Tag Archives: Quarantine

An Oddly Restful Week

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Life is strange nowadays, but strange in a nice twisty kind of way.

It is nice to meet Amy’s mom and dad again when they come to see her and we go together on Monday night to eat dinner at the church so that they can meet our Thai pastor and his delightful family.  We eat crabs and talk about jobs and places to visit in Mae Hong Son. Later that evening, I find out that some IGo friends are traveling through on their way to the border and stop in to say hi to them and chat for a while.

The next day we go out to eat again with Amy’s parents. Amy and I need some photos for the IGo newsletter so we take shots in a rice field as the sun goes down. Coming home, I find a nice, jolly toad posing perfectly in front of the house.

Wednesday is quite normal. Amy’s dad goes to Chiang Mai. In the evening, I check out the walking street that is open because of the Aukwa festival that is just starting in Mae Sariang and then go home to enjoy my supper with Amy and her mom.

The next morning, I wake up to a message from Amy, who has gone over to where her mom is staying, “My parents both have Covid.”

I try to shake the sleep from my eyes. Surely, she must be kidding. “I wish,” she replies.

And so begins another Covid whirlwind. Thankfully, the restrictions are not nearly what they were a year ago. Amy and I isolate, but we still leave the house for supplies. Amy brings food to her mom in her rooms and buys a huge box of Covid tests. We make plans and then change them, and make them again and then change them. Finally, Amy and her mom leave on Saturday for Chiang Mai to see a doctor there.

In the meantime, I bake and read and study Karen and play my ocarina and watch the moon rise over the valley and call my mom and watch the ants climb up the papaya tree behind the house and eat pumpkin pie for breakfast since I made two and I am the only one who eats them. Is there something like eating too much pumpkin pie, I wonder?

Isolating can be difficult, but it can also be just what the doctor ordered. Especially when it includes pumpkin pie.  

On Sunday, after taking my 4th Covid test, I go to church. This too, is just what the Doctor ordered. We sing worship songs in Thai that were some of the first songs I learned in Thailand and the words cut to my heart and pull tears from an aching part inside of me. Our pastor preaches on Matthew 11:28 and 29, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” He talks about different kinds of burdens and the need to rest. I feel God speaking to that aching part of my soul again and the words I hear are beautiful.

In the evening, I don my mask and go to see what Aukwa is like by now. Aukwa is a festival celebrating the end of Buddhist Lent, but it is uniquely Mae Sariang. During Aukwa, the streets are lit up with lanterns, hundreds of small shops selling food and other items pop up beside the road, and there are musical competitions, shows and dances, a mini marathon and hundreds of other activities. It is sort of like Yoder Heritage Day at home. But different. Aukwa lasts for about 9 days, with the main activities happening the last three days.

It is colorful and bright and sparkling.

One of my students, Happy, sings in the competition, so I sit on the front steps of the police station beside another student, Achira, and wait for Happy’s song. Achira’s dad has a big bag of peanuts. Here, he says, holding out the bag. Have some.

So, I painstakingly crack open boiled peanuts and munch on them as I wait. Soon they move on, kindly leaving the bag of peanuts with me. An hour later, I see a friend I haven’t seen for over a year. He is with another friend and has moved back to the area after living in Chiang Mai for a year. They sit down and we try to chat for a while over the blare of the singing.

I don’t get home until close to 11. This is a Mae Sariang that I have never seen before. The quiet, sleepy town nestled in the valley has suddenly become a buzz of activity and late-night revelry. Even from my home 3 kilometers away from the city center, I can hear the music throbbing into the wee hours.

The next day I munch on more pumpkin pie before leaving to tutor some students.

I feel rested and at peace. Rest for me isn’t always just flopping down on a bed and doing nothing. Sometimes it means doing something different for a while. Sometimes it means fleeing into the mountains for a time to savor the silence and the cool air. Sometimes it might mean walking aimlessly by yourself through crowds or finding a seat and watching the throngs of people around you. Sometimes it means squatting down and watching ants for a while, or baking something just for fun.

Especially when its pumpkin pie.

