Eh-heh

Interesting--was just at a happy hour Mexican-themed bar for some
chili soup (gotta get the Mexican food while I still can), and the bar
happens to host shisha parties. And the bartenders were cycling
through one of the balcony tables where there was a guy rolling
doobies as thick as my big toe and as long as my entire hand.

on departures

One learns  a  lot about logistics   while vacationing here--to use the internet, even at a reputable cafe where they have a backup battery system, you need power at the cafe, at the cafe's server, and  at the city level.  If you get as far as burning   photos onto a CD for ease of loading, you have to find a computer with a CD drive before you can load the photos.  And in reality, it's a marvel if the computer has an actual, working keyboard. 

 The trip into Kathmandu was considerably enriched when, in half a dozen different suburbs, we passed lineups of people carrying what looked like stretchers with cement or rice bags on them but turned out to be people killed by busses. 
Also interesting that it's not possible to alter a ticket at the airport, you have to go to the airline office somewhere in downtown. 
Still, tomorrow's   a welcome flight back.  Been  a very good trip, but  de ffily time to be home. 

Updates

In Lumpini, where Buddha was born, I was the only white person in town
to witness the highlight of the evening: kids chasing down and beating
street dogs with sticks. In the morning, monkeys were targets.
In Lumpini, there is also a marked example of the difference between
bottom-end sort of run-down places and places where one will likely
contract a rather enduring souvenir, and there is the stark
realization of the cost of health: the higher-end, Chinese-oriented
hotel costs three times as much, but how much is it worth to not sleep
in a cloud of mildew and parasitic hitchikers left behind by who knows
how many previous generations of travelers?

I thought Thailand had trained me pretty well for giving up on control
and expectation, but then I found myself ushered into a bus by a
smiling Chinese man who spoke no English but had a heated exchange
with the bus driver. A few hours later, the driver dumped me in the
middle island of a Bazaar in some city. Maybe one day I'll find its
name on a map.
When surrounded by six lanes of traffic moving in a dozen or so
directions, knowing precisely where one is loses importance.
And somehow I stumbled into a place just opening up, catering to a
Western audience--a bed with sheets, a clean bath towel, and both cold
and hot running water available almost all hours. Swanky, really.
After two nights, the owner--a social climber looking at being among
the forefront of Nepal's business class, who has two joints of a sixth
finger growing like a pinkie toe from the fleshy part of his left
hand--put me onto another bus to another town where I was to get off
and turn right to some travel agent's place where I'd be met by a guy
who would arrange for my jungle safaris.
The little monkey in the brain kept trying to jumpstart the Type A
drive, but no matter how many sparks the wires sent off, the machine
overloaded and clicked off. I think it had something to do with being
in the front of the bus where, instead of enduring the lurching
rolling and screeching through what must be a crazy slalom course of
road hazards accompanied by the sounds of explosive vomiting, one
listens to explosive vomiting while witnessing exactly how many road
hazards are coming exactly how close to the vehicle.

And when things do somehow work out and you find yourself in the back
of a jeep dwarfed by the rhino that was just taunted and goaded from
its afternoon wallow by a group of hooting Turks, the "I Think We Need
A Bigger Boat" sensation is little sated by the guide pulling out a
bamboo stick.

PS

To get a sense of Buddha's birthplace, imagine being in a baking hot
agricultural desert--outside of Boise or Redding--on a burn day when
the sun at its apex is a dull, reddish-orange disk, but crank up the
intensity 15% and throw in a population of people ascinated by your
unique skin and hair color that carries the assumption of
inexhaustable material wealth.
Not to be mean and callus, but by the fifth time a chubby kid peels
itself up from a shady post littered with chocolate and cheez-o
wrappers to come ask me for money or chocolate, I'm less caring than
the little I was to begin with.

On vacationing

There are times, for instance when two dozen people stop walking and
talking to turn around and stare at you as you approach and have no
choice but to walk through their midst, when tourist development is a
glorious thing.
And how funny that the hell-fer-leather atmosphere in Thailand now
seems like an easy, westernized respite from the raw world. What's
next, predictable electricity?

