Friday, April 20, 2012

In brief(s) : Songkran, Songkran, Songkran

No, that's not a joke about underpants. But it could be.

In the 10 days since Josh last posted, we have experienced the madness of Songkran (pictures currently being updated in the album), the continuing "ap naam" (shower, or blessings, in this case) festivities that accompany the new year, a bpuat pra (monk ordination), a ngaan sot (or something that sounds like that - sitting vigil with a family morning and night for three days before the funeral/cremation of a deceased loved one), a tamboon gaan baan (I think), where the village donates tons of rice and other nonperishable food items to the wat, many an awkward and uncomfortable conversation with various members of our family and community regarding why we want to move into our own house, and many an awkward and circuitous conversation between ourselves about whether we really want to move into our own house at all, anyway. 

Songkran, first. Songkran, as I'm sure we've mentioned before is the Thai New Year. Officially, it is April 13, but depending on where you are in the country, a number of other days may also be designated official holidays, or "replacement" holidays off of work for years that April 13 falls on a Saturday or Sunday. We, for example, began our Songkran celebration on Thursday, April 12, at 8 am, when we arrived to take part in the SAO (au-bau-tau)-sponsored festivities at the wat that's just a kilometer or so from our house.

We had been instructed to leave all electronic things at home. So we came with no camera, no phone, and a measure of confidence that our Timex watches could survive a soaking or two. We wore the bright flowered tee-shirts purchased for us by the SAO, matching in orange. (The full staff together provides an impressive rainbow from bright pink to a muted brown, all shirts in the same pattern.)

For a while, we sat around. We drank coffee. We drank water. We watched the set up of a few really ridiculous games--tie an eggplant around your waist so it hangs between your legs, hovering above the ground, and use it to hit a lime 50 feet across a dirt playing field; tie a balloon around your ankle and walk in a circle with 10 other people, trying to pop the balloons they also have tied around their ankles--and an eating contest that also, unfortunately for the contestants, involved a lot of baby powder. We wondered, for about an hour, what all the chairs were for, and where the people were, and why we didn't have our cell phones or our cameras with us. We watched the vendors set up. We watched the fire truck roll into the lot and set up next to the stage. Then, around 9 am, people began to show up. We started handing out waters and coffees to other people. We were given jasmine garlands to wear around our necks. We began to endure the music blaring from the speakers, and tried to avoid making eye contact with anyone who looked like they might be interested in making us dance.

That whole bit about not dancing only lasted so long. Soon, I was pulled (literally, maybe dragged is a better word) by a group of women that I've come to think of as "the usual suspects" when it comes to these dance party bits, out on to the dance floor in the dirt in the shadow of the karaoke stage that for the day featured three scantily clad young women and one very young looking girl, gyrating their hips and kicking their feet suggestively in time with the beat of that always too loud music. And then, we figured out why our cell phones and cameras had been left at home. Soon, someone had climbed the fire truck (rot naam, literally water vehicle) and was training the hose on the dancers. First shower of the day.

So the karaoke and the dancing continue intermittently all day. Soon there are awards and prizes being presented, speeches being given. Finally, the games that we set up earlier are being played, and are as ridiculous to watch as they sound. In the midst of all this, we are getting stupidly, refreshingly wet. Ice water down your back here, a bottle of lukewarm water down the front of your shirt there, bucket of water flung from who knows where every ten two twelve seconds on average.

The worst culprit for throwing water was one of the samacheeks (representatives) from one of the villages in our dtambon, who was pretty good at hitting his targets, pretty sneaky, and really, really amused by it all. It was hard to figure out how to react. Generally, Thais will turn around and waai, or say "kop khun" (thank you) because the water is a blessing, good luck. So I tried to keep my squealing to a minimum. About 3 hours into the whole thing, I finally started getting comfortable grabbing buckets of ice water and dumping them on other people, too. By that time, I think everyone except Josh and I were pretty drunk, and most conversation had completely degenerated into a few happy new years and then a bucket of water in the face. Good fun.