Fried mush with sorghum molasses. This is NOT cultural Thai food, in case you are wondering. More like redneck Kansas food
geckoes on the screen door

At last June Arrives

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Tomorrow, June 1, I finally get to go to work.

In December, after finishing up 3 1/2 years of course work at Payap University, I began my internship in Saohin village, where I lived for about 3 months. I am at the point now where I can talk about my experience there without crying, but I still miss that place like crazy. Many people, especially Thai people, don’t understand why I would miss a remote place where there is only electricty run by solar panels, and the wifi is exceedingly temperamental, and dust and smoke cloak the world in the hot season, and there are no coffee shops and malls, and the room I lived in had no wardrobe or clothes rack or mirror or fan. One of my friends thinks that there must be a guy living up there that I have fallen in love with or something.

There isn’t.

They don’t know that there is something addicting about waking up at 5:45 AM to build the fire with wood and boil water for the coffee, and make the day’s portion of rice over an open fire. They don’t know that funny bleat of a buffalo and the cry of the tukay at night are much more calming music to listen to at night than the roaring of traffic in the middle of the city. They don’t know that people in a village like that go to each others’ homes when they need to talk because there is no phone to call instead. They don’t know the charm of baking cookies on a fire late at night while crickets chirp. But most of all, they don’t know the charm or the love of about 80 Karen and Tai Yai students from the ages of 3 to 15, and how much that love can pull you on and on.

Actually, I wasn’t really planning to write all that. A good writer would go back and cut it out because it doesn’t have anything to do with today’s post. What I was going to write about was the start of my new job tomorrow and some of the things that I did in my spare time. But I never said I was a good writer.

So after my internship finished in late March, I went back to Chiang Mai for a few weeks, and then moved back to Mae Sariang in the middle of April. Of my time here in Mae Sariang, much of it has been in either quarantine, semi-quarantine, or semi-lockdown. I am now out of quarantine and things are opening up more and more here in the town. Tomorrow I begin my new job teaching at Boripat High School, the local district school of Mae Sariang. I was originally planning to start work on the 10th of May, but because of COVID19, the school’s opening was pushed off until later.

It’s better for me NOT to have a lot of time off just before I start something new. Otherwise, I tend to sit and think a little too much about it. The past 5 or 6 weeks have been difficult in terms of getting very little social interaction, especially face to face with live humans. It wasn’t until last week that I began to realize that it was slowly wearing down my emotional health. I have never before known how much relationships with others are necessary for emotional wellbeing. I do know now, and hope I will never take it for granted again. Normally, I am not much of a social butterfly. I love time alone and crave it. It’s just that 5 weeks of near aloneness is too much.

But I did enjoy doing a few projects here at home. I had fun ordering some things on Lazada for the house and for my room. I also had fun doing some furniture building of my own.

My favorite project was the bamboo table. I spent three evenings making it. The making of the table itself was somehow an incredibly special time for me. Sitting on the east porch with my cat after the heat of the day had ebbed away, cutting the bamboo, hand-drilling in holes to insert each shoot, and listening to the night sounds around me was relaxing and life-giving. With a hammer, a saw, a measuring tape from a small sewing kit, a flat screwdriver and a bottle of white spray paint, and string from a kite my cousin gave me, the little bamboo table was born. Oh, and bamboo from the bamboo that grows in the edge of the property.

Below are some pictures.

Shoes (spoken word video)

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Two years ago, I wrote one of my favorite pieces ever, “Shoes.” This was done for my Intercultural Communication class in which my teacher had us study different aspects of identity and culture, and various social issues. At the end of the class, we were asked to creatively express ourselves in relation to what we had studied, as a cathartic activity (the word cathartic to me is such an ugly word. It always makes me think of the sound people make when they cough up mucus).

At the time, I wrote and performed the poem as a piece of spoken word poetry. I then published it on my blog, and a reader commented that I should do a recording of the poem. Since I am currently in quarantine and “between jobs,” I was suddenly inspired today to do just that.