Suffice it to say, the plains of Northern India were almost as
pleasant as the 10 hours on a bus-sized shagwagon driven by a wannabe
stock car drive with an inferiority complex while a group of
traditional mountain women spent at least 6 hours setting off each
other's vomit reactions. Somehow, I do better with that than with
someone covering her face as she walks past me.
It's also easier facing the blatant "FARANG!" stares than the flock of
furtive glances that disavow my existence if I catch them.

Yes, authentic is good. But so is comfort.

Interesting realization

Interesting realization: Nepali meals involve a knife and fork
primarily, as opposed to the ubiquitous spoon, dipping spoon, or
chopsticks in Thailand. Since July 5th of last year, the night before
I departed, I've learned to eat everything with a spoon in the right
hand, fork in the left--eggs, soup (which frequently involves
chopsticks), rice, fish, and fried chicken. Drumettes with a spoon?
No problem. But now, give me knife and fork and fried potatoes and
I'm hopeless.

plans

More discoveries. Reflections will come eventually.

It turns out tomorrow is the festival of spring when people spray
colored water all over--sounds exciting. Here's hoping my camera
survives (as if the days and days of dust storms weren't enough). On
Sunday I'll go to Lumpini, where Buddha was born, and spend a couple
of days, then go to Chitwan National Park for an elephant back
critter-spotting safari and round out for a couple of days in
Kathmandu.

Wait, what? Am I really saying this?

And from there I'll look into going back to Thailand a little
early--this has been a great time so far, but it's tough as hell to be
a tourist in Nepal and I could use some time with consistent
electricity, actual hot water, maybe a greater modicum of cleanliness
and comfort for a couple of days before heading back to NST. And
whoda thunk Bangkok would be a destination for that? Then again,
maybe Kathmandu will surprise me. I have a guesthouse rec from a
guide I met on the trail, so it might work out, but it's wearing being
a cash cow whose life story must be reviewed at every interaction.
With nice, still, humid air a layer of smoke and smog has socked in
and dropped visibility to 2K, but the locals all say it's just cloudy
weather and it'll pass sometime. Evidently, clouds in Nepal smell
like crop fires and burning house trash.

whoda thunk?

Big news is that I survived the trek.  It was rather like finding myself in the midst of a desert set for an alien space movie.  And absolutely fantastic. 
It's interesting how quickly one can become pleasantly surprised at conveniences like working electricity, hot water, cold water, indoor running water, and any sort of heat.  Also interesting how quickly high altitude winds and sandstorms can render one's skin a cracked and scaly wreck.  And internet, incidentally, requires power at the computer, at the town's server, and at the main server, and that's tricky with regular rolling blackouts.
Having made it out with time to spare, there is now opportunity to explore Nepal--turns out, Buddha was born not far away, and there's a rhino/tiger/bear national park not far from that, and thence to Kathmandu should just about round the time out. 

On Nepal 1

Kathmandu is wild: you fly in over picturesque paddies and fields and smack into half-completed slums and shantytowns and the dirtiest, grungiest, grimiest, greediest, most blatantly depraved crowd of touts and taxis I've ever seen.  Never been so happy to leave a place.

Pokhara is lakeside in the alpenglow from Annapurna.  Little bit different vibe.  Still Asian, still in Nepal so there are rolling blackouts and nothing's priced and there are touts everywhere, but they aren't as desperate and pushy, and the people are either generally good natured and friendly or damn good at pretending for the tourists.  And there are the mountains.

Leaving the tropics has been a great shock to the body, which is behaving much, much more happily even just overnight.  The cold wasn't even that unpleasant--especially after dropping $4 for a new "North Fase" fleece. 

I'm equipped with ACAP and TIMS permits, a down jacket and water bottle and fanny pack, plus the gear I brought, and tomorrow I fly to Jomsom.  It's about a 4-6 day trip out, and I'm shooting for two weeks with a detour to Annapurna Base Camp.  Should be pretty fantastic. 

