On growing up

It's interesting to find myself on the eve of a trip home. While I've been hearing that the only way I'd get out of here is in a body bag for a good 14 months (and if that's what's getting straight to my ears, imagine what other people are hearing), there was a definite resistance to a homecoming fortified with 'and then what?'
The interesting part is that after enough months of fighting to be here and make it work, fighting to let go of the illusion of safety and security, fighting to get up and going on my own swollen ankles, tearing up at the thought of my dog and telling people 'it is just me, on my own, just me, no, just me,' to keep from crying at the thought of fishing with Dad, Dottie's steaks with a peacock serenade, sitting on the sofa with Mom, listening to Darrell's music, after ages of being ready to drop everything--EVERYTHING--to catch the next flight home if only I heard 'here's how to move ahead and reconstruct a life' instead of 'you're killing us with worry so get your stubborn ass home you ingrate!' after that hurting and enduring and yearning, I realize that there was also much growing.
When I left, I was very much 18, having spent the intervening decade in/around college. There was never a break from the seasonal lifestyle going back to, oh, kindergarten. There was never a need to figure out how to go about establishing my own nest when there was either school or the place I love and revere and had the fortune to grow up exploring.
Now I'm in a different place. I'm not out to build a nest, certainly--'hmm, do I go toOman or Peru?) but I realize that the place I think of as home is not anymore. Much as I dislike the thought of some punkass dude with jackhole friends living in my room, much as I wish I could babysit the dogs and snowblow Mom's driveway, that's not the reality of my life anymore. One day I hope it will be again, but for now I need to be where I am, occupied as I am, trying to find out who that I critter is and what it's after.

There's the idea of the Neolithic rite of passage being a lonely crawl through a dark cave with the gods raining fire and misery.
Well, here I am on the other side, and ain't no way in hell I'm going back through that to get to where I thought I was, or imagined I wanted to be. Something like that.
Regardless, how wonderful it will be to revel in the illusions and dreams, and then how wonderful to get back to the concrete reality I know through my own creation.

Sent from Candid the iPad

On Glossing

It's been an eventful while since anything of events made it up, so here's the overview:

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.

MOVIES!

A quiet drive through town

This one is even less eventful, but it's a look inside the classroom

The thing about my experience here is not that it's taught me how to tap into resources and tricks to draw and stretch more from those resources than I would ever have imagined possible, not that I'm much more confident in my ability to survive just about anything, not that I've proven anything to myself or anyone else, it's that there's no way in hell I want to be in a similar situation ever again.

So I'm getting pretty ready to get out.  Like, very ready to drop everything.
And here comes a job.  Teaching music to kidlets in a developing music program in a wealthy nation.
A salary with room to save and accommodation furnished in the Western sense; a ticket there and back at the beginning and end of contract and for every summer vacation in between.
Ostensibly, fantastic gig.
But it's in Kuwait.  That was never one of my possible, let alone desirable, destinations.  It's not a place I would want to explore without great incentive to go there (like getting paid).  If I saw the job advertised, I wouldn't apply.
When I was in Penang and couldn't walk down a block without at least two couples averting their faces and covering their noses with hankies (even through the burka), I decided that an islamic culture is not for me.  (Which is bizarre given that after reading the Quaran, the abiding impression was of acceptance and forgiveness in the beauty of the Creator and creation.)  But I'd make an exception in a few cases, namely Oman, Qatar, and maybe UAE, teaching college English on an established syllabus.
Which is what I applied for without realizing I was sending my materials to a recruiter, who directed me to the Kuwait job.
Again--how cool to teach music to kidlets, now that I've learned the lessons that lead to the position I'm in now.  So I look it up online and there is nothing positive anywhere--the absolute best claim, among stories of changed contracts, cut benefits, horrible management, living in slums, lies and misdirection, the best thing I read was that they pay on time.  But okay, I can disregard the vitriol as someone who faced greater challenges than they were expecting in places they didn't know could be challenged and reacted poorly.  I can imagine it quite easily--it would probably be therapeutic to  write such things about my current employer, but I would never get over the guilt as such an act wouldn't do anything worthwhile for anyone in the long run.
So first comes an interview: the lady is a busy Londoner who's made time and assuages a number of my concerns about the management: she doesn't breathe fire or antagonism.  Still, she explained that she wanted music to be a publicly conspicuous part of the school, but she couldn't say what sort of music she wanted--"you know, performances.  The kids performing."  So what materials are there?  "Well, I'm not a musician, but keyboards and boxes of percussion stuff.  I really couldn't say, because I'm not a musician."
Then comes the contract: basic salary, basic accommodation, government insurance, summer vacation, and your kid gets a 50% discount in tuition.
Such a contract would've brought me to Thailand, but in fact I have one detailing hours and duties and expectations and evaluations and I still got broadsided.  So I want to know what ages and classes and expectations and evaluations and accommodations and conditions and materials and curricula and coverages and generally a contractual description of the position offered.
A week after the interview, I had some confirmation that the conditions are as a naive westerner would interpret: 20 contact hours with 4 syllabi in a classroom with a computer and AV setup, an actual apartment with a kitchen and sitting space and bedroom and curtains, and a guilt-trip note about the amount of time and effort I've demanded.
Really?
So it's a ticket out of Thailand.  It's an entre into the middle east.  It's a sizable paycheck.  But is it worth it?  It's music with kidlets, happy singing time, but at what cost to the spirits?  And what toll would that take on the body?
Yes, I really, really, really want to get out of here.  But at the same time, especially as I stop paying attention to the number of superfluous steps I take, I wonder what it is that people see in Thailand.  Are the drinking and drugs and jungle/beach raves really that great?  And as frustrating as it can be in practice, would the "mai pen rai?" culture with nothing at stake be such a bad thing for me for a few months?  Especially with the baggage the position carries.
Still, that money for teaching music to kidlets....
But at what cost?  