Then we ate lunch. After lunch came the main event, the ap naam/bathing of the elders. Two rows of chairs had been set up in a long horseshoe like shape that snaked through the trees that make up the better part of the grounds of our wat. We lined up behind the other SAO workers, each with a soda bottle filled with jasmine-scented water. After sitting with my feet tucked under my butt, shins on the ground, for three minutes of blessings uttered by the samacheek amphur (who represents our district at the jangwat, or province level), and realizing, painfully, that the Chaco buckles are ill placed for such a sitting posture, being in the perfect place to bruise the tops of my feet, I rose to find myself funneled into the rows of chairs that were now filled with kon gee (elders) facing each other and holding out their hands in prayer position.

Moving slowly through the kon gee, we tipped our bottles into their hands, water dripping into their laps, as they mumbled blessings, or threw the water back into our faces, or reached up and grabbed us with gnarled outstretched hands.


Then we spent another couple of hours dancing, avoiding dancing, getting wet, and soaking other people with ice cold water. Then, we rode our bikes home, and collapsed from heat exhaustion and too much loud music. (More pictures are in the picture album; link at top of blog.)

The next morning, Songkran day, we (I say we, but really Josh) was off "work" and we slept in, well into the heat of the day (say 9 am), and then woke to find the kids len naam (playing water) by the side of the road again, tossing water at passing cards. We sat around for awhile, ate, sat around some more, and then were persuaded to go to Muang Gao (old Sukhothai) to len naam there. At first, only the adults were going to go, so we got Paa's pickup ready with about a 100 gallon trash can full of water. Then the kids wanted to come, so we had to switch to a pickup with bars screwed on top, so it would be safe. 

This provokes no concern.
However, we switch to the car in the foreground to take the kids to 'kothai for some water fighting. 
At any rate, Josh and aren't allowed to ride in the back of pickups - with or without 6-year-olds to keep us safe - and so we piled into the cab. We drove the 20 km or so to 'kothai, and found that we were pretty well safe from the mayhem and madness, as we stayed dry and powder free, while, as we pushed our way through the worst traffic I've seen in Thailand, so far, Bangkok included, and mobs of wailun (teenagers) dancing in the streets, everyone in the back of the truck got soaked. After an hour and a half or so of bumper to bumper water fights, we turned around, purchased more water from a woman who was pumping it out of an irrigation ditch, or a well, or something, with a giant hose, and then made our way back home, only stopping at 7/11 to refuel (the people, not the car) with snacks. (Side note: when I refused a bite of our driver's girlfriend's hotdog, tomato, lettuce, onion and hot sauce concoction because I really preferred by Oreos, she smiled knowingly and understandingly, and said, "Ohhh. Tongsea," thereby pronouncing that I had diarrhea. "Mai chai!" I said, NO! but I think maybe the point was lost as we pulled back onto the highway.)

The rest of the day was spent languishing further in the heat, complaining more about it, and dumping buckets of water on our heads. 

On the third day of Songkran, my husband said to me: Why don't we take a song taew to 'kothai for a beer? (Does that work with the rhythm of The 12 Days of Christmas? Yes? Okay good.)

So, we did. We had Paa drop us off at the bus stop closest to us, where the song taew (truck like thing that passes for public transit) passes about every hour or so. He waited with us until the song taew arrived, even though we had also run into Pii Gwaang, a woman who works with Josh at the au-bau-tau, and her boyfriend, Pat. He lives in another province, because he is in the military, and had come to visit for Songkran. He was going to take the song taew to 'kothai, and then board a bus to go home to see his family. At first, he was kind of a jerk. He was dismissive of Josh, and only wanted to talk to me. This was doubly annoying since I really only wanted to talk to Josh, but kept having to answer questions in Thai. 