Interesting

In Thailand, background chatter turns to English cadence in my ear.  In India, I swear I'm surrounded by Thais.  

It's quite odd being around hale, healthy folks again: I'm not that tall.

4 hours and 1 meal in India has produced as much acid in the reflux as 7 months in Thailand, but I'm sufficiently impressed by the bookstores and general tourists to move this to the top of the prospective jobs list.

It's interesting to consider whether it's just the Mumbai airport or a broader area that does not like direct access to google/gmail/blogger.  

Whoever thought touchscreens would be fun on seat-mounted entertainment venues is one sick puppy.

The problem I'm facing is defining a vacuum: I've figured out what it wants and what it fills itself with, but how do you define an absolute vacuum?

What the hell's with a country that changes its time by half an hour?

The funny thing is that printing off a web checkin--amply sufficient for Stateside flights--go me to BKK and to the Jet Airlines gate, but once boarding began, the Indians turned more draconian than code-orange TSA and I had to go back to the start to be reclassified and checked all the way through.

The funnier thing is that once I complimented the lady's contacts, everything flowed like a silken stream.  

Thais are supposed to be respectful and avoid ostentatious attention, so why do they shout whatever comes to mind and feel free to fart most potently in a crowded airplane?

And I can't escape it: when I ordered the meal and received a dining tag with my receipt, I was not called out for order contents or number but as "HARRY POTTER!"

It's been hot lately.  High 30s in the shade, mid 40s in the sun.
This morning brought a brief rain shower.  Relief, right?
By the time the sun came up, there was a layer of soupy mist that felt like breathing through a wet wash cloth.
Oh, mountains, mountains, dry air, trails....

On Nepal

Suddenly the term is done. The first year of teaching abroad.
Tomorrow I hop on a plane for the first significant trip I've taken--distance wise--since my flight here last July. For the first time since then, I'm leaving the country that's about the size of my home state. For the first time since then I'm in reasonable shape to do so.  Still, it's appalling to consider that the lazy bag of bones I've become is going to Nepal. How contrary to everything!
But how do I pass up the opportunity?
Sure, my legs are twiggy and my ribs still cast shadows. But I want this to happen.
It's not going home, not the sort of ease and respite, the succor and comfort i've been dreaming of since, oh, July, but then again, going home would be more drama and strife than I care to encounter (from my
perspective, weighing 90 pounds and being able to walk up a staircase without lugging the rails is a good thing and improvement. Different story for those who knew my pre-Thai self).
It's going to the mountains. The biggest mountains in the world. And it's hiking from hut to hut with a bag as light and variable as my plans. Without my photo gear, the pack weight is just about double the
pack's empty weight. With the gear it must weigh more than ten pounds.
Granted, cold weather gear from Nepal will weigh rather more than my super-light 800fill down sleeping bag, but somehow I don't shy from such weight like I would were I packing it here. And at the end of the trip, the heaviest things--and the most important (boots n bag n probably cold weather gear)-- will get shipped stateside to save them from moldering through the tropics. And by the time I get back, maybe
the voices that tell me what I'm doing will have some sense of what that might be.
And wouldn't that be an exciting change.

Hardly any ribs showing
through the new Thailand souvenir tee

Sent from Speedy the ipod.

whoa

In less than a day, I'll be enroute to Kathmandu.
In less than two days, travel gods willing, I'll be in Pokhara.  Not long after that, I'll be hiking back from Jomsom.
Maybe.
Possibly.

It should be noted that every time I've googled into Nepal, Annapurna, Kathmandu, Pokhara, Jomsom, or trips/packages therewith, plans have changed.
See, first there's the "WHOA!  I could do that?  Cool!  I could DO that!"
Which is exactly how the trip came about in the first place--no way in hell am I up for the PCT or AT, for carrying a full-on pack with food and tent and cookery supplies in addition to three-season gear, let alone doing so in the highest mountain range in the world.  No way in hell.
But navigating a web of teahouses and villages 2-5 hours apart, any one of which will provide shelter, food, water, and whatever else hospitality might dictate, that's a different story.

