the craziness of culture

We’re here in Thailand, safe and sound.  And exhausted.  Nothing says “Happy Independence Day!” like a 19-hour journey with a two-year-old.  I could write and tell you about all the interesting cultural sights I’ve seen here, but all we’ve done is sleep in until noon, watch the Disney Channel with Chickpea, and go to the grocery store.  And in a few hours, we’ll be going to sleep again, so that we get used to the time change (it’s 12 hours ahead of Texas time, if you’re interested).

As modern as our current country of service is, Thailand is even more westernized, at least according to our friends who have been to both.  At the store we visited today they had a KFC, Dairy Queen, and a Dunkin Donuts - places we never patronize in the States, but it was still a trip to see.

I’ve always enjoyed the 4th of July, for some reason.  I think it’s because as a child we always did something fun together as a family, since it’s my brother’s birthday, and then later on I always did fun things with friends and/or family - and so I associate it with being with people, one of my favorite things.  I also love the food involved, from the barbecue to the potato salad to the ice cream to the beer.  It’s pretty much the only day I look forward to in the summer.  Well, except for my birthday.  And Kabob’s birthday.

Anyhoo, that’s why, to me, it was a bummer to have missed out on any July 4th celebration this year.  Even overseas, you can manage to find ways to have a shindig - we always had Independence Day parties in our village in Kosova, there are other Americans to hang out with in our current city, and before we got to Thailand, we read about a free beer-n-bbq party happening here at the U.S. Consulate.   But alas, we celebrated in the air, drinking German beer (Kabob) or Sprite (me) and watching The Pursuit of Happyness (us) and Finding Nemo (Chickpea).  Oh well.   Maybe next year.

My first doctor’s appointment is tomorrow morning, so we’re just taking it easy until then.  Our biggest goal here, obviously, is to start getting better.  This involves both medical stuff, counseling stuff, and generally making it a major priority to live a balanced life as a family.  If we have time, we’ll take a few vacation days and sightsee - but only if it doesn’t cause added stress, because we’re supposed to be keeping that at an all-time low.  It’d be crazy not to take in some of the abundant tropical fruit and an elephant ride or two while we’re here, but beyond that, we’ll see.

Well, I’m going to rest before I have to wake up at 4 a.m. my-body’s-time.  Hope you had a good July 4th!

Q: How difficult is it to pack for a two-month trip to, essentially the equator, when you’ll be 14 to 21 weeks pregnant?

A: Very.

Thankfully, we did all our packing yesterday, so all we have to do today is pick up little loose ends around the house, and then hopefully go to a waterpark that’s a 10 minute walk from us.  Then tomorrow, we’ll be on a plane.  Again.

But I had a hard time deciding - do I pack for my early pregnant belly and my mid pregnant belly, thereby packing far more than I normally like?  Or do I go ahead and pack for my mid pregnant belly exclusively, and just look baggy for a month or so?   I went with the latter, because quite frankly, when you’re pregnant and on the equator, baggy is good - keep as little fabric touching you.  I’m just guessing here.

I am officially a PRO at packing.  Seriously.  I made a master list of my packing list this time, and I’m going to keep it on the computer for future reference.  I’ve discovered over the years that whether you’re gone for a week or three months, you pretty much pack the same - just a week’s worth of clothes, and bring laundry soap, a clothesline, and clothespins (or pray for laundry services where you’re going).  At least that’s the way I like to do it.  I absolutely detest overpacking.  I still manage to do that with books, though.  But this way, it’s easy to travel about, deal with a toddler in the airport, and generally have peace of mind that you’re going light.  I mean, I basically wear the same five things at home anyway - why pretend I’m going to break out and wear something different while on the road?

So yeah, while it’s fun to think we’ll be in Thailand - new country, good food, living cheaply - it’s a bit exhausting right now to think about being in another culture.  And to be somewhere so humid and hot.  I mean, we checked the weather, and it’s actually been hotter here than it has been there, but I have a feeling by late August, the temps are going to climb.  The ironic thing is, our other place of consideration was nestled among the Alps on the French-Swiss border.  But it was too expensive, and it didn’t meet our specific needs anyway.  Oh well.