So we all boarded the song taew, and after about 5 km a woman boarded and sat between Pat and Josh, cutting off the conversation. About 2 km before our ultimate destination, the Sukhothai bus depot, where we were supposed to catch another song taew to our penultimate destination, Muang Gao, the song taew pulled over and an old woman with a plastic basket helped herself on to the side of the road. Meanwhile, a tall, skinny, wrinkled old man with one tooth caught Josh's and my attention, "going to Muang Gao?" he asked, probably in Thai, but it could have been in English, seeing as he was hell bent on getting the attention of what were probably the only two farangs he'd see all day (us). Yes, we said. Get off here, he told us, take tuk tuk. I couldn't really see out the back or tell what was going on. I was kind of pushing Josh to get up - I even told him to - although I'm not 100% sure whether that was to get off the bus and go with the old man, or to get a better look. Before Josh could get up, Pat completely redeemed himself and said, bau-kau-sau, the word Gwaang had yelled after us as we boarded the song taew. Bau-kau-sau, which is actually three Thai letters that stand for something that I can't pronounce or remember, is the legitimate government owned/operated bus company. Mr. Angry Tuk-Tuk was clearly not part of that elite club. A few more hurried sentences were exchanged. The song taew pulled off, with all of us, minus the old lady, still in it. The old man and his one tooth and raised fist cursed us all as he disappeared behind us. 

Ten minutes later, we arrived at the station. Pat decided that he would come to Muang Gao with us, "to take care you" as he put it, and so we soon boarded another song taew and rode over to the old city (actually, to the back of the Sukhothai Historical Park, right in the middle of the gift-bazaar. Sneaky bastards). It was about 9:30. We began to walk around, finding ourselves right in the middle of the same mayhem that had seemed so far away in the truck cab the day before. 

We got water dumped on us. Powder smeared on our faces by drunk teenagers and kids (not drunk) and adults of all ages. We had nothing to len naam with, so we just accepted the blessings as we wove through the crowd, trying to avoid stands where people were throwing dirty river/canal water, and generally just taking it all in. 





At around noon, when we thought we might head back to Sukhothai and see the new city a little, we were told that only tuk tuks were going to back that way. The traffic was so bad that the song taews wouldn't be running anymore. Not until later that evening, anyway. So, Pat called his girlfriend, who took the bus to Sukhothai, met us in Muang Gao, and walked around with us for the rest of the day.



With Gwaang and Pat, we ventured into Sukhothai Historical Park, completely bypassing the ticket sellers and walking in through a gate that had been placed askance. We saw tons of people milling around, biking, soaking up the heat and sweating it right back out. One farang who walked right by us, about 10 inches in front of my nose, was our fellow asasamak, Sarah, who had travelled with her counterpart from a neighboring Jangwat to watch the parade that was unfolding before our eyes in the historical park. 


This was a happy coincidence, not only because we love Sarah (see the link to her blog, De Chan Ma Jak Meung Nashville, to the right), but also because her counterpart and counterpart's husband were able to give us all, including Gwaang and Pat (who had decided to stay another day after all), back to the bus station. Josh, Sarah, and I rode in the cab of the truck, of course, while Pat, Gwaang, and the kids endured yet another round of soakings at the hands of bucket-wielding revelers.

On the song taew back to our amphur, we met a Thai woman who had lived in New York for 12 years, is from our district, now lives in Bangkok and studies medicinal plants, from that elusive thing called the "scientific perspective," knew both about the Peace Corps and where it's previous office had been located, and who told us, in no uncertain terms, that we must visit the neighboring countries of Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar while we are here. She also gave some pretty detailed commentary to our Thai escorts about Americans and what New York is like. 

Too exhausted to make use of such an impressive and one-of-a-kind contact, I shook her hand and wished her Happy New Year without asking for a card or writing down her name or contact information. 

Celebrating is hard work. Like pong chu rot (MSG), it makes you forget things, as Pat would say.

GREEN (don't forget to check out all the rest of the pictures in our Picasa Album. See link above).

1 comment:

  1. That was awesome! And, I've played that game with balloons before on the rez :)

    ReplyDelete