And that's where the planning ends: it's such an epic hike in such a dramatic area that just about anyone with a significant outdoor interest or investment wants a piece.  And has taken a piece.  Which is then advertised online.
What a fantastic guidebook!... written in 1996.
What a killer interactive map! "Note: since the Maoist rising, trails have experienced severe degradation and are not to be relied upon."
"Was had great time 2010!"
"Mail Delivery Subsystem: inbox overloaded."
404 not found.
Bad link.

What I know is that I'll step into Kathmandu on Wednesday and leave a couple Saturdays down the line.  In the interim, I think it'd be cool to see Pokhara--where I've made a contact!--and Jomsom.
It'll be easier once I'm on the ground and buy a map, see what the legs are up for doing.

And then I fly back in April to work a summer camp that may or may not involve students in the new, English Intensive Programme, which will entail teaching some degree of grade 45678 in the intensive or regular programme--who knows?  Why worry about it at this point?

What I know is that I have a few weeks in the mountains, before I have a few months to grind before a return.

Reflections: agent vs object

Friday was the last day of finals.  Next week is prep and planning for next year, with parent teacher conferences on Friday.  For the EP.

In my little corner, my final was proctored on Tuesday.  I made it through all but two courses on Tuesday, and turned everything in on Wednesday morning.  

"Done already?  WOW!  Good teacher!  Now you done for done.  Good job this term, you have fun?"

How bizarre to sit in the EP office and listen to the drama and problems that arise therein: the primary printer ran out of ink, and the backup jams.  "This is unacceptable."

"We are out of Milo [chocolate milk powder].  Why the F are we ALWAYS out of Milo?  Would someone go talk to [Big Boss Lady] about this?"

An argument over how to present the final grades has been going on for weeks.  Everyone's using a different program and recording the numbers in different ways, and the farang argue in circles about what would be easiest for the Thai teachers who actually record the grades in permanent records.  

There is much complaint about the lady who keeps up the public parts of the building--she doesn't say goodmorning and doesn't do a good job and is lazy and steals things and breaks all the mugs.  She can't even keep the toilet paper stocked, and the bathrooms just reek.  

Next year, there better not be the same, horrible computers in the new school.  

The air conditioners had better have rotating fan heads.  

There are only red, blue, and black whiteboard markers.  They could at least keep up the stock of the f'ing whiteboard markers.  

Sometimes it's hard not to scream.  

-THIS OFFICE IS AIRCONDITIONED.  You sit on padded rolling chairs instead of backless stackable plastic stools.  

-You're not next door to an alcove of 6 pit toilets 300 boys share and are responsible for cleaning.

-Not only do you have your own little trash baskets with liners, you have someone who empties them twice per day.  

-Not only do you have a water cooler and hotpot, you have coffee, creamer, sugar, herb tea, black tea, snacks, spoons, forks, napkins, a refrigerator stocked with milk and a few dozen coffee mugs that are cleaned daily.

-You have three working "dinosaur" computers, each of which has a working operating system, a full suite of programs, internet access, and access to two printers stocked with A4, F4, and colored paper.  Upstairs, you have two copiers to use.  And nowhere do you have to provide your own ink, paper, or compensation.  

The running joke/complaint is about bringing the shitty old equipment to the new school.  And it would not be surprising if they did.  To be replaced by nothing.  

I still can't figure out who my boss will be next term.  Rumor has it that there will be two farang and two sections of 4th, 5th, and 6th grade.  

Typically, the upcoming dead week would be filled with planning, textbook review, drawing up the new semester and guidelines for the entire year.

Which is a big part of the reason I have no compunctions about running away to Nepal.  

It's taken quite a while to solidify, but the big lessons of my time here are beginning to distill.  It'll be a while before that happens, but there are certain scenes that have stuck and are starting to make sense.

Classroom Scene:

For some reason, one of the mattayom classes was meeting in the library--construction in the classroom or something--and I spent a couple of days watching how the class worked.  

