More or Less

Had to get that fajita blog out of the way but wait there's more, and before anything else happens I guess I'll write some of it down here...I am presently, once again, sitting in a swanky room at the hotel. A room that did not look swanky at all beforeI lived in rural Thailand for two months and now, with internet and a bumping AC, I give it the swank title.

This morning all 52 Peace Corps trainees in group 124 were brought back to the hotel about 15 miles from our training village and said goodbye to their respective host families. There were a lot of tears, and presents and promises. We have lived with these people since the second week of January and they have taken care of us lost Americans with every problem we have had adjusting to Thailand up til today, and in some cases caused them.We were separated into five dtambons during training which is basically a small group of villages. Each dtambon threw a going away party for the asasamok in their dtambons last night and they were, without the possibility of finding a more appropriate term for them, ridiculous.

Our dtambon had 8 asasamok living in it, and the party for us last night had over sixty attendees. Each table was outfitted with about ten different dishes, produced by different families, ranging from papaya salad, to fried chicken and fish, to roast chicken, sticky rice, vermicelli and cabbage. I do not know the names or flavors of everything on our tables last night as I mostly ate the som-dtam and fried chicken. We had a stage that was five feet above the ground with lighting effects and a massive karaoke system that we worked until the technician told us no more songs. Above that stage, as you can see in the photograph above, was a sign that is so priceless I will not even attempt add on to it with words. We danced for the Thais, they danced for us. We sang for the Thais, they sang for us. With an intro from our ajaan, each volunteer made a short speech in Thai to thank the host families for their hospitality while experiencing perhaps the most generous gesture of this hospitality yet, this party. It required hours of cooking by at least 8 households not mentioning the DJ and bottles of cold LEO each of us received. Once again, the volume of the sound system was at a level that provided me with an instant headache and anxiety and so I asked one of our language ajaans why Thais like the music so loud. She told me "because when Thais are having a celebration, they want people to know". I hope you all have a chance to check out the pictures from this evening when they are up because this was another one of those situations one comes into the PC imagining but when they occur your realize is plain to strange to imagine.

We had a wonderful time with our host families and fellow asasamoks. We started today with the prospect of going into another new community of people we don't know yet and starting to build ourselves into that community all over again. This time, by ourselves.

Tomorrow the 124th group of Peace Corps volunteers to serve in Thailand, on the 50th year of the program will swear in. For the first time in several years, all PC trainees who arrived in Bangkok on the plane together, will be taking that oath together. Erin and I had the good fortune to be among this group and we area excited about going from trainee to volunteer status and getting started with what we came here to do. Erin was one of two individuals (the other being a damned good looking chicano named Joel) in our group of 52 that were selected to give a speech (in Thai of course) to the folks wearing the suits.  This will be followed by the opportunity for her and our buddy Joel to dine at the VIP table in a secluded room on the second floor.

We will spend the next couple of days getting to know our counterparts and trying to outline some of what we will be doing here for the next two years. I will wear shoes for the last time for a long time. We will eat more fried chicken and eat more noodles. Finally, this craziness that has been pre-service training is over and I can sleep past 5:40 again.
Red