As I read through the poem the first several times, I nearly cried. It’s odd, or perhaps not so odd, how social issues do not disappear in 2 years. The poem, for me, is just as relevant as it was then. Perhaps even more so, in this day and age when as a white majority, we may try to express our understanding or sympathy for a minority group, only to be told that we have no way of understanding and that our sympathy is demeaning. Perhaps we understand more than we realize. Each person has pain, and each pain that person faces equips them to some degree to empathize with others.

I did struggle with the recording. It was extremely difficult, with my lack of equipment, to find a place where I could record without outside noises infringing on my voice. In the afternoon, it was the roosters. In the evening, it was the Tukae. I finally found a cardboard box and stuck my phone into it, and with my head halfway in, lay on the floor and recorded it. I feel like I would do better recording in front of an audience, where, as I heard one preacher say lately, they sort of draw the inspiration out of you.

But finally, I had to finish it, and be ok with it not being perfect.

Below is a link to the video.

Flame of God by Amy Carmichael

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From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher—
From silken self, O Captain, free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.

From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakenings,
(Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified.)
From all that dims Thy Calvary,
O Lamb of God, deliver me.

Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay,
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire;
Let me not sink to be a clod—
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God!

When I read this poem, I feel like it needs no explanation. It’s a prayer in itself speaks deeply to my heart. The only thing I would like to add is that this used to be a poem that I prayed during some difficult spiritual times in my younger years, and re-reading it brings back so many memories as well as a reminder to not shrink from hard choices.

From subtle love of softening things….. from easy choices, weakenings…..

(as you may have noticed, I did not blog on Friday and Saturday. This was because of a trip to Chiang Mai for visa issues on Friday and then a day of catching up on other things. And processing some more developments. Because yes, I am in quarantine again.:) )

Watchman

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Image by 12222786 from Pixabay 

Struggling with assurance of salvation was something very real that I wrestled with a lot as a teenager. This following poem was written at the age of 19 during a time I was facing some spiritual battles in that area. Today as I was looking at this poem again, I realized that while it was a relevant expression of my life then, with the current Covid/visa/lockdown/changes situation currently, I can also connect to it now as well. The poem is based off the verses in based on Isaiah 21:11, 12 and was published in my book, Echoes of Eternity.

Watchman

Watchman, watchman what of the night?

Tell me, can you see?

What thing awaits beyond the next wave

If horror or joy it be?

The sea is dark and dank is the foam

That roars as wave meets sky

The night is grim and unsteady my craft

And far from home am I

Watchman, watchman, what of the night?

When will the daylight break?

Over the sea foam when will the sun

Cast its brilliance over my wake?

Friend, take heed of thy steady light

Fall not away, oh fellowman!

Let not your light grow dim or failing

Or my faith will sink with the setting sun.

Watchman, watchman, what of the night?

Upon thy tower stay

Tossed and troubled and fearful am I

Who needs to be shown the way.

Stay on thy tower mid storm and gloom

Until breaks the morning light;

So that I, when I am steady and sure,

Can take thy place in the coming night.

November 7, 2009

A Poem a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

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Image by Mariangela Castro (Mary) from Pixabay

I told some friends recently that I think I will no longer tell people what my plans are for the next day or week or the next month. This is because after I tell them one day, I need to retell them the next day because of the constant change of landscape these days.

Instead, I will tell them after it happens. Like last week when I actually did get the chance to make a quick trip to Saohin.

Ever since the beginning of April, life has been a pretty consistent roller coaster. If that combination of words can be put together. I just found out yesterday that I won’t start work for another three weeks. This is because of the current Covid situation in Thailand. Schools in Thailand won’t start until June 1st but until yesterday I was told that I would be working from home and perhaps doing some online teaching. Then yesterday I found out it would not be so.

So. Here I am in Mae Sariang with three weeks of “vacation” in front of me. I will be filling those weeks with some informal teaching, some teaching prep for the upcoming semester, maybe a trip to Chiang Mai or two for visa purposes and to move some items still there. Otherwise, I will be weeding out the orchard behind my new house and trying to figure out how to crack up the coconuts that fall from the tree. Church isn’t really happening currently because of the half-lockdown the town is in. Most of the fun evening markets are closed, and even national parks are closed. Many of the mountain villages (other than Saohin) have closed off their gates to outsiders.

La la la la la…..

