4/30/2001 - First Update from our Work Site

Welcome to the first update from Denny and Lisa, the Peace Corps Volunteers (until we swore an oath to defend the US constitution we were only mere trainees). Welcome also to the first update from Denny and Lisa, people who are no longer homeless. We have arrived at our work site (our new address is listed below) and have moved into our home for the next two years. For those considering visiting us in Thailand, please come. We've got 2 extra bedrooms and the bathrooms have western style toilets and hot running water. (Don't worry, we'll have the ant problem taken care of by the time you all visit).

Here is a picture of our new home taken 6 weeks ago when we visited. It looks a little different today - for some reason, our beautiful flowering tree was kidnapped. We're not sure what happened to it, it's part of the don't ask, don't tell policy of Thailand.

It has been a long time since our last update and we've done a lot so we'll try to be brief. We conducted a teacher training, we visited a beautiful waterfall, we survived the Thai celebration of Songkran, we spent a week in Bangkok, and we're now at our site.

Our teacher training - we think (hope) the teachers had fun. Having never seen a teacher training, nor having been taught about how to conduct a teacher training, we nonetheless headed off in groups of 4 to train teachers in "Developing English Learning Activities Through Student-Centered Learning." Our group had 1 experienced teacher. With all of that in mind, we had fun, but Denny's not sure how effective we were, nor is Denny sure that we learned any useful content about training teachers. The activity that was the most fun was a fashion show: we had the teachers get into pairs where one person was a model and the other person described the model in English (even though all of the teachers at this training were English teachers, few were conversationally fluent). We demonstrated with Lisa dressed up as the Statue of Liberty (crown and torch made from green paper, and the hotel sheet as her robe - unfortunately we do not have a digital picture of this high fashion to share). When the teachers came back the next day to present, one was dressed as a witch (common in America at Halloween, but very uncommon here), one as an American Indian (again, common at home, but uncommon here - hence the name), and others as a Thai warrior, several sports stars, a couple of musicians, a doctor, a teacher, and a bunny. The only cultural difference that really stood out during the training (aside from the fact that the entire second floor of the building where the training was held was a no shoe zone so that everyone was there in bare feet) was that conversations among the teachers would continue uninterrupted with very little regard for what presentation or activity was going on. This was particularly true during the opening and closing "ceremonies" that the office conducted for our training. During speeches by the man in charge of the school district office, the teachers continued their conversations while he spoke and he didn't seem to mind in the least. The highlight of our teacher training was the fact that our hotel was next to a water park that had 3 water slides and no lines - and cost the equivalent of $1.25 for admission.

Two days after our teacher training, we went to Erawan Waterfalls in the province of Kanchanaburi (two hours north of the capitol of Kanchanauri). It was a couple of kilometers of valley with frequent waterfalls where you could picnic along the banks, swim, or slide down the natural water slides! It was a wonderful respite from the heat! Speaking of the heat, we've been watching CNN for the last week in Bangkok and the only world cities with forecasts hotter than Bangkok have been New Delhi, and cities in Saudi Arabia. It's been in the high 90's and low 100's for the last month, and we're told that will continue well into the rainy season, which is supposed to start sometime next month.

Which brings us to Songkran. This is the Thai New Year's celebration, though they now celebrate the western New Year as well as the Chinese New Year, (where else can you celebrate New Year's three times per year?). Songkran begins the 13th of April every year and lasts 3 - 7 days depending on where you are. If you go to an official Songkran festival celebration you will likely pour water over the hands of a monk or some elders and exchange blessings for the new year. This is one of the ways that Thai Buddhists "make merit." If you are driving on the road during Songkran you are subject to three other interesting features of Songkran - the tambon, getting drenched with water, and the drunk drivers. Tambons generally happen around the Wat's and consist of people stopping every car and motorcycle that goes by soliciting money (presumably for the benefit of the local Wat). Contributing here is considered another way of making merit. The traffic stoppers seem to genuinely expect every vehicle passing by to give something, but they don't get upset when someone passes without a donation. The tradition of throwing water at people probably developed as a result of New Years being in the middle of the hot season.

As in the attached picture, people stop traffic to throw water at them. They throw water from buckets, from small bowls, and from water guns both small and bazooka sized. Neighborhood kids will set up roadblocks and won't let people through until they've been drenched and "powdered" (powder with camphor in it -think of it as baby powder meets carmex). Generally the water is coming from people standing on the street who happen to have a canal or other water source nearby. However, there are frequently pickup trucks full of people who have filled up their water jug at a canal and are throwing water back at the people on the street. It is hazardous to carry cameras or anything else that will be damaged if wet, because you will get wet! Finally, Songkran is a time when Thai's go home to visit their families, making travel during Songkran even more difficult that traveling in the US around Thanksgiving or Christmas. Peace Corps policy is only a half step short of forbidding all volunteers to travel - congested busses, pickup trucks with arms and legs hanging out of the bed, and lots of drunk drivers from 3 or more days of partying (resulting in a death toll count every night on the news during Songkran).

This year Songkran and Easter happened to overlap. We went with a group of trainees to a Catholic Church close to our training site for an Easter service and, naturally, on our way home we were soaked by those throwing water. We left our host family in our training site the morning of the last day of Songkran in our area. Denny was disappointed that he didn't get to spend another day playing in the water, and Lisa was glad that she didn't have to spend another day getting wet (the cool water was nice during the heat of the day, but after one dries off and begins to smell like nasty canal water the excitement wears off).

Last week in Bangkok was relatively uneventful. We ate Israeli, Indian, British, and American food; we were sworn into our official position as Peace Corps Volunteers by the US Ambassador to Thailand; we met many of the current volunteers who will be with us here for the next year. We were glad to become a little familiar with Bangkok, and we are VERY glad that we do not have to live there for 2 years. Positive aspects of Bangkok: extremely thorough and inexpensive metro bus system, an elevated train covering some key areas of town, inexpensive taxis, beautiful monuments, western food, movies in English, and malls. Negative aspects of Bangkok: tiny streets, tons of traffic, constant noise and diesel fumes, sewer smell from canals and storm drains, the restaurants and malls are extremely expensive, there was very little green space, and TONS of people. We'll go back to Bangkok when we need to, and we'll enjoy our time there, and we'll depart for other parts of the country as soon as we can.

As for our new home - our neighbors took us shopping last night, so we now have a refrigerator, a washing machine, a bed, and plastic chairs for one of the two tables that came with the house. (Note that all the items were bought new for a combined total of $400). Even with all of our stuff our house seems nearly bare. It will fill with time (houses have a odd habit of doing so). We do hope that you come and visit, but please give us some warning so we can get you a bed!

Denny & Lisa

Denny and Lisa Wells
ONPEC Sangkha
Amphur Sangkha
Surin, 32150 THAILAND