Welcome to Thailand! Huh?

Hey, everyone!  *waves*  I am down in the sweltering heat of southern Thailand, receiving my VSO training for new arrivals in Thailand!

… Yeah.  It’s kinda weird.

I’m only here for a couple of weeks, because it’s crunch time at work; because I’ve already encountered a lot of what we’ll be learning; and because, frankly, when you’ve already got your own place/neighbourhood/motorcycle, it’s a little jarring to swap back to being a newbie, sharing a room (although my roommate doesn’t arrive until tomorrow, so I’ll only be sharing for a week) and doing everything as a group.  Mostly, I’m here for the Thai lessons, because every volunteer I’ve met has assured me that VSO’s Thai teacher is ALL THE AWESOME.  And she is.  She is in possession of so much awesome that it’s impossible to look directly at her without sunglasses, such is the awesome that radiates from her.  We’ve had four mornings’ worth of Thai lessons so far, and we’re having reasonably complex conversations, plus we’ve got a good grasp of the structure of the language.  I’ve never been so far along in learning a foreign language in such a short time.  However, it doesn’t feel intensive.  It’s actually a hell of a lot of fun.  And the discussions of Thai culture that spring out of the lessons may be even more valuable; it turns out I still have a lot to learn.

We’re based in the small seaside town of Bang Saen, which is actually pretty relaxing.  There are some great restaurants (especially the Vietnamese place next to our guest house, Yanadin Apartments, as well as a handful of outdoor mookata places), and an extensive food market across from the university.  There are even a few stalls at the main night market that do really nice Western-style (for a given value of Western-style) cakes.  The regional capital is only a short song tao ride away.  It’s not Chiang Mai – Bang Saen is still basically a main street, with a network of small residential streets running off it – but as an introduction to Thai culture, food, and logistics, it’s not at all bad.

My fellow trainees include a very bubbly and elegant girl from the UK; a friendly woman from Sri Lanka; and an older guy from the Philippines, who basically keeps himself to himself.  The two women and I have been eating and hanging out together most of the time.  They’re good company, and I enjoy watching how excited they get (especially the British volunteer, who’s never been to Thailand) over things like papaya salad and riding a song tao.  It reminds me how cool a lot of this stuff is.  I find myself trying more new things (especially food) here than I have been recently in Chiang Mai.  I’m not sure if that’s because this feels like a vacation, shaking me out of my now-familiar routines, or because the sense of adventure is infectious.

Of course, I'm in the bizarre position of being more experienced than the other trainees, but not by much; I can often take the lead in practical situations, but there's still a lot I don't know, especially about placements outside Chiang Mai.  (They also all received briefings in Bangkok, which I missed; I'm not sorry at all to have skipped the political briefings, since I feel like I've already been exposed to a lot of that information, but it turns out that the health briefing included some stuff it would have been seriously good for me to know four months ago.  Ah, well!)  I just want it on record that I've valiantly resisted the urge to bullshit, despite the incredibly tempting opportunity to tell them that geckos are poisonous or that the way to greet Thai people is a friendly pat on the head. :)  (It really, really isn't.)

It turns out that I need to head back to Chiang Mai a little early, because I'm suddenly going to be training 180 refugee and migrant women about climate change over four days (terrifying, and yet awesome!).  I'm not going to be sorry to head back - another week of Bang Saen will be more than enough for me - but I am kind of sorry that neither of the other women I've been hanging out with will be posted in Chiang Mai.  However, the final volunteer - the one who's going to be sharing a room with me here - will be in Chiang Mai, and is arriving tomorrow...