Yes, you heard right. For the first time in almost three months I feel busy.
Tomorrow (the 26th) morning I will fly to Mae Hong Son, Thailand to visit Beth, a missionary friend that I met back in January. I will fly back to Chiang Mai on the evening of the 30th. This is only a 30 minute flight, by the way. I would still appreciate your prayers that I am able to actually fly to and from Mae Hong Son. Right now, it looks like we will fly tomorrow, but lots of things could change between now and monday.
I'll barely be back in Chiang Mai long enough to unpack since I will be heading out bright and early on April 1st to visit a Karen village with a Swiss couple. We won't actually arrive at the village until sometime on the 2nd. We will leave there on the 5th, arrive back in Chiang Mai on the 6th.
On the 7th I'll be making a trip to the Burmese border to renew my visa. I was only given a 90 day visa when I entered the country and that visa actually expires on April 4th, but I'll be out in a remote village, so I decided it was worth it to pay the fine. It is actually cheaper for me to be illegally in the country for 3 days than to pay to have my visa extended for 7 days before I leave for the village. When I re-enter the country I will get a 15 day tourist visa, which means I will be making another border run later in April.
Adding to the busy-ness are the deadlines looming over my head. After I get back I will have less than a month to finish everything up school-wise. It seemed like not so long ago those deadlines were months away...
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Culture Shock
Culture Shock— n. a sense of confusion and uncertainty with feelings of anxiety.
That pretty much sums up how I feel. However, that is not how I feel in relation to Thai culture. I was prepared to be frustrated by the differences between East and West and I was prepared to feel lost and confused living in a city where everyone speaks a different language and uses different symbols to express words. That I was prepared for. Some days I am frustrated with my inabilities to communicate to a Thai person. I learned a pretty broad vocabulary when I took Thai class, but it is really hard to retain the vocab when you don't use it on a daily basis. Thai people are very understanding of my shortcomings, though. They love that I am trying to learn to speak their language. No matter how horribly I butcher their language, they still tell me that I speak beautifully. I had heard before I came that Thai people are some of the friendliest people in the whole world and I would say that is true for most of them.
I feel culture shocked when I think about the people I have to work with. Most of them are Swiss, which is ironic since my mother's family can trace themselves back to Switzerland. Most of the short-termers are Swiss and the others have no grasp of Thai. They have not taken lessons and essentially know how to hi and thank you. I am not saying this to belittle them, but rather to give some context for the comment that one of them made to me which was discouraging and insensitive to say the least. One morning at the staff coffee break, the cell phone for the guest house rang and I answered. The person on the other end spoke only Thai so I handed the phone off to a Mekong staff person who spoke Thai fluently. Immediately after I did that the comment made was, "Didn't you go to Thai class for six weeks? Didn't you do that so that you could talk on the phone? Most people who go to class can do that at least. What was the point of your class?" Thankfully, another staff member came to my rescue and said that it took him years to master being able to talk on the phone to a Thai person. In my own defense, I think the comment made shows the ignorance of the person speaking. Ignorant of how complex the language learning process is and ignorant of the Thai language, which is tonal making it much more difficult to master. No one learns a language in six weeks. Just in case you wondered, the caller had the wrong number.
The person I work with the most (aside from Jamie, my field mentor) is a 65 year old Swiss woman. She is by far the source of my anxiety and uncertainty and confusion. The only specific instructions I have ever been given by her are about unlocking in the mornings, locking up in the evenings, refilling the snack bar and answering email. At most those activities take about an hour, maybe two, of my time. That leaves an awful lot of free time. I later found out that on monday, wednesday, and friday mornings I am responsible for a staff coffee break. There are other parts to the job, but I learned them as I went, each of them a surprise and an opportunity to be told that I did something wrong. I often feel that I am held responsible for information that I never knew in the first place. Which leads me to feel like this woman is out to make me look like a fool. I constantly feel like I am walking on eggshells, afraid that I am going to screw up without even knowing it. I dread going to the Hudson House because I feel like it is an opportunity for her to shame me yet again. Even worse is that I feel I can't talk about this to anyone because it will get back to her. Most of the people I interact with are part of the Mekong Center or at least know of this woman and I don't feel comfortable talking about her to any of them. I don't want advice and I don't want to do damage to her reputation. Others think she is the nicest woman. (I think it is because she isn't telling them what to do...). Basically I need someone to vent to, but I don't have that so I am venting to you, my faithful blog readers. I really need prayer in this area, personally I have been praying that God would grant me favor in her eyes.