So I am trying to find the best way to use my time wisely. Maybe I should do a week of fasting and praying. That would save money, at least, for sure. Maybe I could try building furniture from the bamboo beside the house. Or study Karen.

One thing that I have been rolling around in my mind lately is my recent lack of immersion in good, deep literature. I attribute this to several factors, one my focus on language study, two when in college and on my internship I lacked the energy and time to read deeply, and three, bad habits. One of my goals for this summer is to stretch my brain in relation to good, English literature.

So, with this in mind, I have decided for the next week to post a poem a day. This might be a poem that I have previously written and/or published, it might be a poem I have freshly written, or it might be a poem written by someone else that I enjoy, along with a bit of an explanation of what the poem means to me. I do not pretend to be a great poet, or a great poet analyst. I like poetry that makes me think, but does not make my brain do cartwheels to figure out what the author is driving at. But I do enjoy sharing poetry that is meaningful to me, as well as hearing poetry from others.

I plan to do this for a week, but if I see that its going well, I might stretch it out to two weeks. I also have been a bit traumatized (ok, that’s too strong a word but for lack of a better one) by the constant changes of plans, and so I feel a bit scared to commit to a poem a day FOR SURE. So, I will say, barring a sudden trip to Chiang Mai or Saohin, a storm and a subsequent blackout, the sudden rising of the creek (very literally if I do go to Saohin) or a wave of dengue fever or any other insurmountable obstacle, I will post a poem a day.

And I would love to hear thoughts on the poetry from my readers.

Here goes.

Of Quarantining and Cats

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Since I made the final move to town of Mae Sariang after finishing my internship in Saohin in the middle of April, I’ve spent the majority of my time in my house. This was mostly because of a third wave of Covid that spread over Thailand since the beginning of April. I spent a week in quarantine in after coming to Mae Sariang from Chiang Mai. This was the 4th time I’ve quarantined in my life (although two of those quarantines were less than 2 weeks long).

My house and I get along well, but there are times when you need something else besides a house and a Tukay to talk to. Even after getting out of quarantine, it’s been hard to feel like a part of life in Mae Sariang since the town is in a half-lockdown. I missed a friend’s wedding because of quarantine.  I keep in contact with the few friends I knew before I moved here, but it’s hard to make new friends with the level of social activity going on.  I was also feeling disappointed after giving up my trip to Saohin that I had been hoping to take on May 1. I felt like with the Covid situation the way it was and me not being back from Chiang Mai a full 14 days, as well as having been in contact with a Covid-infected person (although it was over 14 days by then) I simply didn’t feel comfortable with making the trip. While Saohin has not closed down, many mountain villages have shut off contact with the outside world.

When I had been up in Saohin on my internship, Kru Paeng had asked me if I wanted to take one of the cats when I left. Kru Paeng was moving to another school after the semester ended and she wasn’t going to be able to take the cats with her. At the time, I couldn’t commit to taking care of a cat since I was going to be traveling back and forth from Chiang Mai for part of March and part of April.

Last week I started thinking. I was now settled into my house, or getting there. I was tired of being by myself all the time. I was tired of talking just to the Tukay. I wanted something furry and warm and alive.

Why not see if I can get the cat down now, I wondered. I messaged Captain Joe since his police unit was coming down at the end of the month.

“If I get the children to catch the cat, can you bring it down or arrange for someone to bring it down?” I asked.

“Sure,” he replied. I messaged one of the children, but she obviously wasn’t able to connect to wifi since she never replied. I also messaged one of the teachers that had traveled up during break to take care of some things. And then I waited, wondering.

In the evening, Captain Joe messaged me saying they hadn’t found it yet, but the next morning he said he saw that Kru Taum had caught the cat. Kru Toon sent me a picture of the little gray cat. “Is this the one?” he asked. He stuck it in a bag and brought it to Captain Joe. Captain Joe put it in a box and wrote my number and name on it and gave it to Captain Chatri and P Boy to bring down to Mae Sariang.