It had the EP's typical dozen students, and of the seven periods in any given day, two or three would be taught by farangs.  The farang would stand in the front of the class and lecture and call out for answers and draw all over the board, and the students would nod and answer as best as they could and scribble notes if they were motivated.  Then the farang would wrap up and leave, and the Thai teacher would step to the board.  She would talk through the lesson in Thai and the students would bend over new notebooks and scribble furiously.  After about twenty minutes, there would be some sort of game with callouts or running to the board to write answers, in English.  Then they would break to the next subject.  

Farang never teach two periods in a row.  

In the EP, all farang teachers must submit course plans and maps and general instructional directions well before the semester starts.  Same thing with tests--the test goes in sometimes two weeks early.  All the material is reviewed up a ladder from farang supervisor to Thai teacher to Thai supervisor to Thai boss.  Records of lesson plans are kept and distributed to the appropriate Thai teacher.  Well in advance.  

I had no such requirements in the RP.  My lovely colleagues had extensive piles of planning and grading, but my actual requirements were to write a midterm and final and grade the same.  

Anecdotal interlude: copies ARE available without paying out of pocket.  You write your test/worksheet, format it on F4 (legal) paper, arm the printer with your tub of printer ink and paper purloined from elsewhere, and print not more than two pages.  Disassemble the printer, and take the two, white pages to the other side of campus, where  a pack of four or five will gather to listen to you say, "copy" with various inflections while waving the test around until one of them says, "Ohh, copy!  Okey, okey."  Then she disappears for a while and comes back with a preoccupied looking guy who reaches for your test, disappears with it, and comes back a few clicks later to hand you the copy and confer with the nice ladies, one of whom will say, "no, no now, tomorrow/next week/later, later." I think this signifies that they think you want the copy immediately and they're giving the originals back so you can go make your own.  So you have to thrust the papers back, reiterating that it doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn't matter, sixty copies whenever, sixty copies, doesn't matter, and finally just walk off.  Sometime the next week, return to the office to inquire about the copies, and wait for the preoccupied copy guy to be found so he can open the sacred chamber of campus copies.  

It's a small, corner classroom with two rows of three copy machines wedged in formation between tables lining the walls.  Light is provided by whatever filters through the iron bars on the windows whose shutters have been broken off.  Stacks of newspaper-looking papers render the tables into dismally gray cityscapes from a post-apocalyptic Soviet country.  These are the tests that will shape the futures of the bright and screaming children running around outside of the gloom.  

You get up to 60 copies, one for each kid in your largest class.  And then you get 1500 answer sheets.  All of the above on the off-gray paper that's the unbleached color of newsprint but not nearly so refined--the sheets are measurably thick, have fibers that would give you splinters if the paper was made straight from pulp, not recycled scrap, and if you rub on it, the ink will wipe off without as much effort as erasing a tentative pencil sketch from standard copy paper.  

So now you have 60 copies and 1200 students: at the beginning of class, you assign one person to hand the sheets out individually, and one of the rowdy little guys to shotgun blast the answer sheets.  After the test, the students bring you the sheets and have been trained to show you that their tests are in good shape.  You stack them up and move on to the next class until every single student has had a go at one of them.  

I don't remember the particulars of the midterm, but it was a somewhat more relaxed affair.  The final had to be in on Feb 4, with the test on March 2.  

Before finishing and submitting the test, I asked a number of times if students would be missing classes or days at all between then and the end of term.  

Definitely not.

No class trips?  No study tours?  No special study sessions?  No home-room emergency preps?  No activity days, no sport trips, no nothing, just class?  

No.  Just class. 

HA!

The next day, when I went to one of my classes and discovered a locked room, I asked a colleague who pointed at a few sentences of Thai script on the office whiteboard:  "Yeah, a few sections of M1 are going on a trip.  I guess nobody told you because we all read Thai.  Haha!"

Haha.