But really, I can’t imagine it getting much hotter than we’ve been this past week.  I’ve never in my life experienced daily living this hot.  And I’m from Austin.  Temps dropped 10 degrees yesterday, and we could feel it - there was a breeze, you could tell people were breathing a little sigh of relief, and we ate dinner outside.  The thermometer in the shade read 96 degrees at 2 p.m.  So if that’s a cool front, I don’t even want to think about what it’s been like, especially without an A/C.

Okay, enough about the weather.  In a few minutes we’re going to stroll down to the waterpark, very casually, because we can’t tell if it’s actually open.  I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be, but we’ve never seen anyone on the slides.  But we don’t want to get Chickpea all pumped up, only to be disappointed.  So we’ll just tell her, let’s go on a walk!

Hopefully our walk will be full of slippery-slidey goodness.

I have been going through some serious, serious thinking and wrestling in my life. And there’s no way I can possibly match adequate words to my thoughts right now on this blog. So I’ll spare you what would most definitely be rambling, and instead I’ll share with you some shallow cultural observations.

Well really, they’re not even cultural really, they’re just things about town that get me thinking about one thing or another…

• Blaring on the speakers at a cafe today was Johnny Cash covering Depeche Mode. It was bizarre. My language helper knew neither Mr. Cash nor the song Personal Jesus, so I had a hard time explaining why it was strange to hear that song here, of all places.
• Eva Longoria does ads for an ice cream here, and right now they’re at every bus stop. Reminds me of Bill Murray’s character in Lost in Translation, or better yet, Joey selling Ichiban - lipstick for men.
• We haven’t subscribed to cable yet, but we’re going to, for language learning among other reasons. I’ve been told they show Dora the Explorer, but like most kids’ shows, it’s dubbed in the language (as opposed to English sound with subtitles). I’m really curious as to what they do when she speaks Spanish.
• As always, people say “cowboy!” when they hear I’m from Texas. The other night, someone was shocked - shocked - when I told them that yes, there are still cowboys around. I tried to explain that it’s not quite the old west it used to be, but I just don’t know that much language yet. I think for them, cowboys were in the same category as unicorns and the Loch Ness Monster.
• The other day I asked my language helper what was her overall stereotype of Americans. Her answer? They work really hard and they don’t know their neighbors. Quite the reputation we have to live up to.

On a completely different note, we will be in another country from tomorrow until Monday, and I don’t know about our internet access. So if you don’t hear from me for a few days, you know why.

Happy early weekend!

…starting to show this early on.  But seeing as I started to show at 9 weeks with Chickpea, I’m not totally surprised.  But, happiness is getting a care package from Mom yesterday!  She sent a few items with a friend’s mom who is in town visiting for three weeks (a side application here:  it is indeed possible to visit).  So that means I now have the bella bands I ordered just before we left the States which didn’t arrive in time for us to take them.  I wanted to try them when I was pregnant with Chickpea, but by the time I heard of them, I was already past that stage of dreaming that I could still fit into my normal jeans.  Have you tried them?  I’m wearing one now, and I think they’re great.  My only clothing issue right now is just not being able to button my jeans - I can still zip them up just fine - so wearing the bella band means I can wear the jeans and not worry about my unbuttonedness showing.

So that’s my product endorsement of the day.

In other news, we’re doing well.  It has been cool and rainy, which is a first since our arrival.  It has been soooo nice enjoying the cool breezes and leaving our windows open while we sleep.  We’re delaying the purchase of our air conditioners until early next month, so the breeze is a welcome arrival.  It actually thunderstormed and rained really hard in the middle of Saturday night, and the next morning, everything was covered in dried, splattered mud.  “Hmm, that’s weird,” I reasoned, but didn’t give it another thought.  Later that morning I was chit-chatting with an American woman who’s lived here 20 years, and she asked if we noticed that last night it was raining mud.  She said every now and then we’ll get an attack of muddy rain, coming all the way from the Sahara Desert.  This does not mean we live super close to the Sahara, mind you.  I was completely surprised, and have since enjoyed all the “wash me” memos (in English) hand-painted on car windshields around town.  Let’s just say I’m glad it didn’t rain mud at, say, lunchtime, when we would most likely be out and about.  Yikes.

(Cool photo from this guy in where else? - Austin.)