I got a call in the evening that they had arrived and went to the police station to pick up my cat. As I expected, she was pretty upset. She had clawed a hole in the side of the box, so when P Boy put it on my bike, he put the hole on the top side so she couldn’t come out. I drove home, itching to turn around and see if a gray cat head was sticking out of the hole behind me, but I resisted the urge.

Kru Paeng had told me to keep her inside the house for a few days until she got used to her surroundings. “Take good care of her,” she said. Kru Paeng loves her cats a lot, and I knew I would feel very bad if something happened to her.  Before opening the box, I closed up all the windows, or at least partially since only two of them have screens on them.

The cat came out disturbed. And she stayed disturbed for most of the evening, to my chagrin. There were a few moments when I would hold her and she would be quiet, but for most of the night she prowled the house, mourning and meowing, while I tossed and turned in my bed, chasing elusive sleep.

I woke around 6:30 to a silent house. Good, she’s finally quiet, I thought, but I decided to get up and check anyway. A lumpy feeling of worry started in my throat as I started to check the house, and it had plummeted down to the bottom of my stomach by the time I was finished.

There was no cat in the house.

I investigated and found hairs between two of the glass panes by the porch window. I didn’t feel much pride in my investigative skills, however. I walked outside and called. No cat. I walked to the neighbors. House after house, I stopped and asked if they had seen her. House after house, they said no.

I came back home and cried. I used to cry over cats when I was 5 and still cried over them when I was 15. I guess I still cry over cats at 30.

I felt terrible. I thought of all the work that Captain Joe and the teachers and Captain Chatri and P Boy had gone to to bring the cat down. I thought of Kru Paeng and how much she loved her cats. I thought of how much I had been looking forward to having some furry, warm company.

I decided not to listen too much to the words of the people I talked with about the cat. Some were very blunt. “Oh, you’ll never see her again.” Some were more encouraging, yet I felt like they were only trying to make me feel good. “She’ll probably come back tonight. She’s just checking things out.”

I prayed. Oh yes, I prayed. But on a level of 1 to 10, my faith scored in at a 2 at the most. The disappointment was just too big. Being low on sleep didn’t help matters either. I never operate well on low sleep.

That afternoon, after running some errands and meeting up with some friends, I felt better. I decided to read some books on my kindle and relax a bit, but for the life of me, I could not find my kindle. One of the worst parts about living by yourself is that when you lose something, you automatically know that you were the only one who could have mislaid it. There is no subtle blaming of anyone else. Even worse, when you mislay your phone, there is no way to ask someone to call it so you can find it. And I lose things. A lot.

As I sat there, thinking I had searched every possible place it might be, I prayed. God, can you please just help me find this? Right after the prayer, the thought flashed through my mind. God doesn’t even care about bringing your cat back. Why should he care about your kindle?

Then I looked up and saw my kindle on the bookshelf in a slightly obscure spot where I had laid it while cleaning that morning.

It was an encouragement. Maybe God did care.

That evening I was sitting in my living room. I was getting more used to the idea of a catless future, because I didn’t really want to think about getting another animal after the first one ran away.

Suddenly I heard a slight noise at the door, a faint meow.

I got up and looked out.

And there she was, the little gray runaway cat.

I picked her up and sat down and did the next natural thing.

I thanked God. And I cried.

Home

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The poem below was written in January 2009 at the age of 18. Or that’s the date I have on it, but I think I actually wrote the first draft a few months earlier in August of 2008. Recently, I opened up a copy of Echoes of Eternity, the first book of poems I published. I realized that few of my poems in that book had ever been published on my blog. Even though I feel like some of them fall below par (and I cringe when I see that), I also realize that there are some really good ones in the book. Also, there are a few that never really were good friends with me (for instance, they never seemed to quite say what I wanted them to say, or sound like I wanted them to sound) but when I returned to read them years later, I find that they are much better friends than I ever thought them to be. Below is one of those, called “Home,” mostly because ever since I left the village, homesickness has been harder.

Home

Someday I’ll travel all the world

And sail the oceans wide

I’ll climb the highest mount on earth

And row my boat against the tide

I’ll view the Alps of Switzerland

In their majesty unswayed–

Unless my little grain of faith

Reduce them trembling and afraid;

And yet I’ll still look back and see

That no matter where I go,

Near or far, wherever I roam

Across the broad world I know–

Still burn the lights of home.