I had about three regular teaching days in the last month.  Talk about frustrating: just at the end of EV 3 get instructions to write a test for EV 4, do the responsible teacher thing and make it reflective of some actual learning and what you hope to actually teach in the intervening weeks, and then slap the students with a final exam, 40% of their grade, based on teaching you didn't get to do.  

Welcome to Thailand.

If the kids don't pass the first time (how's 13 out of 60 sound?), they take it again and again and again until, maybe with the help of a cane, they pass.  

Sequence

I've just handed my boss the latest grades.  She's flipping through, frowning.  After the first EV, I learned to give about 50% more questions than points and grade students straight across with a cap at 100%.  

Still, every class has a handful or bucketload of people who score around 10-15%.  

"Oh, you have to make extra credit so the students can pass, no?"  

It is hard not to mention the level of instruction I'm doing--After school, I will play football--vs the notes I find on the board--equations for constructing past progressive sentences--or to simply laugh.  

"Okay, for extra credit the students must write a twenty line dialogue and read it to me.  It can be simple, from anything we've done, but they have to write their own and read it."

"Ohhh, is very tough.  Very tough."

Blink blink.

"Is very tough for them"

I wrote out an example: Hello. Hi. What's your name? My name is Russell.  What's yours? And so forth for 20 lines.

"Easy, see?"

"Okay, okay, but is tough."  

"What do students usually do?"

"They take the test again."

"Same test?"  Mock surprise.

"Yes, same test," mock reservation.

"But how do they learn?"

Forced laughter.  

Reciprocated.

Boss: "You give me grades for EV4 on Friday, okay?  Have to get all extra credit by then.  

"You class, see, I think is for fun, is to help keep the grades up, no?  Okay?"

Cut to me at the computer, inventing grades and bolstering test scores until everyone has at least a 50%.  

Explaining my 20 line requirement to my lead teacher, veteran of many decades at my school.  

She gives me a new mantra: "Oh, you're a mean farang."

"Yes, I'm one mean farang.  But what else should they do for extra credit?"

"They retake the test."

"Same test?" same, mock surprise.

"Same test."

"But how do they learn?"

"They learn nothing.  If they're lucky, they pass the test."  

My desk is graced with a copy of some state English test.  It's fairly poorly written and I had issues with it the first time I took it, about Halloween.  My supervisor, the department head, a lead teacher, and a Thai teacher have all given me at least three times.  

My supervisor comes in and sees the test returned to her desk (and there is not a note saying, "Answers the same as they have been the past three times").  She calls me over and start reviewing the test, answer by answer, just like we did the last three times.  

One question is along the lines of, "She shan't dally" or "She won't dally."  As usual, I checked "won't" but noted, "BAD QUESTION."  

This time, I got a lecture about proper English: you can't use X instead of Y in Z situation.  

It was where, stateside, I say, "This is why I'm a writer, not an academic."  

It was where, in Thailand, I couldn't say "Are we really worried about this?"

A student walked in with a sheet of extra credit for me.  She started to read, but with me being the mean teacher, I stopped her by the third line and asked her to read one further down, then up next to the top, then back in the middle, and she couldn't .

"Study and come back on Monday, okay?"  

Nod.  

"Oh, you mean teacher!" says my boss.  

It is not about the teaching.  It is not about the learning.  It's a matter of having a white person in front of the classroom.  

In the EP's concentrated farang atmosphere, it seems like we're here to teach.  And in some cases, it's true: grades 1-2-3 learn shapes and colors and jobs, basic math and science, and they learn it pretty well in English.  But by the start of high school, especially with our school (which is the least prestigious in the city, while our elementary school is one of the most prestigious in the province), the actual instruction is in Thai.  Farangs just make the school look good.  

And that's how this culture, or at least culture in this area, works: farangs have a narrow, scripted role, a few places they're supposed to visit and a few things they're supposed to say.  

Farangs are not supposed to step off the main tourist drags.  Farangs are not supposed to speak Thai.  Farangs are not supposed to order food unless it's tom yam gung or khao pad.  

