Tag Archives: homework

Life in Pictures

culture, food, home, life on the foreign field, this college life, , , , , , , , , ,
It started with quarantine over 6 weeks ago. For two weeks, this was my view. I was in Thailand, yet not in it, suspended in some third world, caught between a two realities.
After two weeks, I was released from quarantine. I took a taxi to the Hua Lompong train station. While waiting on my train, I heard this for the first time. The Thai national anthem is played in public places every day at 8:00 and 18:00. Everybody stands in place until the song is finished.
I took the train to Chiang Mai, still feeling like I was suspended between two worlds, except this one was a world with seats full of other people, hurtling along tracks between acres and acres of green rice fields. Sometimes I would go into the bathroom to stick my nose out the open window and inhale the scent of the rice fields. I found it interesting that a sign in the train bathroom said in Thai, “Do not use the bathroom while the train is parked at the station.” Hmmmm…..
Chiang Mai greeted me warmly via friends who met me at the station. There were snacks in the fridge and a group of them had cleaned up parts of the house before I got there. I was grateful and worn out. The next day I began working on setting the house to rights. It had been empty for about 3 months since all of us had gone home over the Covid lockdown. I felt strangely like a refugee in my own house, scrounging around to see what food was there and what was still good to eat. The rats and geckoes and ants had wreaked havoc. My friend came over one day and helped me clean. While cleaning, we found a rat and Diego the ever brave dog killed it.

My days consist mostly of teaching, studying, and volunteer translation work. Life has fallen into a somewhat normal pattern.

The first Saturday I was home, my friend and I went to the San Patong buffalo market. There is nothing like this market that makes me feel at home. 🙂
Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays I head to Payap for classes. I am only taking 4 courses, so I only have one or two classes a day. Another class I do online since the instructor is currently in Hawaii.
Saturday mornings I teach at White Elephant Club, our team’s outreach ministry in San Kamphaeng.
Two mornings a week, I drop in at Wisdom Tree Home and teach a Kindergarten 2 class and a Pre K class.
On Wednesday afternoons, Saturday afternoons and whenever needed, I head to the Mueng Chiang Mai police station where I work as a volunteer translator between foreigners and the police.
On Sundays sometimes I attend services in English and sometimes in Thai.
Often on my way home from the station in the evening, I will stop at a local food market or drop in at the food court at Maya Mall and grab some Thai food. My favorite thing is to top off the spice with some ice cream from 7-11 or Dairy Queen.
I like hanging out with this girl every now and then. W is the daughter of migrant worker parents, and attends church and WE Club on occasion.
Sometimes after a long week, I need a “mountain village fix.” I get that by riding my motorbike up Doi Suthep mountain, which I always feel is the most beautiful in the rain.
In the evenings, I let my dog in for company.
I do not let this creature in, though.
A few Wednesday evenings per month, I join in with cell group from our church.
I went to court to translate, once.
Every now and then, I visit one of my favorite coffee shops and work on homework, writing, or translation.
Sometimes, I feel a spurt of joy as I drive along a very normal road on my bike. It’s just good to be home.

Emerging

Adventure, culture, life on the foreign field, this college life, , , , , , , ,

Yes, I know it’s been months since I blogged.

I’m emerging this week from a world of homework, teaching, and translation. I have two weeks to take a deep breath before I dive under again.

Perhaps this next time when I go under I can do it a little more wisely. When balancing homework with ministry, I just simply have not got it figured out.

I like living life. But sometimes I try to live too much life all at once. So that’s why the past few months you didn’t hear much from me. And looking back at the past few months, there are several things that I would do over again and there are several things I would not do over again.

One of those things I wouldn’t do again was help an acquaintance with a Sunday afternoon children’s event/party. I didn’t know until I got there that I was supposed to be MC (master of ceremonies, or announcer, or moderator. Whatever you want to call it). In Thai and English. I have never been an MC in English, much less in Thai. It was terrible.

But I did many, many things I loved. And some of those things might turn out to be a lifelong job. I don’t know yet.

Here’s a glimpse of what life looked like for me the past 3 months.

