While I have been in Nong Khai for officially a month now, these past two weeks have been a series of firsts after firsts. Firstly, our community in the Garden of Friendship Volunteer House has been officially completed with the arrival of Annette and Gert, a married couple in their thirties from Denmark, who will be staying with Tam and I until some time in March. Annette is a nurse and Gert is a psychical therapist and they will also be working at the Care Center. In the short time they have been here, I am already so optimistic at the work and rehabilitation they may be able to accomplish in the center. Likewise, they are a great addition to our home and have been so open to being in community with Tam and I and immersing themselves in the four tenants of community, simplicity, social justice, and simplicity that Tam and I have committed to as a part of being Good Shepherd Volunteers. Plus they are really good cooks and like to eat sweets while watching ‘House of Cards’ almost every night – what can be better than that?
Speaking of cooking, another first this week was that us volunteers brought a real food dish of stir-fried vegetables in a coconut and chili sauce to the larger Garden community dinner that happens every Monday. Every family that lives in the Garden (about 8) brings a meal or side to a potluck style dinner that happens on the front porch of the Care Center. In traditional Thai style, the food is laid out in the middle of the floor and everyone sits crisscrossed around it, serving themselves bits of everything that is brought. For the past two weeks we have just been bringing a dessert, like banana bread or cookies, because we did not want to make a farang meal (western food) and didn’t think we were ready to make Thai food. But this week we brought a real meal! Granted, no one really ate it except for one of the sisters that was just trying to be nice. But it was actually really good. Guess well stick to cookies and leave the spicy and rice-y foods to the experts.
And boy is the food spicy and rice-y. Fortunately I really like spicy foods and can usually handle it, but I don’t think anyone here believes me because my attempts to add a little extra chili powder to things at lunch are usually followed by looks of concerns and the phrase nit-noi! (a little bit!) The food here has been really good and I am very fortunate to be provided lunch everyday at the Care Center cooked by the assistant nurse who used to cook for a restaurant in the city. However, there has been one thing Tam and I have been desperately missing – cheese. While there are cows that live in our backyard and I often have to swerve around a herd of cows when riding my little blue bicycle with a brown basket early in the morning (quite the scene) , cheese is just not a thing in Thailand. Granted, they do sell cheese in the supermarket, but because it is all imported, it is pretty expensive. Tam and I are both living on a stipend of $100 USD (3,000 baht) a month and to spend part of it on $10 cheese seems a little absurd given that we are only spending a little more than $8 a week each on groceries. So instead, another first for these past two weeks, Tam and I caved and went to a pizza restaurant next to the grocery store and shared a personal pizza. I think it was the best two slices of pizza I’ve ever had in my life.
The next morning I went for a run at 6 am in a farm that the Sister’s own down the road – another first for here in Thailand. I hadn’t worked out in approximately a month, so I can’t say I was in marathon shape, but it was good to see the sunrise and to sweat from moving my body and not from just standing still. At about 90 degrees and 70% humidity everyday, I have gotten used to being a very sweaty person here, especially since Thailand is a very modest country and I need to wear pants everyday. I don’t know if my hair has gotten used to the humidity and heat quite yet, though. But you know what? I kind of love my no makeup, hair in a bun, sweaty lifestyle. AND my patients still tell me how beautiful I am every morning - sounds like a win-win to me. Except they may be calling me ugly every morning, as the word for beautiful, suay, is the same as ugly except with a high instead of a falling tone….
Speaking of suay (beautiful, not ugly), I got to go to the hospital this week past Monday and visit a patient from the Village Outreach Program to see her newly born baby!
I mean literally newborn. Like she popped that thing out 5 hours before my co-worker and I got there. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a baby that new. I guess probably my two younger siblings, but I don’t actually remember visiting either of them in the hospital, so I’m just going to say that this little Thai baby is the newest baby I’ve ever seen.
He was quite the cutie. He didn’t have a name yet because the mother wanted one of the Sisters to pick his name. I learned from my co-worker, Gate, that in Thai culture, it is customary to look at the time, date, and day of the week in which the baby is born when naming him or her. These factors then give quite a long list of Thai letters that cannot be in the baby’s name – as they would bring bad luck to the baby’s life. The mom of the baby said she was way too exhausted to figure out the baby’s name and that she would rather entrust that on Sister Pranee instead. I don’t blame her. If I had to figure out what to name my child after giving birth at 8:32 a.m. on a Monday on September 15 and finding out it couldn’t have the letters B, C, D, E, F, K, M, N, O, R, S, T, Y, in it, my kid would totally just be named Ag – the first two letters I could use. Better leaving it in the hands of someone who had not just pushed a human being out of him or herself.
This week, I also had my first day out with the Village Outreach team with whom I will be working twice a week once I finish this month of Thai lessons. For now I will be going to the villages just once a week. This week, we went to villages in Udon Thani Province, the province next to Nong Khai. We started at the Udon Thani Cancer Hospital where we visited a patient who was undergoing chemotherapy for uterine cancer. This was my fourth time visiting a hospital since being in Thailand - twice to visit a girl from the Garden who had a lung infection and the other time to visit the baby. The hospital system is very different than that of the United States and very much encapsulates the community way of life of Thailand. There are very few private rooms and everything is one open room with rows of rows of different beds, even the maternity ward. Family members need to stay with the patient in order to provide them with food, so there are often family members napping or eating lunch or doing laundry around the facility. While it is not something that would ever be seen in the States, it is so admirable to see how much care each person that is staying puts into caring for their loved one. Likewise, because there is no privacy in the rooms, everyone’s guests are everyone else’s and it was great to see family members checking in on complete strangers in the next bed to see how they were doing and if they needed anything.
On Village Outreach we also visited four more families in different villages of the city. The individual who stood out the most to me was a five year old named Paem Paem. Anyone who knows me well knows that kids are the key to my heart and that I am at my most comfortable when working with children. Paem Paem, who is HIV+, had suffered a severe, untreated fever a few years back that had caused her to lose function in her legs as well as her speech. When the last GSV volunteer, Abbie, had left Nong Khai in late June, Paem Paem could not speak or walk. However, when we visited her this time, she could do both! While her walk was more of a wobble and her speech was in short, usually one word sentences, it gives hope that her motor function as well as speech ability can be tapped into. Paem Paem and I had a tea party and played with her dolls while my co-workers asked her grandmother a series of questions about her medications, her food intake, and her recent medical history – the real reason we were there. But with my limited Thai right now, I was not a real help on that front, so I needed to use what I was good at – playing with kids. I did however use my limited Thai to ask Paem Paem what she was cooking as our tea party meal (Coon tam aahaan a-rai). She wouldn’t tell me.
Lastly, as a culmination of two weeks of many firsts, on Friday night I had the honor of Irish Dancing for an Irish nun, Sr. Mary, who lives here in Nong Khai, as a part of her 95th birthday celebrations!
Friday was her 95th birthday and us volunteers got to be a part of the celebrations by going with the Hands of Hope workers to present her flowers and gifts and then stayed for a feast of a dinner. It was a really great night and an honor to be there with her, such an inspiration of a woman, as well as two of her friends with whom she was in Vietnam with during the War who come to Thailand every single year on her birthday. It was amazing to hear their stories of the Vietnam War and all of the things they had gone through to get them to now. I am really lucky to have Sr. Mary here and Nong Khai and I hope to hear more of her stories and hopefully dance for her again!
In just two weeks so many firsts have occurred – lets see how many firsts happen in the next 44!