Walk into a food service alcove on a touristy street and order fried rice and everyone's happy.  Order papaya salad with crab and fish sauce and everyone has a problem.  

Stop at the breakfast place enroute to work and order fried chicken with rice and all's well.  Order vegetable soup with organ meat and there is mass confusion.  

 

Tell the taxi driver I'm going to the main mall, Ocean (Oh-see-an) and all's well.  Tell him I'm going to King's Court across from the stadium and there's great confusion.  

If I explain the building where I'm going, it takes half a dozen people before a Thai person says, "Oh, SP Mansion!" and then all is well and understood.  

So I'm walking home from a trip downtown and take one of the back alleys.  It's off the main shopping bazaar and lined with bags and clothes and hair salons bursting from buildings so close together there is no sky.  

This is not where farang go.  

I looked up and saw a Cal Trans orange shirt hanging in one of the stalls.  Dark blue letters, stark enough to trip out your eyes, read "Lake Tahoe: Outdoor Paradise"

Of course I have to buy it.  

So I pull the shirt off the hanger and watch the hovering proprietors disappear.  There's a flurry of whispers--"oh no, it's a farang!  What do we do?  Do you remember how to speak English?"  "Just charge 500."

When I finally get the lady cornered behind a stack of "GUCI" bags and hold up the shirt, she holds her hand out like "STOP!"  

How much?  For THIS?

Oh, 200.  

Still substantially high, but better starting point.  

A shirt like this is 100 across the way.

No, no, this is from USA, see?  The others are no good, copy copy.  

Okay, 150.  

No, I cannot.  180.  

Okay.

Funny how something I would never think to spend money on stateside becomes a must-have item here.  

Triptych

Composite scene the first: as I'm walking down the street/through the mall/in a store/anyplace public, a stroller or toddler-age kid points and says, "FARANGFARANGFARANG!"  

I try not to frown to vehemently when I look at the parents.  

Specifically enlightening instance: I'm walking behind a man who's been burned to significant disfigurement.  As stroller or toddler-age kids point, mommies and daddies hush them.  

Composite the second: after cranking up my radar to figure out what mommies are saying to "FARANGFARANGFARANG!" kids, I realize that mothers are leaning down to pre-verbal kids and whispering, "FARANGFARANGFARANG!"

I just don't get it.  

On Paying for Things

The nice Korean lady who lives above the salon next door was outside watering her plants as I walked home.  I made a buzzing sound and general haircut motions and asked if today would work.  She waved me in, and the usual flurry of buzzer and comb waving started up.  

Then she brought out a straight razor.  She was polishing up the edges and the skin on the back of my neck gave out: a little nick.  

There is much yelling and the other lady is summoned from upstairs.  Alcohol and sterile pads and gauze and tape.  

Really?

She's finished, and tries to wave me off, but I give her the customary 60 Baht.  

Pharmaceutical preps for Nepal (prices in TB):

Anti-inflammatory-20

Antibiotic ointment-60

Tape-40

Antacid-40

Anti flagellant/amoebic/bacterial gut bombs-80

Anti-fungal-60

Anti-diahrreal-30

Anti-allergen-30

Anti-Migraine-60

Street-grade codeine goes for 100, but I think I'll wait and patronize a pharmacy in Nepal.  

On Pharmaceuticals

I shouldn't still be surprised by it.  And really, there wasn't a surprise that anti altitude sickness pills aren't available in this area.  Still, in a town where even I know how to find whatever illicit substance I might want (save for meth; there don't seem to be many meth houses around here), I can't get paracetamol with codeine.

The shopping list for Kathmandu grows: map, coat, hat, gloves, water bottle, pocket knife, and pharmaceuticals.