I would also invite you to pray about the pollution here. I am supposed to fly to Mae Hong Son, Thailand later this week to visit an OMF missionary. She was in town this week and stopped by the office. She mentioned that flights have been cancelled because of all the pollution. Her words were "don't worry, but pray."
That pretty much sums up how I feel. However, that is not how I feel in relation to Thai culture. I was prepared to be frustrated by the differences between East and West and I was prepared to feel lost and confused living in a city where everyone speaks a different language and uses different symbols to express words. That I was prepared for. Some days I am frustrated with my inabilities to communicate to a Thai person. I learned a pretty broad vocabulary when I took Thai class, but it is really hard to retain the vocab when you don't use it on a daily basis. Thai people are very understanding of my shortcomings, though. They love that I am trying to learn to speak their language. No matter how horribly I butcher their language, they still tell me that I speak beautifully. I had heard before I came that Thai people are some of the friendliest people in the whole world and I would say that is true for most of them.
I feel culture shocked when I think about the people I have to work with. Most of them are Swiss, which is ironic since my mother's family can trace themselves back to Switzerland. Most of the short-termers are Swiss and the others have no grasp of Thai. They have not taken lessons and essentially know how to hi and thank you. I am not saying this to belittle them, but rather to give some context for the comment that one of them made to me which was discouraging and insensitive to say the least. One morning at the staff coffee break, the cell phone for the guest house rang and I answered. The person on the other end spoke only Thai so I handed the phone off to a Mekong staff person who spoke Thai fluently. Immediately after I did that the comment made was, "Didn't you go to Thai class for six weeks? Didn't you do that so that you could talk on the phone? Most people who go to class can do that at least. What was the point of your class?" Thankfully, another staff member came to my rescue and said that it took him years to master being able to talk on the phone to a Thai person. In my own defense, I think the comment made shows the ignorance of the person speaking. Ignorant of how complex the language learning process is and ignorant of the Thai language, which is tonal making it much more difficult to master. No one learns a language in six weeks. Just in case you wondered, the caller had the wrong number.
The person I work with the most (aside from Jamie, my field mentor) is a 65 year old Swiss woman. She is by far the source of my anxiety and uncertainty and confusion. The only specific instructions I have ever been given by her are about unlocking in the mornings, locking up in the evenings, refilling the snack bar and answering email. At most those activities take about an hour, maybe two, of my time. That leaves an awful lot of free time. I later found out that on monday, wednesday, and friday mornings I am responsible for a staff coffee break. There are other parts to the job, but I learned them as I went, each of them a surprise and an opportunity to be told that I did something wrong. I often feel that I am held responsible for information that I never knew in the first place. Which leads me to feel like this woman is out to make me look like a fool. I constantly feel like I am walking on eggshells, afraid that I am going to screw up without even knowing it. I dread going to the Hudson House because I feel like it is an opportunity for her to shame me yet again. Even worse is that I feel I can't talk about this to anyone because it will get back to her. Most of the people I interact with are part of the Mekong Center or at least know of this woman and I don't feel comfortable talking about her to any of them. I don't want advice and I don't want to do damage to her reputation. Others think she is the nicest woman. (I think it is because she isn't telling them what to do...). Basically I need someone to vent to, but I don't have that so I am venting to you, my faithful blog readers. I really need prayer in this area, personally I have been praying that God would grant me favor in her eyes.
I would also invite you to pray about the pollution here. I am supposed to fly to Mae Hong Son, Thailand later this week to visit an OMF missionary. She was in town this week and stopped by the office. She mentioned that flights have been cancelled because of all the pollution. Her words were "don't worry, but pray."
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Meet Preston
Preston is the son of my field mentor, Jamie. He is almost 15 months old and I have the privilege of getting to watch him once a week while Jamie is at school. This week is finals week for her so I get to watch Preston three days in a row. Anyway, it is really fun to see all of the new things he is learning. He is learning what words mean, like stop. And I am getting to see him learn how to obey. Today we were eating lunch at the restaurant down the street and he has the tendency to want to run out of the eating area towards to street or towards a fish "pond." As soon as I saw him making a beeline for the street I said, "Preston, stop!" And he did. Then he took off towards the fish pond. I told him to wait. i didn't think he was going to but as soon as he got to the edge of the concrete he stopped and waited so that we could go over to the fish pond together.