On flooding and disasters

There's an odd byproduct of living in a relatively rural area--and traveling through some of the truly destitute parts of a developing country--is that when I see pictures of the flood victims in Pakistan, with people who've set up tarps over cots with blankets and piles of tarpaulin-packaged possessions, I think "why isn't there a vendor table?" and then, in response to the commentator, retort that there are extensive communities all over this area who lead contented lives with even less than that--a tarp roof, a sarong-style wrap for the day that doubles as cover for the night, and a little, roll-up table of trinkets or foodstufs for sale. They lead what could be called scavenging or hunter-gatherer type lifestyles, collecting fruits and greens from the local forests, fishing for protein, and seem completely contented.
That's one of the big lessons: happiness lies entirely within the approach to life, not the appointments thereof. And as much as you can intellectually recognize that, it takes confronting someone thoroughly destitute and desperate by western standards and realizing that they are perfectly happy and pity your for your burdens and attachments as much as you pity their lack thereof.

Things unseen

There was an interview. I insulted the potential employer by asking for explanations of "apartment" and "fully furnished."
Kitchen? Cooking utensils? A table and chairs PLUS a separate place to sleep on a bed with springs? Hot and cold water and a kitchen sink? Curtains?
HOT DAMN! I haven't seen those since I last saw prime rib!

And today's writing has me thinking about things I miss: potato being a staple starch, pancakes and waffles, bacon, salami, multi-grain bread with decent jelly and butter--butter period, peanut or almond or dairy butter--toffee, anything requiring an oven (it seems the only ovens in Thailand are in the pizza joints, so there are no brownies, fresh cookies, fresh bread, roasts, anything requiring indirect heat; there are boiled hunks of meat, and I dearly love parboiled intestine with fresh liver, but a meatloaf would be divine), chocolate (decent chocolate melts in the average daytime temperatures), did I mention potatoes?, or anything from Latin cuisine. And by that I mean anything from Tierra del Fuego to northern Spain: give me robust flavors slow cooked into legumes with little bits cut from big hunks of meat and I'll show you happy); cheese around here is processed at best (Asians and lactose, this population density and tropical festering with a dairy farm), and a "Sandwich" is slices of crustless white bread toasted with sweetened condensed milk. Yes, it's tasty, but even in my current state--especially in my current state--I would crash waves of solid Asian crowding aside to get to a Quizno's sub, let alone a decent French dip.
And then there are the creature comforts.
I live in one of the more exclusive and luxurious places in town. I have a mattress that's somewhat softer than coconut husk on boxsprings on the floor, a desk with a television and cable that sometimes works, a minifridge, a sawhorse for my clothes, a hot water heater that costs slightly less to run than the AC unit, and a shower curtain. Otherwise, if I were to want shelving, curtains, cupboards or cabinets, or any sort of organized storage beyond the luggage I came with, I would have to buy it. Likewise, I provide my own cleaning devices, supplies, and activities, my own towels and sheets, take my own garbage to the streetside bin, all for only slightly more than it would cost to rent a house without any furniture or fixtures from a shady woman who speaks no English and is trying desperately to fund a new neighborhood all her own by overcharging farang who don't know any better. Or I could move to a place with bare concrete walls and tile floors a ten minute walk from a ten minute mototaxi ride to campus. Rent for that would cut 20% off my current rent+utilities.
When I came, it seemed like being thrown into a rough Motel 6. Now I wonder what I would do if I actually had storage room or a cooking space. And curtains. Curtains? Tres bourgeoise!
After what it took to get to where I am, it scares me to think of what I could tolerate with a kitchen and easy chair to come home to. Curtains to sleep behind.
Would a mattress Americans would call hard have too much give for comfortable sleep?
What would I do if there was a different space to read, write, sleep, and eat?
It's been a year since I've operated a vehicle, and just as long since I've operated a cooking device (beyond a water boiler, which is to say: I've had enough soup for my lifetime, thanks). What would I do with such complications? With shopping for raw ingredients?
What would I do with a washing machine?

