I
There was a job offer. It was for a lot of money and involved teaching music to G3-6. There was no program in place, and the curriculum was up to me. They would pay my airfare there and back, provide housing and utilities, and I would be teaching and living in what I would've considered standard conditions before coming to Thailand--just imagine having separate cooking, sleeping, and studying spaces! Electricity and a computer with a projection system in the classroom!
But I turned it down, and I have felt relief ever since.
I was applying for a job elsewhere and a recruiter plugged me into this one.
During the interview, the principal could not say what she wanted beyond a world-class music programme, whether vocal, instrumental, Western, Arabian; no idea what she wants except it should be absolutely excellent. When I asked for clarification of "furnished accommodation" and "standard classroom" she seemed exasperated, and when I asked for clarification of "some keyboards and boxes of percussion things" she got snappy.
The contract listed salary, duration, an airline flight upon successful completion, and a housing provision. When I asked things like, "What is the teaching load and class schedule? How many students per class? What materials are available?" it took a full week to get a reply, and that came with an email to the recruiter on the lines of, "after the head of primary took so much time to answer the questions, I expect that there is an acceptance of the contract."
Which I never gave. The recruiter took, "I'm interested in the possibilities, but I'm still curious why the salary is relatively low, what the teaching schedule would be, and what materials are available" as "I accept" and passed that on to the school.
At the same time, I read nothing actually good about the school--the best anyone had to say is that they pay on time. And the vitriol was vile enough to be immediately discarded--seized assets, house arrest, overnight deportation, contracts changed on a whim, all sorts of fun stuff that is easy to find and easy to attribute to inexperienced teachers expecting life abroad to be just like it was in college.
My gut didn't like it.
My head wouldn't be overruled--it was a good paying gig and a short entry into the ME, where I'm looking for my next job.
But it was at a school I didn't trust with a principal I wasn't keen on in a country I have no interest in visiting with expectations for greatness but no idea how to get there,
And the safety measure of sending all possible money out of the country because everything can be seized if someone decides not to like you and complains to a well-connected daddy.
At the same time, I'm starting to do better, physically, and have a doctor who has been all the way in out and around and through me, and finally what she's doing seems to be taking effect.
I have a zero-pressure job--my own motivation and professional self-respect far exceeds my professional expectations in the workplace.
As much as I dislike it, I know the culture well enough to get around and keep myself fed.
Next term, a relatively short one, stands to be pretty easy. And maybe for once it's time to listen to my body and instead of pushing for the next goal, the next thing, stop to get caught back up with myself.
So it's not that I'm thrilled about staying in Thailand, it's that doing so is the easiest, lowest key, hassle and pressure free choice, and maybe by now I've earned it.
The job offer sounded like anything but.
And at the 11th hour, when Mom said, "I don't know why you think that if you don't take this job there won't be more in the future," it clicked and resonated all the way through, and I sent a letter of declination rather than the scanned copy of a signed contract.
II
I'm coming home for the semester break! Departure is October 1, return on the 23rd. REJOICE!
III
I was invited to dinner at a former student's house, She is a freelance graphic designer, married to a bank manager, with a daughter in the 9-11 range. Very upper crust folks, with a beautiful house they've owned forever and remodeled a couple of times.
Fascinating.
When you pull through the gate, the white coarse-sand driveway leads to a parking area near the patio or straight into the covered parking, under the house. Right, the house is on stilts high enough for a Thai person to walk under, or a normal sedan to park under with room for the trunk to open.
Why the stilts?
Because it floods. Every year. And the "foundation" level is about on the flood line with just enough draft left over to keep out most snakes (jury's out on the crocodiles--they were caught a few blocks away).
Up a flight of steps littered with flipflops and broken-backed shoes to the door, which is white-painted teak and slides accordion-style open and closed with a latch for a padlock on the outside and holsters for a large wooden plank to secure from the inside.
A great number of idols and busts stand sentinel around the entryway--the standard pictures and carvings of great monks and various kings--plus the typical fetishes to bring fortune, fertility, and virility (elephants, phalluses, actively copulating carvings, all presumably made under the great auspices and blessings of a powerful monk or brotherhood).