I could fill up this blog with stories of all the hilarious things Preston does, but I won't. However, I think he deserves at least one entry seeing as I spend at least a day a week with him, sometimes more; and because he is just so cute!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
On A Wing & A Prayer
For quite some time now I have known that I needed to call Delta to get a later flight on the way home because a NINE minute layover isn't going to cut it.
The saga started two sundays ago when I tried to call Delta's office in Bangkok. I never could get through. I asked my field mentor about it and she informed me that I needed to put a zero in front of the number. I think by the time I was actually able to call it was friday and apparently it was quitting time too because no one answered the phone all weekend. I finally got through on monday (or maybe it was tuesday). Here is the conversation in a nutshell (after all the pleasantries and explaining that I wanted to change a flight):
I called it and it didn't work. (Does anyone see a pattern?). I looked online and saw that they had an office in Chiang Mai. Excellent. I called that number and then found out after being on hold for five minutes that they couldn't do anything about it in Chiang Mai and I needed to call Bangkok. They gave me that number and it worked, thank goodness! After being on hold for an eternity, I again explained my situation. She asked where my destination was, so naturally I said St. Louis. It was quite obvious by the silence on the other end that she had never heard of St. Louis. So, then I walked her through my itinerary and explained that the last two flights were with Delta. I was convinced she was going to make me call Delta again. Finally, she said that I couldn't change any of my flights without changing all of them. I told her that my reason for wanting to change the flight was having only nine minutes in between flights. I was assured that the flights would not have been booked so close together if I was going to miss the last one. According to her there is no reason to change anything.
I am hoping that she is right, but I am preparing for her to be wrong. I really don't understand how I can NOT miss that flight with only nine minutes to get from one plane to the next. Good thing my flight is in the morning so that I won't be stuck in the airport all night :)
The saga started two sundays ago when I tried to call Delta's office in Bangkok. I never could get through. I asked my field mentor about it and she informed me that I needed to put a zero in front of the number. I think by the time I was actually able to call it was friday and apparently it was quitting time too because no one answered the phone all weekend. I finally got through on monday (or maybe it was tuesday). Here is the conversation in a nutshell (after all the pleasantries and explaining that I wanted to change a flight):
"What is your flight number?"Today I went to Chiang (a Thai woman who works in OMF's offices) to find out if she could find a number for Delta that was different than the one listed on their website. I don't know what she did or how she did it, but within seconds I had two different numbers to try. I called the first one, explained what I needed. She asked for the same info: flight number, name, etc. (Note: it took about 5 tries at me spelling my name for her to actually get it right. No matter how much I emphasized the 'v' she kept hearing d or p or t.) Then I was informed that I actually needed to call Cathay Pacific Airways, who I am flying out of Bangkok with. She graciously gave me their number.
"5145."
"What airline?"
"Delta." (I thought this should have been obvious since I was calling Delta's office, however...)
"This isn't Delta."
click.
I called it and it didn't work. (Does anyone see a pattern?). I looked online and saw that they had an office in Chiang Mai. Excellent. I called that number and then found out after being on hold for five minutes that they couldn't do anything about it in Chiang Mai and I needed to call Bangkok. They gave me that number and it worked, thank goodness! After being on hold for an eternity, I again explained my situation. She asked where my destination was, so naturally I said St. Louis. It was quite obvious by the silence on the other end that she had never heard of St. Louis. So, then I walked her through my itinerary and explained that the last two flights were with Delta. I was convinced she was going to make me call Delta again. Finally, she said that I couldn't change any of my flights without changing all of them. I told her that my reason for wanting to change the flight was having only nine minutes in between flights. I was assured that the flights would not have been booked so close together if I was going to miss the last one. According to her there is no reason to change anything.
I am hoping that she is right, but I am preparing for her to be wrong. I really don't understand how I can NOT miss that flight with only nine minutes to get from one plane to the next. Good thing my flight is in the morning so that I won't be stuck in the airport all night :)
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Still Learning
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Run For Relief
Today (saturday) was the 5th annual Run For Relief. Its purpose is to raise money and raise awareness about the internally displaced peoples in Burma, who have had to flee their homes as the Burmese army has attacked.
This is probably the first and last 5K I will walk in. What happens in Thailand, stays in Thailand. It was a lot of fun and a great chance to meet some new people and to connect with my mentor.
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