Funny: having learned to recognize all that I have here, which is quite a lot--trustworthy landlords, a quiet and safe building, windows with glass panes that open and close (one of which has a screen), a mattress softer than coconut husk, AC, hot water, a real toilet (even if the rim and lid aren't attached), a relatively safe and extremely convenient commute, a fridge and TV, a three-pronged outlet for my computer and internet that works a good 60% of the time--I've forgotten how to deal with many of the things I once considered an inherent component of daily life. Just imagine having a kitchen, how much time must be spent preparing and cleaning, how much money must be spent on spices and staples for a cupboard, what it would take to assuage the after-school hunger currently squashed by any of the dozens of carts on the walk between work and home.
And some of these places talk about leasing cars.
Lease a car? Something so huge and valuable? In a foreign country?
Here, a motorbike is 2 years' salary, a car the investment of a decade, and I'm a living testament to the driving conditions. What would it be like in a country that advertises "aggressive driving" as normal and accidents as customary?
Granted, I dream about the WRX, my blonde beauty back home, and those dreams rarely involve sticking to 55. But that's on American roads around American drivers, who are so paranoid of the law they drive as if St Peter were next to them and actively passing judgement.

But here goes.

I've decided that if an offer comes in, I'll go for it. My rationale is that nothing I'm looking at seems to be any worse in terms of working or living, and the pay increases by at least 300% with greater potential to improve working, living, or salary compensation by a considerable margin.

Keep good thoughts comin'
They may not be obvious, but they're very, very important

On thinking

In a previous life, it would've bugged the hell outta me. I was buying a handbasket of groceries at Carrefour, including a small sleeve of CDs and a necktie, each with a magnetic security device: the CDs had a button looking thing that sat like a bow on top of bisecting loops of wire, and the necktie had the same sort of device plugged through the loop on the back.
Each register is equipped with a shiny, round gizmo that looks remarkably like the security device, save that where the button tied to the CDs is convex, the deal on the register is concave.
Guess what happens when the two meet.

So it was nearing my time to feed and sleep, which corresponds surprisingly well with the time the deli food is offered at greatly reduced prices as the employees wrap up for the night, which is to say, it's the end of anyone's shift.
And the girl at the checkout has to call a manager for help. There's this thing blocking off the barcode on the necktie!
The manager shows her how to mate the button and its release.
True, heartfelt amazement on the checker's behalf. The manager does not seem frustrated or exasperated in the least.
We go through the bottle of coke, baggie of soup, baggie of pork, baggies of fruits and veg, and we get to the CDs. There's this thing blocking off the barcode!
Wait for the manager, who with no visible impatience shows the girl how to connect the button to its release, then how to unwrap the wires holding it to the CDs, then scan the discs and toss them in the bag. No apparent frustration or exasperation.

I figured it was an example of someone whose intellectual prowess couldn't drive her much above checker level. But then a coworker was bragging about his kid: at 18 months or so, old enough to walk and say a few words or names without reaching full sentences, the kid is the only one in the age 1-5 daycare who knows how to operate a doorknob. The other kids haven't been taught, and trying it out simply isn't done.
What to say....
No, how to say it without saying it....
um, uh....

Okay, on the one hand this culture operates under values and customs completely alien to mine. Which is fine, and I do my best to respect.
On the other, this is exactly why it's hard not to laugh when farangs ask me why I haven't hooked up yet.
Maybe it's another sign that, thus far, I'm the only person in Thailand who finds it humorous to respond to "Poot Thai, dai mai" (can you speak Thai?) in Thai, with, "No, I'm a foreigner, see how white? Of course I can't speak Thai. When I say horse it sounds like dog, when I say tiger it sounds like shirt, when I say cave it sounds like sleeping mat."