To the left are more ill-fitting doors on ancient hinges, whitewashed, that lead to mystery rooms where Westerners are not to trod, presumably Gramma's room and the Buddha Room (Buddhists have a separate room for prayer/meditation, usually). To the right and up a step--the floor is thick teak polished smooth by ubiquitously bare feet and riddled with cracks and joints large enough to make for some really cool games with a friend under the house (or during a flood, if you stock up on pebbles ahead of time)--are the primary living quarters, with separate rooms for Dad and Ma/Daughter. Each room has a sliding screen door to the main hall and screened windows to the outside, theoretically keeping 'skeeters out. (Side note: having been in Alaska when the blood patrol was dense enough to serve as a living coat on your back, I can confidently say that the concentrations of mosquitoes here is nowhere near the same, but the smallest jungle-grown Thai bloodsucker is about 150% larger than what I would've called a damn big mosquito before I came here.)
Each room has a mattress on the floor and an armoire/cabinet and a light next to the bed. That's all.
The living area has a refrigerator on the left a few steps from a hutch with coffee, tea, and a hot water pot (in Thailand, pump-top electric water heater pots are as prevalent as ants). Behind the fridge and next to the hutch are the bathrooms--on the left, a traditional squat pot with an urn for rainwater and two hoses--one with a backside nozzle and one with a showerhead. On the right is a western-esque bathroom with a hot shower, toilet, and sink (we are in the hi-so realms, in case you forgot or didn't notice the full-sized refrigerator).
Opposite this wall is the sitting/TV area. It's a nook with a frame for another wooden door which has been removed and presumably folded under the house. On one side is a TV/DVD on a little stand full of picture books and old school books, and on the other is a handful of pillows. This is where everyone--Kidlet to Gramma--reposes in slack-jawed comfort.
Outside the doorframe is a wooden porch fully covered by the roof, which extends to the left to wrap around the side of the house opposite the road. On the road side of the porch are the other bookshelves in the house--these full of design magazines.
Around to the back of the house, the porch opens onto a pond and has conveniently placed buckets of pellets to scoop and throw to the ravenous catfish and river-filter fish. Lots of coconut trees, fruit trees, green bursting everywhere.
And here, on the back side of the house, is the kitchen. It's an open-air deal on the wall outside the bathroom, with walls on two sides. A table has six chairs around it, the only such devices in the house (not counting the toilet).
Everything is low, even for me (I love it). Frosted glass doors under the counter slide open to dishes, all of which are tiny--in Thailand, you have one big plate mounded with rice, and then there are many small dishes of whatnots from which everyone nibbles. There's an actual oven (the first I've seen in country) with the manual still in it, on a pan with the paper label still attached. Next to this is a microwave which appears to sometimes see some use--again, very high-so. There's a workspace and a sink with a draining rack in the corner. On the pond-side, there's more drainage areas, the spice rack, and the burner area, dropped even lower, with a single propane unit that belts out about 65000 BTUs at full bore.
The spice rack has rock salt, sea salt, pepper, fried garlic and shallots, chili paste and powder and flakes, palm sugar and raw sugar and white sugar, tamarind paste and some tubs of something you can't identify but don't really want to.
Next to this is a tub with bottles of fish sauce, oyster sauce, vinegar, lime juice, sweet pepper sauce, and soybean oil.
We'll be having pop-ee-yets (eggrolls), and the setup is on the table: a plastic tub of filling, a stack of wrappers, and a little bowl of egg white. Stuff, roll, and stack. Great fun. Then fry in a special pan set aside for always holding oil, which takes about 30 seconds to heat up on the wok flame.
A deep, plastic bowl appears with a dense 'fro of greens: lettuce, something like sorrel, mint, basil, other basil, parsley, and celery sprigs.
To eat the popeeyets, wait until they've cooled enough to hold, then cut into knuckle-length chunks with kindergarten-style safety scissors. Wrap the chunk in a leaf of something, stuff it with more leaves, and spoon on some vinegary sauce with crushed peanuts (as close to my dearly-missed peanut sauce as I've come in Thailand). As a palate cleanser, just eat the veggies.
On the one hand, everything is fresh and crisp and in the best possible conditions to be phenomenally delicious. On the other, it's damn fun.
IV
Photos of the house to come, along with another story: I was invited to cook farang food. It was the first time I've used a kitchen since the bike wreck 53 weeks ago.
After carefully detailing menu requests, I decided on meatloaf with fried potatoes and gravy and a wilted spinach salad with honey mustard bacon vinaigrette.
And then they reminded me that it's the Vegetarian Time, somewhat like Lent, when Buddhists can't eat meat.
So there was some last minute juggling, but the best I can say is that Gramma left rice on her plate to finish the fried potatoes, and Pa told me I was welcome in his home anytime as long as I was cooking.
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