White

Many of you may not realize this, but Christelia and I are both very white.  So much so that you need to adjust the white balance settings on your camera in order to take a picture of us.  Of course, if we were to be showing any more skin than just our faces (the most tanned parts of our bodies) pictures of us would be next to impossible.  Fortunately for us, the Thai people (and I am guessing most other parts of Asia as well) absolutely LOVE white skin.

We enjoyed a week long vacation on the island of Koh Chang in Eastern Thailand not too long ago.  While sitting at breakfast one day, one of the staff came by and poked my arm exclaiming "so white!"  I was wearing a tank top at the time, exposing my upper arms, a part of my body not exposed to the sun very often.  Christine and I had a chuckle, and the staff member quickly wanted to be close to us whenever we were in the area.  Amusing to say the least.

The difficulty we are experiencing regarding the fascination of white skin is most lotions, deodorant, body wash, etc have skin whitening acids in them.  Obviously we don't need the help, so this has become quite alarming.  To be honest, finding products without whitening is almost as difficult as taking a picture of me with my shirt off.

Eduardo

Cooking in Thailand

I just finished my first cooking experience with Thai students! I would like to tell you the name of what we made but I am not sure that there is a name for it so let me describe some of the ingredients. Noodles (much like Ramon)and later glass noodles, for protein we had- minced pork that we minced ourselves, fish balls ( balls of meet much like meatballs, but made with processed fish- it tastes like it sounds), spicy tube of processed pork (i am sure there is a better name for that, but i am just trying to paint the true story of what we were eating), hotdogs both chicken and pork, and later the students (grade 7) added fried fish tofu squares and at some point tuna which was called tuna sandwich on the can...kinda funny. Then for the "sauce" we had sugar, fish sauce, lemons, limes, and chili peppers. Now I will share with you the "kitchen" it was a picnic table outside and a hot plate on the floor of a classroom! I about lost it when she asked me in Thai to help them heat the "meats" keep in mind that the kids (there are only 8 of them right now for October course which is much like summer school) think that I am scared of cooking because I told Ms. Rungnapa that I was scared to cook because I didn't know where and what equipment or what recipe to use and everything is in metric and it scares me a little to give a 7th grader that doesn't understand what I am saying a knife or anything else that they could hurt themselves with. So the kids are really trying to help me and get me to do things. So we have mixed most all of the ingredients above plus some tomatoes and onions together and then they want me to taste it, so I do and they ask what should we add. I have no idea...I have never even seen this before much less tasted it! It was quite the experience! After that they just started adding things in and they ate it- all! It was like a feeding frenzy! They all had a fork and went to town out of the same bowl. Crazy!

Communication Errors

Error Number 1 :Have you ever had the feeling that it taking you a long time to get dinner? A few weeks ago we sent out to get some Pad Thai from one of our favorite places. We had never gone there on our own, but with our friends Jay and Shuchada, so we decided to try to get there by ourself. We knew the general direction and had gotten some directions from another Thai teacher and started off. The first night we had a friendly thai person point us in the wrong direction and rode the red van to one of the main roads. we had dinner there- not Pad Thai, but we still had dinner. The next day we decided to try again. Walked to the correct road, got on a tiny van to find that they were closed. The best part about this adventure was Ed riding on the tiny van. there was no room inside the van so Ed is standing on the back and normally his head would be under the overhang but tonight it was above the roof. He was looking over the van to where we were going. You know the look when a dog has it head out the window enjoying the wind it was a little like that! I am sure we provide some entertaining stories for the people on the van that night! Day three- we took a taxi and went for lunch! Mission accomplished!

Error Number 2: We are currently in part of the rainy season. It rained real hard one night with lots of lightening and thunder. We shared with Suchada the next morning how we were surprised how much it had rained. She said that it would be like that all week and to make sure we had our umbrellas- Later that night we were out getting dinner and it started to rain a little, but we had our umbrellas so no problem until we were ready to leave. In a matter of minutes the street was flooded. It was blowing rain so hard! It took us a long and very wet time to get back to the apartment- The umbrella was not match for this storm. It was one of those time that I wished we could take a picture of what it was like.

Error Number 3: Test questions...On the final exam we found some interesting questions such as What is the meaning of the bolded word? but no words were bolded. Ed tests question was funnier- "Lucy wants to ( ) at a hospital. She wants to be a doctor. A. work B. play C. put out. it was a grade two test so I am sure that nothing was meant by it but it was funny- there was another question about a fire fighter so the answer would make since with that.

Error Number 4: We go to English camp where only Thai was used????? I had a really good time but had no idea what was going on!- the phrase ignorance is bliss explains the camp! I'm smiling because I don't understand what you are saying! The kids were good and no one got hurt so all was okay!