I taught. The top left picture is of two wild, adorable children that I’ve been teaching English to on Tuesday evenings. The top right picture is a group of children at the Saturday morning White Elephant Club in San Kamphaeng. I haven’t been helping with this all the time; only at times they don’t have enough teachers. I also substituted for a friend at Chiang Mai City Church (CMCC) for a few months. The bottom picture is where we went to visit a student’s family at their home with Pastor Kiat, the Thai pastor at CMCC.

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I made a birthday cake for this young lady and took it to her school. She’s been a part of my life for the past 4 years, sometimes more so than others. I am so thankful that now she is able to go to school. That is an answer to prayer.

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We had a traditional Thai dress day at Thai church to celebrate the church’s nth anniversary (can’t remember the actual number).

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We said goodbye to some people and said hello to others.

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We helped with an English camp at a local high school in San Kamphaeng.

My favorite thing that I’ve started is volunteering a shift once or twice a week as a translator at the local police station. This has turned out to be something I love, being that bridge between two cultures. To be honest, I also enjoy the adrenaline rush. For the most part, my job consists of translating for people who have lost important items, such as a bankbook, passport, cell phone or wallet, or translating for foreigners who have been in traffic accidents. Every now and then I’ll translate for a case for a foreigner who has died in Thailand, or has gotten in trouble with the law or in an altercation with a Thai national. There are some intense times where I, as a translator, feel like a kickball being kicked from side to side.

I love getting to meet new people as they come into the station, and being able to give them at least a slight sense of security when they see another foreigner there. Most people who come to the police don’t want to be there, and not knowing the language adds another stresser. Speaking and learning Thai is something I enjoy, and I love the chance to use language as a way of helping others. I also love getting to know the people on the Thai side of things. Many of the officers I work with are close to retirement, so in Thai I refer to most of them as uncle. Then there are others that are closer to my age who enjoy practicing their English and just being friends. On the top right hand picture is a picture of two of my “uncles.” The one to the left has a very gruff exterior and a very soft heart.

One of my friends, Care, to the right in the picture on the left, was an intern the first few months I was there. She loved practicing her English with me. To the right is another of my favorite “uncles.”

So yes, I’m still alive. Other than the things above, I’ve mostly been doing homework, as well as some additional translation for acquaintances. And that all of that has taken up most of my waking moments.

Hopefully soon I’ll have time to tell you sometime about the time I got stuck in a phone booth during a rainstorm or the time when we ordered pizza at the police station. As well as my recent trip to my friend’s home in Chiang Dao.

If I Would Tell You…

ache, life on the foreign field, Poetry, , , , , , , ,

 

If I would tell you what a river was like

If you’d never seen one before,

Then I could tell you that it is water

That runs between two shores;

And how it starts with being a spring

And ends with being a sea,

But I am afraid I cannot explain

What a river means to me.

 

If I could explain silence and strength and song,

Paint it with brown and gold and blue;

Mold peace and heartache into a bed

For this wide river to run on and through;

Then weave a scarf from the moonlight’s beam,

And capture the life-strength of a tree,

Then maybe, just maybe, I could explain

What a river means to me.

Currently for my creative writing class at Payap University, our homework is to write an hour a day. About anything. Today as I sat beside the Mae Ping river, this is one of the things I wrote. 

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*Photo credits: Melissa Weber

 

Hunger

Poetry, this college life, , , , , , ,

Silence at midnight

When the world is asleep

Except for the geckos, my dog and I,

And the lone plane in the distant black sky.

Fingers reach, stealthily into the box,

Half ashamed, then again, not ashamed.

The telltale rattle, the swift pouring;

I sit. And he sits, beside me, brown, intense and awake

In the sleeping darkness;

Brown ears cocked, eyes trained,

Tail thumping methodically.

We eat together, I from my bowl, and he

The spoonfuls I throw at him.

We share the meal, and the togetherness and aliveness

In an unconscious world.

He does not know the meaning

Of qualitative research and causation and correlation

And grounded theory and phenomenology.

But this he understands.

And oh, yes, so do I.

So do I.

 

photo credit: pixabay.com