is aging me prematurely. I now have a heat rash on my stomach, a rash from the weed expedition on Monday covers my forearms, I am in a perpetual state of heat exhaustion, and the kids here keep referring to me as an “old foreigner” in Thai. Can you imagine anything more demoralizing? Today was the middle day of our time in Immersion and it was interminable. Every minute seemed to take twenty to pass, particularly during our adventure babysitting. Our day began as all the others have (up early, water garden, sit around for thirty minutes, eat, sit around for thirty minutes, etc.).

We got started with the actual work portion of our day around 8:10 am this morning when we were once again sent to the inner circular plot of land to weed by hand. After two hours and one break, we decided the exercise was pointless as there were more weeds than flowers (particularly in the portion we had left) and so the guys took our two hoes and ground up the weeds and earth and Vanessa and I followed, plucking the weeds out and throwing them in a large trash barrel for compost later. This turned out to be a much more effective and time-efficient method and we were able to finish the project on time and will not have to continue on it tomorrow. (Although there is a rumor there will be more weeding tomorrow in the greenhouse…my poor hands!)

Lunch was a similar affair to the other meals here at Wildflower, which I will take a moment now to expound upon. In a word, the food sucks. Every meal consists of steamed rice and a “soup” of some sort which is really just a kettle of water, sans spices, and veggies boiled until they’re dead. Unfortunately, native veggies, which Wildflower grows itself, are often very bitter. My plate usually consists of a generous helping of plain rice and three spoonfuls (eating sized spoonfuls) of the soup, carefully drained of the liquid. Sometimes there is meat added to the soup as well; today’s choice was chicken feet (EW!!!). Thank goodness I packed a small loaf of bread (I eat two slices each morning) and some peanut butter granola bars (Vanessa and I eat one each afternoon). We have all taken to daydreaming about good food now and have plans to eat at a steak restaurant in Chiang Mai when we return (a steak, baked potato, and sourdough roll sound amazing!) with a good dose of pad see ew the next day.

After lunch, we had English lessons with the men, Panong, and Napay again. The lessons went well for all the groups and while it is enjoyable teaching someone something new, I will look forward to the end of teaching English to non-native speakers. It is so hard to explain concepts to Panong for which there is no clear Thai equivalent, such as “before” and “after.” In the Thai language there is no grammatical structure connoting before and after as exists in the English language. Instead, changing the tense in Thai is as simple as adding a single word to the sentence. For example, to say “I went to the grocery store yesterday” in Thai you would actually say something along the lines of, “I go grocery store yesterday.” In some ways the Thai language is simpler to use in this respect, but it makes it very hard to explain concepts of past, present, and future tenses. Some other interesting quirks about the language: to ask a question you add the word “mai” to the end of the sentence. There is no simple “yes” or “no” in Thai so you put the “mai” before the action verb to say no or you leave the “mai” off and repeat the verb phrase to say yes. For example, “Sabai dee mai, ka?” is asking “how are you?” To say “I’m good,” you would reply, “Sabai dee, ka” and to say “I’m not good,” you would say “Mai sabai dee, ka.” The “ka” is said by women only and is tacked onto the end of every sentence as a form of polite speech. Men would say “krup.”In short, the Thai language would be fascinating to study, but I will not have an opportunity or real need as I am leaving in under a week for Laos, where the language is similar, but not exactly the same.

We once again were in charge of the day care center and all the children who do not go to school during the day from 2 pm until 5 pm. After overhearing a conversation between some of the directors (we were able to pick out a few Thai words, just enough to get the gist of it) we better understand what has been going on with our long hours (most of the time the kids aren’t picked up until 5:20 or later) at the day care center. It seems that most of the women have decided that our residence here means they do not have to do anything. The original plan was to have the women work alongside us in the daily tasks and chores, but they have decided (except for Panong, who toils in the garden with us) that they would rather we simply take over for the week and they will sit back to enjoy our free labor. On the whole I do not mind this, they are, after all, single mothers in great need of assistance; however, I don’t like it when that extends to not picking up their children well after day care hours have ended. We babysit for three hours straight, after the kids have woken from their naps and are at their most rambunctious, and we do not want them any longer than is absolutely necessary at that point in the day. Since the women are trying to milk our presence here for all it is worth and are not picking up their kids, we have decided to implement a drop off service and now bring their children to them at 5 pm. This is going to be a much more effective method and we have hopes that tomorrow our duties will actually end at 5 pm as they should.

Dinner was a quick affair as we are the stage of simply going through the motions of eating and after a brief pow-wow to discuss our lessons for tomorrow, we all went our separate ways to lie down and attempt to escape the oppressive heat. People who live here full time must simply be immune, but my poor California/Oregon body is suffering greatly. The last two days have been especially heinous, with temperatures souring into the 100s and no relief in sight. It sprinkled briefly this afternoon, but that only served to make the air muggier, which was not an improvement. By the time we are put in charge of the day care center the heat is so bad we all simply lie on the plain wooden floor and allow the children to run rampant around us. Occasionally we look around to make sure the younger kids aren’t attempting to eat glue (a near miss today with the kid who eats, literally, everything). I am now freshly showered, resting on my bed, trying to enjoy the breeze drifting through my windows. The wind here is a mixed blessing. When the first gust blows across your skin, you immediately thank God that there is the possibility of some relief, but the second gust soon disabuses you of that thought as the wind is hotter than the still air. The first two nights we were here it cooled off in the evenings so that the breeze felt incredible in the middle of the night, working almost as well as A/C, but last night it remained hot all night and no relief could be found.

Each day I wish for those simple things that I took for granted before coming to the commune life: a private bathroom, air conditioning, good food, no day-care duty, etc. I think I might be as immersed as I can stand at this point. Soon there will be no getting out. Someone throw me a vine so I can haul myself up out of this sand trap before I become mostly dead (does anyone get that reference?). Eat a good meal tonight, stay cool, and think of me. Signed: The Wilting Wildflower