Blogger is now in Thai

Well it may be time to face the facts when it comes to blogging. Alisha made me use blogspot for this blog cause wordpress is "too hard" (-Whatever. I, Alisha, do not remember saying this. She is purposefully trying to make me sound pathetic and controlling-) so everything is under her e-mail address and mine keeps being in Thai and Alisha can't sit still long enough to do it. She can however write long luxurious e-mails. I'm sorry that I don't write long e-mails guys, someone has to keep the blog going. So for the record Alisha's assignment is to write about our seven hour church experience on Sunday and mine is to write about our culture class last night and our first day of school.

So skipping ahead, Tang, Ake, Mum, Dad, and Ton took us to a Buddhist thing last night. Apparently it was some giant Buddhist holiday yesterday that neither Tang or Ake could explain. Thank goodness for Dad, from what I gleaned from his explanation, yesterday was the day Buddha was born, and discovered the truth, and died (busy day). It is also the full moon of the sixth month (apparently back in the day May was the sixth month, and the moon was fullish looking so...yeah). The ceremony was bizarre and by bizarre i mean unlike anything I had ever participated in/seen. We had to light incense and hold lotus flowers and circle the temple three times. During this procedure I nearly caught Laura on fire because I was sure a bug was in my shirt but I couldn't get it because everyone was staring at us, and filming us, and taking pictures of us. I didn't think it was the best time for me to rip off my shirt and scream. I told Alisha to get it but she told me there wasn't anything there so I calmly walked around that temple breathing smoke trying not to be paranoid. (PS I'm paranoid about everything here, I'm quite certain rats will eat my feet if I don't cover them up even though I have not seen a single rat here). Anyway we circled the temple wearing our shoes because Dad is so important that he can keep his shoes on when no one else can.

Then we went inside and everyone prayed to the Buddha except us rude Americans who took pictures of the Buddha (Mom told us too).


We took some family shots then we had to shake some sticks to get our fortune/horoscope thing. Don't laugh about shaking sticks yet because it is hard. There are a whole bunch of fortune sticks in this tall cup and you have to shake the cup till one flies out. If more than one flies out it doesn't count and you have to start over.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't shake the dang sticks correctly. I kept having this vision of me shaking them so hard that they flew out of the can and littered the whole temple (right in front of the Buddha and the monks). I didn't want that since everyone in that room was staring at me anyway. After some minutes of obnoxious shaking it became clear to all in the party that I was never going to get one out. Tang literally had to hold my hand so that I would shake the can correctly. That eventually worked and the number 16 came out. I then went to the magic drawer and pulled out my Thai fortune. Boy I wish I could read Thai.

(As a side note Ake eventually translated both of our fortunes. Alisha's said something about how someone already loves her but nothing has developed yet and how she will get everything she wants from life in good time. Mine said that I would have a wonderful partner, succeed in everything I tried, accumulate great wealth, and be happy my whole life. These were really good. Sarah's said that no one would ever be there for her when she needed them unless she donated money for electricity in the temple.)

When we went outside to find our shoes (even dad isn't cool enough to wear them in the actual temple) we discovered that a bird had liberally pooped on Laura's shoe

and sparingly pooped on mine. I just stood there holding my shoe at arms length trying to decide if I would rather put it on and walk in pooh or leave it off and step on bugs (still hadn't been able to find the bug in my shirt). I went with the former cause I'm terrified of bugs. Don't even worry though. Ake told me that here it is lucky to get pooped on by a bird because what are the chances? Ake is pretty funny, he is getting us an oven so that we can make him tuna casserole with Lays on it. Last night in the car Alisha and I informed him that there are more than one kind of casserole and he was stunned. He now wants to try them all. Apparently, he knows a guy who can get us cheese if we need it...

Anyhow, after the bird incident we went to the different food vendors and tried several things. The first was a tortilla that tasted like a sweet corn chip, i managed to drop a whole giant one. Then we tried squid but only after we watched them grill and smash the life out of it. Boiled peanuts came next, which I regret to inform you all, still tasted to much like peanuts to be enjoyable, plus they had the consistency of an eraser (I dropped some of those too). But don't worry, after that we had popsicles, those were delicious and I only dropped a little.

After that we headed home and when I went to have a shower the bug that Alisha told me I had imagined fell out of my pants when I took them off. That may be to much info for everyone but its important that you know that I have a good reason for my paranoia. Bugs are everywhere. In the doorway Alisha stepped on a cockroach (on purpose, she is the only brave one among us).

Anyway it is now Wednesday and we started teaching. Turns out little Thai children are not as racist as the adult Thai's thought they would be. For the most part everything went really well. The kids are really young (1-5), however, and everything we teach will need to be a little bit different then we originally planned. They are all adorable and we are optimistic that we won't have to many problems. The routines need work but they are smart kids.

Oh and one more thing. Me and Alisha got shiny blue bikes today and helmets with visors which is what all the cool kids wear. Well everyone got a new bike actually but ours are blue (different shades) so they are the coolest....punny :)