On Copying

Copies ARE available without paying out of pocket.  You write your test/worksheet, format it on F4 (legal) paper, arm the printer with your tub of printer ink and paper purloined from elsewhere, and print not more than two pages.  Disassemble the printer, and take the two, white pages to the other side of campus, where  a pack of four or five will gather to listen to you say, "copy" with various inflections while waving the test around until one of them says, "Ohh, copy!  Okey, okey."  Then she disappears for a while and comes back with a preoccupied looking guy who reaches for your test, disappears with it, and comes back a few clicks later to hand you the copy and confer with the nice ladies, one of whom will say, "no, no now, tomorrow/next week/later, later." I think this signifies that they think you want the copy immediately and they're giving the originals back so you can go make your own.  So you have to thrust the papers back, reiterating that it doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn't matter, sixty copies whenever, sixty copies, doesn't matter, and finally just walk off.  Sometime the next week, return to the office to inquire about the copies, and wait for the preoccupied copy guy to be found so he can open the sacred chamber of campus copies.  

It's a small, corner classroom with two rows of three copy machines wedged in formation between tables lining the walls.  Light is provided by whatever filters through the iron bars on the windows whose shutters have been broken off.  Stacks of newspaper-looking papers render the tables into dismally gray cityscapes from a post-apocalyptic Soviet country.  These are the tests that will shape the futures of the bright and screaming children running around outside of the gloom.  

You get up to 60 copies, one for each kid in your largest class.  And then you get 1500 answer sheets.  All of the above on the off-gray paper that's the unbleached color of newsprint but not nearly so refined--the sheets are measurably thick, have fibers that would give you splinters if the paper was made straight from pulp, not recycled scrap, and if you rub on it, the ink will wipe off without as much effort as erasing a tentative pencil sketch from standard copy paper.  

So now you have 60 copies and 1200 students: at the beginning of class, you assign one person to hand the sheets out individually, and one of the rowdy little guys to shotgun blast the answer sheets.  After the test, the students bring you the sheets and have been trained to show you that their tests are in good shape.  You stack them up and move on to the next class until every single student has had a go at one of them.  

On TV

I have to make a plug for "Outsourced."
They had me with two of the protagonist's lines in the first episode:
"I'm out of a job back home, so it looks like you're stuck with me for a while"
And, on seeing Indian traffic, "It's like Frogger in real life!"
(I care almost enough to look up my blog posts reflecting the same.)
And in more recent episodes, the absurdity of names and work ethics/motivation in Asia.

Plugging a network TV show feels about as contrary as sitting on a pinecone, but I would've said worse about a sweltering sweat-bath of a life on legs without enough spring to run.
Still, I won't deny the enjoyability and validation--it's a funny show, and it disarms a number of the difficult/intimidating/confusing/frustrating/existential aspects of living overseas.
In a sense, it offers a network-broadcast version of the disarming I attempt to do by writing.
And I enjoy the hell out of it.

So if you happen upon a broadcast, check it out.  It's quite a good time, at least from this side of the dateline.

On cars and acculturation

A car and roadtrips were significant parts of my stateside life.  A car meant freedom and escape, the physical means of getting from wherever I was to wherever I wanted to be--physically or mentally.  And my new (used), dream car turned a year old without me, just after the rather major accident that did a goodly amount of internal damage.
Yeah, about that concept of "driving" and "roadtrip" getting sideswiped by a geriatric drunk or flying around a corner and into an unmarked elephant....

Lately, I've been dreaming about driving, about escape and freedom, the security of a home base and the liberty to orbit therefrom.
No, this is not building up to a decision to buy another bike.  (People who weren't around last term don't understand this.)

What's odd about my car dreams is that about half of them have me driving from the right.

On travel

What's worth more-2000 baht and the chance to be the only farang with
perfect attendance or 3 days in the Himalayas?
And it is suddenly very real and immediately pressing-6 days to
departure.

Sent from Speedy the ipod.

On grading

I'm tempted to say that Russian music is the best soundtrack for
grading, especially in a Thai school--the exileration helps, and what
doesn't improve with a few cannon blasts?--but then again, there come
moments of "statistically, you wouldve done better guessing" for, say,
40 of 60 kids in THAT class and you wonder where the cannons are firing.

Sent from Speedy the ipod.

Ascent

Top o' the world--or almost.
A week from today I'm in Nepal.

Sent from Speedy the ipod.