I’d see them still, the lights of home,

Imprinted on my mind,

No matter how much Persian wealth

Or Yukon gold I’d find

They’d call me still and stay with me

Even as the Sphinx I’d view

I’d think of them as I’d kneel down

And wash my face in China’s dew.

If I could climb Mt. Everest,

Cling victorious to its peak-

Almost to touch the sky’s vast dome–

Still my eyes would ever seek

For the hearth fires of my home.

In Africa’s huts or Bedouin’s tents,

In the palaces of Spain,

In sunlight on the purple moor,

Or in the fog of London’s rain;

In the tropics of the south;

Or in the blinding Arctic snow,

My soul would always think of home

Beneath the elms and my heart would know

That whenever rejected by the world

Or saddened by its sin

Through the weeping rain, I’d gladly come

And always find rest within

The burning lights of home.

-January 10, 2009

9 New Words About Quarantine and Travel You Never Knew Existed (maybe because they didn’t)

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A year ago, I blogged about new words I had coined about life in Southeast Asia. At that time, we had never heard of coronavirus. The idea of quarantine and wearing masks was foreign to us. We were blissfully ignorant.

Now we have all been highly educated. Not only that, but with my recent travel to Thailand, I acquired a whole new set of vocabulary, including words such as ASQ, CoE, Fit to Fly, BioFire, and more.

In addition to this, here are 9 new words pertaining to travel during the Covid19 outbreak! While this is coming from the perspective of a traveler who traveled to Thailand, it may be relevant for those traveling elsewhere. Travel anywhere has become synonymous with quarantine. Thus, the words to be revealed are all related to travel and quarantine.

Plussle—the rustle of the plastic of the Personal Protection Equipment that the quarantine hotel staff wears when interacting with hotel detainees. Can also be used as “plussle-plussle.” Sample sentence: I always knew when one of the hotel staff was coming with my food because I could hear the plussle-plussle of their plastic coverings as they walked.

Certivaniphobia– A common disorder experienced in travelers, especially those who are traveling abroad for the first time, or in unnatural conditions, such as during a pandemic.  This is the fear that while the traveler was not looking, the traveler’s passport or other important papers may have jumped out of the said traveler’s backpack in an unprecedented move. A common symptom of this phobia is frequent checking and rechecking of the traveler’s backpack, often checking up to 10 times within a minute. No cure is known for this disorder.

Glunge– the smudges left on the windows of a quarantine room, left by either the hands or the forehead of the inmate of the room while gazing outside.

Pasaphilia—The delight experienced by a traveler upon hearing a foreign language being spoken after being stranded in one’s home country for an extended period of time.

Solivance – The feeling of being in one’s own world, in a vacuum or a capsule in which time is static while the world continues to revolve outside. This is a kind of “wood between worlds” that C.S Lewis describes in the book, The Magician’s Nephew. This is often experienced by travelers in quarantine, especially if they are able to see outside during their incarceration.

The Squaneeze – a sneeze that is muffled to the lowest degree possible. This kind of sneeze is usually observed in areas of high security and Covid19 health monitoring of travelers. Some people who emit squaneezes try to disguise them in the form of a guffaw or the sudden clearing of the throat.

Chimeracination – Entire imagined scenes of things that could possibly go wrong from the beginning of travel to the end. These are usually experienced at 2:00 AM in the week before traveling in tense conditions due to a Covid19 pandemic.

Stickeression – this is a rare disorder occurring mostly in quarantined travelers. Signs of this disorder usually occur in the window of time between the 5th and 14th day of quarantine. Symptoms are usually seen most in Line users (Line is a popular messaging app used by many in Southeast Asia). Described in basic terms, it is an over-usage of stickers sent in the app in an attempt to release extreme feelings of restlessness.

Selfationism – the realization that you are the only one to blame for anything that occurs while being isolated in quarantine. Meaning, if there is no toilet paper on the toilet paper dispenser, it means that YOU and not someone else have not replaced it. Or if you have mislaid your favorite pen, it means that YOU were the one who mislaid it.